Hello World

Updating iTunes to version 5 lost all my playlists and settings and ratings. I'm upset about this, but I'm going to make the best of it by enacting my new rating system, which is really just a more precise version of what I had been doing before:

5 stars: songs I never, ever get tired of hearing.
4 stars: songs I'm pretty much always excited to hear--I very rarely want to skip over them.
3 stars: songs I definitely like, but don't always want to hear--weird genre stuff, long DJ sets, cheesy pop, country music.
2 stars: songs that are okay, but not that good. I don't delete these because they are album tracks and I like to hold onto whole albums, but if it weren't for that I'd probably never listen to them again.
1 star: crap that I want to delete.

I know there are more interesting ways to rate music but that is mine.

I really hope some of you will tell me that:
a) iTunes is stupid
b) rating your music is stupid
c) music is stupid

Okay, I will say this. When combined with Google Desktop, Google Talk is pretty cool. It just becomes a component of the Sidebar, meaning it doesn't really add another client window to your crowded screen (Sidebar itself, of course, is an extremely obtrusive addition to your screen--but if you're already using Sidebar, Talk makes for a minor addition to the chaos on your monitor). Although as of now that is completely theoretical, as I've yet to use the program to actually communicate with anyone (someone message me!).

In a week or two I will probably write up a better review of both Google Desktop and Google Talk, but in the mean time I will simply note (again) that I don't really see any niche that Talk is filling and direct you to what I wrote about Konfabulator, which is Yahoo!'s preemptive response to Google Desktop's sidebar.

Major caveat: there are those who believe Google is steadily increasing its deathgrip on the world and its private data--these new programs do nothing whatsoever to dissuade such people from donning their aluminum foil hats and anti-probe chastity belts.

Extremely related: A long and interesting discourse on this general subject as well as the future of computing by Jason Kottke.

I am in Colorado now, and Google has released its own IM client. I'm not saying it's not a coincidence... just saying. Anyway, it's hard for me to imagine this program being much use--between Skype and various messaging clients, there seem to be prevalent programs providing all of the Google Talk functionality that I've been able to figure out from looking at the website for 5 minutes. That said, there were plenty of webmail providers before Gmail came along and laid waste to their cities and verdant valleys. So I've downloaded it, and I'll try it out over the next few days, and if it's worth checking out I'll let you know, faithful reader.

Also, I was watching last night's Daily Show and couldn't help noticing that they stole my post on throwing stars from August 12th. I know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, I've got to say that I am most flattered by six figure checks. You hear me, John Stewart? SEND ME MONEY.

While we're on the subject of Firefox, here's the way to stop all popups (even the ones opened by flash ads):

1. Type about:config into the Firefox location bar.
2. Right-click on the page and select New and then Integer.
3. Name it privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins
4. Set the value to 2.

The possible values are:

* 0: Allow all popups from plugins.
* 1: Allow popups, but limit them to dom.popup_maximum.
* 2: Block popups from plugins.
* 3: Block popups from plugins, even on whitelisted sites.

Cut and pasted directly from petebevin.com.

In other news, I got some extremely cynical spam today. This is the body of the email, whose subject is "140 US marines kiIled":

14 US Marines Killed in Iraq Bombing

Guardian Unlimited

By ROBERT H. REID. BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 40 minutes ago.

14 US Marines were killed when a huge bomb destroyed their lightly armored vehicle, urling it into the air in a giant fireball in the deadliest roadside bombing suffered by American forces in the Iraq war

Read more...

That "Read more" is a link that goes, of course, to the porn or whatever it is these assholes are selling.

Awesome internet things I am loving lately:

• Flickr--I've already babbled about how lovely Flickr is, but they keep adding cool new features and making it more wonderful every goddamn day. It's ridiculous. The latest innovation is "interestingness," a pretty silly name for a fun little function. Basically, it uses a complicated algorithm to analyze images to determine the relative, um, interestingness of all photos. You can use it to look at the most interesting photos for a given day or month, and you can also sort your own photos by interestingness. At any rate, this is just one example of the neat stuff they're doing over there. The best thing I can say about Flickr is that since signing up for my account there (in April or so) I've probably taken more pictures than I took in my entire life prior to then.
  
  
• Netflix--What can I say. A great, simple service that gets me to watch lots of movies I otherwise wouldn't ever get to, for a reasonable price, with lots of nice online gimmicks (like Netflix Friends, which as far as I can tell is almost entirely useless but fun to browse around in). These guys did it right, and blew Blockbuster and Walmart out of the water.
  
  
• Konfabulator--like Flickr, a recent Yahoo! purchase, Konfabulator is probably the nerdiest thing on this list. It is, I think, an XML-based code environment that is simple to program for, the end result of which is that you can download any of dozens of different tiny "widgets" that run on your desktop, performing lots of different functions. Here are the ones I've got going right now:
  • mini Weather, which displays current temperature and conditions in DC
  • mini CPU, which displays my current processor load
  • mini What to Do?, which is a tiny little to-do list that stays on my screen all the time.
  There are many great widgets available, including volume controls, remotes for media programs (iTunes, Winamp, etc), and, because it's so simple to program new ones, tons of extremely specialized ones (Denver traffic report? What's playing on some random radio station? What laws were just passed in German Parliament?). An especially useful duo for laptop users are battery meters and wifi detectors. You can set each widget's display preferences (always on top, only visible on the desktop, and a few others) and can usually also adjust the way it looks/performs. I'm just starting to play around with this thing, but it shows a lot of promise.
  
  
• Gmail--You can use POP to download your emails. Great search functionality. Huge file sizes accepted. Enormous storage capacity (and increasing all the time). Hotmail and Yahoo! webmail are completely obsolete.
  
  
• Google Maps--All they did was take the best features from Mapquest and Yahoo Maps and proceed to leapfrog them in every way. Plus, they released the APIs, ensuring that all sorts of awesome indie mashup services would take that functionality and do something great with it.
  
  
• Rhapsody--I don't like DRMed music files, and I will never pay to download a crippled file whose sound quality is worse than a CD's, but I don't mind an all-you-can-eat streaming music service that costs much less than Netflix and allows me to listen to my playlists at home, at work, at school, at Starbucks (see below), or anywhere I can get internet access. Rhapsody ain't perfect (and there are other streaming music services out there that might be better/cheaper) but I think this business model might work out okay.
  
  
• Firefox (especially tabbed browsing, which NEVER gets old)--If you haven't already downloaded Firefox by now, I'm pretty sure you're a lost cause. I've personally installed it on a dozen of my friend/family's computers, and if I were at your computer right now I'd install it there, too. Tabbed browsing changed my life, and not having to worry about the myriad problems with Internet Explorer is invaluable.
  
  
• Dreamhost's absurd hosting deal--See my post on this subject.
  
  
• The USPS's mail forwarding form--If you're moving, do this. It'll be the one simple step in the process.
  
  
• Starbucks/T-Mobile Hotspot--I'm a T-Mobile cell phone user, and although there are plenty of sad aspects to this second-class cellular citizenship, it does get me a hefty discount on Hotspot service. I don't know if I will keep it after I get settled in in Boston, but while I've been travelling around the country this summer it's been extremely handy knowing that I could always take my laptop into a Starbucks (or Barnes and Nobles, or some other places) and get online. In concert with Rhapsody, Gmail, Google Maps, and Flickr, I have essentially the same capabilities in some random Starbucks that I do in the comfort of my own home. In fact, I wrote this whole entry while sipping on a venti double half-caff mochachino (with soy milk). Not really. But I could have.

Also, they cloned a dog.

Hey losers:

I just found a ridiculous deal. A full year of webhosting (including a free domain registration, if you want it) for $9.24. It's actually like $120, but if you enter the discount code 777 it gets cut down to less than what you'd pay for one month's hosting. Go here and sign up for the Crazy Domain Insane package (year pre-paid).

Found at this site.

HIPSTER ZOMBIES ATTACK D&D NERDS.

HAHAHAHAHHAHA.

[from BoingBoing]

I'm so glad that Gmail finally has a version that works on IE with ActiveX turned off. The King is dead; long live the King.

I've been thinking about blog layouts and design and LiveJournal's strengths/weaknesses as a platform.

Some of the things I like about LJ include:

• The way comments are displayed as threads instead of as one long string.
  
• The built-in community features that make it easy to subscribe to and read lots of journals at once.
  
• The simplicity of selecting one of many layouts, and the limited but versatile customization options (colors, basic layout adjustments, etc).
  
• Cuts (like the one in this post), which make it easy to keep your main page neat and manageable.

Some of the things I don't like about LJ include:

• I can't use javascript in sidebar content.
  
• It's a serious hassle to do any extensive custom coding, since LJ has its own formatting language that you have to learn before you can get into the guts of changing your layout.
  
• Most of the world thinks LiveJournal hosts teenage goth girls exclusively, which does very little to enhance the credibility of anyone who writes here.
  
• No trackbacks, no simple way to see referral URLs, no invisible counter functionality (all of which would be simple for LJ to implement).

I've also got a pretty specific layout idea that LJ definitely doesn't offer me. As far as I can tell, nobody else does, either. ( Here's what I want: )

I'm thinking, eventually, about switching from LJ to something else, although as far as I can tell the only way to get exactly what I want is to code it myself, from the ground up--and, as awesome as I think I am, I'm pretty sure that's beyond my capabilities/free time. Does anyone out there (especially people who operate blogs outside of blogger/LJ) have thoughts or suggestions?

In light of yesterday's post on iPods and how lame the media coverage of them is, it's pretty funny that I (and my friends*) ended up on TV for going to iPod Jukebox Night last night. Click here for the story--check out the video, I'm the handsome devil in Carolina blue.

FYI, my playlist was:

NWA - Express Yourself
R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix)
John Marr - Toxic Rhythm

Also of note is that as usual by the time most of the world noticed this trend it was already over--there were only about 20 people there last night.

^*My friends included: DCaffeinated (Fletcher) DConstructed (Lauren), Evan, and Catharine. Click on those links, especially if you live in DC, which is what they mostly write about!

DCist wrote about it.

So, Apple is switching from IBM-made PowerPC processors to Intel's x86 platform. And not only that, but they have secretly had an x86 port of OS X for 5 years. This is pretty amazing. Apparently, they will still be limiting OS X to their own hardware (so you won't be able to install it on your Dell), but they will not take steps to prevent you from installing Windows on your Mac. They won't support it, either, but I suspect Microsoft will, sooner or later.

I have no clue what this means, except that there will be some bigass changes in Apple's hardware over the next few years. It certainly is interesting, however.

I'm not sure how I would feel if I had just spend a bunch of money on a new iBook or PowerBook. Probably, I would feel fine--whatever changes will result from this switchover won't really take effect for another year or more, so it's not like anyone who needed new hardware would be able/willing to wait anyway.

Nolan Bushnell, the creator of both Pong (one of the first video games) and Chuck E. Cheese (one of the most annoying places to get terrible pizza), says that "literally thousands of people have told me over the years that they met their wife or husband playing Pong." He hearkens back to a time when people used to get together around video games. According to this Newsweek piece, he is a fossil:

Bushnell believes that somewhere along its journey toward 10 billion in worldwide sales, the videogame industry he kick-started with Pong has lost its way. Today's games isolate players in front of their computers or TVs, and the typically violent, complex gameplay alienates big swaths of the population, including pretty much all women. Even massively multiplayer online games like EverQuest are ultimately isolating, Bushnell says. "Games have historically been vehicles for socialization, not sitting alone in your underwear."

Obviously, Bushnell doesn't have his finger on the pulse of America (or the rest of the computer-using world, for that matter), and I'd say the same for Newsweek as well, for publishing something so ludicrous as "the typically violent, complex gameplay alienates big swaths of the population, including pretty much all women." I mean, could this be any further from the actual truth, which is that video games are becoming increasingly popular with women, and that most of the best-selling games are fundamentally non-violent (i.e. almost all of Nintendo's games, car-racing games, sports games, strategy games, every single Sim-Whatever game), and that video gaming is extremely social?

What Bushnell and Newsweek mean, of course, is that when you are playing video games you are not sitting next to anybody. Well, first of all, plenty of people get together to play video games. Second of all (and everyone reading this already knows this), it's quite possible to have a meaningful social interaction through the magic of the internet.

This is a great example of why it took The Media so long to figure out what to do with blogs--the old guys in charge don't have a clue, and when they finally figure it out they can make some money off of it they leap on the bandwagon with more enthusiasm than genuine understanding.

But, okay, let's humor them and think about this. Were video games every truly anti-social influences--and are they now?

I'll start with the latter question. No, they are not. Video games these days (starting at least 2 years ago) have included the ability to set up games remotely, with friends or with strangers hundreds or thousands of miles away. In addition to the actual gameplay, there is a messaging capability built into most of these games, so I think it's safe to say there is a social aspect to it. Yes, you're welcome to play in your underwear, but by this logic telephones are also anti-social influences. And I bet when they were introduced, they were proclaimed to be such.

Now, although it has no relevance anymore, the question of whether video games were ever anti-social activities is at least a slightly interesting one. Unfortunately for Newsweek, even this argument holds no water. Video games are no more solitary than reading, writing, skipping rope, or painting. In fact, they are inherently more social than some of these, since it has always been at least theoretically possible to share the activity with another person or persons. And, in point of fact, I remember sitting around, cheating at Duck Hunt by sitting a foot away from the screen, when I was a young man, and I remember playing far too much Madden '96 when I was in high school, and I remember playing far too much Bond 64 when I was in college, and I remember playing far too much Vice City (also Katamari Damacy, which is AWESOME), um, in March. And all of those times, I was with friends.

But back to the subject:

Imagine a Chuck E. Cheese for grown-ups—with booze and Caesar salads instead of balloons and singing animatrons. Bushnell has built "party tables" where six customers can play each other in the same game, and tournaments where diners in any of the restaurants in the chain can compete against each other in a single contest such as Texas Hold 'Em. Bushnell says he will open the first restaurant this fall in Los Angeles.

This isn't a horrible idea for a business, and perhaps the article's bizarre perspective (that video games are solitary, lonely activities for desperate shut-ins) isn't one shared by Bushnell. In fact, a quote of his suggests that he sees it as an alternative to standard adult social activities (you know, getting hammered in smoky saloons): he says that it will be "a more convivial environment for meeting strangers, without all the social risks associated with a bar." And I don't see anything wrong with that.

For a much better and more thorough look at why video games are not Dangerous, read this link, which includes an excerpt from Steven Berlin Johnson's Everything Bad is Good For You.

Yes, another Star Wars post. This one has no spoilers from ROTS, though, so I won't put it behind a cut.

David Brin, a sci-fi author whose work I am completely unfamiliar with, wrote a stinging condemnation of George Lucas's Star Wars universe back in 1999, when The Phantom Menace (Star Wars episode I) came out. He also wrote another piece focusing specifically on Phantom Menace's flaws, inconsistencies, and fascist tendencies. Then, he put together an addendum which is fascinating. If you are a Star Wars nerd, and you haven't already done so, I encourage you to read each of those pieces, in order. The last piece includes the following:

All evidence points to Yoda as co-villain with the emperor all along -- one lightside of the force lying-pompous-schmuck and one darkside heavybreathing-sadist-schmuck. QuiGon was dimly aware of this problem, which is why he tried bypassing Yoda -- twice! -- and yearned for balance. So did Obiwan. And their student? How esthetic it would be for QuiGon and Obiwan to turn out to have been right and Yoda wrong!

How about this? Annakin self-hypnotized an inner core of himself to hide behid a mask while pretending to be the emperor's lackey, getting ready for a day of reckoning with BOTH of those sanctimonious bastards, Yoda and Palpatine! It works!

Here's part of the SALON article that never got included:

Oh, wait. I get it. Annakin was actually a secret agent spy all along! Here's the secret facts:

Vader's the one who sent the secret plans to Leia's ship! He arranged for the droids to get away, and coincidentally land just a few miles from his hidden son! (It explains why Obiwan "hid" Luke on the one planet Darth (I mean Anniken) was most familiar with in the whole universe. The same PART of that planet. It only makes sense if the two were really in cahoots!)

Remember how, a little later, Vader talks Tarkin into "letting them go so we can trace them"? Likewise, he's the only close-up witness to Obiwan disappearing, when he supposedly "killed" his master in that sword fight! (Maybe he actually helped Obiwan pull a vanishing act.) Note that the "fight" with Obiwan distracted the guards & helped let Luke get away!

But there's more! Remember how Vader "chased" Luke in that Tie fighter... which had the chief effect of turning off all the antiaircraft guns and giving the boy a clear shot to blow up the first Death Star! (From which event, Vader is conveniently the only Imperial survivor.)

Recall how in The Empire Strikes Back Vader offered to make Luke co-ruler? (Presumably it would thus be a nicer dynasty than the emperor's). Then in Jedi recall how Vader brought Luke aboard the second Death Star? Could it be because he knew the kid would irritate the emperor and get him upset enough to finally let Darth get a crack at him from behind?

I knew there had to be some reason why Vader didn't seem to detect his own daughter -- all filled with that magic force shit -- when he grabbed her arm and looked into her eyes in Episode... um... IV is it? Then he drug-interrogated her, without detecting any Force? Can there be any explanation except that he already knew?

Pah! He let them both get away deliberately! And whenever they needed guidance, there were the droids... his own special droids, assigned to help and guide his children to their destiny.

Now THERE is an explanation that could get Vader into Jedi Heaven! Maybe Obiwan, too.

But it CANNOT be the same place as Yoda!

Oh, but I forgot about the billions of people Vader helped kill. So never mind. (Too bad. It was starting to look like I could make the Star Wars Universe actually make sense. Alas, it cannot be done. Some miracles are beyond authorial skill. Sigh.)

I agree with a lot of what he has to say, if you're curious, but ultimately my biggest complaint about the movies is in the logical inconsistencies (like the ones I've already written about) and the mind-bendingly-terrible dialogue. I can put up with bad acting--good dialogue can save bad acting--but even great actors can't do much with wooden, expository, clichéd, stupid dialogue.

And as far as I'm concerned, Phantom Menace never happened. The pod race was okay, but overlong, and the light saber fights were supercool, but everything else about this movie sucked. Amidala as a maternal figure to the boy who grows up to knock her up? A plot based on TAX POLICY and TRADING TARRIFFS? Jar Jar's clumsy stupidity winning the battle? For that matter, Annikin destroying the big bad ship by randomly mashing buttons? UGH.

And yes, I am still planning on seeing Revenge of the Sith again.

A selection from The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster

The crippled freighter sailed into my view from the bridge, crossing the crescent of Bespin and making for black space. In moments we would have them!

"This will be a day long rememebered," I said.

...Which is pretty much when the Millennium Falcon escaped to hyperspace.

I sighed. Why me?

I was even too dispirited to crush Admiral Piett's trachea.

Now I am in my hyperbaric chamber, listening to music (Rotan's Sonata for Holotyne) and trying to get a grip on things. Betrayed by a mimbo, surrounded by incompetence, my soul in knots; lost Skywalker, lost Organa, sold Solo...

The Emperor is going to barf when I tell him.

I know I should try not to get too excited about the next (and, theoretically, last) installment of Star Wars... but I can't help myself. The previews look awesome, and Tom Stoppard rewrote all the dialogue so it might not suck, and, oh yeah, Anakin turns into DARTH VADER.

Yesterday, I went to the ASNE (American Society of Newspaper Editors--not to be confused with ASME, the American Society of Magazine Editors)'s annual conference, to eat surprisingly-edible chicken and hear Rupert Murdoch speak. For those of you too lazy to click on that link, Murdoch is the CEO and founder of one of the biggest media empires in the world. He owns News Corp, which owns Fox, Fox News, Fox Sports, DirecTV, a bunch of local Fox stations, a ton of newspapers (including the NY Post, that bastion of objective journalism), and lots more. He had a lot to say about the future of newspapers, and the future of news in general, so I thought I would do my best to recap the speech, as well as give you my thoughts on what he had to say.

( click here to read it )

Today I see George W. Bush speak. I probably won't write so much about that, unless something awesome happens.

Last night, I pulled my Zen Xtra (40gig) out of a pile of crap. My first thought was "what the eff is that?" Then, I remembered, "oh, yeah. That's the mp3 player I used to use at work. Why'd I stop using it? It would be great to have all my music accessible in my office!" So I updated its hard drive with all the music I'd gotten since I stopped using it in July of 2004, and brought it to the office.

Upon which point I began to remember just why, exactly, I stopped using it.

It is slow. It's literally a second of dead air in between songs, and selecting a new playlist or browsing artists or whatever, or just navigating the menu system, is filled with delays and even occasional freezing-up.

It is not user-friendly at all. You know how most players have a "shuffle all" function that is easy to find? Well, not here. You know how to get to that with this magical device? Menu (although you actually get to the menu using the back button--what the fuck?) > Music Library > Play any track. How "play any track" translates to "play entire catalog," I have no idea. It makes no sense at all. Also, you better have it set to shuffle already before you do any of that. Blah. Stupid. A perfect example of how annoying this thing is to use.

The file loading process sucks. It takes forever, and you have to keep the player plugged into the electrical socket because the USB connection doesn't charge the device. Also, although it sometimes stores the id3 tags (you know, the information about who is playing the song and what it's called and all that--somewhat important stuff), sometimes the only info you get is "05 Track 05."

It's a big and awkward fucking thing. Now, okay, size isn't so important in this case, since I'm just planning on sitting it on my desk, connected to my headphones/speakers. But let's get back to the awkward. The buttons are laid out such that, when you're walking around with this huge brick of an mp3 player in your jacket pocket, you can kind of use them efficiently. But when it's sitting on your desk, it's really irritating having to get at tiny side buttons whose functions you can't see from the front (compare this to the iPod's click wheel on the front).

Anyway, this is a more-or-less obsolete player now, I think. So basically I just wasted your time whining about a device that, unless you already made the mistake of buying it, will never affect your life at all.

I am accepting offers for it, if you're interested.

My friend emailed me to ask what kind of mp3 player she should get. ( Here's my response )

All this talk of Apple's new iPod Shuffle makes me wonder: why do mp3 players still come with shitty headphones? The Shuffle, especially, is targeted towards people who already have a player, but generally who the hell in this day and age doesn't already have headphones? Is the number big enough that it doesn't make more sense to drop prices by 5 bucks and let those few luddites buy headphones on their own? I have a rats-nest of cables and wires on my floor as a result of the redundant crap I get with every single electronics purchase I make, and I am sick of it. Apple, those white headphones fucking suck. Either improve them or stop putting them in the box with every mp3 player you sell. This white wire cult is idiotic--it's basically an advertisement to the world announcing "I value conformity over comfort" and it makes me sad.

Quick thoughts:


The Mac Mini is cute, but too expensive. It will be an enormous fucking hit.

The iPod Shuffle is awesome but many many people will not buy it because it lacks a screen. Nonetheless, it weighs LESS THAN AN OUNCE, is smaller than a pack of gum, and is incredibly cheap when compared to flash drives of equal memory size. I think I will probably get one to replace my current flash player, which primarily accompanies me on nights out for the walk home. This thing was made for the change pocket in my jeans.

Here is a great article written by Microsoft copy-protection engineers which considers the "darknet"--the illegal intellectual property distribution network that used to be personal associates trading cassettes and is now characterized by peer-to-peer file-sharing. The article considers current and proposed methods of thwarting or minimizing illegal activity on the darknet and basically concludes "we're fucked." This is my favorite paragraph:

There is evidence that the darknet will continue to exist and provide low cost, high-quality service to a large group of consumers. This means that in many markets, the darknet will be a competitor to legal commerce. From the point of view of economic theory, this has profound implications for business strategy: for example, increased security (e.g. stronger DRM systems) may act as a disincentive to legal commerce. Consider an MP3 file sold on a web site: this costs money, but the purchased object is as useful as a version acquired from the darknet. However, a securely DRM-wrapped song is strictly less attractive: although the industry is striving for flexible licensing rules, customers will be restricted in their actions if the system is to provide meaningful security. This means that a vendor will probably make more money by selling unprotected objects than protected objects. In short, if you are competing with the darknet, you must compete on the darknet’s own terms: that is convenience and low cost rather than additional security.

AMEN. Note that this was written 2 years ago and we're still stuck with obnoxious copy-protection that doesn't work and makes life more annoying for legitimate users. I know big corporations are slow to adjust to changing conditions, but seriously. If somebody had an online music store that sold unrestricted near-CD-quality mp3s I would be on that in a second, even if it were a little more expensive than iTunes (which I don't use, because the files are lower in audio quality than CDs and because the only mp3 player I can use them with is an iPod). And I'm a SOPHISTICATED consumer who realistically could download any song I want for free¹. Imagine how happy grandma would be if she could just download a song and use it however she wanted, rather than get stuck with error messages because she can't figure out DRM.

I think the salient point of the article as well as this posting is that the best way to lose legal paying customers is to restrict their rights (see: DRM, CSS, watermarking, fingerprinting, gene-mapping) and the best way to gain them is to provide a service of equal convenience and value to that of the darknets at a price that makes sense. No more $16 CDs, no more movie downloads that only work on one computer within 24 hours--no more crazy rules or prices that drive consumers into the warm and comforting arms of illegal file-sharing.

1. Though I don't, actually, download any song I want. Instead, I buy CDs and rip them to my hard drive, which is so STUPIDLY INEFFICIENT AND ARCHAIC IT MAKES ME SICK. I mean, I was doing this in 1997!