Mark

Finally

Computers & Internet / /

When I first found out that Napster was being sued by the 5 largest record labels, I was appalled. Not so much at their protecting their rights and sales (though that is debateable), but that they were passing up a huge business deal. Think about it, 40 million people are using a specific piece of software to trade music. Wouldn’t it make more sense to charge for the right to use that software (as opposed to shutting it down)? Instead of embracing technology, the record industry was foolishly trying to put a stop to Napster. Then all the file sharing clones and alternatives showed up. Remember, Napster is only a company that wants to make money but couldn’t (because of the copyright issue). Finally, someone has realized the potential. German media giant Bertelsmann (1 of the aformentioned 5 largest record labels) recently announced that they would be forming a business alliance with Napster, possibly charging a monthly fee of up to $15.00. Though this probably won’t stop file sharing, it will probably be very lucrative for the parties involved…

Math Against Tyranny

Politics / /

This interesting article shows how the electoral college vote empowers voters more than a raw popular vote. Why do people have such a hard time understanding that the Electoral College is a good thing? An interesting analogy is made: “the same logic that governs our electoral system…also applies to many sports” For instance, in baseball’s World Series, the team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But in order to win the series, that team must also win 4 games. In the 1960 World Series, the Yankees scored almost twice as many runs as the Pirates, and yet lost the series. “Runs must be grouped in a way that wins games, just as popular votes must be grouped in a way that wins states.” Wery interesting. [via kottke]

Broken

Movies / /

Unbreakable (***) I like it. I moved the full review to the movies section where it belongs. Go and read its coolness.

Unbreakable

Movies / /

If all goes well, I will be viewing the film Unbreakable tonight. This is M. Night Shyamalan’s film first effort since the wildly successful The Sixth Sense. While I enjoyed The Sixth Sense, I wasn’t overly impressed. It was good, but it had some flaws, and thats the kind of film I expect to see tonight. Judging from the early mixed reviews, I think I’m going to be right. We shall see. Check back later for a mini-review.

A user on the Coming Attractions Discussion Forums made this funny observation: “wouldnt it suck if in the end of unbreakable

bruce willis really did die in the train wreck” – eman182. Lol…

Job Security

Computers & Internet / /

Want to know how to make yourself an irreplaceable programmer? Go here and find out how to make your code unmaintainable by anyone but yourself. No wonder most software sucks.

Perspectives Falling Apart

Music / /

Those of you who think my short review of Things Falling Apart sucks will be glad to know that I agree and that I am linking to a funnier review of the cd. So there. For those of you NIN fans who are not familiar with The Meathead Perspective, I do suggest you check it out. Its a riot.

An exerpt from Meatheads review of The Great Collapse: “This track is a bit repetitive, and fairly simplistic, and a bit repetitive, but after listening to it a few times, it grew on me, kinda like a mild case of hives. ”

Things Falling Apart

Music / /

The new Nine Inch Nails EP Things Falling Apart was officially released today. I got my hands on a copy a few days ago, and its pretty cool, as remix albums go (despite the fact that there are 3 remixes of my least favourite Fragile song, Starf*ckers, Inc). As usual, the remixes are not as dense or robust as the originals, but there’s a few decent mixes on this CD. Slipping Away, a remix of Into the Void, is probably my favourite of the new mixes. Also included is the remake of Metal and a remix of 10 Miles High (a Fragile B-side). Cool schtuff.

Netscape Six

Computers & Internet / /

I don’t know exactly when, but Netscape has recently released the much anticipated Netscape 6.0. I went to Netscape Dowload, and it said I was using IE 5.0 and that I could “Upgrade to Netscape 6” (or Netscape 4.whatever). IMHO, releasing it was a big mistake because there are a ton of bugs and usability issues. I downloaded it this morning, played with it for 10 minutes and found the following problems:

  • The complete download was approx. 24.9 MB. That is huge!
  • Right clicking in many important places does not do anything.
  • I had a ton of trouble trying to set up a proxy server (in all fairness, it was a microsoft server and I can’t get it to work on older versions of Netscape either.)
  • In fiddling with the Proxy settings, I was manually entering sites to bypass the proxy server and everytime I pressed the right arrow key to move the curser, the radio buttons also switched around. That was very disconcerting, but you’d probably have to see it in action to see what I’m talking about…
  • I didn’t seem to get any errors if I typed in an incorrect URL. It simply stayed on the same screen. That’s even more annoying than the generic “404 File not found” message..

Since I couldn’t get the proxy working, I couldn’t really test all the new features, many of which seem really cool. I’m particularly interested in seeing how well Netscape’s mail client handles AOL email addresses and IMs, but then, my 10 minute trial on the browser doesn’t give me much hope. Now don’t get me wrong, I was looking forward to this release, but I think they rushed to put out an incomplete product, and it is a little frustrating. There are a lot of things that are really great about Netscape 6, but I think I’m gonna wait until they stabilize it a little more and work out the bugs before I really start using it…