Jitway

As the major record labels finally come to terms with DRM-free music, indie labels continue to blaze new paths in the realm of digital distribution. Amie Street, one of the first online music stores that offered DRM-free downloads, has long been a popular destination for independent artists to sell their music, and now even more "top" indie artists are hopping on board to make use of Amie Street's unique pricing structure. Related Stories Interpol, Cat Power, The New Pornographers, Devendra Banhart, Belle and Sebastian, and Architecture In Helsinki are just a few of the artists releasing music through Amie Street today. And like everything else released through Amie Street, everything will start out as a free download. But don't think it'll stay free for long—the more people that download the songs, the higher the price gets. The popularity-driven pricing structure tops out at 98¢ per song, along the same lines as a song you would buy from iTunes or Amazon MP3. * Amazon invests in social music site Amie Street * Amazon's investment in Amie Street seems odd at first, given the company's own DRM-free music business (which also sells music from independent labels). But Amazon could have other things in mind for Amie Street, like incorporating its pricing structure and social networking features into Amazon's own store. "The idea of having customers directly influence the price of songs is an interesting and novel approach to selling digital music," Amazon's senior VP Jeff Blackburn said in a statement last August. Might Amazon be interested in buying out Amie Street altogether? Our magic 8-ball says "Outlook good." I myself like this service and have used it quite a few times. I am always for supports acts that actually get most of the money instead of none of the money. Anyone else here use this? Read the full story HERE

MVC 2 all the way....though I do like DOA 4 as well.

Here is something from day 2 of this hearing Daniel Weitzner, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Decentralized Information Group summed up bad traffic management with: “Maybe it’s a bit like the old adage about pornography ‘I know it when I see it’. In this case I know what Comcast is doing is in the camp of unreasonable. These are techniques that hackers would use to deny service to any application on the web, very similar in that regard. It might be interesting to hold a panel of security experts to talk about those kind of mechanisms, I’m certainly not one. But, forging data on the internet is probably outside of the realm of reasonable, and any standards body would deem it to be.” However, one of the most succinct criticisms of Comcast’s actions came from Prof. David Reed, of MIT’s Media Lab, who suggested that any ISP that didn’t follow the standard solutions evolved over the last 30 years should not advertise themselves as an Internet provider, but instead as a company “offering selective access to portions of the net only”, a description many of Comcast’s customers will probably agree with. Calling Comcast hackers is good but still will be interesting how this all pans out. Day 2 full story HERE

Time - Pink Floyd Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way The time is gone, the song is over, Thought I'd something more to say. I like to be here, but I can't. When I come home already tired. Scroll to warm my body beside the fire.

C U N T Killer - Debauchry

Blood God Arising - Debauchry Too heavy for most of you wussies out there.

It is about a group of friends that grew up together in a small Steel town in Pennsylvania. 3 of them go off to Vietnam and it is how it effects them all. Christopher Walken plays a real good role in this one as well as DeNiro. deer hunter is bad ass.in my mind anything with Christopher Walken is worth a watch. I agree he is one bad ass actor he plays the evil roles so well it is not funny.

Goin Loco - Nazareth Brand new stuff by them

On display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from February 24 to May 12 is a nanotechnology-equipped concept mobile device. The Morph is the result of an ongoing partnership between Nokia and the University of Cambridge, and illustrates their ideas of how future devices will look and function. It's a multipurpose unit with context-dependent shape; so whatever its intended use may be at the time, it can be structurally modified to fit the user's needs. Nokia's partnership with the University of Cambridge began in 2007 and encompasses different projects in several areas. While these initial developments come from the nanoscience center and electrical division of the engineering department at Cambridge, other groups will be included in upcoming projects. Nokia, in typically forward-thinking fashion, said it expects certain features shown in the Morph demo to be integrated into handheld devices within seven years. This is cool as hell. I doubt it comes in seven years but still cool. I especially like were you can change its color to your attire and wear it.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission and other senior officials said on Monday that they were considering taking steps to discourage cable and telephone companies from discriminating against content providers as the broadband companies go about managing heavy Internet traffic that they say is clogging their networks. The agency is considering new rules and enforcement decisions that would force the cable and telephone companies to more clearly disclose to consumers the circumstances in which they might delay some traffic. Comcast recently disclosed that the heavy use of video sharing applications has forced them to slow down some broadband traffic. Consumer groups have replied that such packet discrimination is both unnecessary and potentially threatens to undermine the freewheeling nature of the Internet. “They must be conducted in an open and transparent way,” said Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, at a hearing on network neutrality and network management here Monday. “While networks may have reasonable practices, they obviously cannot operate without taking some reasonable steps but that does not mean they can arbitrarily block access to certain services.” Michael J. Copps, a Democratic commissioner, said that until recently, the cable companies had been decided “in a black box that the American public could not peek into.” He expressed alarm that any cable companies might be degrading or slowing down network traffic. “The time has come for a specific enforceable principle of nondiscrimination at the F.C.C.,” Mr. Copps said. “Our job is to figure out where you draw the line between unreasonable discrimination and reasonable network management.” But Mr. Markey expressed concerns about Comcast’s practice, warning of “the transformation of BitTorrent into bit trickle.” Now I think that nothing will really be done about this since in the United States most cable providers have a specific area and others are not allowed in. Until the isp industry becomes more open and competitive this will have little effect on how your isp treats you . Read full story HERE

Just a update as Cindr seems to be right. EA has already sent two offers to the company, both of which have been turned down by the Take-Two's board. Its next step will be to release the details of the proposal to generate some grassroots shareholder support for its efforts In an effort to speed the process, EA urged the company to quickly approve the deal so additional marketing power can be put behind the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV, to be released April 29. However, Take-Two responded that such a claim was "opportunistic," and brushed it aside.

It is about a group of friends that grew up together in a small Steel town in Pennsylvania. 3 of them go off to Vietnam and it is how it effects them all. Christopher Walken plays a real good role in this one as well as DeNiro.

Analysts: Studios will gain from HD DVD's exit, but consumers' won't Wilson also suggested that consumers would really have been better off with the HD format than with Blu-ray. "Storage capacity is the one area [where Blu-ray] can claim an advantage," he elaborated. But the outcome of the format war, which became official on Tuesday, "doesn't benefit anyone today and it comes at a cost. [blu-ray] discs and players are both more expensive to manufacture. The DVD format was less expensive to implement and further along in its deployment. [blu-ray] is twelve months behind in terms of its feature set." To wrap a bit of historical perspective around the reactions of ABI and other observers, only a year or two ago, a lot of people would have been quite surprised by any notion that Blu-ray would prevail over HD. Back then, an independent market research group called Cymfony analyzed postings on message boards, blogs, and other Web pages to gauge the opinions of early adopters of blue-laser consoles, mainly among gamers and videophiles. Found another interesting read on this over HERE

The most violent video games around could soon be sold in Australia after the Federal Government said it was considering updating the classification system for games to include an R18+ rating. Unlike films, magazines and other publications, there is no adult classification for games in Australia, so any titles that do not meet the MA15+ standard - such as those with excessive violence or sexual content - are simply banned from sale by the Classification Board. This could be good news for all you Aussies out there. I think at the age of 18+ you should be able to choose what you want to play. Take religious leaders out of the loop of telling you want you can and can't buy. Full story HERE

I was talking about this last weekend in the IRC channel about adobe pushing DRM into its flash streaming software. I for one think this is a bad idea and will cause yet more loss of freedom on the users end. The primary function of DRM is, theoretically, to block copyright infringement. But DRM also restricts many noninfringing activities that have traditionally been protected under the banner of fair use. The EFF notes that an increasing number of Internet users are downloading and modifying short video clips to create expressive "remixes" that have independent value. These remixes often fall well within the bounds of fair use, because they do not contain substantive portions or decrease the profitability of the original works from which they are derived. Prairie dog says: "Don't tase me bro!" Schoen cites the Dramatic Prairie Dog as an example of an instance in which the ability to freely manipulate video content led to the emergence of an influential Internet cultural meme that exploded into the mainstream. The EFF links to a number of Dramatic Prarie Dog video remixes posted on YouTube, one of which has been viewed literally millions of times. These remixes often parody other elements of popular culture by incorporating elements of movies. Creating these short remixes is fully permissible now, but might not be for very long if DRM continues to become more pervasive—a calamity that would certainly justify Dramatic Prairie Dog's poignant expression of existential horror. Read the full story HERE

I found some more interesting read about this over at SLYCK

The challenge before the big development tools vendors is to build a Web applications platform that's as "open" as is feasible, up to the point where the vendor needs to monetize it to make its investment pay off. Today, it's Adobe's turn. The race is "on," to borrow the watchword from Adobe's marketing campaign launched this morning, between Adobe and Microsoft to determine whether a graphical, boundary-crossing runtime platform is preferable for delivering applications over the Internet to a Web browser. Microsoft's entry in this field is Silverlight, which leverages the graphical library already in Windows. Adobe's entry is AIR, which has its own leverage -- the near ubiquity of Flash video on the Web. Adobe's latest entry in this field went live this morning, with the "this-time-we-really-mean-it" launch of version 1.0 of the AIR distributable runtime platform, officially no longer in testing. This is the component which, once distributed to Windows or Mac OS systems (the Linux edition remains in beta, according to Adobe), will enable an online server to distribute rich functionality over the Web, without the intervention of a browser. While the SDK for Flex is not only free but open source as well (Adobe prefers to distribute it using a Mozilla license), its suggestion that developers can use "the IDE of their choice" doesn't have a very exciting ring to it. Imagine trying to do your own version of last year's AIR-based eBay browser project using Microsoft Visual Studio, and you might agree Adobe's policy is about as free as a cheese-head hat giveaway outside of Texas Stadium. That said, the price of the new Flex 3 Builder IDE standard edition has come down to $249, formerly $399 (upgrade price is $99). The Professional Edition may make up the difference, though, with a steep $699 price tag. I find this very interesting indeed. Adobe has been boasting about this forever and looks like they have finally delivered. Now lets see what web developers can indeed do with app. Read about it HERE

Another Piece Of Meat - Scorpions

I have so many it is hard to chose just one but this one here not only is it one of my top favorite songs but it is also one of my top favorite videos. Hanger 18 - Megadeth

In my opinion one of the best anime series ever. Kenshin the Man slayer what a character.

Just started watching Blood+ Now all I got to do it find all 4 DVDs to it.

I rarely watch a movie more then once but decided to watch a couple I have not seen since the first release of them. This time I watched them in HD and got to say they were well worth a watch again. Two of the greatest pictures in my mind ever made. Platoon Deer Hunter

Yeah but surely discs will still be around for storage use. There must still be a medium for portable storage, and Blu-Ray at 50gigs a disc sounds pretty good to me. Oh discs will be around for awhile just for the reason to back stuff up. But one day disk will be history for music first then movies. Flash drives will get bigger and bigger and we will be able to back up and carry our tunes and movies that one. Discs are prone to wear and abuse and eventual wear down.

Thanks Fatal and yes I am trying to liven things up a bit. But it is true some people take things to seriously on the internet and we have to be careful what we post. Don't want hurt too many feeling ya know.