But of course, my intent (as usual) is not to infringe on copyright, but to show how amazing Archer is and actually get more people to watch, so I’m still going to try to share this clip with the world. (Hey, I would embed their video and drive traffic to FX directly to promote the show, but their video clip collection is a bit sparse.)

Anyway, so here is it: from “The Limited” (season 3, episode 3), a great clip with Archer & Babou (the ocelot) that perfectly captures a key part of how awesome the show is. I’m obligated to give you a SPOILER ALERT warning since the clip is from the end of the episode, but watching it really won’t ruin anything for you since almost every Archer episode ends with some crazy chaos. Enjoy!

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“The bottom line is that your country and you have to be on the same page where values are considered, principles are considered, what you believe in. And if that is not the case, then it’s… you may be born somewhere and brought up somewhere, but then you don’t feel that same type of loyalty. Because loyalty comes through ideas, not through the earth, not through mud and trees and hills. That’s the same everywhere in the world. Is there any country in the world that has it enshrined in the constitution that you have a right to be happy?”

And to underline the point even more, note that Larsen is originally from Pakistan. Food for thought– check out the trailer for “Citizen USA” below:

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“If they’re not gonna make a distinction between Muslims and violent extremists, then why should I take the time to distinguish between decent, fearful white people and racists?”

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This feature is now part of what TiVo calls “trick play”– the ability to pause live TV and play back up to the last 30 minutes of recently viewed TV. And of course, this feature was not actually this feature in 1988; the recall button was actually a “last channel” button, automatically changing the channel to the previous or last channel viewed. Never having had a remote, much less a TV that was capable of remembering what the previous channel was, I thought this amazing new TV– small, but with the channel displayed on the screen in neon green digital numbers and shiny silver buttons that silently changed the channel up and down (instead of a plastic knob and dial that clicked as you turned it)– was surely capable of “recalling” the last few minutes of precious TV.

But no, it would be at least a decade before somebody out there thought of this idea, along with a long list of other great ones, and came out with the first public trials of TiVo, debuting in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998, around the same time I first came out to the Bay Area myself (and have yet to go back). Busy, busy, busy.

And, by the way, do you know how hard it is to fix marble? That you would have to basically replace everything damaged here? Even if I was immortal and unbelievably wealthy– thus, having both the time and money to do it– I would be supremely peeved at the damage done to the steps of the dais, never mind how stupid the dais and thrones are. (That part of the fight isn’t in the clip, but you can see part of it at 1:50 in this featurette. I know, I have too much time on my hands right now. At least I tell you how to cut to the chase with the video.)

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I finally tried The Bay Fish & Chips last week and it has that greasy spoon with great food feeling. Aside from pleasantly big, deep-fried pieces of fish, they also offer shrimp, calamari, scallops, etc. And aside from classic chips, they also have deep-fried mushrooms, zucchini, artichoke, onion rings, etc.

What’s twisted, though? The fish tank with two giant goldfish swimming around, sitting right there, up on the counter, with a good view to where they cook the fish.

Having said that, I love Jimmy Fallon too and these spots he does are hilarious. Here’s the one on Snickers Ads:

Check out more at Robert is Bothered.

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And from his stand-up show, on hip hop. Fast forward to 1:28 to see him perform as LL Cool J, Snoop, DMX, and Jay-Z:

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Am I the only one who still finds Jeff Goldblum attractive in a non-human way (The Fly, Earth Girls Are Easy)?

Disclaimer: I actually know a really smart and talented engineer who, after so many years in the industry, but no official degree, did his undergraduate degree through them so he could move on to a Master’s and I can’t blame him. Good for him.

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I didn’t think a show about web videos would be interesting since I’m not a fan of “wrap-up” shows and I think it’s weird when you people use TV to talk about things from the Internet– it’s like they’re dumbing down computers and the Internet to make it more accessible via television because staring at a TV screen is easier than staring at a monitor.

In any case, I gave the show a shot because I love Daniel Tosh and the show is actually pretty entertaining. And yes, I actually find exactly what I thought I wouldn’t like– using TV to “wrap-up” popular web content– useful since I don’t usually have time to troll the Internet for funny videos. And the Tosh.0 blog is actually a nice complement to the show itself, without being redundant. Give it a shot.

Here’s Daniel Tosh’s hilarious follow up to the above video:

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So, stay tuned.

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Another example of his great talent for explaining complex issues so that more people are aware of and understand these issues (and have a laugh while you’re at it).

Another show that’s great at this: The Daily Show, of course. Remember John Hodgman’s piece on Net Neutrality? Genius.

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Stupid censors.

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In addition to personal videos, I managed to slip a Kids in the Hall sketch through the system. Amazingly, I received a message from the KITH today via YouTube and I was afraid I was going to have another copyright complaint in my hands. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the following message:

Hey Hey,

Thanks for posting one of our videos on YouTube. We love it! Wanted to tell you about our new sketch "Car Bangers," available only online. If you like it, please subscribe to our page as well. And we are on tour- check out dates on our MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/kithtour08.

Peace!
KITH

Based on the comments posted on the KITH YouTube channel, it looks like many other fans got similar messages thanking them for posting video clips online. It’s one of the few times I’ve ever heard of artists (or rather the people that own the copyright allowing the artists) to support fans putting some of their works online. It gives the concept of viral video a fair chance! This is a particularly interesting idea for artists like KITH– it’s been years since they were on the air, but with fans posting videos online, they can reach a whole new fan base, a fan base who can buy their DVDs, buy tickets to their live shows, and more. It’s a great marketing opportunity and I’m glad somebody sees it so clearly and simply and acts on it. No muddying the waters with threats of lawsuits and content hoarding.

So, aside from loving their sketches, that’s another reason why I love the Kids in the Hall. Check out their latest video: Car Bangers.

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Pimp Shit (featuring Budz)

Check it out on Amazon.

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Secret Lives of Women. This show is about the “secret lives” of women, “[f]rom fetishes and fantasies to polygamists to the dirty little secrets of suburbia.” Most of the shows are very interesting and downright compelling– in the most recent episode I watched, “Sex Trade,” there was a story about an Asian pre-med student who works as a high-priced (I mean, not Eliot Spitzer high-priced, but anywhere from a few hundred to several thousands dollars) escort and call girl. (They obscure her face throughout the show, but I swear I know her.) Other past episodes have included topics such as “Plastic Surgery Addicts,” “Cheaters,” “Cougars,” and “Lipstick Lesbians.” The new season premieres on April 1. Check out these clips: “Sex for Sale,” “Why I Am A Cougar,” and “Mommy is a Phone Sex Operator“.

High School Confidential. Now, this is an interesting project: many of us think back and remember how much we’ve changed since high school, but not only that, how much we changed just in the four years while in high school. The show followed 12 girls for four years and now we get to see these girls deal with “sex, drugs, unwanted pregnancy, health crisis, and family chaos — all while trying to discover who they are.” The show particularly resonates for me because I remember many of my friends and myself changing so much from the time we were freshmen to the time we were juniors and seniors– we entered with such an idealistic look at the world and with such a high sense of morality, but real life sets in, slowly for surely, and things change very quickly, including our ideas of right and wrong. For the men out there: check out this show to get some insight into the psycho social mind job high school can be from the female perspective. Check out this video for a taste of what the show is about.

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Check it out:

Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

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The entire Timbaland album is pretty good; I really like that he’s working in a bunch of different styles, with a bunch of different artists, from Justin Timberlake to Fall Out Boy to Elton John to OneRepublic.

And if you’re curious about the girl singing the hooks in “The Way I Are,” it’s Keri Hilson who has, until now, mainly been a songwriter as part of The Clutch, a strong group of songwriters responsible for a series of hit songs, including Mary J. Blige’s “Take Me As I Am,” but in 2006, signed onto Timbaland’s new label and will be releasing her debut album soon.

However, the most interesting thing I learned about was the site myfreeimplants.com. Cosmetic surgery financing at its finest, the site basically pairs up women who want to get breast implants with men who are willing to “donate” money to their cause.

Only in America. You’ve got to love a free market.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to next week’s episode My Big Breasts and Me.

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Perhaps they’re only actively monitoring new content now– those lazy bastards.

In any case, I’ll scrounge around and try to replace the clips.

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Of course, although I don’t actually care about maintaining an active channel worthy of thousands of subscribers and followers, the sad part is that, in a big box, in big letters, the channel displays a list of your YouTube Friends and mine sadly says “You have no Friends.” That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?

Anyway, if you are more than a casual user on YouTube and want to be my friend (I can’t believe I’m actually writing this), please add me as a friend.

But you know, only if you want to.

Sad. So sad.

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• Confessions of a College Callgirl. I think the appeal here is self-explanatory, but particularly interesting tidbits lately: Blowjob Tutorial (try comparing notes to what’s in Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man), The Number is Eight, It Happened to Me!, and Workin’ for the Weekend. There usually isn’t art along with the posts that make it obviously NSFW, for tread carefully.
• David Byrne Journal. Aside from the awesomeness of Talking Heads and his continued work as a very talented musician (like being on the composing team that won the Oscar for Best Original Score in 1988 for The Last Emperor), he’s a talented and accomplished writer as well. His blog is both interesting and entertaining; the first post I read when I discovered it– Social “Hateworking”, IKEA– got me to subscribe right away.
• Overhead in New York. One of many “Overhead in…” sites (linked to from the NY site), but being a New York-er, this one appeals to and entertains me the most. Overheard in the Office is a pretty good second.
• Stephen Fry. There are so many reasons to love Stephen Fry, including his role as Jeeves in Jeeves and Wooster (probably the best screen adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories), A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and Blackadder (I know there’s an association-with-Hugh Laurie theme here). He’s only been blogging for a few months, but I love the way he writes (reflected well on screen in A Bit of Fry & Laurie) and he’s been blogging regularly since being asked to write a weekly tech column for The Guardian. He knows his tech, among many other things, and both techie and fuzzy can appreciate his posts. Check out his first column post, “Welcome to Dork Talk”, his hilarious review of smartphones, and his very well-written post on botnets.

Check ‘em out. (As if you didn’t already have RSS feeds to get through everyday.)

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Maybe this is how you get a palace with a phallus.

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Okay, so it’s more about typography and graphic design, but still. And of course, I’ll watch it when it comes out on DVD (Tuesday, November 20).

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I assume they found me by stumbling on my 2005 blog posts on the topic (part 1 and the very brief part 2), but I’m not quite sure of the path they took to find the posts since, unlike some Google searches, I don’t show up as one of the top results for “double eyelid surgery” or “Asian blepharoplasty.”

In any case, while Montel is one of the more respectable daytime talk shows, it sounds like I would basically be going on the show to tell this woman that I think what she’s already done to herself is wrong. And to be honest, while I am against this desire among some Asian people to try to, as the folks at Montel say, “erase their race” and look more westernized, this desire to deny one’s own heritage, and (for the most part) purely elective plastic surgery in general, at the end of the day, like most things, I don’t feel so strongly about it that I expect other people to replace their own judgement and choices with mine. While I may not make the same choices, your body is yours and, as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, you are free to do with it as you wish. If you think double eyelid surgery or breast implants or liposuction will make you happy and you really want to do it, you should do it.

So, given all that, one of the things I’m really against is staged conflict (I have enough problems without having to create drama) and that is exactly what most daytime talk shows and going on Montel would be. Sorry America, I won’t be launching my talk show career just yet.

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phreequeshow

Fascinating and, in many ways, inspiring. (You try to dress yourself, eat or any number of things without any arms or legs.)

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What kind of God creates Adam in His image and then pulls Eve out of him to keep him company? And then tells him not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge? I mean, He was so micromanaging. And so was Adam. But Eve– Eve just wanted to know shit.

More quotes from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

For me however, aside from the clever movie promotion, the reason I’m writing about this is not because I’m necessarily a big fan of The Simpsons– I think it’s a funny show and I watched it pretty regularly at some point, but I really don’t get the cult-like devotion (including how everybody would grab their dinner and rush to watch the reruns in the lounge during college) and frenzied anticipation surrounding the movie. Instead, when discussing the news in the office this week (a particular coworker is our in-house Simpsons devotee and expert, often taking any and all opportunities to relate real life situations, work-related or otherwise, to Simpsons episodes), a coworker (not the same one) told a hilarious story that, on his behalf, I just had to blog (hopefully, I’m summarizing relatively accurately):

On Monday, he got a call from “Brooke” from ABC 7; she left a message, asking him to please call her back at 415… So, naturally curious, he called back and she said she was calling about the Kwik-E-Mart promotion. He was obviously confused, but then realized she was trying to call a 7-Eleven in Mountain View when she asked, “Is this the 7-Eleven on Pear Road?” He said, “No, this is a private residence,” and that was that, but the hilarious coincidence– or not– is that he is, in fact, Indian! And he has, in fact, gotten a “wrong number” call at least once before for 7-Eleven!

I did some digging around– online and offline– and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how they thought his phone number was the number for the 7-Eleven on Pear Avenue. Aside from the fact that the numbers aren’t actually similar in any way and the phonebook, online and offline, doesn’t even list the number for that store (which is weird in and of itself– Google simply lists it as (650) 555-5555), the way to find the correct contact info for the store is easy enough: first, the 7-Eleven website lists the new Kwik-E-Mart locations, including the San Francisco/Mountain View store. I don’t know why, but while the address is listed, the phone number isn’t. However, the 7-Eleven website does have, like most retail company sites, a “store locator” feature and if you search for the closest store near Pear Avenue in Mountain View, CA, you get the correct contact info, including phone number.

So, hilarious coincidence or is someone out there picking Indian surnames out of the phonebook in search of Apu?

(And no, my coworker’s name isn’t Apu.)

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Found this waiting on my chair in my office this morning when I got in. There are so many things wrong with this that I can’t even begin to get into it. All I have to say is, as Lil’ Romeo says, “Stay in school.”

Go to: Rap Snacks website.

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Just got back from the John Mayer concert at HP Pavilion in San Jose. Great, as usual, and included an extra special opening guest– Ben Folds.

Of course, you may be wondering though then what this is a photo of. Well, my camera phone can’t really pick up anything worth putting up here, so you’ll have to rely on photos from the show page. However, my camera phone can pick up a picture of the puddle left by the drunk concert guy who visited the stairwell we were sitting right next to. I noticed him first since he decided to have a smoke (regular tobacco, for those wondering) in our stairwell, but at some point realized that the smoking had stopped and he had moved on to something else. I suppose I realized what he was doing right away and in fact, I wasn’t really that surprised, but my camera phone reflexes aren’t fast enough yet, so before I knew it, he had shaken it off, zipped it up, and fled the scene of the crime.

The even funnier thing is that a) his seat was only about three rows down and half a section over and b) there was a men’s bathroom directly outside. I guess he just really couldn’t miss any of the concert, at any price.

We proceeded to monitor peeing concert guy as he became more and more intoxicated. We also monitored how many people unknowingly walked through his puddle, probably thinking it was just spilled beer. It was a lot. The stairwell between sections 102 and 103 also turned out to be a very happening place in general. We almost got to see a handjob performed (there’s something about a finale that gets the juices flowing I guess), but at the last minute, I think they got stage fright.

So, in any case, drunk guy with the longish blond hair, in section 102, approximately row 15: we saw you. We saw you pee.

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Check it out, if only for the psychedelic color thing happening on their website that’s like the Mac OS X Flurry screen saver, and if you’re interested, let me know if you want an invite.

Cool.

Read: Bill Cosby to Deliver Keynote Address

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This was pointed out by, in his usual high-performing fashion, our new sysadmin from work, along with the broken comment posting on my blog. And here I thought I was just unpopular. (Of course, I may still be unpopular, but now I can’t blame it on an Internal Server Error.)

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Note the copycat version of video sharing: Viacom’s replacement for all those video clips pulled after the mother lawsuit against Google over their YouTube clips. It’s not a bad reproduction of YouTube functionality in terms of letting me embed this clip here or pass around the URL, but I certainly don’t get my pick of clips, which I suppose is part of the point, but also the ultimate price. Case in point: again on The Daily Show, Larry Wilmore and John Oliver did a great piece last week on the proposed N-word ban in New York City. The piece quickly made it onto YouTube and was subsequently taken down due to copyright complaints by Viacom, but it wasn’t in turn made available by Viacom on the Comedy Central site. As a result, another brilliant combination of comedy, journalism, and social commentary is lost in the endless bowels of cable TV history, only to be re-experienced or heard of again by the lucky re-run watcher. Are you happy Viacom?

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Like E.F., there are a lot of common things out in there in the world that we’re all aware of, but don’t have real words or phrases to capture them with so we can refer to them in our daily conversations. The Meaning of Liff, aside from being terribly amusing, manages to capture a lot of those things, whether the word be adjective, verb or noun, made-up or real:

AINDERBY STEEPLE (n.)
One who asks you a question with the apparent motive of wanting to hear your answer, but who cuts short your opening sentence by leaning forward and saying ‘and I’ll tell you why I ask…’ and then talking solidly for the next hour.

BODMIN (n.)
The irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the amount pooled and the amount needed when a large group of people try to pay a bill together after a meal.

YARMOUTH (vb.)
To shout at foreigners in the belief that the louder you speak, the better they’ll understand you.

For the American reader, it may feel a little strange– the book was written by two Brits, Douglas Adams (of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame) and John Lloyd (who also worked on parts of the radio series of The Guide and produced all four Blackadder series, another favorite of mine), and its contents have a markedly British tone. (Of course, I opted for the authentic UK edition, shiny and new, shipped over from the UK.)

In any case, for those who love words, even made up ones, and being able to sum up the daily idiosyncrasies of life, you should take a look.

Get a random meaning of Liff

*And as my co-worker said of Jack Tripper, “he had such a 70′s f*cking haircut, I just wanted to punch him in the face.” (No offense to John Ritter, God rest his soul. Despite probably being best-known for playing Jack Tripper, he did a lot of other work that I thought was much better and certainly induced less E.F.)

Visiting Wikipedia today, like I usually do many times a day, I noticed that today’s featured article is on Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated TV series on Nickelodeon. I coincidentally just bought the first season DVD collection, but have been watching this show religiously and am desperately waiting for the new season to start.

This show is amazing. I am a lover of cartoons and comics already, but this really is an incredible series and I recommend it to everyone. I won’t go over the details of the premise and all that– the Wikipedia article does a very thorough, well-written job of that– but I will tell you that the story line is compelling, the characters are well-developed and interesting, and the animation is well-done (a mix between anime and American cartoons). Most importantly, the creators have done a great job in developing an entire world, a universe to set the series in. It combines martial arts and mysticism to tell the story of a boy savior that will work to master and regain balance among the four classical elements (air, water, earth and fire) and bring peace to the world. The story is told with humor, drama and action and the creators have taken great care in not only drawing from a number of cultural influences– especially Asian art and mythology– but also treating them with deep respect and weaving them expertly into this fictional universe. They take great care in hiring experts in everything from martial arts (each bending style is based on a particular Chinese fighting style) to the calligraphy that appears in various parts of the show. It’s one of the few times that when I see something that is this “pan-Asian,” it doesn’t feel like an exploitation or exportation of Asian culture. Instead, it just feels organic, natural.

I highly recommend it. You’ll want to be a bender just like Aang.

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Blogging about squirrels made me think about The Sword in the Stone– there’s a great section of the movie where Merlin turns Arthur (Wart) and himself into squirrels– and watching it again reminded me how much I loved this movie when I was younger. Before The Little Mermaid and the resurgence in popularity of Disney animated movies in the early nineties, instead of watching Cinderella or Snow White, this was the Disney movie that I loved and watched over and over again. Maybe it was just because there was a copy of this movie in my house for some reason, but I loved it and it was probably for the better, with its message of knowledge and wisdom as the real power, smart storytelling, entertaining references to history and science, and ultimately sentimental, yet still uplifting story of a downtrodden orphan destined for greatness.

But you’ll note from the above screenshot how this animated classic, based on the novel by T.H. White, might have been in the back of the minds of the creators of Dory and Nemo and before there was Harry Potter, there was The Sword in the Stone as the retelling of the Arthurian Legend as the story of Wart as the unfortunate orphan who stumbles onto his destiny and a world with wizards and, of course, owls.

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But of course, John Mayer actually was at MacWorld SF this year and performed during the keynote. In fact, he was in San Francisco for a few days, including an exclusive set at the W. I promise you I really am not celebrity crazy. The ongoing irony of this whole thing just continues to be somewhere between annoying and amusing.

Anyway, enjoy this vid of John Mayer demo-ing a Two-Rock Amp/riffing on his song “Slow Dancing” (discovered from his blog):

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In any case, it brought up discussion of Raffi in general– I’ve always thought of him as a little saccharin and, like a lot of children’s entertainment, just a little creepy. I was never exposed to Raffi as a child (I don’t think all of this specially developed child entertainment, no matter how educational or enriching, managed to penetrate the first-generation immigrant market), but a co-worker of mine was relating how his sister, whose children are in their teens now, used to play Raffi for her children. It was practically an accident when it started– she had gotten the CDs or whatever from someone and was just trying them out– and her daughter immediately started dancing around and took to Raffi and his music right away. It is some strange phenomenon. I don’t really understand it, but children are drawn in, they are ensorceled.

In any case, this all reminded me of a great Tiny Toons cartoon called “Ruffled Ruffee.” Enjoy:

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In any case, Crow went on first tonight and did a great set. I’ll admit that I was there to see Mayer, but from what I know about her and what I saw, Crow is a great artist and looks and sounds incredible. While I appreciated the fact that, since I don’t know all her music, she played all her hits– polished and well performed– I enjoyed her best when she let loose and showed us that she can really rock. I especially enjoyed her Kiss encore, including the great guitar solo by (I think) Tim Smith.

But when Mayer finally took the stage, I think everyone was really blown away– he opened with strong songs off of Continuum (the new album) and from his work with John Mayer Trio and my friend, who didn’t really know much about Mayer until tonight, was blown away by his performance. Mayer opened with “Belief” (now there’s a song about our times), which I have been listening to constantly and have been dying to hear live, and he didn’t disappoint. He followed with more great blues-rock performances as well as an acoustic version of his Grammy-winning “Daughters.” Sure, he eventually broke out one or two of the older pop-rock hits like “Why Georgia” and of course, “No Such Thing,” but in the end, even those are enriched by a great live performance because every time it’s a little different and the audience brings its own energy to the stage.

In the end, if you only know John Mayer from his first or even second albums and you’ve written him off as a pop-rock artist, then you’re not doing him justice– he’s an incredible musician and seeing him perform live will prove just that. You’ll see just how talented he is on that guitar (especially playing a sweet Fender Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat) and just how passionate he is when he performs– at times, it’s like he’s all alone and we’ve been let in to watch some intimate act. Check out a show if you can and if you can’t, at least check out his latest albums– the live album Try! from John Mayer Trio and the latest Continuum.

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1. More John Mayer missed connections
2. Bay Area public transportation, missed John Mayer connections, and MacWorld 2005

If ever there comes a time when everyone you vote for wins and they do everything you think they should do, there will still be a gap between what is and what ought to be, at home and around the world. It’s just inevitable… And so people like you and me– private citizens– have more power to do public good than ever before and we should step into the gap. And unlike previous times, it’s great if you’re rich– Bill Gates and Warren Buffet deserve the world’s thanks and gratitude– it’s amazing what they’re doing, but you don’t have to be rich. In the tsunami, Americans gave 1.3, 1.2 billion dollars. Thirty percent of our households gave over half of them over the Internet. That’s stunning. So, that means if like everybody that’s watching The Daily Show decides tomorrow that they think the biggest thing in the world is to make America free of foreign oil and they want us to go into biofuels and there’s a fund that promotes that and everybody that sees this show gives ten or fifteen or twenty dollars– not big money– they all do it, you could change the world.

Watch it at Comedy Central– Part 1 and Part 2– and check out the the Clinton Global Initiative.

And for more fun, a general history on registration acts in comics.

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1. Comic book heroes and history
2. Serendipity: downloading comics
3. Books

(I know, Phoenix’s hair is more red, but in some shots from the movie, it looks purple and in the sun, my hair sometimes looks more red than purple, and in general, it was creeping me out. Case in point: see screenshot.)

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1. Purple Kid

(There’s also a weird undercurrent of kinky sexuality involving whoopee cushions and the like ever since they introduced Harley Quinn into the Batman universe, especially in the animated series, but that’s a whole other issue.)

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1. Non-sequitur: What is with these pants?
2. It’s Cartoon Saturday

I’ve been watching a lot of Batman: The Animated Series (on DVD) and I came across one of the episodes with Talia and Ra’s Al Ghul. Here’s a screenshot of Talia and Bruce Wayne in a shop somewhere in the desert searching for her father, but I’m really getting stuck on these pants. What is with them? Why do they do that weird thing, sticking out mid-thigh? They’re like weird desert camel-riding pants… I feel like I’ve seen them before in movies on people as some sort of riding pants… if anybody’s got any ideas, please please let me know. It’s starting to drive me crazy.

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2. Well delivered apology = good customer service
3. When good computers go bad

New boy in the neighborhood
Lives downstairs and it is understood.
He’s there just to take good care of me,
Like he’s one of the family.

Charles in Charge of our days and our nights
Charles in Charge of our wrongs and our rights

And I sing, I want, I want Charles in Charge of me.

Charles in Charge of our days and our nights
Charles in Charge of our wrongs and our rights

And I sing, I want, I want Charles in Charge of me.

He lives downstairs and its understood? He’s in charge of our days and our nights, of our wrongs and our rights? Sounds like the Powells’ had their own little dominatrix living downstairs. Chachi’s all grown up.

For more than you ever wanted to know about Charles in Charge, check this out.

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1. End of days

On top of that, once Sony was outed, they offered a Web-based uninstaller for the rootkit. However, if you were to use the Sony-provided uninstaller, it would leave a security hole open on your computer that could be easily exploited by a mailicious user (i.e., hacker). Again, evil, no?

In any case, I thought I would post on this for those people who might read this little blog and who might have not been paying attention to the Sony DRM fiasco because they didn’t readily understand words like “DRM” and “rootkit.” If you consume music, if you use a computer, this is an important thing for you to be aware of and to learn about. In my mind, in the name of balancing the demands of fair use and copyright, Sony took advantage of a malicious technology because the average person could not understand it, much less detect it. Of course, what really amazes me is that in among all of the software engineers, product managers, and others who were involved in the development of Sony’s DRM software, not one person thought that this was a bad idea? There most likely was and I’d be interested to see if one of those people could give some insight into the origins of this fiasco, to help us make sense of this ridiculousness. Maybe that lone voice of reason lost his job or took some cash to shut up or was forced to sign an NDA or other confidentiality agreement over it, but I’ve got a feeling that if he was brave enough to talk now, I’m sure many would be interested in what he had to say and I bet some would even champion him for getting out the truth.

For more info on this whole thing, review Russinovich’s original post on his discovery as well as Ed Felten’s ongoing commentary, including Alex Halderman and his analysis of the security hole caused by Sony’s uninstaller and their proof-of-concept exploit.

The West Wing is a great show for many reasons, but one of the most interesting ones is that although they have focused on a Democratic White House for over six seasons, that even if you don’t necessarily agree with the policies and ideologies championed on the show, when you watch The West Wing, you feel like those who work in government feel a sense of duty and, at the end of the day, truly believe they have the best interest of the country and the American people in mind. How close to the truth that really is, I don’t know, but as we watch the rest of the campaign this season, I can’t help hoping that Vinick will win the presidency and that we will get to watch a Republican West Wing. Because even though what side of the culture war I’m on is so very clear and my own distaste for the Republican party could hardly be greater, I think showing a positive, uplifting Republican White House might not only be an interesting writing experiment for the West Wing writers, but an interesting experiement for the rest of us.

The episode is over now. I am slightly concerned that there might be people out there who will think that Smits and Alda are actually running for political office.

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1. West Wing envy

The official press release is at the Stanford Report.

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1. YMU and Stanford
2. Microsoft redeems itself… a little
3. New site design

And they’re getting particularly creative too. I love it.

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1. The RIAA and Internet2
2. RIAA continues fight while new company tries paradigm shift

The criticism was certainly not unexpected– I predicted that list of points (and more) a year ago when this all started. The only real issue I have with that Letter to the Editor is that, well, we actually did run a survey (2 actually, one for undergraduates and another for graduate students) to get a better picture of the digital music landscape at Stanford. It was part of the annual residence evaluation, a pretty well-advertised survey, and included questions on filesharing, copyright, portable music devices, and for-pay online music services. We had a whopping 46% of undergraduates and 29% of (on-campus housed) graduate students respond to the survey, as we do every year. And based on that data, not just the mere assumptions about the student population, the student is right in pointing out that Yahoo! Music Unlimited is not compatible with the 20% (!) of students who own Macs (unless you want to run Virtual PC) and when they say it’s compatible with iPod, it’s not really.

So, blame us for picking a subscription service that doesn’t meet your specific needs (and this was a long decision making process that I will get into after the service actually launches), but don’t blame us for failing to collect data about student consumption of digital music because we certainly did. Guess people just weren’t paying attention.

Related posts:

1. MIT Weblog Survey

But it does remind me of this clip from Kids in the Hall:

I love Dane Cook, by the way. I remember watching him first on his 1998 stand-up special on Comedy Central and he so freakin’ funny. If you haven’t heard his stuff, definitely check out danecook.com and get his latest comedy albums either at his Web site or via iTunes.

I love Kurt Vonnegut and here’s another example of why I love him.

The best part of this? Vonnegut’s commentary on how good America is at democracy– after 100 years, you have to let your slaves go. After 150 years, you have to let your women vote, etc.

Just as Jon Stewart says about his own life, Vonnegut’s book helped make adolescence just that much more bearable. I’d rather forget the person who introduced me to Vonnegut, but I’ll never forget Vonnegut and his books. I absorbed his books throughout high school and have probably read almost everything he’s ever published. He introduced me to satire and black humor and that you could somehow find a balance between science and religion and that you could find fault with man to the point of utter disappointment and pessimism and yet still be a humanist.

I just picked up his newest book A Man without a Country. More hilarious insight ensues.

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1. Book piles
2. Books
3. Books, Part 2

I finally got home a few hours ago and I’m look through my news headlines to find this:

Racial Switch Halts ‘Huck Finn’ Production

Have race relations really become this absurd in this country? For that matter, has copyright really become this absurd in this country?

RIAA cracks down on Internet2 file swapping

There are a lot of obvious comments I could make about this new witchhunt by the RIAA, most of which have already been said by many other people. Nevertheless, I might as well reiterate a few important points:

Internet2 is a “closed” network. The RIAA declined to answer how they were able to get onto the network to discover the alleged copyright infringement in the first place. I hope this will finally push someone to seriously challenge the questionable way the RIAA (and now the MPAA as well) is monitoring these networks. Unless they have people working on the inside (which is not completely out of the realm of possibility), there is some seriously sketchy network “monitoring” going on.

Targeting I2. It’s pretty clear why the RIAA is targeting I2– because it’s considered a closed and centrally-controlled network, it is more regulable and can be used to set a precedent for regulating similar special networks. (Again, if it’s so closed and regulable, it begs the question, how did the RIAA get on there in the first place?) Check out Ed Felten’s comments on the subject.

Liability. Obviously, when asked to comment, the folks behind the i2hub community have stated that they do not condone activities that breach the rights of copyright owners. Well, I’m assuming that they’re not so naive to think that this wasn’t going to cause problems, especially since they so clearly identify themselves on their Web site (where they also say that this whole project is under the umbrella of “collaboration” between students). While universities come down harder and harder on p2p on their campuses for fear of being sued, there hasn’t been a case yet where the ISP (the university) has been sued. However, the entertainment industry first went after those running file-sharing services on campuses back in 2003 and has not hesitated to go after Grokster, Kazaa, and, most recently, BitTorrent tracker sites, so there’s little evidence that they would not go after the i2hub folks. I will assume that the i2hub folks aren’t stupid, so they should have been expecting something like this to happen eventually. If that’s the case, I hope they’re also willing to stand up and fight.

Digital music services. A number of the schools at which students were sued have university-wide deals in place for legal music services for their students (e.g., Napster, CDigix, Ruckus, etc.) I had thought that making a deal with the devil might offer those universities some comfort, but I guess not. This also shows that the amount of illegal file-sharing does not necessarily go down significantly just because you have legal services available. Both of these points don’t give universities much incentive to make campus deals.

In any case, we’ll see what happens. The RIAA sued no more than 25 students at each of the 18 schools (this statistic somehow meant to make us feel better since they claim to have evidence of many more cases of infringement). I sincerely hope that at least one of those students will fight back, will file a countersuit, will do something to stand up to the entertainment industry’s targeting of college students and universities in general. Maybe then they can get back to actually providing entertainment rather than punishing their customers and we can get back to the business of educating students.

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1. RIAA continues fight while new company tries paradigm shift
2. Universities and Napster
3. Told you so: SP2 on campus

(Discovered off of Boing Boing)

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1. Bay Area public transportation, missed John Mayer connections, and MacWorld 2005

First off, Bay Area public transportation: If environmentalists around the country want to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, the first place to start is encouraging the improvement of public transportation systems. Case in point: you know why there’s so much traffic in Northern California? Because using public transportation is such a freakin’ hassle. Granted, my lifelong model of public transportation has been one of the best in the country– New York City– but still. First off, there’s multiple transit systems– BART, CalTrain, Muni, VTA, etc.– and there’s no unified way to use these systems. Because they each cover whatever weird area of the Bay Area that they do (BART covers the East Bay and between the East Bay and San Francisco, CalTrain covers between San Francisco and all along the West Bay down to San Jose, etc.), you have to switch between systems often to get around and a) switching between systems is not always easy and b) there’s no unified pass/ticket system (you have to buy different tickets/passes for each one). And on top of all that, the trains and buses don’t run that often (or that late) and it almost always takes significantly longer to take public transportation, so it’s not that convenient either. Basically, the likelihood of you getting screwed over because you missed the last train, couldn’t find parking, didn’t buy the right ticket, etc. is so high that most people, even with high gas prices and lots of traffic, will opt to just drive themselves wherever they need to go.

For example: this morning’s attempt to get to MacWorld– my big plan was to get into San Francisco around noon, walk to the Moscone Center, pick up my badge, and then tool around until we (Stanford ResComp folks) were to meet our Apple rep at a nearby restaurant. I live right near a major CalTrain station, but when I got there this morning, the entire parking lot was packed full. So, I drove up to the next station– this parking lot had space, but the parking ticket machine only took quarters and I didn’t have enough. So, at this point, I’ve given up on trying to get on a 10:30 train up to the city. I go back out, run some errands, get some more quarters, and return to the station. So now, I can buy a parking ticket, park my car, and get onto the train. Of course, while walking through the passenger tunnel to the other side of the tracks, I almost wiped out on the stairs (it has been raining constantly these past few weeks) and seriously pulled something in my leg.

Now, this part is genuinely my fault: Stanford has a cool deal where staff get this free “EcoPass” deal to take public transportation for free. It’s this little sticker they put on your ID card. However, I forgot that it goes by calendar year (versus academic) and hey, it’s 2005. Of course, a lot of people forget things like this, so there was a grace period, but that ended, conveniently, yesterday. So, I got kicked off the train by the time I got to the next stop, had to buy a ticket, wait 30 minutes for the next train, and then get back on. So, basically, it took me like an hour and a half to travel about 10 miles and then something like two and a half hours total to get into San Francisco. If I had driven, I could have gotten there in about thirty to forty-five minutes and paid about the same amount in parking as I ended up paying in parking at the train station, train tickets, and cab fare (since I wasn’t up to walking with my bum leg and was now running late). The only reason I stuck it through was because I needed to get some reading done on the train. This is the only real value of using public transportation in the Bay Area– it may take longer, but at least you can be more productive while you’re commuting.

Second, missed John Mayer connections: so, I finally did make it to San Francisco and found out that John Mayer had appeared at the keynote this morning. Unbe-freakin’-lievable! I have been obsessing over John Mayer and his music lately and then he turns up at MacWorld to help Steve Jobs demo GarageBand. Of course, the rest of the day was spent intermittently looking around and wondering if he might just be hanging out somewhere and would turn up around the corner. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t want to meet him in that situation anyway– I mean, there’s nothing really spectacular you can say (“Er, I really like your music…”) and I’m not really into getting autographs (aside from the fact that I didn’t really have anything for him to sign), so, I would probably just feel like an asshole if I met him. But alas, it would have been cool to see him during the keynote. I am going to have to figure out how to get a stinkin’ video of it.

And finally, MacWorld 2005: as for the conference itself, we only went around the Exhibit Hall and as expected, it was more like iPodWorld than MacWorld. There were some interesting things– the new iMac, the new Mac Mini– but in the end, it showed that what Apple does well is software and consumer electronics products. OS X. The iLife series. The iPod, in all its forms (including the iPod Shuffle). And of course, they’re great at design– the Apple hardware does just look really cool and slick (although, I fear it will also look dated really soon). But Apple continues to hold on to the Motorola chip and their architecture and despite what Macheads might say, I’m still not convinced that Apple hardware is intrinsically, in the very guts, any better than Intel hardware. I mean, plenty of technical folks have made the clear argument as to the advantages of AMD over Intel, but the Motorola argument isn’t that compelling and in the end, Apple could deliver the same value and innovation to the market with different hardware inside. Nobody buys a Mac because they want the Apple insides necessarily. They buy a Mac because they want the operating system, the iLife software, and the integration with all of the Apple peripherals, and they go along with the Apple insides because all of that will only run on those insides. Will they ever abandon it? No, probably never. It’s what makes them who they are and switching to Intel or AMD hardware, no matter how sensible, would symbolize giving in, giving up in some way (although taking Microsoft’s money to bail them out didn’t seem to bother them that much). And nobody really cares either way because as the underdog, we let them do it their way and cheer them on. But let’s imagine a world where 95% of the world’s computers were Macs– would we still hold them to the same anti-trust standards that we hold Microsoft to? I mean, if their software only runs on their hardware and they were to suddenly have an overwhelmingly large share of such an important market, would we still just look the other way? The iTunes user who has already filed a suit against Apple may be on to something that will grow to haunt the company as they gain more success and even though we always like to think of Apple as the “nice” computer company, their actions against ThinkSecret shows that when challenged, they’ll play just as dirty as the Evil Empire.

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1. Things I learned at MacWorld
2. The Yay Area

Downloading comics: threat or menace?

Related posts:

1. Comic book heroes and history
2. Books

In hopes of evening out the DC-centric book, I also picked up Ronin Ro’s Tales to Astonish which focuses more on the life of Jack Kirby and, by extension, Stan Lee. To be honest, not as well written, but still an interesting read if you want to learn about how Marvel and some of Marvel’s most famous characters came to be. Next up at some point will probably be The Comic Book Makers, written by Joe Simon, one of Kirby’s early collaborators, a co-creator of Captain America and the first editor-in-chief of the company that would become Marvel, and his son Jim Simon (who has also worked in comics).

There’s so much hype around comic books again lately with the success of movies like Spider-Man and X-Men, but I’ll say this– I wonder how many people realize how profoundly comic books and the comic book industry have affected popular culture? Think about how many movies, television shows, and more are based on characters that were born over forty, fifty, sixty years ago. The stories in those cheap paper books would go on to shape filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but, more importantly and among other things, how generations of people would think about good, evil, and all the shades of gray in between. And within the industry itself, it’s a sometimes inspirational, sometimes tragic story– they were, for the most part, poor children of immigrants, struggling kids from the streets, who received little credit or compensation but, in the end, gave birth to an industry that pervades every corner of our culture and our lives. The overarching theme of the aforementioned books, rightly so, is how these comic book artists and writers came to create such incredible, such magical, such wonderful things, but received so little compensation or credit and in many ways, we continue to do this in the back of our minds as we make fun of geeky comic book collectors and fail to realize how much the comic book industry has influenced business, art, literature, culture and, in general, our consciousness.

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1. Book piles
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3. Fan fiction hits the stands?

Of course, although it’s perfectly legal when done according to each band’s/artist’s trading policies, just using BitTorrent on my computer makes me nervous because of my employer’s current policy on copyright complaints (for staff, three strikes you’re fired and my home network is currently on their network). Can the music industry really think it’s good to make its customers this paranoid, this scared?

In any case, if you’re interested, check out bt.etree.org, the community tracker site for etree.org and get connected. And remember, don’t be a leech!

I started reading the Lemony Snicket Books a few months ago because I was having trouble finding any good books to read and, instead, had been reading the Harry Potter Series over and over again (thank God– JK Rowling has finally announced the next book will be out in July 2005). So, somebody recommended the LS series as methadone to my HP addiction. On the surface, while the two series may seem alike– bad things happening to orphans who can do extraordinary things– the similarities don’t go much deeper than that. It’s like saying the Lord of the Rings series is the same kind of story as the Harry Potter series just because they both involve magic, wizards, and the search for an enchanted object (the ring in LOTR, the Sorceror’s Stone in the first HP book). Oh, and they both have elves. But anybody who knows about both of them knows that only a layman would think the two series are the same. That’s why when Richard Harris passed away, it didn’t necessarily make sense to have Ian McKellen replace Harris in the part of Dumbledore.

In any case, after watching the new LS movie this past Friday, I went back and reread the first three books in the series. There were a number of changes when they went from book-form to movie-form, but for the most part, the key parts were there and like most firsts in a series, most of the movie was spent establishing the characters– the Baudelaire children, Count Olaf, and Mr. Poe– and the universe they live in. And while the movie only covers the first three books, it does touch on plot points that appear later in the series, introducing the pursuit to find out exactly what VFD is and its relationship to the Baudelaire family, Count Olaf and Lemony Snicket, a mystery that soon takes over the main plot line of Count Olaf constantly trying to steal the Baudelaire fortune.

But after re-reading the first three books, I find myself wanting to interrupt Snicket’s narration to ask some questions. Yes, of course, this is a children’s novel and so there are crazy characters like Uncle Monty (real name: Montgomery Montgomery) and his reptile room, Aunt Josephine and her fear of almost everything, and of course, most fantastical of all, Count Olaf with his many disguises and weird acting troupe. However, as I read along, I asked myself the following questions:

1. Where is child services in all of this? Mr. Poe is the executor of the Baudelaire estate, but he is not in social services. If children are actually being adopted by a new legal guardian, family or not, isn’t child services usually involved? And until they find the next of kin and a suitable home, aren’t the children supposed to stay in a foster home, not the home of their parents’ banker? And when they are placed into a new home, aren’t there regular visits by child services to check in on the new situation and upon satisfactory inspection, only then can the children be legally adopted by a new guardian? Granted, the state of child services in our society is not perfect, but Mr. Poe seems to be managing the welfare of these children with wreckless abandon.
2. Doesn’t Count Olaf have a criminal record or something that can be used to identity him other than that one long eyebrow and that stupid tattoo on his ankle? I mean, have you people heard of fingerprints, DNA, anything? Maybe if the Baudelaires lived in California, they could arrest Count Olaf, collect his DNA, and then let him walk on a technicality. Maybe then next time, Mr. Poe won’t be so stupidly fooled by an eye patch and a peg leg.
3. Here’s another one– Aunt Josephine is afraid to turn on the radiator, cook with the stove, and open doors using doorknobs, but even if all she has is cold cucumber soup all the time, doesn’t she eventually have to chop up the cucumbers with a knife, a blender, a CuisineArt, something?
4. Why are these children never in school? They spend some time at a prep school later, but nobody seems to be interested in sending them to school, although you are required to attend school until the age of 18 by law.

Of course, some of these questions become irrelevant because you have to remember the universe in which the LS series exists– that is, not a specific one. There’s no specific time and real world location indicators in the books. For example, in the HP universe, the wizard world exists in the same universe as the Muggle world– we know the Dursley’s live in Surrey and the fifth book is predominantly set in London where the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry of Magic are both located. And while Hogwarts was founded thousands of years ago, we know that we’re in relatively modern times because the characters mention how Muggles make up for not having magic by inventing electricity, computers, and the like. Moreover, while Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and all of that are exclusive to wizardkind, there is occasional overlap– Harry takes the Underground to get to Diagon Alley for the first time and Platform 9 3/4 exists in a magical space that lives inside the real life King’s Cross. When there are the Azkaban escapes, the Ministry of Magic notifies the Muggle Prime Minister. And finally, while magical creatures like centaurs, house elves, giants and veela exist, humans are the dominant creatures. In LOTR, there is very little relation to the “real world”– the universe exists in Middle Earth in an alternate time frame and there are a number of different species populating the universe, only one of which are men. But, when you first pick up the LS series, look at the illustration, and begin reading, you start to think that these unfortunate children are British and live in London somewhere in some distant past. Certainly, the popularity of the Harry Potter books and movies certainly add to this tendency. After all, if the Baudelaire orphans are such precocious children– Violet with her inventing, Klaus with reading and nearly photographic memory, and Sunny with her superhuman biting ability and strength– and such horrible things happen to them as they are pursued by an evil Count, they must certainly be part of the British Empire in the same way poor orphaned Harry Potter is. Apparently, orphan services have historically had problems in Britain– Oliver Twist was British. In any case, this assumption about the setting of this series carries over into the film’s cinematography, set design, wardrobe, and casting, especially with Jude Law appearing (but always partially concealed much like Home Improvement’s Wilson) as the narrator, Lemony Snicket himself. But no real-life locations are actually ever mentioned– all the places in the stories have names like “Lake Lachrymose”– and most references to real historical events, like World War I, are made by the narrator in one of his many humoring digressions.

But I digress.

The point is that the Baudelaires could live anywhere at any time and as such, there are no guarantees about how the child services works, how inheritance works, how mandatory education works, etc. It’s not so much a suspension of disbelief that allows us to believe that the children would be forced to work in a sawmill, but the idea that since we don’t know where or when they are, we don’t know if child labor laws actually exist. I mean, they pay their workers with coupons and feed them chewing gum for lunch. We’re not dealing with normal people here, folks.

Many questions similar to mine are asked in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, but are not answered, except in a cryptic collection of diary entries and the like. And although each book’s storyline becomes a little formulaic and predictable– the second a new character is introduced, you set to work figuring out how they are related to Count Olaf– but the teasing is nevertheless well done and the mystery of VFD and the hope that there will be some relief for these children is a compelling one that keeps you reading through the series. Sometimes though, as I discovered when I went to reread the first three books, you just want to tell Mr. Poe to quit being such a cock up, Uncle Monty to quit worrying about his herpetology career, and Aunt Josephine to sack up and quit being such a pussy.

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But what is is that makes me want to live in this world? Well, the Democratic White House is obvious, especially with Martin Sheen’s portrayal of President Bartlett. He’s highly educated, intelligent and talented. He’s a man of character and integrity, knows the Bible like the back of his hand, and while a devout Catholic, he is also modern and tolerant, understanding that the Bible was written a long time ago by fallible human beings. And while the show does tend to shy away from the radical policies and programs that are very unlikely to happen in real life (they often attempt them, but by the end of the episode, you realize why it’s so hard to do those types of things), there are some great moments that you can live out in this fictional world: the appointment of the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, peace (or something close to it) in the Middle East, and most recently, the rise of a woman to the position of White House Chief of Staff.

But aside from great writing, interesting story lines, and the opportunity to watch a West Wing staff pursuing Democratic party ideals, the real reason I want to live in this world is that, at the end of the day, it makes you feel good about government. It makes you feel like even those who you disagree with, even those whose ideas you would spend a lifetime fighting against are, in the end, patriots and really do have the country’s best interest at heart. It makes you feel like while the culture war is real, the left and the right can come together to do great things. It makes you believe that government really is a place that people come together to have a great debate and that even though everyone doesn’t agree how to do it, everyone shares a common goal of serving the public and making America a better place for everyone. It’s a feeling that many of us have been missing for the past four years and will most likely miss for another four.

For live reporting of election results (based on exit polls), check out CNN. From a pure technology standpoint, this is great use of Web technology– clear representation of detailed data, at a glance and with variable levels of granularity. Especially cool is how you can click on states and see gradients of color that show how strong each party won in each county.

Cool video: Eminem’s Mosh. He’s not exactly heading up Creative Commons, but from what I’ve seen, Eminem takes all the file-sharing hoopla with a grain of salt (and a sense of humor)– on MTV a while back, he walked into a record store and bought his own CD, commenting to the cashier and customers that he downloaded it off of the Internet, but it didn’t sound as good. On top of that, while his last album was one of the largest uses of copy protection at the time, his new album actually includes an incentive program. People who buy his newest album (instead of downloading it illegally off of the Internet) when it’s released on November 16th will be eligible for prizes. And now he’s freely distributing his music video for “Mosh,” expressing the rage that many of feel toward President Bush and his administration as well as spreading a great message to get out there and vote. What’s even better than that? That the group of hooded crusaders get together and storm… the polling station and get in line to vote. For all the horrible things that people think and say about Eminem (not me– I’m a big fan), Mosh is certainly a throwback to a time where rap music was more about politics and activism, giving voice to an unheard community, rather than bitches, hoes, and the bling. Bling.

From my experience, fan fiction writers (along with their other fan culture counterparts) have always existed in this underground realm, exchanging stories via homemade zines and now, thanks to the Internet, via chat rooms and the Web. And thankfully, most of the time, The Powers That Be in the entertainment industry usually just look the other way. While most of these works are considered “derivative” and ride the fine lines between fair use, parody, satire, and flat out copyright infringement, they are usually expressions of deep love for the originating works (not to mention the original producers responsible for those works) and drive the growth of a deeply committed fan base that, in the end, only strengthen the success of the original television series, movie, etc. The first recognized fan fiction grew out of fan love for “Star Trek” and despite what some may consider prurient use of Star Trek characters and storylines as slash fan fiction embraced the homoerotic subtext between Kirk and Spock, I would certainly argue that the Star Trek franchise has only had greater success and sustained the test of time better than any other franchise thanks to the “derivative” work of its dedicated fans.

But how strange to see a formally, officially published version of what could only be called fan fiction! Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened– lots of entertainment franchises publish “supplementary” books, like reader guides for the Harry Potter series or the young adult novels for “Smallville.” But these, along with Quinn Brockton’s Queer as Folk books, are somehow christened and blessed by The Powers That Be and allowing them to, get this, make money off of the derivate work that thousands, millions of devoted fans have been doing underground and for free for decades! Now that’s capitalism. Too bad we can’t lift the stigma, not to mention occasional litigation, placed on the other “rogue” fiction writers who were not so lucky to have made a quick buck on their love and dedication to the actors, artists, and characters that visit our homes and grace our television screens every week.

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1. Rollercoaster

At first, I didn’t know who to be more annoyed at– Apple or Tivo. At first, I was annoyed at Tivo for not being able to play all of the music I had paid for. But then, I realized once again, I’m more annoyed at Apple in the long run. Hey, here’s fuckin’ idea– sell music in the standard mp3 format that the digital music has been using for years. This isn’t the first time the fact that iTunes sells files in the AAC format has been inconvenient for me. If it weren’t for the fact that I own an iPod (I have the old 5 GB one– oh God, please let it keep working), I’d really be screwed. Aside from the fact that now I can’t take advantage of a very cool feature of my Tivo, I’m always afraid that Apple, with its history of bad follow-through and committment to backwards compatibility, will just abandon the AAC format and/or iTunes for Windows (perhaps when Longhorn comes out) one day and I’m going to be stuck with legal, paid-for digital music that I can’t play. Of course, there’s always the burn to CD, rip from CD, encode to mp3 option, but it’s just so stinkin’ inconvenient and annoying. I mean, leave it to the entertainment industry to make cool technology annoying. The more ways I can listen to my legally purchased digital music, the more likely I am to buy digital music legally, dipshits. I paid for all this stuff– the Tivo, the wireless adapter, the music– and now that I want to take advantage of how all these things can be integrated into my space, my life, becoming an essential part of a higher quality life experience, you won’t let me. When did it become okay for companies to punish their customers?

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1. Expandable TiVo
2. Ta da!

I wonder though if this kind of stuff continues, whether the RIAA and the MPAA will make a stink that universities are just encouraging illegal downloading of copyrighted materials. I mean, unlike the recent Napster deals, giving out iPods doesn’t discourage illegally downloading music. Duke is distributing the portable digital music players as “part of an initiative to encourage creative uses of technology in education and campus life.” Which makes me smirk because that’s what many of us have been saying is the reason for college campuses to have liberal computing and network usage policies– to promote the university’s educational mission by allowing experimentation and self-learning, especially the exploration of “creative uses of technology.” And many people would consider file-sharing, breaking DRM systems, and experimenting with what you can get on and off portable storage devices like iPods certainly as “creative uses of technology.”

Or maybe the next big iPod security risk will be violation of the Honor Code. I’m assuming that even though Duke will encourage iPods to be an integral part of coursework, the powers-that-be will have to ban them from exams (much like how many have had to ban cell phones and in a previous generation, graphing calcultors).

Links:
Slashdot post
Duke News & Communications release

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1. Universities and Napster

While those arguments are somewhat valid, they are also short-sighted. And I don’t know if it’s because people don’t know much about how universities work or because when you have an online forum, you get a lot of not-very-thought-out comments. Probably both. In any case, my point is that yes, it won’t stop students from downloading copyrighted music illegally, but it will probably stop a significant percentage of them since not every college student jumps on the illegal file-sharing bandwagon as quickly as the media and the entertainment industry makes it out to seem. You still have to actually know about programs like Kazaa and BitTorrent and whatever-the-next-thing-is and you have to know how to use these technologies, where to look, etc. And with bandwidth caps and shaping, sometimes even blocking, of file-sharing traffic on an increasing number of college campuses, it makes it even harder. Not to mention that it’s getting harder and harder nowadays to get a decent download of a song on the first try. Realistically, if you find the right price point that’s trivial enough for the average college student, they will pay for music. And no matter what record companies might say, there are still plenty of college students who may download copyrighted music illegally but also buy CDs on a regular basis. The Try before you buy digital music model actually works a lot of the time.

But in general, when you’re talking about how many college students listen to digital music, an investment into some type of campus digital music service isn’t an idea that should be dismissed so readily. And especially when you consider how much of a resource suck DMCA complaints and file-sharing has become on college campuses, it’s worth it to many universities to come up with a better solution. Many universities are drowning in a sea of file-sharing and copyright melodrama and everybody is scared shitless of the threat of liability. That’s why universities are forming groups like the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Community Members– it may seem like they’re just getting in bed with the RIAA and the MPAA, but there’s also a desperation in alliances like this one. Universities know that something needs to be done because it really can’t go on like this– with students getting sued and university legal offices and IT departments spending all of their resources on handling DMCA issues– much longer. By choosing to provide a service like Napster, some universities are simply hoping that they’ll save money in the long run so that they can get back to the business of educating their students instead of the business of worrying about everybody getting sued.

Personally, I think that big (read: rich) universities like Stanford and MIT should lead the charge in standing up to the RIAA and the MPAA. I know, the real fear is that if they did do something like that, the RIAA and the MPAA could unleash all of their resources against them and even higher-ed powerhouses like Stanford and MIT could most likely never fight back with the same force. But you never know. These universities are leaders in technology and research and are home to people like Larry Lessig and campaigns like Computer Scientists for Social Responsibility and Verified Voting. Who knows what support they might be able to drum up if they decided to fight this fight?

In the meantime, I think digital music services like iTunes and Napster should consider offering educational pricing for all students and not worry about making deals with each individual institution. Verifying enrollment and student status might be a challenge, but think about how many college students would jump on that!

Link

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1. RIAA continues fight while new company tries paradigm shift

We all know “what happens,” so I don’t think I’m ruining anything for anyone, but I think people need to be aware of what they’re getting into when they go to see this film. The film depicts the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, from his arrest at Gesthemane (complete with Judas’s betrayal) to his crucifixion (and briefly, his resurrection three days later). The film is subtitled since all of the characters speak in the language they would have during that time– Aramaic for the Jewish characters and “street Latin” for the Roman ones. Because the movie begins so late in the story and there is little or no exposition in the film, it really helps to know, in detail, the story of the life of Jesus. You can obviously follow what is happening, but the experience is probably better if you know about and understand the significance of things like Jesus’s prediction that Peter would deny him three times, the appearance of Veronica and her famous veil, and in general, how crucifixions happened (so you could anticipate all the gruesome steps involved).

The real warning I would give movie-goers would not be about the alleged anti-semitism in the film, but the large amount of graphic violence. Granted, it’s the story of a man being beaten and crucified, so there will obviously be some inherent violence, but Gibson and company have included every gory detail of Jesus’s suffering, from his beating by Roman soldiers shortly before he is sentenced to crucifixion to his pained journey to Golgotha to his actual crucifixion. In other movies with particularly graphic violence, some directors choose to cut away at the last moment, saving the viewers the most gruesome moment and showing them only the “after,” if anything at all. However, as director, Gibson chose to show every single detail as Jesus is savagely beaten and flagellated and as nails are pounded into his hands and feet. Jesus, played by actor James Cavaziel, is extremely bloody and wounded during most of the film. Despite all of the family and children focused previews shown before the film, this film is not for children. I knew what was coming throughout the film and I could barely stand to watch the violence. Numerous people in the audience, including myself, were brought to tears during the most bloody moments of the film.

One of the big lessons the creators of the film seem to be trying to convey is that noone other than Jesus, than Christ himself, could endure and survive the persecution he experienced during those last twelve hours. Whether he survived all of that because he was destined for death by crucifixion or simply by chance is a question of faith, but the film does show us that Jesus’s suffering was no joke. All of the controversy surrounding the film focuses on whether it is anti-semitic, but more than depicting the Jews as the enemy, I think the film depicts all of the people of that time as the enemy. We not only see Caiphas (the Jewish High Priest) out for Jesus’s blood, insisting on his death by crucifixion, but we see a crowd enthusiastically choose Barabbas, a murderer, to be released instead of Jesus and Roman soldiers gleefully beat the Nazarene throughout the film. We see citizens following along as Jesus and two other criminals make their way to Golgotha and as Jesus collapses frequently under the strain of his cross and his injuries, they seize the opportunity to beat and heckle him themselves.

In the end, the film left me horrified with that period in human history itself. Granted, even if you do not believe in Jesus as Messiah, the tragedy is only amplified by the idea that a man who was teaching love and kindness was condemned and killed for it. But even if we forget about who Jesus was for a moment, the real horror is that a human society actually existed where a man, innocent or guilty, could be beaten and tortured like that by the State and religious leaders, that citizens would not only allow but enjoy such a spectacle, and that a system was in place where human beings were actually killed by such a gruesome method as crucifixion. Who knows if we are any better people today– there are most likely places in this world where equally violent and horrible things happen– but The Passion of the Christ, if anything, shows how terribly wrong human beings can be to one another.

Whether it was a stunt or a genuine “wardrobe flaw,” looking at that picture (conveniently blown up for everyone at Drudge Report), neither one of them look very happy at that moment. Nevertheless, Janet and Justin have managed to get a lot of publicity over this and as they always say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. In my opinion, the real people who will be made to pay will be MTV– everyone seems to be holding them ultimately responsible and gone will be the days where MTV can be the “cool, young, hip” part of “mainstream media” (i.e., the major networks during primetime). No more half-time shows, no more grudging respect for their Rock the Vote campaign. Instead, I foresee a future where MTV will be relegated once again to the backwoods of cable TV where they will be considered a liberal, fringe media outlet that serves up sex and shock along with music videos and rock stars. This time, they may have gone too far and whatever respect they have managed to gain as a media presence has been severely tainted.

Personally, I could not care less about the “incident.” I watched the Superbowl on a 57″ television in high definition sitting about eight feet away and even with my well-trained eye, I thought she was wearing a pastie. And while that may not be a whole lot better, Lil’ Kim got away with that years ago.

Music Industry Sues Hundreds Over Piracy

ISPs and the RIAA go head to head yet again. Interestingly enough, there hasn’t been much news about lawsuits against college students– and subpoenas for universities– lately. Perhaps picking on young, college students and non-profit educational institutions wasn’t doing much for the RIAA’s warm and fuzzy appeal?

The second article is on a new company called Magnatune. When you do a Google search on the name, you get their Web site as the top hit with the tag line “try before you buy MP3 music.” I swear to God I said the same thing the other day. And when you read more about the company, it gets even spookier:

Apple’s iTunes might not be only answer to ending piracy

Oh, and by the way, if the RIAA is losing so much money from illegal file-sharing, how do they have so much money to be filing so many subpoenas and lawsuits in so many different states?

Related posts:

1. New Paradigm
2. Living in Oblivion

However, as much of a technocrat as I might be, I do see the value in physical media. With physical media, you get liner notes, album cover art, and preservation of presentation– the artist usually chooses a particular order in which songs appear on the album and there’s a reason for that. It will be a long time before all of these things become useless to the public (perhaps never) AND it will be a long time before the entire music buying public jumps onto the digital music bandwagon. The music industry needs to embrace digital music, file-sharing and everything they have to offer, but it also needs to come up with a workable hybrid model that marries the benefits of both the digital music world and the hard media world.

I’m not so arrogant to believe that I’m the only one who ever came up with this very general, non-constructive suggestion, but I was once again reminded of this challenge as I was listening to music in my car via my trusty iPod. To be honest, I only buy CDs when I KNOW I am going to like almost all of the songs on an album AND I have some type of long-term interest in the artist. So, even if I liked all the songs on the newest pop star’s album, I wouldn’t buy it unless I believed that the artist looked like s/he would a) make it past the latest episode of MTV’s TRL and b) I would keep listening and enjoying his/her music when s/he does. Unfortunately, this leaves me with owning and buying CDs by a very small number of artists that I started listening to before the digital music explosion and that luckily, I was able to discover, try out and come to love. It also leaves me with a few random CDs from artists that never made it past their first or second album or that I couldn’t stand to listen to after their first or second album.

Today, I add artists to that privileged list for which I actually buy CDs by trying before buying. Unfortunately, online music stores rarely offer more than very short clips of a few songs on a particular CD and I don’t have the time to sit there in the brick-and-mortar music store and listen to the whole CD (if I were lucky enough for the CD I want to buy to be in the listening kiosk). In fact, even if I did have the time, listening to just one CD isn’t enough, which is why I have random CDs lying around in my collection (which I will refrain from naming here). I want to listen to many CDs, listen to a “Best of” type compilation of a particular artist before I decide whether I’m going to sign on as a member of his fan club and start doling out my hard-earned money on some music, digital or otherwise.

Realistically, given today’s music sales model, the only way to really do this (without spending money) is a) listen to your friend’s CDs or b) download some digital music. The music industry needs to admit that trying before buying, not free music for everyone, is the model they are being pushed towards and the sooner they realize that and stop trying to punish their customers for pushing them, the sooner everyone will stop villifying them. The music industry should take a tip from drug dealers. If the music industry would just come through on the trying part, the public will come through on the buying part, but not before then.

Addendum: all of the above also holds true for the television industry. If I wanted to start watching a television show that had already been on for several seasons, I would want to catch up with all the previous seasons’ episodes. Considering the painfully slow speed with which television shows are, if ever, released on DVD or video, downloading them online is an increasingly popular option. However, if I’m not allowed to download them online (perhaps because of anti-copying locks on television broadcasts), I frankly will be less likely to start watching a show other than from the beginning. The television industry needs to come up with a new ad/commercial model to make television-on-demand a viable option because at it’s core, it’s a try before you buy model.

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1. Living in Oblivion

Usually, movies that seem worthy of ending up as the first part of a trilogy are often groundbreaking or special in some way. For example, “The Matrix” was particularly innovative because of its groundbreaking special effects. It truly took advantage of how far computers had come and what the whole concept of special effects can really bring to the big screen– the ability to create a world completely unlike our own. Instead of trying to make the real world more “special,” such as making explosions bigger and louder, the special effects in “The Matrix” helped create this new world, what it was like to be in this concept of “the matrix,” and rendered an aural and visual experience impossible otherwise. Another example of this kind of special effects use would be in the Quidditch scene in Harry Potter.

In addition to special effects use, “The Matrix” was innovative because of its storyline. To most, it was particularly unique and posed very interesting questions by asserting that our entire human existence was just a simulated computer experience. (Although, I and others argue that this storyline was very similar to the 1998 movie Dark City.) Moviegoers were blown away by this fantastical premise and were drawn into watching Neo discovering the matrix– we learned right along with him.

However, with the second movie, the special effects were no longer as novel and glamourous as in the first, although technically they were quite impressive (especially the many Agent Smiths). And the storyline wasn’t so earth-shattering anymore– we already know about this world set up in the first movie– and everyone is just waiting to find out what happens next, some type of resolution and since we all know there’s a third movie coming out, we’re not really drawn into the second movie in the series. So, in the end, you end up writing off the second movie as simply a stepping stone, a set up for the finale– how most middle movies in trilogies are written off.

Then why is the third movie considered such a disappointment? Because with the first movie, we are blown away by the premise, with the second movie, we are just waiting to see what’s next and with the third movie, we finally do see what happens. And it never lives up to what we expected. After we’ve identified with a concept, characters and a storyline, while waiting for the next release, we consciously or subconsciously develop an idea of what we think would or should happen, an idea of what we might want to happen. And even if never truly realize those ideas, verbalize them and make them real to ourselves, we build up a subconscious expectation of something that’s probably impossible in the end and find ourselves wondering why the final movie in a trilogy is never as good as we thought it was going to be. It’s like getting hyped up for a party and then, it’s rarely ever quite as fun as you thought it was going to be.

Trilogies that are often considered in this category:

• The Matrix (of course)
• Back to the Future

How do you work around this problem? One option is to make a trilogy out of movies with storylines that don’t really have anything to with each other, but have the same characters that exist in the same overarching universe. This holds true for any series or sequels. Some people don’t feel that these movies deserve to be called “trilogies,” but nevertheless, they often are. Trilogies that fall into this category:

• Indiana Jones
• Die Hard

Of course, the problem with this option is that you can always break the three movie rule and continually make additional sequels (as is the case for both of the above trilogies), usually of far lower quality than the first three movies. Examples of this pitfall:

• Superman
• Rocky

The other better option is to only make a trilogy (or any other series of sequels) out of a story that is truly epic enough to warrant multiple movies. Don’t just make a bunch of sequels because with special effects and whatever else, you can stretch a storyline for three movies. All three movies should follow an overarching story arc, but in the end, each movie should be chock full o’goodness and can usually stand as a great movie on its own (even if you might follow the story better after seeing what comes before and/or after). Trilogies that fall into this category:

• Lord of the Rings
• The Godfather
• Star Wars (before the release of the other episodes)

Of course, with sequels being so popular, I’m sure bad sequels and even worse, bad trilogies will continue to be made, released, and disappoint.

That’s why it makes me sad to hear when people are bad-mouthing TiVo the company, asserting that as more cable companies release their own DVRs, TiVo will be pushed out of the market. It’s unfortunate really when you think about how pioneering TiVo really was, but I don’t think it’ll happen. TiVo’s software is still the best around– the mark of a really great consumer device interface is that you don’t need to read the instructions. The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate and their software is not only reliable, but is really streamlined with the “right” features. And amazingly, that little sound never gets annoying.

But if TiVo is looking for a little help in boosting their consumer confidence, not to mention their sales, they should really consider making TiVo expandable. I don’t have a TV in my bedroom because when I go into my bedroom, I don’t want the TV there as a distraction from sleeping, reading, or whatever. However, I realize that sometimes it would be nice to watch TV in bed or while I’m getting ready in the morning. Yet, the main reason I don’t put a TV in my bedroom is because the TiVo is in the living room.

I suppose I could buy another TiVo, but frankly, my 40-hour box is just the right fit and I’m rarely ever dying for disk space. Moreover, I wouldn’t want to manage two separate storage spaces– I would be limited to a certain set of TiVo recorded material depending on which room I was in. In the end, what I need is some sort of remote client setup where I could access my TiVo from another room. I could rig up some really long cables and some type of infrared repeater for the remote, but that’s just silly. It would be great if some type of remote client box/piece of hardware could register with a specific TiVo as an authorized client and be able to deliver content from that TiVo, similar to expandable cordless phone set-ups (which I also have). For monthly subscribers, TiVo could charge some additional fee per remote client, similar to additional receivers for digital cable/satellite customers (which I also am).

TV is an integral part of my life and TiVo has become essential to that experience. Now TiVo just has to become “mobile,” moving with me, following me and becoming as necessary and compatible to my high-tech life as high-speed Internet access and wireless Internet access (both of which I also have).

And that’s my big TiVo thought of the day.

Of course, I do have a soft spot for football and, ahem, football players, but regardless, the series is compelling. At first, the storylines and the main characters we follow seem a little formulaic, but the show takes advantage of the appeal movies like Any Given Sunday have. It shows the exciting part of football that we usually see and love– the actual playing of the game and all the athleticism that goes with it– but it also shows the challenges the players, like all professional athletes and ultimately, people, face. Early episodes of the show revolved around Omar Gooding’s character, but frankly, watching him get high got old real quick. More interesting are plotlines like how they handled the domestic violence issue (it really was an accident!) and more recently, addressing the dangerous situation homosexuals face in professional sports. And at the end of the day, mixed in with all the soap opera drama, there’s still good ol’ football and inspiring stories of players overcoming challenges while playing the game, like Olczyk’s big play at the end of the latest episode.

I don’t know if I’d watch a show about professional baseball players. Maybe one about basketball players (let’s not even talk about the Kobe situation). But I’ll keep watching this one, especially if they keep showing all those very large, very good-looking men in the locker room.

The thing about this show is that it doesn’t really need to have five gay guys. Really, it could just be some put-together straight men, specifically of the metrosexual variety. All the Web sites I’ve found that define the term “metrosexual” highlight the idea that the metrosexual man is narcissistic because he spends time, money and energy on pursuits that have been traditionally associated with women or gay men, especially things like grooming and fashion. But to me, taking on these traits and concerns is not narcissistic, but part of becoming a whole person. Yes, the inside is the most important, but dammit, sometimes you just need to take care of the outside.

And what those five queers do isn’t just about wearing designer clothes or having matching furniture, but it’s about doing things that every adult should do– taking care of your skin, hair and body, keeping your house clean and presentable, developing inner confidence, feeling better about yourself, and going after making yourself a better person, both on the outside and the inside. And even if you think it’s a little shallow or backwards, when you look good on the outside, when you live in a place that is clean and feels good to be in, you feel better on the inside.

On top of that, the people that are on this show really do deserve to be on the show. They’re good people who have, for whatever reason, let a lot of stuff fall by the wayside and just need someone to help them get their life back together. And that’s what’s great about the show and makes it palatable, even enjoyable to watch even though it’s a reality TV show: they don’t come to change you, they just want to make you better and make the outside– the hair, the skin, the clothes, the house– match the already great person on the inside. And that message comes through every episode. They’re jokes and teasing are funny and may sometimes seem harsh, but really, it’s the kind of constructive criticism that is most helpful: “This is just wrong and it’s not ‘you,’ but here’s how we’re going to fix it and make it ‘you’!”

And as for the culture and food and wine, really, would it hurt anybody to enjoy good food and become more cultured? This has nothing to do with being gay or straight– it’s really just about the fact that there’s an entire world out there with high quality, interesting new things and we shouldn’t be afraid to experience them. In fact, we should be searching for them!

But at the end of the day, I guess the “novelty” of the show comes from the gimmick that it’s five gay guys making over a straight guy, which is fine, I guess, if it gives a way for these makeovers to happen and more so, to show the straight guy and everyone else watching, “Hey, these guys are gay, but they’re OK, aren’t they? And hey, keeping your house clean and grooming regularly aren’t bad ideas, right?”

And as a self-proclaimed fag hag, how can I resist? Now, all I need is a show for me and my gay husband: “Queer and fag hag eye for the straight girl.” You know why? For starters, knock-off Louis Vuitton and Coach just ain’t cute.

During these four days of good ol’ Midwestern fun (if I never see Ranch dressing again, it will be too soon), residential networking/computing groups from colleges and universities all over the country (and a couple world-wide) come to learn from each other, have a little fun and network (no pun intended). Last year’s hot topic was bandwidth and was a pre-cursor to this year’s hot topic: file-sharing and copyright law.

Stanford’s been dealing with the file-sharing and copyright game in a variety of ways for a while now, much longer than most universities out there, but at the end of the day, probably takes what one would consider a more “liberal” approach to the entire controversy (Larry Lessig is a Stanford Law professor, after all). It was interesting to see how many universities take such drastic measures when it comes to controlling file-sharing in terms of both bandwidth usage and copyright law. Most schools have bandwidth caps, but mostly because they have limited bandwidth available for the university as a whole and in the end, this slows down the file-sharing phenomenon on their campus. (Stanford has a gigabit backbone and shapes traffic to give priority to certain types of traffic, but does not limit bandwidth.) In terms of copyright, a few schools treat DMCA notices as junk mail, but most take them relatively seriously and try to fulfill the requirements set forth by the DMCA. Specifically, it usually involves passing on a copyright violation notice to a student (since they are usually filed against an IP address) and if the student does not comply (i.e., notify the DMCA agent that he/she stopped sharing the specified file), turn off his/her network connection. Some schools throw in some meeting with the judicial affairs group at their universities and some general education on file-sharing law and copyright.

The interesting thing at the conference was the moral stance many people took on the issue. Yes, it is a pain in the ass to many residential network staff since it takes up a lot of time and energy handling DMCA notices and dealing with students over the matter, but some people were pointing out that it was our duty as university employees to mold, to shape these young people and make sure they realized how wrong, how immoral it was to continue to participate in illegal sharing of copyrighted materials. The interesting thing was that this concept had never really come up among our staff at Stanford– yes, we know it’s technically illegal and that we should not encourage students, or anyone else, to break the law. And while we do realize the responsibility we hold as part of an educational institution to not only facilitate learning, but also to shape character, we do not consider ourselves parents or police. And specifically when it comes to file-sharing, many of us feel that file-sharing, outside of the legal issues, is not “immoral.”

I think most students feel the same way. I think if we started giving them lectures of the “moral” and “ethical” issues of file-sharing and copyright law, students would start calling the university a bunch of fascists. Just look at what happened with the alcohol policy.

Much mainstream media explains this phenomenon by stating that people to continue to file-share despite the fact that it’s illegal because “everybody’s doing it.” That’s certainly part of it– much like speed limit laws– but I know for many people at Stanford, it’s also about thumbing our nose at the establishment, showing the entertainment industry (and the people they control on Capitol Hill) that their maniacal hold on how music and movies are distributed is slowly starting to slip– as it should. Everybody talks about Microsoft as a monopoly, but people forget that there are only a handful of entertainment companies– they’re just hidden well with all their subsidiaries and partners. And consumers, file-sharers, are finding that the Internet and digital media is the start of the way to cause a revolutionary change in how business is conducted, to get their power back.

We know it’s illegal, but we break it because we believe the law to be wrong and in hopes that the law will be changed. Isn’t that what America is all about? The Internet was born here, in our research institutions and our government organizations, and it has spread across the country, the world and has invaded, pervaded every aspect of our lives, from the trivial to the essential. How can we be surprised that the Internet and digital technology have become the driving force behind revolutionary change in intellectual property rights and consumer empowerment?

Related posts:

1. File-sharing: missing the big picture?

• Baby Looney Tunes. No, not Tiny Toons. Baby Looney Tunes. It’s Bugs and Daffy and the rest of the gang as “babies.” It’s kind of like Muppet Babies– they’re all living together in some weird anthropomorphic creature group home and are all looked over by Granny, the little old lady that normally appears as the owner and caretaker of Sylvester and Tweety. At first, I thought this series was very cute– baby cartoon characters are always over-the-top cute– but then thinking about it more, it kind of weirds me out. I mean, Tweety and Sylvester play together in some weird sick and twisted relationship and everybody laughs at Taz who desperately tries to control his devilish inclinations and fit in. It’s like the “Origins” version of Looney Tunes. The question is, did they think it would just be cute to have baby cartoons, or did they want to explain where they all came from? Does their strange connection here explain Bugs and Daffy’s future antagonistic relationship and do Sylvester and Tweety just go on to live together so long that they become the equivalent of Grumpy Old Men who really love each other, but harass each other to show it? Or maybe it’s a testament to no matter how much nurture, you can’t fight nature– Sylvester will always try to eat Tweety. Okay, maybe I’ve gone off the deep end, but this series is weird.
• Alvin and the Chipmunks. Apparently, they’re still making new episodes/videos of this series and I have to admit that I was amused by this series back in the day. Three of them were entertaining with their different personalities and you always have to appreciate some musical numbers. My favorite episode was the one where Theodore needs to pass a history test, so Alvin and Simon associate historical facts with food (e.g., General Custer and custard) and musical history lessons ensue. But, you have to wonder, even in the world of cartoons, didn’t someone think it was weird that Dave Seville, who was drawn like a distant cousin of Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid and was a young, single man who lived alone, decided to take in three freakishly large (for chipmunks) anthropomorphic chipmunks as his foster children? And wasn’t it some kind of sick exploitation to have them perform in a little Hanson precursor music group? And didn’t anyone think it was additionally weird when Ms. Miller, that old lady down the street, took in three female chipmunks into her house like she was recruiting from some weird brothel that specialized in bestiality? And wasn’t it convenient that the three chipettes had analogous personalities to the chipmunks? Now really, what’s the probability of that? Three chipmunks might be believable, but three female, analogous chipmunks in addition is a little too much to swallow.

Okay, so I’ve probably gone of the deep end and I swear I’m not high. I’m just “thinking critically” about what I see. And don’t even get me started on “The Sissy Duckling” on HBO (which I think is a great idea, but is still kind of weird).

Of course, results of the quiz have only proved one thing: knowledge of random factual elements about you is not directly proportional to how close you perceive you are to someone.

Most missed question: “What’s Sindy’s favorite TV show?” Most common answer: Smallville. Correct answer: ER. Yes, people, I have a great and perhaps very unhealthy obsession with the show and its cast. Yes, I read a lot of fan fic and am endlessly amused by the show. But no, it is not my favorite show. Remember: Sindy is about more than eye candy and special effects. Smallville is fun to talk about, make fun of, drool over (thanks to Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum), and speculate endlessly over the Superman mythology, but it’s still a silly show (and lately, a doomed one based on the overconfidence of those who produce it– not that I want it to be cancelled any time soon). The real things that keep me coming back to the show are A) handling the relationship between Clark and Lex, and B) Michael Rosenbaum’s portrayal of a morally ambiguous Lex Luthor and how he eventually comes to live a life marked by evil.

ER, on the other hand, has a great mix of the soap opera element (i.e., following the personal lives of the characters) and still focusing on the actual people that pass through the ER. I am highly amused by shows like Smallville, but at the end of the day, I love me some heart-wrenching drama about real people, real situations, and real problems. And as the commercials always say, ER is the finest hour of television.

At Stanford, the Daily publishes articles and editorials regularly on file-sharing and University policy, often causing many headaches for the administration and legal counsel. There is much argument over Stanford’s, not to mention any University’s responsbilities and policies as an ISP and under Title II of the DMCA.

However, most of this media coverage is missing the big picture– nobody should be talking about whether file-sharing is illegal when it comes to copyrighted material. It’s illegal. End of story. What the discussion, the argument, the media coverage should really be about is whether it should be illegal and what millions of people continuing to share digital music and video files says about the future of file-sharing, copyright and the entertainment industry.

Record companies and the like are filing grievances as copyright holders and while they do have the right to protect their creative works, current copyright law severely slows down the passing of material into the public domain where it can be used for learning and more importantly, to build on top of for new creative work. What good is all this art if you can’t have access to it, learn from it and build on top of it? While Disney and whoever else might want to work day and night to hold onto the rights to their own creative works, after a certain amount of time, most people don’t mind their work passing into the public domain for others to access freely and build on. (Check out the The Eric Eldred Act.)

Moreover, we spend all this time fretting over Microsoft’s OS monopoly, but we ignore the fact that the entertainment industry is controlled by a handful of companies– television, magazines, newspapers, movies and music are all owned and controlled by subsidiaries of a few media giants– and for some reason, they’ve decided to fight the changing tide of consumer activity. With the growth of the Internet, people have greater access to information than ever before and they have– and want– everything at their fingertips.

I don’t want to have to go the corner store and pick up a newspaper– I just want to quickly visit some news sites, or better yet, I want to open up my browser homepage and take a quick glance at customized headlines and content put together just for me at my favorite Internet portal.

If I or my TiVo miss that last episode of ER, I don’t want to have to wait until the reruns a year from now– I want to be able to get a copy of the episode ASAP and get caught up on the story. And my favorite episodes of the season? Oh yeah, I want those ASAP too. I can’t wait for the DVD release three years from now.

I don’t want to have to go to the bookstore and go through aisles and aisles in search of a book I know I want, but can’t seem to find because it’s either A) somewhere I don’t think it would be or B) simply out of stock. I want to be able to do a quick search online, order a book I know is in stock and have it delivered to my doorstep.

I don’t want to have to suffer through conversations with incompetent salespeople and long lines to order a new hard drive or digital camera– I just want to go online, see what’s available, read a thousand reviews on a particular type of product, and pick the one I want for the best price I can get. Even if the best price is from a noname electronics store in the middle of Kansas.

And I don’t want to have to pay for an entire CD if I don’t want to– I just want the songs I like. I’ll try the other ones, but only for free and if I like them, then I’ll buy the whole CD. And I don’t want to pay for the cost of media, packaging and liner notes that I never get in a digital media.

The current controversy over file-sharing should not be about whether or not it’s wrong to steal music– we know it’s wrong. But we aren’t doing it just because we can get away with it– well, maybe just a little. The more important thing is, we don’t care– we’ve found a better way to get our fix of movies and music and the truth is, we’re willing to pay for it. But if the entertainment companies aren’t going to provide it, we’ll find another way.

For those of you not in the know, SecondSpin is the largest (according to their Web site) buyer and seller of used CDs, videos and DVDs. Because CDs are so resilient, it really doesn’t reduce the quality of the product when you buy it used. Sure, the jewel case might be a little worn or scratched and the liner notes may be a little wrinkled, but hey, they’d get that way after a few months of use anyway and paying half or even less than half of the new price is worth it. It’s especially great for:

1. CDs or DVDs that you want, but are not willing to pay full price for. Case in point: my newly procured copy of Center Stage.
2. Older CDs or DVDs that you want to get either just to have or to fill out your collection. Case in point: my newly procured copies of old Erasure albums that I was missing.

The other magical thing I am enamored with is CDDB. It’s very convenient to pop your CD into your computer (or stereo system that has CDDB recognition) and have album art, album information, and track titles all show up in your player. It’s also very convenient when creating compilation CDs or mp3s– no need to rename files or put in your own ID3 tags.

Magical.

Related posts:

1. Things that scare me: #4032

Oh, but how times have changed. I recently reformatted my hard drive and thought that it might be time to join the rest of the world in my MP3 encoding ways. I recently bought an IPod (which is awesome) and that comes with the MUSICMATCH Jukebox software. It has a handy little utility that “records” the CD, automatically creating MP3 files that are then added to your music library. While CD burning and music software has been doing this for years now, I have to admit that I’ve only just started using this feature and find it very convenient.

The funniest part of this whole thing is that when the software is done recording the CD, it plays a little sound to signal the completion. Amusingly enough, the default sound is the tada.wav file that has been on Windows system since at least Windows 95. It’s almost as if it’s saying, “Ta da! I’ve created some MP3 files! You’re now on the road to sharing copyrighted materials with the world!” Ha ha. It’s like a little magic trick.

Ironically enough, one of my coworkers did this in a semi-official capacity, setting up a Gnutella server in our office and advertising it to our student employees. The server was not set up to share music files. Instead, it was set up so that Stanford students could list it as one of their hosts when connecting to the Gnutella network. With Stanford students connecting to a common on-campus host, they would find each other instead of off-campus computers and take advantage of unlimited bandwidth between on-campus computers, reducing traffic travelling in and out of the campus network, traffic that uses very expensive bandwidth the university has to pay for. Realizing how much file-sharing does go on and how much it uses up network bandwidth (despite our packet-shaping efforts), the real aim of this little experiment was to decrease traffic between campus and the commodity Internet, a goal of any good university network and systems administrator. Apparently, the MPAA did not find the experiment as interesting and innovative as we did. They faxed a threatening letter to the university and the server’s network connection was promptly turned off (while most of us were away on Winter break). The decisive action was certainly a shock– while we have, in the past, shut off students’ network connections after the MPAA and RIAA notified us that they were illegally sharing copyrighted materials, staff network connections are rarely, if ever, shut down, especially not without notifying the staff member first. After meeting with many important people, including the Provost and Stanford’s in-house counsel, they decided it was a good idea to leave the server shut down. While Stanford maintains a liberal attitude toward network use, a university provided way to faciliate file-sharing didn’t go over so well.

Long after the fall of Napster, the battle continues. Personally, I think the music industry needs to get it together and realize that digital music is the future. They’re right– downloading files of music that you do not own is stealing. But that little reality isn’t going to stop the millions who are trading music today, no matter how many lawsuits they file. The underground network of music fans and computer geeks will always find a way. Before Napster, there was IRC and ratio FTP sites. After Napster, there’s Gnutella and Kazaa. It never ends. People want to be able to download music whether it’s a single song or an entire album. The real question is, are they willing to pay for it?

I have to admit– when I was a student, I downloaded music freely and outside of some Sting and Dave Matthews Band albums, I didn’t buy CDs. Why should I when I could download all the music I wanted, including yet unreleased albums, off of a high-speed Internet connection? But alas, that was when I had a lot more time and a lot less money on my hands. Now, it’s not worth it to me to spend an evening trying to get high quality copies of albums, even with a high speed connection. The real value behind Kazaa and other file-sharing technologies for me is that I can sample and explore. I can go through the playlists for KMEL and download songs I hear on the radio. I satiate my need for immediate gratification and if I really do like them, I try to download more songs from the album and in the end, might decide to just buy the entire album. It’s not worth it to me to sit there trying to download the entire album, checking if it’s the right song, checking if there are any skips or errors, renaming files, fixing ID3 tags, etc.

Additionally, I’m just getting better quality sound with CDs. Unfortunately, most MP3s out there aren’t encoded at 192 kbps or greater and when you listen to music on a higher quality sound system, you start to hear the drop in quality. If you really love music, you’ll opt for getting the CD so you can hear it at its highest quality.

Of course, sometimes I don’t buy the album. Why? Because I only like one song on the album and I don’t want to shell out $20 for one song. And if I couldn’t try out the music beforehand and ended up buying an entire CD that I didn’t like, the neo-Nazi return policies of music stores would leave me SOL. Honestly, even before file-sharing, I didn’t buy CDs that often because of this very predicament.

Or what about when I get nostalgic and I have to hear that Rick Astley song that’s been playing in my head all day? I certainly don’t want to go buy the entire album or even a compilation album of other 80′s and 90′s hits. If I want a compilation, I’ll make it myself– every person’s got different tastes when it comes to what makes a good mix CD. But for those particularly hard to find songs, it might take me a while to find a high quality, no skip, no error, correct version of the song I’m looking for. If the music industry could provide me with that service, I would definitely be willing to pay 50 cents or $1 for that convenience and guarantee.

Still left to draw people to P2P networking are the really rare files– recordings of live performances, special remixes or editions of songs, etc. I don’t really know how you would get around this. I used to do traditional tape-trading, starting with actual cassette tapes and moving to CDs, but that requires a lot of finding out who has what, negotiating trades, mailing stuff all around the country, and waiting anxiously for your stuff to arrive, provided it doesn’t turn out to be a bad trade and you’re left with nothing. The Internet is a great way to trade live recordings of shows, legal or otherwise, and it’s the only place to get really rare versions or performances of songs.

Of course, the irony of all of this is that I don’t think file-sharing really affects CD sales. The rise of file-sharing coincided with the fall of the economy and while the music industry might think that file-sharing is the cause of their drop in sales, it might want to consider the fact that Americans are suffering from a very real recession and have little money to spend on music, much less anything else. Additionally, while my friends might be the exception to the rule, most students who download illegally shared files still end up buying CDs. The whole proposition that digitial music provides an effective way for people to try out music and then motivate them to go and buy the entire CD actually does work.

Unfortunately, I was not so happily impressed by the show itself. Yes, as I’m writing this, there’s still 20 minutes to go in the pilot, but so far, the show has been some updated version of “The Karate Kid”, except not as good as that might sound. Wong is an ex-cop who was set up by his former partner, getting caught with tons o’heroine and being sent to a Hong Kong prison for 5 years. He’s back in the Yay Area now and he’s teaching martial arts to a group of teenagers (none who are Asian it seems) and being the Mr. Miyagi of today’s angsty teens– there’s the the angry girl who wants to avenge her father’s murder, the abused teen trying to get out of a battered home, the nerdy girl who’s actually ridiculously hot and is pining away for a boy, and the black kid who, outside of a gadget habit and being the object of nerdy girl’s affection, seems pretty much to be included because he’s the black kid. And hey, after Jim Kelly’s crucial part in “Enter the Dragon”, you’ve always got to have the black dude who is into martial arts. I’m all for promoting Black-Asian relations.

I’m all for sentimental angsty crap– I watch “Everwood” after all– but this is just ridiculous. Wong needs to earn money to pay for a lawyer so he can get visitation rights with his daughter (who is apparently supposed to be mixed, but doesn’t look it at all), so he does some bounty hunter work for a bail bondsman (who, incidentally, is played by Simon from the movie “Go”). Most of the bad guys are Asian, so Wong gets to have fancy kung-fu style fight scenes interlaced with bits of Asian/martial arts discipline bits of wisdom for his trouble students. There’s even an old Chinese man– “Master Lee”– to be the elderly sage that Wong turns to when he needs help.

So, in the end, about 20 minutes of the 40 to 45 minute episode are just mediocre fight scenes that don’t even measure up to the ones in “Vanishing Son” and the rest is poorly acted, simplistic, formulaic drama. When I first heard that Russell Wong (who incidentally is looking more and more Caucasian as he gets older) was getting his own TV show again, I was excited– even if it required him to use the martial arts expert Asian stereotype. Unfortunately, I can’t even watch the show out of Asian solidarity. Why can’t they just make a show about a family or some dude that happens to also be Asian? Why they got to make it all about kung fu and shit? *sigh*