The BBC News website has been running a series of “Ask the Industry” articles, where regular people send in their questions about the future of the entertainment industry and they “theoretically” get answered by industry executives. I say “theoretically” because the answers the execs give are piss-weak. First we had digital music, and now we have digital film. Read and marvel as these PR robots try desperately to not give a single honest answer to these simple questions. For example, “What’s the point of DRM?” Most of the answers amount to: “Without DRM, the legitimate ways you have of paying for music would not be possible,” which doesn’t actually answer the question. (And then of course you get the Napster idiot at the end claiming that somehow their DRM isn’t as bad as Apple’s, because it works with more MP3 players or something.) It’s all wank. Also note the perfectly valid question about “Why do movie companies still insist on DVD region encoding?”, to which the only real response the idiots offer is “Because they can.” (Okay, so the classification excuse isn’t a bad one, but that doesn’t stop kids from getting region-free discs from elsewhere…) It’s like watching a Presidential debate, where each person only answers the question they want to hear without respect to the words that were actually uttered.
Category: Random Links
Links that I’m reading/watching/listening to/thinking about
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DogCatRadio
DogCatRadio – an online radio station for pets that are home alone all day. How neat! I wonder if Dr. Amy Jones would like this… (Of course, whenever I’m home in the middle of the day she just gives me grumpy looks for interrupting what is obviously All Day Naptime.)
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The Race That Stops a Nation
Me: How come none of the Melbourne suppliers are answering their phones today?
Albie: It’s Melbourne Cup Day! It’s a public holiday in Victoria.
Me: What? *snort* You mean they get a public holiday because of a stupid horse race? That’s idiotic.
Albie: They’re trying to make it a holiday in New South Wales too…
Me: Yay! I love horses!Actually, my animal-phobia notwithstanding, I do love horses today… on account of the fact that my pick in the $2 sweep we had with the printers next door came in third! I won eight bucks! And my horse’s name? Xcellent…
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Knitted Digestive Tract
Knitted Digestive Tract. That’s kinda neat! And remember the knitted uterus from before? It’s like some Mad Knitting Scientist is creating a WoolMonster, one set of organs at a time… (Link courtesy of Nora.)
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Cut-Up Cakes
Cut-Up Cakes – an old cookbook that shows women how to turn ordinary sheet cakes into dyed coconut monstrosities. It’s like baking a tangram. Who wants to eat a swan? And “Fanny the Fish” is just wrong in any culture…
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Sing it, Gwyneth.
I get the feeling that the BBC thinks Gwyneth Paltrow is being snobby or precious with her complaints about London life, but I say SING IT, SISTER. Her gripes were my gripes, and they’re a large part of why I was happy to leave. It was gray all the time. I got tired of walking past trash on the streets and blowing black stuff out of my nose after taking the Tube home. And is it impossible to have a shop be open when people actually want to shop?
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Flying Toasters
Flying Toaster Screensaver, available for both Mac and PC. Remember After Dark? You know you do. My monitor is now full of toasty goodness. (Link courtesy of The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)
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Rockpool Reinvents
Hmm. Rockpool has changed format and dropped a la carte in favor of a five course degustation. Very shades of Tetsuya. At least you still get a choice for each course. Maybe the Snook and I will have to check this out… Oh, and the word through my sources, by the way, is that XO is closing in May, so if you haven’t been yet you should go. The Snook and I really enjoyed it. (Link courtesy of Sydney Food Diary.)
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Smile of Hand Knitting
I was putting our bamboo knitting needles up on the website today when I discovered the English-language home page of Tulip, our Japanese supplier. I was cracking up at the translations, especially their two slogans: “The Needles is Affection” and “Smile of Hand Knitting.” It’s very Mr. Sparkle.