I like Robert Scoble’s most recent fight with Facebook over data portability that led to his account being disabled but don’t like how he went about starting it.
We’ve rallied in the past against how some websites devalue our time, using us to make them money (digg) and trying to handcuff us to the door by limiting export options (Facebook). One thing I’ve come to appreciate with Twitter is their API which when it’s working gives any Twitter user the ability to export just about everything you do there. Even if you think Twitter is stupid, it’s hard to argue against an open API like that.
The problem many have with Facebook is how easy it is to get information in there and how difficult it is to export. Go there, interact with your friends, but be careful what you do when leaving. They also insist that you must use your legal name, but only seem to apply that to non-popular people. If you’re not a web celebrity and not using your legal name, expect your account to be dropped.
Back to Scoble who decided to demo an unauthorized script from Plaxo that scraped his Facebook contact’s name, email address and birthdays which is against the Facebook terms of service (TOS). Facebook discovered the script running and promptly suspended Scoble’s FB account.
As I pointed out to him on Twitter, Scoble has a history of violating the TOS of other websites/services. I was disappointed to see from the many different bloggers writing about this on Techmeme so few pointing to Scoble’s history of openly admitting TOS violations. Are memories this short or is data portability more important than basic respect of agreements you make? When you agree to a EULA or TOS, you are making an agreement for how you’ll conduct yourself. Scoble makes these agreements and uses and evangelizes the services and then decides when he doesn’t like something it’s ok to violate it on principle because the company is wrong.
It’s very remeniscient of the time he let his underage son play in 2nd Life even after being told that it was against the rules.
1) hissy fit
2) apology
3) profit.
Steven Hodson also remembers when Scoble brought his son Patrick into the adult grid of Second Life? Whether or not we agree/disagree having a separate grid for adults and teens is a good idea that’s the agreement. While generally I think Scoble is a likeable human character, complete with imperfections like all of us, this is one side of Scoble that I don’t care for at all. He openly violates agreements because he doesn’t agree with them. He seems very wishy washy with his word. Take how he kept his Plaxo NDA under wraps until he “was released” and yet he doesn’t hesitate violating TOS?
So if Facebook allows you to extract information about your Facebook friends via their APIs, why would Robert Scoble need to run a screen scraping script? The fact is that the information returned by the Facebook API about a user contains no contact information (no email address, no IM screen names, no telephone numbers, no street address). Thus if you are trying to “grow virally” by spamming the Facebook friend list of one of your new users about the benefits of your brand new Web 2.0 site then you have to screen scrape Facebook.
By using the Service or the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 or older and in high school or college, or else that you are 18 or older, and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
The ethical choice if Scoble disagrees with the TOS isn’t to openly violate and then use it as an opportunity to further promote himself and agenda even if that agenda is worthwhile. This is what Robin Hood did, right? He robbed from the rich (Facebook) and gave to the poor (the vast majority of Scoble’s gathered 4,999 contact names, emails and birthdays).
Nick Carr makes an excellent point about how Scoble may have thought this information was his, others may not feel the same way:
I have no doubt that Scoble didn’t mean any harm, but in what sense are names, email addresses, and birthdays not “personal information”? The important question isn’t what Scoble intended to do with the information. The important question is this: Will others who use such scraping scripts necessarily have benign intentions? And the answer is: No.
What Scoble did by allowing his teenage son into the adult grid of Second Life was neither professional or polite. He knew there was a teen grid and yet he intentionally allowed his son to use the adult grid and promoted this fact. He admitted he knew this was against the rules but he did it anyway.
And here he’s doing it all over again with this Facebook drama. Yes, he’s right that data portability is important, but he’s wrong to use sites/services where he openly disagrees with the TOS. And then when the company takes action against him, use it as a platform for self-promotion.
Scoble pointed me to opensocialweb.org as a response to if he approached Facebook directly before violating their TOS. The Open Social Web lays out the following principles:
Sites supporting these rights shall:
* Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
* Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
* Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
* Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.
These are noble guidelines and I agree with them all. However, because Facebook apparently doesn’t agree with these and has a TOS defining this as a violation the choice is clear: use the service and live with it or leave. Scoble decided he wanted to leave, but the caveat is he wanted to leave with the information he had already agreed to leave with them.
Wishy washy.
Don’t worry about Scoble’s squeaky wheel, it will get grease
Mark my words, Facebook will back down and reinstate his account not because he didn’t violate the TOS and deserve having his account suspended. Not because FB actually believes and supports data portability, but because it’s Robert Scoble going on CNBC and running off at the mouth about it.
Scoble gets my support for the fight for data portability, but he gets two thumbs way down for the tactics he’s employed.
Update 2:02pm PST: Predictably Facebook has already caved and reactivated Scoble’s account. They say it’s part of the normal appeals process and since Robert as agreed not to use a script like this again, that’s why they are reactivating his account.
2:34pm PST: Scoble held an impromptu live video with chat show/blogger press conference where he answered questions from the crowd using Mogulus. Good demo for their video and chat service actually.
I asked Scoble if he respected TOS and he responded by asking if I drive 55? Strange analogy considering I know he doesn’t drive by cops giving them the middle finger while speeding, but whatever.
Our family of five loves the Xbox 360, but we’re starting to think it, and you, don’t even like us in return.
Sure, you like the fact that we keep reaching into our wallets to buy new systems and pay for the hottest, newest games like Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect. Halo? We’ve bought at least two copies of each: Halo (2) for the Xbox, Halo 2 (3 copies, one was played out) and Halo 3 (2 copies, one the collector’s edition). My current favorite game of 2007 is Rock Band. Many Xbox 360 games we buy on launch day like Madden 2008.
And let’s not forget Xbox Live where we have four active ($49.95 x 4) one year live accounts and one Creators Club ($99) account, not to mention purchasing almost 100 arcade titles to date across the four accounts.
We rent movies from Xbox Live too. Haven’t kept track of the numbers there, but it’s probably over a dozen movies and TV shows rented. And yes, we bought the HD DVD player too (haven’t received the promised 6 ‘free’ HD DVD movies either).
Does this qualify our household as a good customer? In our possession right now, we own five Xbox 360s. The last one broke (#4) less than 60 days ago and you won’t fix because it’s a few months past the one year warranty and not the red rings of death; we don’t have an extended warranty on that one either. The disc tray won’t load any games or DVDs. Xbox Live still works though. If we want that fixed you’re going to charge us $140. We decided in light of the hardware reliability history we would buy the Xbox 360 arcade edition with extended warranty instead for Christmas. You can see it along the right.
Tonight my son was playing Halo 3 and #6 Xbox 360 console went into red rings of death mode (picture top of post). Amazing. This is the fifth Xbox 360 we’ve had go bad since April 15, 2006. Let me list the complete dates and history of Xbox 360 consoles in our household because it’s starting to be unbelievable.
Xbox 360 systems that have died since April 15, 2006
#5: today, January 1, 2008 (Happy New Year, Microsoft!). Status: three red rings of death, unrepaired. Under warranty, we’ll call for replacement tomorrow.
#4: Xbox 360 broken November 3, 2007. Status: broken disc tray, unrepaired. We replaced system with Xbox 360 Arcade System.
#3: April 2007. Status: red rings of death, replaced three weeks later on April 23, 2007
#2: September 22, 2006. Status: red rings of death, replaced on October 20, 2006
#1: June 14, 2006.
We try to place the Xbox 360 so they won’t overheat, see the current placement of the most recent system to die:
We can place the Xbox 360 horizontal or vertical, but death is inevitable. I pity other customers who buy an Xbox 360 and do not buy an extended warranty. These systems are the lousiest design of any home videogame system ever.
Should customers have to face these kind of issues? Just how bad is it? Susan Getgood contacted me after the last Xbox 360 breakdown to get my feelings on this negative customer experience. When writing about how many have gone bad the last time, I wrongly thought that was our fifth Xbox 360 to go bad. Actually, nope, this one is our fifth to go bad. How crazy is that when your own customer can’t even recall how many of the systems have gone bad? At least now I can point to this post. I’m thinking about adding a broken Xbox 360 counter to the homepage, as well.
Our next one to go bad, probably within the next 90-180 days based on history will be #6. The most durable Xbox 360 we’ve bought so far is the Xbox 360 Elite which is on life support at 8+ months. We’ve been having random audio out problems and screen blackouts at inopportune times. I would classify the Elite’s condition as “hopelessly diseased.” Odds are that one goes next. We have the Best Buy warranty there and will just return to them for exchange instead of messing around with Texas.
Microsoft, I know you’ve promised customers that you’ll fix these broken systems for three years and that came at great expense to your company. I implore you to extend the scope of that three year warranty to cover any non customer abuse situation. We didn’t do anything to have the disc tray not load any games and yet we have one that’s no good. The other four systems all died from red rings of death in less than two years including today’s.
Shameful.
If this were likely any other niche than videogames, I would never do business with your company again. I wonder how many customers you’ve already lost because of these problems. With each Xbox 360 that dies, my loyalty in your platform wanes and any fun from when it does work is reduced immeasurably. It’s like walking into the greatest arcade in the world and getting punched in the face at the door.
At some point, and I’m not sure when, I’m not going to enter any more.
Sincerely,
A little less loyal Xbox 360 customer
P.S. Dear readers, feel free to forward this to somebody, anybody at Microsoft that actually might give a damn.
A success and failure in legal online downloading to discuss. I’ve done business with both AmazonMP3 and Wal-Mart video, the former being a more satisfying customer experience.
AmazonMP3 grows by adding Warner Music to their library of online songs being sold DRM-free in MP3 format. This adds artists like Van Halen, Green Day and Led Zeppelin and brings their total to nearly three million songs. The iTunes store only sells DRM-free music from EMI while AmazonMP3 now offers EMI, Universal Music Group and Warner. If Sony offers their catalog to AmazonMP3 and that’s a big if, they’ll have four major music outlets licensing digital music for download legally.
This is a positive story for expansion of DRM-free legal digital music delivery. Conversely, Wal-Mart trying to sell digital video with DRM on the same day the DVDs release has failed. Wal-Mart might be good at offering cheap prices in their retail stores, but at least some of their online retail efforts aren’t successful, as shown on December 21 when they killed their online video service launched back in February.
Wal-Mart will continue offering physical DVDs for sale at its stores and online … Wal-Mart’s attempt at downloading came two years after it pulled out of online DVD rental and directed its subscribers to Netflix Inc, and months after it protested Walt Disney Co’s move to sell movies on Apple Inc’s iTunes online music store at below-retail prices.
We bought one movie through Wal-mart Video and had trouble with the video software backed by HP. We were able to watch the movie one time but it remains a stinging $15 memory that might as well have been two tickets to a crowded theater because it was a one watch only experience. This remains the major danger with buying any DRM-infected file and the reason we buy very little music and video this way.
This morning a micro conversation broke out about podcasts and satellite radio.
Before we get too far, it’s important to understand I like podcasts. I’ve also created podcasts since the early days, as well as hosted a live weekly web streaming radio show since May 2000. This Friday will be episode #361. There are some very good podcasts out there and I fully believe someday internet live streaming and pre-recorded material (podcasts, vlogging) will replace satellite and terrestrial radio.
But that day isn’t here yet.
This morning I suggested to WickedGood to give satellite radio a try after seeing his message:
Radio everywhere is awful, unfortunately. That’s why I never leave the house without my iPod anymore.
I’ve been a satisfied Sirius subscriber since September 2006 and see where WickedGood is coming from. One very big problem is he hasn’t actually tried satellite radio before to experience the content firsthand. It’s too easy to question why others would want something if they have never tried it. His response: why should I pay for satellite radio when I can get podcasts for free?
Now let me share why this is the wrong question to ask.
You need the internet to sync podcasts
Firstly, podcasts aren’t always free. You still need an internet connection to get to them and unfortunately the internet isn’t always free and isn’t always available. Yes, there are some free WiFi hotspots, but unless you find one of those to sync up new podcasts, you’re listening to the past and not anything live. In some rural areas like Montana, you’re lucky if you get much internet coverage at all.
Live talk radio
Truckers and people who travel a lot and enjoy talk radio know how fun and interactive these shows can be. It’s a type of content that rarely happens with podcasts, but is more associated with live web radio streaming or video. Stuff like you’d find at justin.tv or ustream.tv with lifecasting. Problem there is always internet connection required and bandwidth available. We have an EVDO connection and while it works great in our surrounding area, if we travel too far, we’ll lose the connection and the feed.
The same thing happens with terrestrial radio. You are listening and getting into a talk radio show and then the signal fades as you drive away. I’ve been in situations where a talk radio show was getting good and had to crank up the volume and reduce treble to try and hear the signal as we … drove … away.
That never happens with satellite radio. Satellite works almost everywhere. No, it won’t work well when there are tall buildings or overpasses or concrete structures that block the satellite which can make some city driving frustrating, but if you’re on a long car trip through rural areas there is no better live radio fix.
Live sports
If you’re an NFL or MLB fan like me and want to hear the home broadcasts for different games, satellite is currently the only answer. Yes, you can listen to MLB games through mlb.com (I do that since I don’t have XM) but again, you’re restricted to having an internet connection. NFL games aren’t available (legally) in the United States streaming through the web. So those with XM can get live MLB games and those with Sirius can get every NFL game broadcast in both home and away broadcasts as well as some foreign language broadcasts. Podcasts? Forget about it.
And when, not if as I believe, the Sirius + XM merger goes through, subscribers will be able to get both the NFL and MLB under one subscription. This is a sweet deal that the internet doesn’t (legally) offer, and even if it did, the connectivity concerns would still be there.
Commercial free music serendipitously
There are lots of good ways to discover new music online. If you want to listen to genre music streaming live on the web there is shoutcast and icecast offering tons of stations, most of which are commercial free. However, if you don’t have the internet, you’ll have to preload onto that portable music device music. Some podcasts will deliver some outstanding indie music via podcast.
Pandora is one online music service which would be great to have with EVDO if only EVDO would work everywhere, I wouldn’t need satellite to fill this gap. Satellite offers a bunch of different commercial free radio stations. About the only area satellite music is weak where podcasting is strong in is indie music.
Bottom line: finding new music in genres you like with live DJs spinning the tunes (old school) while driving around with the least amount of hassle, satellite is strong. Terrestrial radio is too watered down with commercials.
Live news, traffic and weather
If you need live news and are connected to the web, either through your cellphone or PDA that’s great, but podcasts don’t deliver timely news very well. By the time the podcaster has recorded and uploaded and shared the podcast the news is growing stale. Some news in specific niches like tech don’t stale as fast and a podcast tech news show might work assuming you sync in the morning before going to work and sync at work for the drive going home.
As for traffic and weather, there are numerous websites and services that can help. Satellite radio for traffic is a pale replacement for a GPS like the Garmin c330 or better yet: Garmin c340. I’d much rather have a GPS with live traffic service than satellite radio. However, if you’re looking for major city traffic reports, Sirius offers the following channels entirely dedicated to traffic and weather in: NY Traffic (148), Philadelphia & Boston (149), Los Angeles (150), St Louis (151), Baltimore (152), Atlanta (153), Dallas (154), Las Vegas (155), San Francisco (156), Phoenix (157) and Orlando (158).
Exclusive live and prerecorded content
WickedGood might not care for Howard Stern, but a lot of people do. The only place to listen to Howard live (legally) is on Howard 100 on Sirius. If you miss a show live, it continues in a loop throughout the day. That’s 5+ hours of high production value content four days a week (Howard isn’t live on Fridays), save for vacations and holidays. 20+ hours of exclusive content, and that’s only Howard.
For the adults in the crowe, there is also Playboy Radio (channel 198) which offers frank discussion on that fascinating three letter word that begins with an s and ends with an x.
Podcasting provides an almost neverending source of new material, mainstream and adult, to listen to without any subscription fees. You still need to sync up the episodes which isn’t a big deal, but there is a much smaller number of high production value podcast content that exceeds 20+ hours a week per show. High production value almost goes against the grain and spirit of podcasting, since it’s often amateur based, I get that, but if you are looking for some quality high production value radio, satellite has a very compelling selection. In the podcasting space you can find it, but it requires more work on your part.
Terrestrial radio still has some great exclusive content, particularly local station DJs, but again these stations are ruined by way too many commercials and there is the FCC which means you’ll hear neutered conversations. You won’t hear that on podcasts and satellite.
Satellite subscribers don’t have to worry about what content to subscribe or unsubscribe to, that is taken care of by Sirius or XM. That could be a benefit or detriment depending on the individual. You only have to remember what channel and time. Some receivers allow programming reminders and/or even recording shows at certain times.
What have I missed?
I wish somebody would have pointed to a post like this before I subscribed to satellite radio, which would have helped me understand the differences. If you love radio it will be hard to deny the value in satellite. One of the other turning points that made me pull the satellite trigger were the people I talked to who already had it. I encourage you to talk to other satellite radio listeners. There is overwhelming amount of passion around and between satellite subscribers. They get what makes it so appealing and while I speak only for myself, I don’t mind paying for this service at all.
Podcasting is great, live streaming web radio is great and so is satellite radio all for different reasons and listening scenarios. There is going to come a time when internet is available almost everywhere like satellite is as of this writing and that will begin the end of satellite radio. A lot of people are talking like that time is already here. It’s not. Yet.
Why can’t we like them all? What have I missed about comparing satellite radio and podcasts? My ears and eyes are ready in the comments below.
I can’t find any credible news source to back this information up so I hesitantly am putting in the “news” category, but please keep that in mind before getting too excited. This morning a Sirius employee told me, a Sirius customer, that regulatory approval of the Sirius + XM merger has been approved. It’s especially interesting how the discussion came up because it was totally unrelated to what the call was about.
You can hear our discussion below and to be clear I didn’t receive a vague confirmation, I received several confirmations of this being a fact during the call. Listen and judge for yourself. It is possible this is just one misinformed employee, especially since no news sources are carrying the news, but is it possible they know something internally that the rest of the world does not?
The call took place within the last hour and I informed Matthew the call was being recorded. Sirius also records calls with their customers so they have a record as well. I edited out the non-relevant portions of the call before and after the merger approval discussion in the audio below, but I do have a complete recording from beginning to end. I uploaded the edited recording to my Utterz account as well.
Note: not only does Sirius employee Matthew confirm the regulatory approval but provides additional details about the merger that I couldn’t find anywhere else including siriusmerger.com. Was Matthew just making this up, being overconfident, misinterpreting some internal Sirius information or is this true?
Update December 19, 2007 8:25pm PST: Received a few questions about the authenticity of this recording because it “sounds too good to be a telephone call.” Now that’s funny. I did expect people to question whether the employee knew what he was talking about but didn’t expect people to say the recording itself was staged.
This is not a staged call. It was recorded through Skype — the VoIP client I’ve used in business for several years now (see many posts about this at this blog) — using the Pamela for Skype commercial plugin and that explains the call clarity. You don’t hear normal audio artifacts when recording this way.
As I said in the original post, I have the entire (7+ minute) call where I was complaining about an unrelated issue and would be more than happy to make this recording available unedited to accredited members of the news media that want to listen to the entire unedited call and fact check from there.
Also, if enough people are interested (leave comments below if you are) I’d be willing to post the entire call but would beep out my customer account number with Sirius which is nobody’s business but Sirius and mine. For verification purposes however, I would be willing to share the unedited call which contains my customer account number for any member of the press that I can first verify their identity (and ascertain that this account information will not be made public).
The information the employee shared with me in the call could be bogus, I’m fully admitting that both now and when I published the original post but the call itself is authentic and not staged. If you see somebody claim the call is staged then they are full of, well, you know what. I’ve been writing and publishing online for many years (check for yourself) and will put my reputation behind this recording being authentic. If it was a hoax I would have put it in the “humor” category.
Of all the praises I’ve heaped on the game Rock Band lately, durability of the instruments has been a common, recurring complaint from others. Yesterday, we suffered our first major Rock Band disaster:
The drum pedal snapped clean in half right down the middle where the spring attaches as pictured above. There is clearly too much tension in the middle without adequate support. They should have had a piece of medal running through the center for reinforcement.
Good thing we bought the extended warranty.
Temporary solution so the jam does not end?
A little glue and Gorilla or duct tape. May not look pretty but as long as the plastic feet can be pushed against the sensor, it still works.
Oddly, I found that not having the pressure of the spring as pronounced with the wraparound tape made the bandaged pedal a little easier to play. With a real drum pedal you can adjust tension whereas with the plastic RB pedal it’s one setting fits — or rather doesnt fit — all.
Ouch, guitar problems too
Also, the Rock Band guitar strum switch is not registering strums accurately (no, it’s not a calibration problem with the TV). We went out and bought another Guitar Hero II controller and have been using that instead.
Considering we only made it through three weeks of gameplay without instrument issues, I’m going to join the chorus of boos in the Rock Band instrument durability department. Prediction: Harmonix is going to see a lot of returns/exchanges. We’re going to wait until after the holidays to exchange ours for a new package as there aren’t a lot of these packages out there currently.
This also opens up a market for third parties to step in with more heavy duty equipment. How about a metal drum pedal? We’ve probably logged less than 40 hours of play time before having issues which is unacceptable after paying $170.
Before anybody starts bashing about us playing too hard, the drumset at the Harmonix booth at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) was also broken. Harmonix had to know this was an issue in testing and they decided not to do anything about reinforcing the pedal? Bummer. The game is still great, it’s just the gear that is suspect. Buy the extended warranty.
If you’re traveling to Montana with shiny new Kindle in hand, might want to buy those books beforehand. Sprint EVDO coverage in Montana is limited, very limited if you look at the EVDO dead zone in the nationwide Kindle coverage map below.
When no Sprint EVDO network is present, the Kindle will attempt to downgrade to the dramatically slower Sprint data network. Unfortunately, coverage in Montana and other white areas on the map is still limited.
You and I know now — and Jeff Bezos knew, or certainly should have known — that the device doesn’t work in certain places yet Amazon happily banked the money from the dupes who didn’t, as well as crowing about how demand was so great it was sold out the day it appeared. Not the way a good company does business.
Hey bookofjoe, you’re reaching, mon. Anybody in this day and age who paid $400 for a device that relies on internet connectivity for full functionality and didn’t first check the service coverage area should have their license to geek taken away. Don’t any of these people have cell phones? Who doesn’t know internet coverage isn’t omnipresent? Really?
Apparently, bookofjoe and the commenter he was excited about, Steve Saroff who lives in Missoula don’t believe checking coverage maps before purchase is important? Mr. Saroff goes even further to suggest that this might be some kind of “bait and switch” advertising by Amazon.
Please.
While I would submit that the customer is almost always right, this particular Kindle customer is wrong. Missoula and Helena are beautiful cities with wonderful and friendly people, but they just don’t get much respect when it comes to Sprint coverage. Blame this on Sprint, not Amazon. Lobby them for more towers.
I’m sure there was at least one spinning beach ball of death with Mac OS X Tiger and can’t remember any problems with Panther but many have noted kernel panic issues with Leopard, including me.
Macenstein did some searching through the Apple discussion forums using the term “kernel panic” and came up with the following stats:
you’ll find that in the last 30 days there are 500 results for the term Kernel Panic under 10.5 Leopard, 298 for 10.4 Tiger, and only 71 for 10.3 Panther and (pre-Panther).
Results are capped at a maximum of 500, so no idea what is the total number.
I emphasized the last 30 days part because I’m not sure as many people would be reporting kernel panic problems with Tiger or Panther as any newer OS. Guessing the same would hold true for Vista search versus XP or any newer Linux variant over a prior version.
What makes Macenstein’s post even more hmm-inspiring is that it’s coming from a Mac-centric blogger, not from a Windows blogger saying neener, neener. Macenstein asks if Panther is Apple’s most stable OS? I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know Tiger has been more stable for me than Leopard.
Microsoft’s missed opportunity
There’s no doubt some mud on Apple’s shiny shoes with Leopard. Too many people have had problems, including some raging fans, and they aren’t just shrugging them off. What a golden opportunity Microsoft would have had if Vista was released and compatible with more third party software to be able to point at Apple the way Apple points at their missteps.
With that said, I’m using both Vista and Leopard regularly now and while I’ve had more stability problems with Leopard than Vista, I’ve had more compatibility issues with Vista than Leopard. I’d rather have a few stability problems than fight making problems compatible. For example, I’m having issues with Sony Vegas and Windows Media codecs when trying to encode movies in HD. It’s on the list of “run this issue down when you get time.” I have a sinking feeling Vista is to blame.
If you’re a Mac user and haven’t upgraded to Leopard, I’d still recommend upgrading. Leopard has some great features like the Time Machine Backups. The few kernel panics I have experienced haven’t been a major hassle. Just had to cold restart to bring things back to normal. Also, I’m running Leopard on my eMac which I bought in 2004. I’m probably overdue to get one of those shiny new iMacs, but I can’t seem to find a good purchase window where I feel like my purchase won’t become outdated by a better model in six months. That window probably never will exist the way Apple releases new hardware, so I need to get off the fence and do something. Maybe Santa is listening. I haven’t been too naughty this year.
It’s worth noting I don’t have a PC running Vista that was purchased in 2004. The only thing I had to do with the eMac was upgrade the RAM to run Vista and that was with RAM I already had laying around. Conversely, I had to do a more significant amount of hardware upgrades including purchasing new DDR2 RAM and a graphics card to get Vista running to my satisfaction for daily usage and gaming.
Happy Thanksgiving to readers and visitors stopping by today who celebrate. Thank you for reading and if subscribed, thank for that as well.
This is actually the fifth Thanksgiving celebrated on this blog: 2003 (it snowed!), 2004 (my favorite Thanksgiving family picture to date), 2005, 2006 and today 2007 where it feels cold enough to snow, but isn’t snowing yet.
Forget the cranberry sauce? Need more rolls for Uncle Lou and the gang? Want to do a little holiday gift shopping while the bird is baking in the oven? Here are a few stores that might be open and links to their store locator pages, if available. If marked as (regional) they are regional to me, meaning the greater Seattle area.
Addendum (4:18pm PST): before going out to any of the stores, make sure you use the store locator and call the store in your area first. Be sure it’s open first.
Safeway store locator - plenty of yams (ick!) and cranberry sauce (yummy) here.
(regional) Top Foods store locator - groceries galore Fred Meyer store locator - one of our favorite shopping places nearby is open until 4pm. Walmart store locator - 24 hour stores only close on Christmas day. Kmart store locator - our local Kmart has been pretty dead the last few times we’ve been there which means there might be some good deals there if it’s the same way in your area.
(regional) The Seattle PI has a list of what’s opened and closed today and tomorrow.
It’s rare seeing Mike Masnick from Techdirt write more than a paragraph or two covering a story — except when it comes to the subject of music copyright and DRM. Masnick’s post this morning challenges the statements made by Kiss rocker Gene Simmons on the theft of music.
Every aspect of the music business other than putting out CDs has been doing better. There are more bands making more music. There are more concerts and bands are making more money than ever before from touring. Tools for making recordings are selling better than ever before. Musical instrument sales are going up as well. More people are making money from music today than ever before. So it’s hard to take Simmons’ comments on the matter at face value. In fact some would argue that the whole reason that the recording industry is suffering is because they tried to follow Simmons’ idea of suing these kids. The interviewer tries to point out the Radiohead and Trent Reznor examples as to why he might be wrong, and he brushes it off.
I’m somewhere between Masnick’s opinion that music should be free and promote other things for artists and Gene Simmon’s radical view that more kids should have been “sued off the face of the earth.” As someone who has written a few dozen songs and was in a band in high school, I understand the hard work that goes into writing music. I don’t know what it’s like to write music that is successful, but one can look around and figure that out easily.
Being an artist is more fruitless than fruitful when it comes to success. All you have to do is visit indie music sites and see how much talent is out there that isn’t “making it” and be reminded that if they make all their music free to promote … what? Their next dive club or bar appearance? Their MySpace page?
I do see value in the songs and while I think a few songs given away or web events like Daryl Hall released last night and mentioned earlier this week can help raise awareness. If you like Hall & Oates music or Hall’s solo stuff, go listen to that, the quality is impressive.
But if you aren’t out touring, then what is the content to drive sales to? T-shirts? Coffee mugs? Pictures? The music is what most people are most interested in, maybe not fans and stalkers, but casual fans like me are going to respond with our wallets to the music.
But I don’t want to see anybody, especially kids, that aren’t reselling or profiting from the music they downloaded being sued. Bringing in the lawyers is a tricky thing when we’re talking about personal use. Come on, college kids downloading and trading music is hurting Kiss music sales how, Gene? Yeah, once they are hooked on “Detroit Rock City”, you mean to tell me they won’t go out and buy that somewhere? Ever?
We buy music and support artists. I encourage others to do the same. The music of these artists has made life more enjoyable and entertaining, they deserve to get paid something. The greedy record execs who have been sucking the life and profits out of musicians can disappear tomorrow. Good riddance.
Does this qualify our household as a good customer? In our possession right now, we own five Xbox 360s. The last one broke (#4) less than 60 days ago and you won’t fix because it’s a few months past the one year warranty and not the red rings of death; we don’t have an extended warranty on that one either. The disc tray won’t load any games or DVDs. Xbox Live still works though. If we want that fixed you’re going to charge us $140. We decided in light of the hardware reliability history we would buy the Xbox 360 arcade edition with extended warranty instead for Christmas. You can see it along the right.
Before we get too far, it’s important to understand I like podcasts. I’ve also created podcasts since the early days, as well as hosted a live weekly web streaming radio show since May 2000. This Friday will be episode #361. There are some very good podcasts out there and I fully believe someday internet live streaming and pre-recorded material (podcasts, vlogging) will replace satellite and terrestrial radio.
