I don’t know if he touched kids the way the prosecution alleged, but I’m pretty sure he’s been 9 different kinds of nuts for at least the past 10-years. Nobody ever wants to see kids lose their parents, but part of me thinks Jackson’s passing might be the single greatest assurance of anything resembling a normal life for his children. Anyone else remember how he used to dress them? The baby-dangling incident? I’m not saying he was a bad father, how would I know? I just think parents’ ways tend to rub off on their kids, and his “ways” looked like they pretty much guaranteed an abnormal life for his kids.

Without seeming too callous, I think these two twits best sum up my feeling on M.J.’s death:

From Michael Ian Black: Upset about Michael Jackson. The 13 yr. old in me still loved him. The 37 yr. old me wanted to see him complete his transformation.

From Rob Corddry: I wish it had been Michael Jackson that broke the story of TMZ dying. I can almost hear the high-fives.

Finally, I saw a little bit of CNN before going to bed last night. Right as the van with Jackson’s body was backing up to the helicopter. While I didn’t want to see whether they actually showed the “money shot” of Jackson’s body being moved from the van to the chopper, I was told later they had. Apparently that was “BREAKING NEWS”. You people should be ashamed of yourselves. But then again, why am I surprised? The major media outlets (there are few NEWS outlets remaining) would have a camera over the slab for the autopsy if they were allowed.

Call it cynicism, sexism, racism, ism, ism, ism… All I’m saying is there might not be enough people to affect an election outcome, but I certainly think there are enough to make a dent. Add to that people for whom voting is some knee-jerk reaction rather than a conscious decision: “Vote for the (older/wealthier) White Guy”, “Vote for the (Democrat/Republican)” I know there are people like this out there. Hell, I know people like this! Why then does it always get to me when I see stuff like this?

In reality, DRM completely controls how you consume the digital content you have bought. DRM is why, until recently, music purchased on iTunes would only play on iPods. DRM is why Coldplay’s X&Y CD might not play on Mac computers. DRM is why former customers of Microsoft’s MSN Music are pretty much hosed unless something is done in Redmond to help them out.

Awhile back, after releasing the Zune, Microsoft shut down the MSN Music store in favor of the Zune Marketplace. Recently, the decision was made to shut down the servers in charge of keeping track of licenses and system authorizations. MSN Music worked much like iTunes does today: you buy DRM’d music through an account. You can authorize up to 5 computers on your account that can have this licensed music. You can add or remove computers as needed. With these servers shut down, users can no longer add or remove authorized systems. Effectively, these users have three choices:

• Burn the purchased songs to a CD and rip the CD to MP3. The mp3s will not have any DRM, however this is will result in a serious loss in audio quality.
• Keep the music on the same system(s) and never get rid of it and never have to reinstall or upgrade the operating system. Ever. Once a system is authorized, it can play all your MSN Music purchases. OS upgrades can require re-authorization. How realistic is this?
• Buy new copies of the music. Because it’s not like you’ve already purchased the music. Seriously. You haven’t. I’m not making this up. The music industry and RIAA see purchasing music as paying for the right to listen to it. You don’t own the music, just the right have a copy of it and listen to it within their limitations. Once these servers are shut down in September, your rights as they apply to MSN Music files are forever locked. I guess this is what they deem as “fair use” nowadays.

Now, a simple solution to this would have Microsoft ask all former MSN Music subscribers to contact them with account information & a list of songs they purchased. Microsoft should be able to verify these lists and offer credits for each song either in the Zune Marketplace or with some third-party vendor like amazon.com. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, but the premise is still there. This little episode highlights probably the main reason DRM is bad for consumers – it has the ability to strip them of their rights.

If you’re interested in DRM-free music, iTunes has iTunes Plus. Also, amazon.com recently opened their mp3 store with prices equal to iTunes, support from all 4 major labels and no DRM to be found. I’m sure there are other legal sources, this is just what I know of.

Two days ago, DT sent Engadget Mobile a cease & desist letter regarding the use of magenta in the logo for their sister site, Engadget Mobile. Yesterday Engadget’s editor, Ryan Block, announced a tweaked Engadget Mobile logo and a sort of magenta-wash campaign to protest this obvious abuse of copyright law (it’s obvious when you read the link at the beginning of this paragraph – lays out why this isn’t copyright infringement).

I understand that companies are required to protect their trademarks, copyrights, patents & trade secrets – if they didn’t, such protections would carry no weight. From a legal standpoint, (And obviously my many years in the legal profession, right? Right?) I see where they’re coming from. From a realistic perspective, maybe claiming to own magenta was kind of dumb in the first place. Perhaps if DT invented a color, but magenta is a pretty widely used color. It’s a base color for the CMYK color model (Hello? M == Magenta). While I am a T-Mobile subscriber, I’m not a big fan of magenta on its own, but Ryan’s actually taken to time to comment on this site before. Being the comment-/attention-whore that I am, I feel kind of obligated to give his cause some love. Plus, I agree with him.* So, grab your Che t-shirt & beret, link to the image above, spread the word, fight the power, down w/ the man and all that – you know the rhetoric!

* Block has said many times that this is not an April Fool’s joke. If it is color me, and most of the ‘tubes, gotten. Well played, sir(s).

Just make sure that when you get that check, you spend it immediately so the housing market, and overall economy will do a 180 and everything will be all better again right before W leaves office so we can all remember him as the guy who turned around the economy and saved us from the terrorists.

Remember, spend money for freedom. When you save money, the terrorists win.

My fifth PDA is a Treo 650 smartphone (made around 2004). Again when these first came out, I didn’t get it. They were bulky and I already had a Palm device. Eventually, I realized I wanted to have my palm and cell phone with me everywhere I went, so I got the Treo. Once again, I love it, but here’s what sets it apart from my old Visor:

• It’s a phone (duh)
• Bluetooth
• Color screen
• More memory
• (Crappy) Camera
• Expandable memory (SD Card)

In 5 years, Palm was able to add these functionalities to their product. Believe me when I say, I am not impressed.

Don’t get me wrong, my Treo is the best phone I’ve owned. It does everything I need it to. Problem is my wants are, well wanting. Why won’t Palm take a look around at its competition and at least make a half-assed attempt at keeping up!? Heaven forbid they stay ahead of everyone else! If they came out with something new… really new, not just warmed over and repackaged; I would jump all over it. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be alone because, like many, I want a real smartphone. I don’t want an iPhone (yet), I don’t want a Windows Anything device, and I’m not too warm on Symbian – the OS Nokia uses in its smartphones. That unfortunately leaves Palm – at least, until Apple decides to make the iPhone a fully capable smartphone.

Come on Palm, read what Engadget has written in the link below. Take it to heart because they’re 100% correct, and you know it. Trust me, lots of Palm fans are anxiously waiting for something new out of you guys. I guarantee none of them are loyal to Windows Mobile 6, and I have a feeling many could be swayed away from the iPhone’s seductive charms by a solid, capable and up-to-date *smart*phone. We keep hoping the innovation that brought us the first Palm Pilots and the original Treo will return.

Dear Palm: It’s time for an intervention – Engadget

Blogged with Flock

Tags: palm, treo, engadget

Awhile back I posted somewhere (can’t find it) that , in the aftermath of 9/11, folks tied to the Pentagon attack must have felt like the forgotten step-children of the whole 9/11 whirlwind. Everything dealt with the World Trade Center. Sure more people died when the towers fell, but are we so callous a society that body count dictates whether we memorialize something? Or is it just based on the shear sensationalism of the event. I mean, that plane only took out one section of the Pentagon. The destruction and carnage in DC was nothing compared to the absolute horror of downtown Manhattan.

I’m really not trying to be mean. I just despise this kind of blind nationalism. Not only is it embarrassing to me as an American, but this kind of thing can be dangerous. Here is a state encouraging its inhabitants to celebrate war! Not only that, but celebrate one of the most divisive and controversial wars since Vietnam. Bad Idea™.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: oklahoma, licenseplate, vanity, war, terrorism, 911

I won’t lie, the iPhone is one sexy piece of kit, and the price isn’t really that bad when you consider the RAZR sold for about $400 when it first launched a few years ago. Treos still go for around $400 unlocked. But I can do more on a Treo than I can on an iPhone. I can create, view and edit Office docs whereas an iPhone can only view them (I’m sure Google docs integration is on its way). I have an IM client on my Treo. I can send multimedia messages on my Treo. The iPhone, for some reason can show video, but it can’t capture any on its embarrassingly underpowered camera. Seriously, Sony has been making a 3.2 megapixel cameraphone that takes beautiful pics for almost a year now; what’s with the crap-tacular 2 megapixels, Apple!? Google maps? Available on the Treo along with gmail. Safari web browser? I have a choice of Palm’s native Blazer of the free Opera mini. Let’s also not forget the thousands of other apps available to the Palm OS and specifically written to enhance the Treo. Needless to say, I’m waiting for iPhone v.2.

But, as I found on YouTube, there are some fun things you can do to an iPhone:

Oh, and speaking of blending things, I am totally buying this shirt!!