Archives for December 2007

The Daily Loper – December 11, 2007

December 11, 2007 by Lopy

Good Times, Bad Times Edition

Todays links of interest:

Imeem To Offer Universal’s Music And Videos
Sigh, the problem with sites like this is that they reinforce Universal’s stance that they are in control of all music, everywhere, world without end amen. Fuck ’em. Also, Imeem? Is. A. Crappy. Name.
RIAA: Those CD rips of yours are still "unauthorized"
Fair Use? The RIAA claims there is no such thing. So what about music that’s never had an official digital release? The only conclusion we can come to is that listening to the Beatles on your iPod is against the law.
Alex Trebek Jeopardized by Heart Attack
"I’ll take Famous Coronaries for $500, please."

50 Great Songs Under 2 Minutes Long

December 11, 2007 by Jim Connelly

I had so much fun last week doing my list of 50 Great Songs Over 7 Minutes Long That Didn’t Make Rolling Stone’s List that I figured I would do a sequel.

Caveats: for better and worse, this list wasn’t created by a group of people sitting in a room, but rather just one guy using his iTunes. It’s probably too short on hardcore and too long on funny songs. However, when putting it together, it struck me that wittiness is a factor in a great short song in the same way that groove is a factor in a great long song.

This time, I narrowed it down to a single song per artist. Some of these are even the best song that artist ever did! And like last time, it’s alphabetical by artist.

50 Great Songs Under 2 Minutes Long

The Daily Loper – December 10, 2007

December 10, 2007 by Lopy

Nighty-Night Shakespeare Edition

Todays links of interest:

The travesty of political robo-calls
Hey, we did this exact same thing over a year ago!!
The First Rule: Do Not Pitch Boing Boing
Excellent piece on the importance of knowing what you’re doing before pitching to various blogs and other online outlets. Of course, the gist of this article is surely to be lost in the cackling over the first commenter’s, uh, lack of knowledge and iffy spelling.
NBC Rings Up Holiday Refunds
For advertisers who aren’t getting the exposure they expected. Hmm, wonder if consumers get a tax break for the waste of public airwaves?

Video on Demand Update: 2007 State of the Industry

December 10, 2007 by Kassia Krozser

Back when I was just a young thing, an (old) man said to me, “Girl, you got a lot to learn about video on demand.” Or maybe not so much. He, with all seriousness, promised me one thing — there would be no VoD. Ever. He’d been in the industry for well over twenty years and on demand programming was always the golden ring. The rainbow. The dream.

Funny thing is, he’s still right. We don’t have true video on demand. We have a lot of video and a lot of demand, but actual, true video on demand remains elusive. There are several reasons, one of which being the root cause of the current writers strike: money. I will be focusing on the motion picture industry here, because the ownership rules are different in the movie biz.
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The Daily Loper – December 7, 2007

December 7, 2007 by Lopy

Cajun Style Edition

Todays links of interest:

Writers: Studios, networks ready to prolong strike
Of course they are. Because, they are unwilling to fairly pay for content streaming from the internets. In the meantime, the actual amount of network television actually being watched in ‘Loper households will plummet. No reruns, no reality shows, no thank you.
Store ad: Hams ‘delicious for Chanukah’
True. Or you could stick with the more traditional Hanukkah bacon.
Bonds wants to play somewhere in 2008
Maybe Japan.

The World’s Most Expensive RSS Reader

December 7, 2007 by Kassia Krozser

I know, I know, Kirk has already done the ultimate appreciation of RSS — what can I possibly add to the conversation? Well, how about a little thing that I like to call the “World’s Most Expensive RSS Reader”? See, it’s not enough to have RSS; the entire experience cannot be enjoyed without a decent way of reading feeds. Sort of like cause and effect but more modern.

Since I switched to a Mac, I’ve been in a sort of RSS limbo. I’ve tried and rejected far too many readers — the built-in reader for Thunderbird came closest to meeting my personal needs (and it’s important to note that there is no one size fits all solution when it comes to RSS — everyone has their own quirks and requirements), but then, for reasons too lengthy to detail here, I stopped using Thunderbird.*

I hesitated over using Google Reader. I am not sure why — it just seemed wrong for me. Yeah, I can’t explain it. I mean, I’m one of those people who, as a matter of course, opens a slate of seven “standard” tabs each time I restart Firefox.** Those tabs represents the websites I must have access to multiple times during my normal day. Adding Google Reader to this group was not a challenge (obviously), but still I didn’t embrace the technology. I half-heartedly rebuilt my feeds feed in Google Reader…and still hesitated.
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Will An Irrational Fear of Piracy Destroy the Publishing Industry Too?

December 6, 2007 by Kirk Biglione

When they write the history of how the recording industry botched its transition to digital content distribution, they’ll probably devote a whole chapter to the Diamond Rio.

Ugly as it was, the Rio was the first widely available portable MP3 player. While the appearance of the device indicated a clear demand from consumers for portable digital music, the recording industry saw it as a threat. Instead of embracing digital music and working to develop a viable business model for digital content distribution, the RIAA took the manufacturer of the Rio to court and tried to have the product taken off the market. The RIAA was at war with the MP3 format, and claimed that any device capable of playing MP3 files would clearly contribute to piracy.

The RIAA ultimately lost its lawsuit, and the rest is history. While the Rio may seem like a footnote now, it was an important milestone. The court ruling on the Rio case cleared the way for Apple’s iPod, and eventually the iTunes music store.

The Daily Loper – December 7, 2006

December 6, 2007 by Lopy

Hoification Edition

Todays links of interest:

Amy Winehouse Draws 6 Grammy Nominations
It’s such a pity that she won’t be around to see if she won or not.
Parents Television Council Denounces CBS’s ‘Dexter’ Plan
Continuing our theme of intolerance among religious nuts. Rather than denouncing the plan, why not just, oh, not watch the programming while letting those of us who don’t have issues with the show watch it?
Facebook | My Privacy
Where to turn off Facebook’s Beacon.

The Daily Loper – December 5, 2007

December 5, 2007 by Lopy

This Time, It’s Personnel Edition

Todays links of interest:

Revisiting An Old Favorite
Apparently, last week was "Replacements Reminiscence Week" in the blogosphere. There were probably only ever maybe a hundred thousand hardcore ‘mats fans ever, but man oh man, noone ever fell in love with that band and then later wondered what the hell they were thinking. It’s a lifetime membership.
Facebook apologizes for Beacon, lets users turn it off
Please don’t leave us! Please don’t leave us! We promise we’ll figure out another way to monetize you!
Universal Music Restricting Music Streaming On Certain Sites
In other Universal Music news…they continue to make it hard for people to actually enjoy their product.

Writers Strike Deathwatch: Heroes

December 5, 2007 by Jim Connelly

Thanks to the magic of TiVo, I caught up with what will probably be the Season Finale of Heroes, which is the latest casualty of the WGA strike. No more episodes have been produced, but as a ever-wavering fan of the show, I actually think that the strike might be a good thing for it, in terms of quality.

Here’s the thing that has always driven me nuts about Heroes: it acts as if it is a much much better show than it actually is, and Monday’s Finale was a microcosm of that.

[WARNING: there are spoilers for the Season Finale after the jump]