Category: Life

Bob Clark, the director of “A Christmas Story” (one of my favourite movies), passed away Wednesday after his car was hit head on by a drunk driver. His son, at his side inside the vehicle, was also killed.

More here.

I could write about it, but really – just watch it:

Bill O’Reilly Interviewing on Iranian British Capture Situation.

And people consider FOX News an actual news source? What kind of news organization allows even their “opinion” shows to lack such human decency? O’Reilly completely forgoes any rational discussion offered by the guest, instead twisting her words and lashing out direct insults.

This kind of behaviour is absolutely inexcusable.

Either Steve Jobs is a master tactician, or this is the best instance of being at the right place, at the right time, for Apple.

The Apple/EMI deal announced today stipulates that there’ll be new tracks available in the iTunes catalog with no DRM, and twice the bitrate. How anyone would even consider purchasing music encoded at 128kbps had always baffled me. Not everything is glowing, however – that lack of DRM will come at a 30% price increase per track.

Now the consumer rights activists would argue that the removal of DRM should not equate in a price rise. If anything, it reduces the cost by removing the infrastructure necessary to support the DRM platform. To satisfy them, Apple has doubled the bitrate of the songs – inherently increasing their value at virtually no cost. That said, that price hike is only for the single tracks. The cost of an album on iTunes will not change.

EMI wins by getting increased royalty payments. Furthermore, by keeping the cheaper DRMed music in the iTunes catalog, people won’t be turned off by the higher price point of the DRM-less music. They can just go for the restrictive cheaper alternative.

Apple wins because they’re shedding the recent momentum in Europe against the lock-in between the iTunes and the iPod due to their DRM platform. Both Apple and EMI will face little opposition from consumer rights activists for having raised the price, because of Apple’s choice to double the bitrate.

The music listener wins because the music they get is not only at much better quality, but they can now make it work everywhere they want to.

The only ones that might risk getting hurt are proponents of DRM technologies. If EMI becomes succesful on iTunes, it might undermine the case for the use of DRM. Nevertheless, it doesn’t affect the legitimacy of laws surrounding legislative protection of DRM. Those that promote WIPO treaty ratification in Canada won’t lose from this announcement.

This is a positive all around.

University is coming to an end for many of my friends. Some are going to continue their education, others are going to be free to venture out in the great big world. These years have been special, and it’s going out in style.

Thanks to GAAG/OIKOS, we all went to a camp by the name of Awacamenj Mino. It was extremely well organized, and we had a wicked time. My camera caught a glimpse of the fun, but some magic just can’t be caught on film. Check the photos here.

To us, and our future – which has many parties to go yet!

If I were analyzing the situation with the RIAA and it’s suing of filesharers, I’d say that it’s part of their multifaceted approach to reducing current levels of illicit file sharing. I’d say that their approach isn’t so much measured by the number of actual lawsuits, but rather by the impact these have on the general file sharing population. A psychological war, if you will. After all, it is unfeasible for them to sue every single P2P user. But if they can scare enough people into stopping, by appearing to be this ruthless entity – then they are succeeding.

To this extent, I can understand their lawsuits against single mothers, old ladies, and children. Nevertheless, they tread a fine line. The fact that they’ve launched action against people that haven’t even owned a computer has already elicited negative attention. If they aren’t careful, the politicians they haven’t bought might turn against them.

Today comes news that the RIAA is deposing a ten year old child, who would have been seven at the time of infringement. According to RIAA’s previous statements, they maintain that infringers cause damages of $150,000 per song downloaded. The press is going to find this one tough to swallow, and if the RIAA isn’t careful, their efforts may backfire.