The Killers vs. The Bravery

2:03 PM

If you need feel like you need to chuckle today, just read this story about a feud between The Killers and The Bravery. Brandon Flowers may have just proved that he is a complete nut. I can't believe he actually said that. I wondered about him when I heard him talk up Interpol and The Strokes, but slam The Stills. I figured he was just misquoted then. I guess I was wrong. He seems to have a distorted sense of history. No one is ripping of The Killers. All these bands are just building on the late 70's to early 80's post punk sound. Brandon Flowers has no reason to be pissed (except for the fact that a few people might buy a Stills or Bravery record instead of one of his). If anyone should be pissed it should be The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, and New Order. Of course, I bet those bands are all seeing spikes in the record sales because of this new found interest in their sound; so I doubt they're complaining.

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I'm sick

10:20 AM

They thought I had pneumonia, but the x-rays and blood test came back negative. So now I get to try an albuterol inhaler. Good Times...

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The Problem with DRM

12:15 PM

This week Apple had their DRM (Digital Rights Management) broken again on songs sold from iTMS (iTunes Music Store). Of course they put out a patch quickly, and then this happened. It took all of a day before you could buy songs without the DRM.

This is why DRM is stupid. You see, if you sell me a file; be it music, video, e-book, or anything else; and you decide to encrypt it to manage how I can use it; you have to give me the keys to unlock it otherwise I can't use it at all. So the problem with DRM is that you've given me the lock and the key and are just hoping I'm not smart enough to figure out how to open it on my own. This worked fine in the old days. If you put copy protection on a VHS tape, DVD, or CD; you weren't keeping anyone with a bit ot technical knowledge from copying it. You were only concerened with Joe Six-Pack. As long as he couldn't make a copy, you were safe. The problem today is, as soon as one person breaks the encryption he can distribute the file to the whole world via a P2P app.

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Everything Is Great

8:06 PM

Well maybe not great. But everything is working, and I even added some new features. I've got and RSS feed now. I also messed with the menus a bit, and added links to archives. Not that there are that many. I've had the site up for almost 3 years now and have only had about 100 posts. I need to do much better. I'm thinking of changing my menus up a little more. They're starting to seem cluttered to me. If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

I would also like to take this oppertunity to profess my love for debian. It only took a few minutes to install, and a few more minutes to type apt-get install for my needed programs; and then my webserver was back online. I've got my auto backups going again, and scripts set up to automatically keep the system up to date and to compile the RSS feeds and usage information for the site. I've also got all sorts of scripts doing all my mundane computer tasks... in fact I barely have to do anything any more; my computer runs itself.

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Comments Down

12:19 PM

Yes, I know the comments are down. I can't fix that until I get home.

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This Weekend

10:28 AM

I had a fun weekend. On Friday night we went to the Satellite Lounge for happy hour, and then over to the Six Arms for another beer. Kathrine and her friend Chris then walked down to the Show Box to see the Decemberists play.

On Saturday we went to the Leilani Lanes to go bowling. It is hell on my elbow, but a very good time. Plus the bar has white russians. Plus the alley is Tiki themed. Plus there was a car in the parking lot with a fully dressed skeleton in the passenger seat. And if that wasn't enough, we got to hear Ryan do Karaoke to Cold Gin in the bar. After all that fun, we still managed to go back to Mia and Ryan's house to watch the new episode of cheaters.

Sunday brought server trouble. Somehow the web server died. I couldn't restore it, but I really didn't try that hard. I used it an excuse to get Debian installed on it. Amazingly enough, it only took a few hours to get Debian up and running; all my file sharing set back up; MySQL, Apache, and PHP4 installed; my web site restored; and the MySQL web database restored from backup.

And that's all I've got for now.

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Logging In

6:19 AM

Well, so far no one is registered on the page. Can't say I'm suprised. I was wondering if I could get some feedback on the kind of information I should collect, and what I should display. Right now I display your name, email, and web page. I'm thinking of adding a check box so you can decide if you want your email to be public. I'm also considering adding a count of the number of posts you've made, and a link to the last post. I also thought it might be worthwhile to store your location (I could hide this as well if you desire). What does everyone think?

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March Madness Baby

11:58 AM

It's time to channel Dick Vitale and fill out your bracket. I'm here to give you a little advice, and I've crunched the numbers so you can trust me.

Don't pick as many upsets as you would normally expect; they just aren't out there in large numbers. I can give a few teams to watch out for though. I assigned all teams a value after I did my calculations and normalized it so that the best team is 100.

North Carolina (100) comes out on top. There were a few surprises though. Avoid picking Washington (70) to go far; they are highly overrated and won't go beyond the sweet 16. Boston College (51) and Gonzaga (52) also aren't very good bets. If you're looking for low seeds to go far, you should have good luck with the five seeds, on average I show them to be as good as the two seeds. The best bet is Michigan State (77). Kentucky (70) is the worst number 2 and Oklahoma State (81) is the best. Louisville (78) has the best opportunity to go far, simply because of their positioning.

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Find the Updates!

11:51 PM

Everyone bitched and moaned about how I only write updates about my site. So, I wrote a gigantic update about very interesting things... and I got all of 2 comments. And one of those was complaining about the length of the post.

So as punishment, you get to hear more about the site. I've done a major overhaul. See if you can spot all the changes. They're all over the place. If anything breaks, send me an email. I've been staring at this screen all weekend and I'm sure I've missed something.

Oh, and you now need to have cookies enabled to get the most out of the site. Don't worry, I've got everything saved as an md5 hash; so the bad guys won't steal your passwords.

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Why Bands Always Will Suck

3:23 PM

I've read a few things lately that have me asking the same question. The first was a column in Spin Magazine containing a contract promising that you would never stop buying albums from your favorite band. It made the point that, without fail, bands continue to put out albums; but people just stop caring about them. The second was a story about a classic rock cruise by Chuck Klosterman. Basically for $3000 you got to take a Caribbean Carnival cruise with REO Speedwagon, Journey, and Styx, and hear performances by each on the ship. Chuck noted that many of the passengers asked the same question, "Why do good old bands put out new music that's no good?" You can see the phenomenon yourself at any concert by a band who's popularity has waned. Everyone sits politely while the new material is played, but then goes crazy for the old stuff. The last thing was this article by the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons.

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