Samurai.Chris

www.joyoftech.com

During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isn’t to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?

[ full article from TorrentFreak ]

MacHeist 3 is up and rolling, and has already had 2 nanoMissions and 1 full mission. If you've never participated, it's a lot of fun. They people behind it, known as "the Directorate", have created an immersive online game environment where participants get to act out their latent hacker fantasies, solving puzzles and breaking through some very clever "security systems" (puzzles) with the end goal of getting free copies of popular shareware apps for the Mac.

 If you're a Mac user, and haven't tried it, I recommend checking it out. Like I've said before, it's a lot of fun. And it's a chance to join a very friendly community of Mac users from around the world.

 www.macheist.com

Okay, I promised myself I would write about this, and have been kind of slow getting to it. Back at the beginning of July, I road-tripped with the missus and the madre back to Colorado to visit friends and family (it was so wonderful to see you guys!!!!).

 Let me wander off on a tangent for a moment... I promise, it's relevant. Have you ever seen "Swimming to Cambodia"? It's basically a film of a live performance piece by Spalding Gray (God rest his soul). In it, he talks about how when he travels, he looks for the 'perfect moment'... that experience that crystalizes the purpose of your trip and tells you it's okay to go home.

 Back to Colorado. I had such a perfect moment. In a restaurant, of all places. See, part of the rationale behind our trip was to attend the Eisenhauer family (my wife's maternal family) reunion in Estes Park. I've loved Estes Park ever since I was a little hemophiliac camper at the YMCA Camp (location of the reunion, coincidentally), so it was a no-brainer for me.

 Anyhow, on the evening of the 4th of July (don't ask me about the significance!), we found ourselves without dinner plans... so we decided to head into town and try one of the many restaurants we saw on the way up to the Y-camp. Our first stop was at an Italian place that looked really shee-shee and appealing, but totally blew us off because we didn't have a reservation and they were an hour behind on the evening as it was. Sucks to be them... they might be getting the effusive review to follow, if they hadn't been so totally indifferent to us.

 Moving on down the road, and following one of my uncanny hunches, we settled on dining at the Sundeck restaurant. What a delightful twist of fate.

 After a short wait in the bar, playing the peg board game, we got our table, and were attended to with utmost professionalism and courtesy. That's all well and good... should be expected by any respectable restaurant. That's not the story, though.

 The story was the meal. I opted for the Forelle Blau, which is their house specialty. It's a poached rainbow trout (apparently caught out of the river 10 minutes before cooking!) with drawn butter and parsley potatoes. In short, it was the BEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD. I would not kid about such a thing.

 Should you find yourself in Estes Park and looking for a good place to eat, take my advice and get thee to the Sundeck and have the Forelle Blau. They also make a killer 'Gangster', if you're the drinking type.

The Yoshida Brothers. These guys are amazing. A friend turned me on to them yesterday, and I am TOTALLY HOOKED.

Woo hoo! Start It Over is finally out!!! (I've been waiting all summer) Here's a funky little video Reggie shot for the first track, "Know Your Name":

M-Video from Reggie Watts on Vimeo.

If you don't know Maktub, check them out here. These guys have a reputation for being even better live... I love them both live and on CD. Definitely check out Khronos and Start It Over. I also love their first album, Subtle Ways, but it ain't for everybody.

Full disclosure: their bass player, Kevin, is a friend of mine, dating back to my days at ASU. Am I biased? Maybe.

Royksopp - Remind Me

If you recognize the tune, it's used in the Geico caveman commercial at the airport. I like this version a lot better (it's a lot richer and more layered).

This was definitely amusing...

So a friend got me to give the "personal DNA" questionnaire a whirl. It was pretty accurate in describing me, although it rates my confidence as being higher than I think it is, and my creativity lower.

Here's a link to my result, including a breakdown of my personality traits.

It's kind of a fun little exercise. If you want to give it a try yourself, go here.

 

Pinched from the Celebrity Mugshots section of The Smoking Gun.
(copyright apparently held by CourtTV.com and/or its affiliate sites)

Random thought for the day: why are there no sinks in the Star Wars movies, much less rest rooms?

I understand the whole not getting mired in banal details that don't add to the story thing, but c'mon... there's got to be some plumbing somewhere! Besides, imagine the opportunities for a really entertaining bathroom scene at the Mos Eisley cantina!
 

It's almost banal to observe that we live in very complicated times, particularly with respect to how we get information. Madison postulated that in order for the American Experiment to work, an informed public was a critical dependency. Yet we live in an era where much (if not most) of what we see and hear is governed by a few corporate megaliths.

The Nation recently published an interesting "manifesto" of sorts, dubbed A Ten-Point Plan for Media Democracy. The article was written by Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy. If you care about how information is delivered to you and the shape of things to come as we forge ahead into the digital age (and you should!), I think you'll find it a worthwhile read.

Net Neutrality is still up in the air, as well. It's important to keep abreast of the issue and keep the pressure on Congress not to allow the giant telcos to create an internet fast lane for the highest bidder and a dirt road for the rest of us.