Infinite Monkeys
"...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks"Read them only with extreme caution."- Hugh Hewitt
Infinite MonkeysBoing Boing is a fun website, with a lot of good links, and some entertaining rants about copyright and DRM law (to which I am mostly sympathetic). But don't go there for American history knowledge:
After all anonymity fuels irresponsible behavior, like when some anonymous flamer wrote The Federalist Papers and fomented the American Revolution
Just for the record, the Federalist Papers were written in 1787-88 in
support of a Federal Constitution, long after the Revolution.
"Common Sense" would have made more...well, sense.
Ah, kids today. They have no respect for their transgressive elders. But I'm quite certain Lisa would have something more intelligent to say about The New Candor.
The thugs and jackboots claim the life of another innocent in the stupid and profoundly ineffective drug war.
Here's hoping that cop never gets another good night's sleep again.
There's a fun "Presidents' Day Open Thread" quiz over at Reason.com
My answers:
1. Who was the best, or at least the most tolerable, American president? I'm still a fan of ol' Tommy J.
2. Who was the worst American president? (House rule: You can't say Bush, and you can't say Clinton. Exercise those history muscles, people.) Worst is such a fuzzy word, and there are so many good choices, but I'm pretty sure ex-Monkey Ben would poop himself if I didn't say Abraham Lincoln, so there you go.
3. Who was our greatest ex-president? (The conventional reply is Jimmy Carter. While that answer has the advantage of annoying Alan Dershowitz, you should feel free to vote for someone more interesting -- Herbert Hoover, say.) Gerald Ford. Just shut his yap, minded his own business, and died quietly.
4. Who is your favorite vice-president? Alternately, what is your favorite vice? It's a hard call between TiVo, Irish Whiskey, and Thomas Jefferson again.
5. In 1968, according to An American Melodrama, George Wallace asked Colonel Sanders to be his running mate. If the colonel had said yes, and if you were able to cast a ballot that year, would you have been tempted, if only for a moment, to vote for Wallace, just to get Sanders within a heartbeat of the presidency? Be honest. Oh yeah. Kentucky Fried Veep.
6. Also in 1968, the Yippies nominated a hog named Pigasus to be president. Would you have liked to see Col. Sanders debate the pig? How about a pork-and-chicken taste test? Why isn't that in the Constitution? I'm sure somehow that's covered under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Remember when "home taping" destroyed the record industry? Remember when the VCR eviscerated the movie industry? Neither do I, but I remember when those industries wasted a lot of time and money trying to convince us (and our elected officials) that taping spelled the end of civilization.
About a hundred years ago, the publishing industry wanted to prevent you from selling (or giving) your used books to another party after you were finished reading them. They were soundly rebuffed by the courts at the time. Today, the software industry (from which, by the way, I derive 100% of my income) has been quite successful in heavily restricting the way you use and transfer the programs you purchase. With some exceptions: Both software and entertainment industries have generally been unsuccessful in preventing you from transferring your own product to different media for the purpose of either convenience or protection of the product.
Which brings me to my position on copying music (and movies.)
While I doubt this will hold up "in court," it certainly holds up in the court of my conscience. A record, cassette, CD, etc. is just a piece of media. An album, single, or movie may be housed on a particular kind of media at the time of purchase, but just as it was established that you could legally copy your own vinyl albums onto cassettes for more convenient listening in your car, and you can rip your own CDs to MP3 files for listening on your iPod, I believe that once you have purchased a copy of a work (music, film, book) you are entitled to take advantage of technology to replicate that work for personal use, as long as you don't make a copy for someone outside your household who has not also purchased a copy.
This may not seem controversial on the surface, but here's the practical situation for which I think the entertainment industry would like to see me locked up: If I already bought an album, cassette, or VHS movie, I have absolutely no qualms about duplicating a CD or DVD of the same material, as long as I still continue to own at least one copy of the work on its original media. This is why I've spent so much time trading CD's on LaLa for the past six months - I've been restoring my record collection to a format that I can carry around on my iPod. The vast majority of discs I've "traded away" have been CD's that I also owned on vinyl and/or cassette. Now I still have a copy of that CD, and I have ripped it to MP3 format, and I still own the original record or cassette, but I've traded away the original compact disc. Does that make me a criminal? Perhaps. But I sleep like a baby, and have no problem looking myself in the mirror for having done it.
I care whether or not artists and performers get paid for their work. I even care that labels and studios get their share - after all, they take the risk of developing the "product." But I feel no obligation to pay over and over again for the same content.
What say you?
H.L. Mencken never looked so cute.
(hat tip: BoingBoing)
Happy Year of the Golden Pig!
Mmmm...pig...
Top 10 most recently purchased albums from the iTunes Music Store
1) "Galore - The Singles, 1987-1997," The Cure
2) "Intravenous Television Continuum," Man or Astro-Man?
3) "Ubiquity Studio Sessions, Vol. 2: Moods and Grooves," Shawn Lee's Ping-Pong Orchestra
4) "Star Power!" Various Artists
5) "Lost Treasures 1963-1974," Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
6) "Bedtime for Democracy," The Dead Kennedys
7) "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death," The Dead Kennedys
8) "A Music Box for Cinema, Pt. 6," Mutsuhiro Nishiwaki
9) "The Sad Machinery of Spring," Tin Hat
10) "Not Too Late," Norah Jones
Top 10 most recently purchased songs/albums from eMusic
1) "Bully (Video Game Sountrack," Shawn Lee
2) "Show & Tell: A Stormy Remembrance of TV Theme Songs," Various Artists
3) "Eeviac," Man or Astro-man?
4) "Experiment Zero," Man or Astro-man?
5) "Play Songs for the...Suburban Savages," The Tiki Tones
6) "The Fully Functional Adventures In Espionage," Jonny and the Shamen
7) "Wet Your Beak EP," Skeewiff
8) "Spacesound Effect," Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited
9) "Jet Sound, Inc.," Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited
10) "Kalevi Aho: Symphonic Dances/Symphony No. 11," Osmo Vänskä/Lahti Symphony Orchestra
Top 10 most recently played songs on iTunes
1) "Close to Me," The Cure
2) "The Kids are Alright," The Queers
3) "Jetson's Theme," Man or Astro-Man?
4) "Crazy Door Bell," T-99 Nelson
5) "Dead Reckoning," Clint Mansell
6) "Get Carter," Roy Budd
7) "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," Propellerheads
8) "Be My Girl," James Taylor Quartet
9) "She's Got The Apples," Kevin O'Donnell Quality Six
10) "The Cat," Jimmy Smith
They're gonna write operas and epic poems about her one day.
Oh, and I watched Mike Judge's magnum opus the other night.
Coincidence? Probably.
A Frenchman has written a book that threatens to collapse the House of Intellectual Cards. The crux: "How to review a book: Put it in front of you, close your eyes and try to perceive what may interest you about it. Then write about yourself." No, dammit! You must read the book! Or most of it... Or at least the first and last chapters...
Thank God the thing has only been published in French.
(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)
I've been a bit out of touch for the last couple of days, but evidently some freshman Senator thinks he's the heir of Abraham Lincoln? Huh. Well, I'll leave it to Monkey Robb to dwell on the implications of Sen. Obama's pretentions, but I must say the man is not lacking in the audacity department.
Update: Ah, naturally, there is nothing new here.
All of the Ryko stuff just disappeared from eMusic.
Including pretty much the entire Frank Zappa catalog.
Dang.
... Hamas and Fatah have come to terms. No, that is not good news. Observes Wretchard:
Western weakness has little to do with Jihad, or Hamas or Fatah. It arises from the monomanaical belief that negotiations can solve everything; and that consequently, resistance will never be necessary. Hamas understands that Western Pacifism must rule out coercion at all costs; that all it has to do is wait, and all, even Israel's extinction, will be delivered, abjectly, to its doorstep.
It is as if we can see the catastrophe unfold, in slow motion, and do nothing to stop it. All we can do is gape in awe and wonder how the hell we got ourselves into this mess to begin with...
I know what you are thinking: I can’t be bothered with nutty astronauts or Anna Nicole Smith (God rest her soul). No, I burn to learn the hottest new Scandinavian dancefloor moves!
Word. Lend a lobe and dig the gig as Leroy lays it all out for you.
(Hat tip: F-Rock)
Now, this is just sad. A bunch of uptight officials and excitable media types in Boston take leave of their senses, and a fine, upstanding TV network executive loses his job over it? I think Montgomery C. Burns said it best: "This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail." Substitute "this sweet network executive gig" with "the election" and you get my drift.
. . . you're not married to Astrobabe Lisa Nowak.
There is one crazy-ass pissed-off woman. 900 miles in a diaper so she didn't have to stop and pee.
Damn.