Judge slams SCO’s lack of evidence against IBM. After all the wild claims they’ve made without providing evidence, it’s nice to see even the judge is getting sick of it.
Author Archives: Kelson
It worked for DIVX, right? (Oh, wait…)
You know, when Napster announced its subscription music plan, I never gave it a second look. Not because I assumed it wouldn’t work with my Linux box or Katie’s Mac, but for one simple reason:
No matter how many songs you “buy” on the plan, once your subscription lapses, they’re all gone.
Want to stop paying $15/mo? Say goodbye to your music.
Napster goes out of business? Say goodbye to your music.
On the other hand, suppose I’ve bought a bunch of songs from iTunes at 99¢ each, and I decide I don’t want to buy any more from them? No problem. If the marketplace changes two years from now and Apple decides to abandon the iTunes music store, I can still listen to songs I bought from them.
Amazingly, some people still need this explained to them. John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes, “I thought this was obvious, but, judging by my email, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion…” Forget the math, do the logic first!
There is one flaw in Gruber’s logic regarding CDs vs. subscription music: while I expect CDs will be playable over the next decade or two, eventually they will go the way of vinyl records. However, if I were to bet, I’d expect my CD collection will be playable long after Napster To Go has, shall we say, gone.
On to step 8
Hmm, CNET reports that spammers are starting to route zombies’ mail through the ISP’s servers. (Hmm, that sounds familiar.) I don’t know about the “email meltdown” Linford warns against, but it will require a change in tactics. And so the escalation continues…
Sticker series: Visualize…
I’m sure you’ve seen the bumper stickers that read:
Visualize World Peace
and the parodies that read:
Visualize Whirled Peas
…but we saw a new one this morning:
Visualize Grilled Cheese
Spam claims a life
Remember Charles Booher, the spam victim who was arrested for making death threats to the sender? (Early reports were that the person on the other end of the phone was an innocent third-party, but that turns out to have been a smoke screen.)
Aunty Spam reports sad news: apparently Booher committed suicide last month, just a week before his court date.
Golf cart xing
Yes, this is on a city street.
What sidewalk?
