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Rantings in the digital wind as your Grot Shop of the information age. "I didn't get where I am today without recognising a completely useless machine when I see one" - C.J.
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Thursday, September 23, 2004 |
RIP, Twinkies, Wonder Bread, Ho-Hos, RingDings.... Xeni Jardin:
Interstate Bakeries files Chapter 11. And with it, an era of American pop gastronomy meets its end. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the carb; For in that sleep of death what Twinkies may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal Ho-Ho, must give us pause; there's the respect that makes creme-filled treats of so long life.
Link to Business Week article. But Newsday wins the best hed award: Twinkies Maker Out of Dough. (Thanks, Jim OConnor)
[Boing Boing]
1:29:54 PM 
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Big Brother Arnold and the MPAA
Schwarzenegger signs bill requiring email addresses for filesharing. Xeni Jardin:
California governor Arnold Schwarzenneger -- a man who found considerable fame and fortune in Hollywood -- signed an MPAA-backed bill into law Tuesday that requires anyone sharing a file that goes to more than 10 people outside their immediate family to provide a valid email address and title of the work.
California file sharers who trade songs or films without providing an e- mail address will be guilty of a misdemeanor, under the first-in-the-nation measure that could make it easier for law enforcement to track down people who illegally download copyrighted material. The bill is the latest attempt by film and music trade associations to combat the hard-to-police use of file-sharing software.
The signing was hailed by the bill's sponsor, the Motion Picture Association of America, whose president, Dan Glickman, noted in a statement that Schwarzenegger had "a unique understanding of the powerful impact of piracy.'' The governor remains a member of the Screen Actors Guild, which supported the bill.
Link to SF Chronicle story, link to SB 1506 bill text. (thanks Michael Parenti, Matthew Mills, Andy, and others)
[Boing Boing]
1:28:07 PM
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The Butt Ugly Weblog: We lied to you. "In the golden 80s and 90s [the computer industry] told [the entertainment industry] micropayments and content protection would work; that you would be able to charge minuscule amounts of money whenever someone listened to your music or watched your movie. We told you untruths which we well knew would never work - after all, we would've never used them ourselves." I don't think games are a good example of this, considering the escalating copy protection war in that industry. Game publishers tried funky corrupted CDs (the Apple II days all over again) and requiring the CD to be in the drive, so game-playing hackers wrote CD-ROM-drive-emulating device drivers. This merely opened a new front in the kernel, prompting the copy protection systems to install their own device drivers which disable debuggers and other legitimate utilities. Of course any offline system can be cracked, so the game companies are planning to force you to be connected to the Internet to play. [Hack the Planet]
9:23:55 AM
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© 2005 Jonathan Butler
Last Update: 7/1/05; 5:14:13 PM
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