People who really just want easily-reproducible shit for free will always find a way to get it, and any publisher is far better off working on ways to make sure that customers can legally get what they want as easily as possible with the fewest restrictions. That should be the lesson that media moguls take away from iTunes
[Which was the lesson of iTunes from my perspective.]
Source: Coyote Tracks
What’s amazing is the notion that we may actually be doing something about it. As Matt Yglesias wrote, public engagement matters: “SOPA/PIPA opponents actually got in the arena and did politics instead of complaining about how this showed that politics is corrupt and stupid.” The problem with our political system isn’t that it’s unresponsive—it’s that it’s usually responding to the wrong things. But if we let that be a rationale to just write the whole thing off as a lost cause, then we’re doing what the real cynics in the system—like, for example, former senator Chris Dodd—want us to: nothing.
[He does seem to have completely lost his way, assuming I ever knew about him to think that he was useful in the first place.]
Source: Coyote Tracks
An appreciation: Dave Alvin remembers Johnny Otis:
He was a huge force in R&B on the West Coast and in the Southwest, from Central Avenue in L.A. to Houston and Memphis. In his way, Johnny was as important as [Sun Records founder] Sam Phillips or [Chess Records co-founder] Leonard Chess in discovering new talent, both as a bandleader but also as a record producer — everyone from Little Esther to Johnny Ace to Little Richard to Big Mama Thornton and so many more.
Not only was his music a gigantic influence on me, his political and sociological views always forced me to think outside the box. While I didn’t agree with everything he said, I agreed with a lot of it.
Johnny Otis made me think while I was rocking. Not many artists can do that.
Damn. This is really sad.
[Incredible career. I believe he played drums on the original recording of Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog. If you want to learn how to absolutely send it, check her out with Buddy Guy.]
Etta James, Singer, Dies at 73:
Etta James, whose powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice could enliven the raunchiest blues as well as the subtlest love songs, most indelibly in her signature hit, “At Last,” died Friday morning in Riverside, Calif. She was 73.
It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.
[snip -Ed.]
Then the nightmare begins. Sometimes, a family really means “do everything,” but often they just mean “do everything that’s reasonable.” The problem is that they may not know what’s reasonable, nor, in their confusion and sorrow, will they ask about it or hear what a physician may be telling them. For their part, doctors told to do “everything” will do it, whether it is reasonable or not.
[It is unsurprising. And sad.]
The MPAA studios hate us. They hate us with region locks and unskippable screens and encryption and criminalization of fair use. They see us as stupid eyeballs with wallets, and they are entitled to a constant stream of our money. They despise us, and they certainly don’t respect us.
Yet when we watch their movies, we support them.
Even if we don’t watch their movies in a theater or buy their plastic discs of hostility, we’re still supporting them. If we watch their movies on Netflix or other flat-rate streaming or rental services, the service effectively pays them on our behalf next time they negotiate the rights or buy another disc. And if we pirate their movies, we’re contributing to the statistics that help them convince Congress that these destructive laws are necessary.
They use our support to buy these laws.
So maybe, instead of waiting for the MPAA’s next law and changing our Twitter avatars for a few days in protest, it would be more productive to significantly reduce or eliminate our support of the MPAA member companies starting today, and start supporting campaign finance reform.
[The one thing that is clear is that if this has died now, it won’t be dead for long. SOPA/PIPA were not the first attempt at this. It has been going on for 20 years. Marco’s suggestion is good for for more reasons than this… but this is enough of a reason.]
What Happened to all the Snow? – NASA Science:
First of all,” he explains, “we are experiencing a La Niña pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. This pushes the jet stream and the cold arctic air northward.”
“On top of that, this year’s Arctic Oscillation has been stronger.”The Arctic Oscillation is a see-sawing pressure difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes. When the pressure difference is high, a whirlpool of air forms around the North Pole. Last year, the whirlpool motion was weaker, allowing cold air to escape from the polar regions and head southward to the US.
“This year the whirlpool has been more forceful, corralling the cold air and keeping it nearer the pole. That has reinforced the La Niña impact.”
[“It ain’t over till the Siberian Huskies sing.”]
Source: Lennard Zinn
OmniTI ~ Seeds ~ Winter ~ 2012:
It’s not that switching to NoSQL is a bad idea necessarily; there are some things that RDBMS software can’t do as well as a more dedicated solution. But, if you think that switching to NoSQL will just let you hand-wave away all of the challenges of running a database, you are terribly misguided. If you’re a DBA and you are worried about a future with NoSQL, take heart; study your product less and focus on these key architectural design points more. Those skills are critical now, and they will remain so in the future, NoSQL or not.
[Lots of good points.]
turnings :: daniel berlinger 