Wide

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/01/mozilo-severanc.html

"As the mortgage industry went into a nose dive in late 2006 and 2007, Mozilo [of Countrywide Financial] cashed out about $140 million in stock options, becoming one of the highest-paid executives in the country."

It's hard to believe this could happen without law breaking.

Mozilo was guaranteed three times his base salary, plus a cash payment equal to three times the greater of his average bonus or the incentive bonus paid the previous year: $87.8 million.

There's also two pensions that were worth $24 million as of December 2006, lump sums. And "continuing health benefits for life for himself and his spouse, three years of life and financial planning benefits, and "tax-gross-up payments" to compensate him for any penalties he'd have to pay for receiving payments the IRS might consider excessive."

Astonishing. How's your 401k this this afternoon?

Fed Up

Look, it's perfectly simple. What part of "stands ready to take substantive additional action as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks." don't you understand?

Virgin

Richard Branson on how to become a millionaire: "Start as a billionaire and buy an airline".

Copywrong

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/law_review_arti.html

"By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges)."

Says it all... But of course laws can never be changed, ever. No matter how distant and detached they become from reality. Law can never, ever change. Ever. That would be "amnesty."

Worst

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49293700-10,00.htm

The top ten worst consumer technology products... MSFT Vista comes in at number ten. Way to go Microsoft, Vista is the least bad of the very, very worst!

We're Number Ten!
We're Number Ten!
We're Number Ten!
...

This would just be funny except that this is the current flagship product from the company that's done more to hinder technologic progress than, well, anyone ever... And people *still* won't stop using their stuff!

Look at the other junk on this list! You wouldn't see that crap on woot!

MP3 Player

Check out Sony's new MP3 player for girls!

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/27/hw_sony_lipstick_walkman/

A whole one GB?
But lookit the pretty colors!

Re: Honda

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/11/26/la-auto-show-honda-fcx-clarity-home-energy-station/

The nice thing is that this car is not drawing board stuff for the future. It's actually for sale on a lease basis for $600/mo and Honda takes care of it. It would probably be impractal, yet, to sell them outright. That was the problem with GM's electric car. But this shows Honda isn't just ahead of the Americans, it's totally creamed them. It's too late. I think American car makers are going to go the way of the old European brands that are just niches now like Bently, MG, Fiat and the like. Chalk up another dead American industry.

C# Stupidity

http://www.codeproject.com/showcase/IfOnlyWedUsedANTSProfiler.asp

These guys used C# in their entry for the DARPA Grand Challenge, a contest for the design of autonomous vehicles - cars that drive with no human intervention. A C# garbage collection bug dashed their chances.

A flaw in a Microsoft product!? Shocking!! File under "Duh!"

Anyone using a Microsoft product for anything important, should expect exactly the result they are going to get. And that is after all what the DARPA contest is all about isn't it...

New Business Models

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/F/FUTURE_OF_MUSIC?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-01-06-13-36-35

"Among the business models music fans are likely to see more of: music subscriptions bundled with the price of Internet access, and services like Nokia Corp.'s upcoming Comes With Music, which would give users of select mobile phones a year's worth of unlimited access to music, for no extra charge."

It looks like media companies are finally, finally finally beginning to realize that they are in the content business, not in the CD business. They may finally be ready to stop their two front war on their customers and on artists.

Or not. Never underestimate how stupid people are. There is still a better than even chance that the big media companies of the past couple of decades will yet drive themselves out of business. And when they are gone, no one will notice. The customer will have long since moved on - creative destruction.

Out of Control

http://davisfreeberg.com/2008/01/03/bad-copp-no-netflix/

"When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I've purchased from Amazon's Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue. Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup."

And ordinary people are supposed to understand these services?

"The irony in all of this, is that the DRM that Hollywood is so much in love with, is really only harming their paying customers. When you do a DRM reset, it’s not your pirated files that get revoked, it’s the ones that you already paid for that are at risk. I’m not allowed to watch low res Netflix files, even though I have the capability to download high def torrents? How does this even make sense? It’s as if the studios want their digital strategies to fail."

And more than that, this issue will only be resolved when they push themselves out of business and what market remains is dominated by content produced by individuals.

Meanwhile...

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5563748933217057754&postID=3330827097507898177

"The last major label will throw in the towel on digital rights management and prepare to fight Apple for valuable download revenues."

Cured

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2

"There are some aspects of quackery that are harmless - childish even - and there are some that are very serious indeed. On Tuesday, to my great delight, the author Jeanette Winterson launched a scientific defence of homeopathy in these pages. She used words such as "nano" meaninglessly, she suggested that there is a role for homeopathy in the treatment of HIV in Africa, and she said that an article in the Lancet today will call on doctors to tell their patients that homeopathic "medicines" offer no benefit."

People are stupid.

Radiohead

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080102-radiohead-artists-often-screwed-by-digital-downloads.html

"You might think, if you didn't work in the music business, that famous artists stand to make mad cash from popular albums on iTunes and other digital storefronts. Sadly, that's not the case, and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has spent the last week calling out the labels for it. He recently told BBC Radio 4 that "the big infrastructure of the music business has not addressed the way artists communicate directly with their fans. In fact, they seem to basically get in the way. Not only do they get in the way, but they take all the cash."

***

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL0365200720080103?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

"Online music sales reached 2.9 million tracks in the last week of 2007, more than double that of the corresponding week in 2006 and the largest one-week sales tally recorded to date in Britain, the Official Charts Company said."

***

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2737460020080101?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

"But everyone wants to know: Who's next? The following 10 acts represent where the smart money is on such speculation. Let the games begin."