Read this article now.

If you read [[Courtney Love’s Speech]] about the evils of the recording industry and were unconvinced, then read this!

[Napster] opened the door to the Future, not only for distribution, but for music as a whole. As Napster was a free service, practically any musician now had the ability to taste exposure, without the ridiculous cost of hiring agents, producers, etc. They no longer had some label trying to mutate their work to fit into the Mainstream. Even established musicians, such Ice-T, The Grateful Dead, Public Enemy, Beck, TLC, Smashing Pumpkins, and a plethora of others, began to format their music to be available online. They now had the opportunity to see what their fans thought of music that they’d created, but didn’t make the grade in their labels’ opinions…

Sadly, the RIAA had grown comfortable with the luxury that was afforded them at the expense of musicians. They held a powerful dominance over the music industry, and the thought of losing that sustenance was terrifying. So, instead of embracing this advent, the RIAA filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Northern California against Napster on December 7, 1999. Fanning, who generated minimal income from his program, was faced with charges of copyright infringement, and the RIAA was asking for up to $100,000 per song that traveled through the Napster community…

It’s OK to laugh about these things. It’s OK to laugh at the arrogance of Clear Channel and the RIAA. The truth of this matter is that, despite their apparent triumphs, the RIAA is losing this war. For decades, they have been feeding off of artists, controlling what they do, and sucking them dry. But the damage that pioneers like Napster and Audiogalaxy did to this system has given musicians a new frequency on which they can be heard. It won’t be long before all music is available to enjoy, and the RIAA will soon shrivel up and die.

This is another article written by a musician that’s had enough.

Read the whole thing… it just might change your mind!

This is the first thing in a long time from Apple that pisses me off.

I just bought an external DVD-R/RW drive, and I love it. It’s the coolest thing I’ve had on my computer in years.

###Extortion

However, because it’s external, and wasn’t bought from Apple, I can’t use [[iDVD]]. The big problem with this is that I have an older iMac that didn’t even have an option for a DVD-R when I bought it. Now Apple tells me that I have to buy a whole new computer just to use their software?

I called their tech support on this, and they said that my only options is to buy [[DVD Studio Pro]] for $999!

This reaks of the same kind of extortion that I’ve always hated Microsoft for. Who do they think they are?

***I’m sure I’ll figure something else out!***

It’s a bit of a mixed bag so far.

Hopefully Apple will get the problems ironed out. I think that this is really going to be the first consumer ready version of OSX.

I guess the players realized that they were just being a pain.

With little time to spare, baseball negotiators who talked through the night reached a tentative agreement on a labor contract that averted a strike threatened for Friday.

This is good news and bad news: Good news because we’ll get a world series, and bad news because the Red Sox won’t be in it again!

Not for the humor impaired.

• **The Battle Droid Syndrome.**

  The mutated muscular soldiers of Mordor turned out to be hilariously ineffective soldiers, a dozen of them held off by a single dying human. Apparently they made the beasts by crossing Orcs, Goblins **and the French**.

BWHAHAHAH! Very funny (as are all of the 50 line items). Enjoy [[:-)]].

The Boston Archdiosis has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unused land at the same time it says that it can’t afford to pay the victims.

I’m getting more and more disgusted each day. Faith hope and charity, and the greatest among these is charity, or so the saying goes. Can’t the church follow its own teachings? How can Cardinal Law look at himself in the mirror each morning and not want to vomit?

Boy does he nail the players on this.

The hell with the fans in small markets. The hell with what’s best for The Game of Baseball. You’re an entertainer, one of the Chosen Few, no different from Bruce Springsteen or Britney Spears. You’re special. You’ve earned everything you’ve got, and no one is going to take anything away. You didn’t get this far by backing down from a challenge, and that’s what this is, another challenge, another game. You vs. the Evil Owners. Bring it on, Bud.

This is the real attitude of the players as far as I can tell.

Hey owners, I have an idea. You need to call their bluff. Look them straight in the eye and tell them that anyone who goes on strike will be forever banned from baseball. Tell them that you stand together in solidarity and that you’re sick of the hired help telling you how to run your business. Tell them that you’ll hire minor leaguers who’d love to have a shot in the majors. You’ll have to pay them less, and they’ll appreciate it more. Heck, they might even play with as much passion as the kids in the Little League World Series did. You’ll be able to cut ticket prices, so more fans can enjoy the game.

Please, please, please, do this! I’m so sick of these multi-millionaire-primadonna-whining-look-at-how-difficult-my-life-is-a-holes that I’d love to see this happen.

Well, if you’re like me, and you’ve paid for music several times in the form of vinyl, cassette tape and CD, and you’d like to have an MP3 of the music to carry around, be careful!

John Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney general, said Americans should realize that swapping illicit copies of music and movies is a criminal offense that can result in lengthy prison terms.

Well John, shouldn’t I be able to have copies of things I’ve already bought? How about prosecuting the record companies for putting out albums with one good song and the rest nothing but crap? How about putting record company executives behind bars for screwing the talent? If you don’t believe me, read [[Courtney Love’s Speech]] for yourself.

According to the author, it’s not possible to fix this without getting rid of Windows entirely.

The scary thing about this is that Microsoft has known about this all along and chosen not to fix it. Is this possibly another avenue we can take to dismantle Microsoft?

This paper presents a new generation of attacks against Microsoft Windows, and possibly other message-based windowing systems. The flaws presented in this paper are, at the time of writing, unfixable. The only reliable solution to these attacks requires functionality that is not present in Windows, as well as efforts on the part of every single Windows software vendor.

Yikes! This is a must read for everyone that owns a computer.

I think it’s time these people wake up and smell the 16th century.

An Islamic high court in northern Nigeria rejected an appeal yesterday by a single mother sentenced to be stoned to death for having sex out of wedlock.

You know… if this is what Allah wants, then I want to part of him. This is just another example of the genius of the idea of the separation of church and state. Please, let the rest of the world see the wisdom of this someday!?!?!?!