Karlin reports that eMusic has gone from allowing unlimited downloads to only 40 per month for their $9.99 monthly fee. While it still sounds like a good deal compared to iTMS’ $0.99 per song, I don’t know if I’m ready to bite. I’ve also heard that there are a lot of tunes up there that cannot be download outside of Europe, but don’t know that for sure.
Irish Studies Online!
I was stoked to find this site online, and plan to investigate it further. With my the receipt of my MA in Hawaiian Language and Literature just around the corner, I’m looking for a new mountain to climb. This looks like small mountain, but maybe just a warmup. I’m really want to get back to Ireland for an extended stay, maybe up to a year, to continue study of the language, and also study the efforts being made to assure the perpetuation of Irish Gaelic. All signs point toward National University of Ireland at Galway, and coincidentally it is through…
Guinness offers stout defence for recall of thousands of kegs!
Saints preserve us! 178,000 kegs of potentially below-standard Guinness nearly make it to Europe and the US. I haven’t had a decent pint since we left Ireland last summer. I tried a pint of stout at a pub in Honolulu (Kelly O’Neill’s), but it definely wasn’t the same. Even in Ireland, it seemed the further we got from Dublin, the less I enjoyed it.
Governor Arnie?
Now that California has the Governator, I’m wondering which of these will happen first: A) there will be a new recall petition put in place to remove him, or B) someone will begin a movement to amend or remove Article II of the US Constitution, Section 1, Clause 5, which states “No persona except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Welcome To The 21st Century, Scott!
My old Maui buddy, Mac guru and favorite caracture artist Scott Waters has finally got himself a blog, one of the new iBlogs. Scott’s responsible for the incredibly handsome caricature portrait of me to the right.
What makes a weblog?
What really ‘makes’ a weblog for me, in the sense that was makes it work for me, and keeps me going back, is none of the technical or structural features, but the passion of the weblogger. Passion not only for the subject(s) that they cover, but passion for logging them. It’s not difficult to see if a person really believes in what they are posting about and ones that simply report on a topic. This is the difference I’ve seen on the political logs. Dean’s people seem to be as passionate the weblog medium as they are about getting him…
It’s not really piracy, its illegality is questionable, but does that make it right?
Dave touches on some good points in his essay on piracy, I can’t imagine the industry every giving up their license to make money, i.e., their old catalogs. However, his observations of the industry’s improprieties are accurate. The industry treats its customers like the enemy, and its artists like farm animals. While they are productive you feed them enough to keep them alive, and when production drops they get a bullet to the head and sent off to the meat packing plant. Some are mercifully sent out to pasture, and if they are lucky, maybe find new “owners” who will…
I’m looking forward to Dave’s piracy essay…
but to borrow a line from Don Henley, “A man with a briefcase steals more than any man with a gun.” Or any 12 year-old with a cable modem. The fact that labels are charging the same for old songs that have recouped their production costs over many thousands of times as they do for new material is ludicrous, particularly pre-digital material whose quality is substantially lower. It’s like a license to print money – you only have to buy the paper and ink and the rest is profit. I can’t imagine the labels ever giving that up voluntarily.
Do Not Call List On Hold.
This is annoying as heck. 50 million people want this, and one asshole federal judge can toss it aside. How does one get a judge recalled? If Bush wants to impress me, he needs find a way get rid of this incompetent loser. I agree with one aspect of this, but not enough to see the entire program get delayed. I don’t want politicitans, charities or people conducting surveys intruding on my dinner either. We should be able to choose what, if any, kinds of unsolicited calls we get. If we don’t want any calls, we shouldn’t have to get…
Tsunami Watch Cancelled.
But seas may be dangerous, so be careful out there!