After talking with Acidus the other day about Napster's revamped format, it occured to me that some common misgivings are present where their download policy is concerned. I present them for your review because I have found their service to be useful and more content-rich than iTunes in addition to having some interesting features.

Background: I skipped downloading more than about 10 songs a quarter because I hardly ever found what I wanted on the "Top 40" flavor of iTunes. I asked around about Napster, and most everyone was under the impression that the monthly fee only allows you to rent songs playable only on your PC, after cessation of which your access to the music ends. This is true, but this is only one method of accessing Napster's motley library and you are actually allowed to access your account and downloaded tracks on up to 3 PCs w/ Napster's software.

The Rest of the Story: The other two ways you can access music include a non-monthly fee, $.99 download service similar to iTunes or a slightly higher monthly fee ($14.95 vs $9.95) which allows you all the comforts of regular Napster plus unlimited downloading to a Napster approved player of which my H320 iRiver just happens to be. If you want to burn the songs to CD, however, you have to pay $.99/song no matter which of the three versions you have. It just depends on if you want to listen to full-length tracks before downloading and access downloaded tracks on up to 3 PCs (Napster), that plus transfer to portable players (Napster To Go), or just buy music for your library to keep forever (Napster Light).

Cool Stuff: The coolest thing about Napster is the ease of use. The GUI is clean and intuitive and you can easily access other users' libraries and find stuff that "you will like if you like Band X". Also, Napster's built-in recommendation agent seems pretty on target.

Unclear: I can't tell yet whether tracks downloaded through Napster To Go and transferred to my iRiver will remain playable after my membership ends. They secretively allude to expiration software built into the tracks, but I'm curious if it goes so far as to expire in a Mission Impossible this-message-will-self-destruct-in-five-seconds takeoff. I also am suspicious that not all songs will be transferrable and that I will have to pay in addition to the higher monthly fee in order to transfer songs to my iRiver.

Conclusion: The whole thing is damn well complicated and exaccerbated by the horrible explanation on Napster's FAQ. What few gritty details they provide are on the FAQ which is passably organized at best. I am also angered by the fact that you pay a monthly fee for the priveledge of basically listening to a full track before downloading. Otherwise, to play it on your PC, transfer to MP3 players or CDs, or just to keep the songs forever, you [seemingly] have to pay $.99/song regardless of your membership type.

Verdict: Membership on Napster is only really worth it if tracks transferred through Napster To Go are available to you forever on your MP3 player as an unprotected song that you can play in Winamp later on. I'll know soon enough when I cancel my one week free trial tomorrow. Even if they aren't available on your portable player, I may just switch to the $9.95 version if I determine that browsing member's collections turns out to be an efficient way to find stuff I haven't heard before. All in all, membership seems like an awfully expensive way of finding something that hasn't been Clear Channel sanitized.

-janelane, fuzzily

(CNN) -- A study released Tuesday said drivers who use cell phones -- even hands-free models -- are four times as likely to be involved in wrecks involving a serious injury than are drivers who do not use cell phones.

"There was no safety benefit whatsoever from using a hands-free phone," said Anne McCartt, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the British Medical Journal and paid for by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
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The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, a Washington-based trade group, downplayed the findings, saying the distractions associated with mobile phones are no different from those encountered by drivers who eat or talk with passengers as they drive.
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The CTIA contends that following these guidelines can minimize risk:

# Assess whether a given call can wait.

# Do not take notes while driving.

# Do not talk while in heavy traffic.

# If possible, pull off the road and park in a safe location to use a mobile phone.

So what the CTIA is basically saying is don't talk on your cellphone while driving. Brilliant!

-janelane, amused

CNN.com - Study: Drivers on cells more likely to crash - Jul 12, 2005

Equifax's chief executive says he opposes federal legislation that lets consumers obtain a free copy of their credit report to help them monitor financial accounts for fraudulent activity.

CEO Thomas Chapman called the legislation unconstitutional and un-American because it cuts into profits that Equifax and two rival credit reporting agencies -- Experian and TransUnion -- earn from selling credit reports and monitoring services. Equifax maintains credit data on 220 million Americans. The company earned $1.27 billion in revenue last year.

"Our company felt, and still does ... that it's unconstitutional to cause a public company who has a fiduciary responsibility to return profit to shareholders to give away the product," Chapman said to reporters following a speech at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on Monday. "Most of my shareholder group did not think that giving away our product was the American way."
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He discussed recent data breaches and the California notification law that requires companies to tell consumer when they experience a security breach -- a law that many credit with making consumers aware of data breaches that previously went unreported. Chapman said his company "has notified people for a long time."
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When pressed to say whether his company had notified consumers when it experienced insignificant breaches, he replied, "I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to answer that question. We have been notifying and engaging in communication with customers, consumers, for a long time. We're known for that. We're known for our stand on privacy."

To ward off excessive legislation, Chapman supports the idea of tougher industry standards pressuring companies to encrypt data. He suggested that increased funding for enforcement of data-theft laws would help reverse a trend in which few identity thieves are ever prosecuted.

That man is going straight to hell. What a prick.

His reasoning on how to stop theft is fundamentally flawed; you could bring back corporal punishment and still fall victim to identity crooks overseas. Requiring encryption is fantastic, but removing some poor shmuck's right to view their credit report without the $30 surcharge isn't going to lessen the massive ignorance engulfing consumers where identity security is concerned. That's like creating software to deal with the vulnerabilities in Microsoft's code instead of requiring them to....wait...

-janelane, exasperated

Wired News: Credit Chief Slams Free Reports

CAMDEN, New Jersey (AP) -- As authorities began investigating why police failed to search a car trunk where three missing boys were found dead, the father of one of the children said Sunday he could not understand how they died so close to home.

Anibal Cruz, 38, said the family assumed that police looked in the trunk of the car that was parked just steps from where the boys were last seen playing.
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Officials said the boys suffocated after climbing into the trunk on their own. Their bodies were found by David Agosto, whose 6-year-old son Daniel had gone missing along with 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan and 11-year-old Anibal Cruz.

How about filing charges against the parents for not noticing the children disappeared out of their own yard and failing themselves to check inside the car parked in the yard?

Tip #104: Parents -} Blame yourselves!

-janelane

CNN.com - Dad: 'Maybe they should have looked in the trunk' - Jun 27, 2005

The factory is the first of its kind to produce electricity by combining wind power and hydrogen, a completely pollution-free method. On a good windy day, which Utsira has plenty of, where speeds average 10 metres [33ft] per second, the turbines can power the whole island. Any surplus is used to break water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. On days when the wind is weak, the stored hydrogen is used to produce electricity, either by burning it in a combustion engine or fusing it chemically with oxygen in a fuel cell, a kind of battery. The only by-product of the operation is water.

Cool! Totally infeasible for the domestic economy and administration, but cool nonetheless!

-janelane

Guardian Unlimited | Life | 'In 50 years' time no one will be using oil any more'

The survey included results from 3,247 scientists, roughly 40 percent of those who were sent the questionnaire in 2002. They were researchers based in the United States who'd received funding from the National Institutes of Health. Most were studying biology, medicine or the social sciences, with others in chemistry and a smaller group in math, physics or engineering.

Of the 10 practices that Martinson's study described as the most serious, less than 2 percent of respondents admitted to falsifying data, plagiarism or ignoring major aspects of rules for conducting studies with human subjects. But nearly 8 percent said they'd circumvented what they judged to be minor aspects of such requirements.

Nearly 13 percent of those who responded said they'd overlooked "others' use of flawed data or questionable interpretation of data," and nearly 16 percent said they had changed the design, methods or results of a study "in response to pressure from a funding source."

Wait...so they did a study of scientists to determine what percentage of them lie when doing studies?

Inconceivable!

-janelane

ENN: Environmental News Network [[Today's News Full Story ]]

OSLO: Inuit hunters threatened by a melting of the Arctic ice plan to file a petition accusing Washington of violating their human rights by fuelling global warming, an Inuit leader said on Wednesday.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), also said Washington was hindering work to follow up a 2004 report by 250 scientists that said the thaw could make the Arctic Ocean ice-free in summer by 2100.

Watt-Cloutier, in Oslo to receive an environmental prize, said the Inuits' planned petition to the 34-member Organization of American States (OAS) could put pressure on the United States to do more to cut industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Yeah bloody right. I'm so sure that their little petition is going to finally pursuade Bush to quit dicking around with big business and get serious about greenhouse gas emissions. I can admire their dedication and that the height of their naivety is unmatched.

-janelane

ENN: Environmental News Network [[Today's News Full Story ]]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida (AP) -- A 4-year-old boy died after passing out while aboard Walt Disney World's "Mission: Space" attraction -- a ride that has caused previous concerns because of its intensity.
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Paramedics tried to revive him, but he died about 5 p.m. at Celebration Hospital.

The sheriff's office said the boy did meet the minimum 44-inch height requirement for the ride at the Epcot theme park, which simulates twice the normal force of gravity

I was nauseous for the entire afternoon after riding that ride a couple of weeks ago. Its a hell of a good ride though; you'd swear you were taking off in a spaceship.

-janelane

CNN.com - Boy, 4, dies after riding Epcot attraction - Jun 14, 2005

Not fucking guilty on all counts. I hate celebrities, jurors, and all the fucking fans supporting that pedophile.

For crying out loud, surely Michael Jackson is guilty of ONE STINKING COUNT. I expected he'd get off the hardcore, jail-time counts, but fuckin-A!

Arg.

-janelane

The system melds the best elements of high- and low-tech, combining the immediacy of store rentals with the information and marketing of online services. Customers can see what's available and check for special offers online at Redbox. They can find locations, get maps and driving directions and, through a partnership with Yahoo, link to movie reviews. They can sign up for special offers by e-mail.

But even the digitally clueless won't have trouble finding participating stores. They'll have only to look behind the Playland posters or under the roof banners -- or in some cases the 68-foot inflatable vending machines perched above the golden arches. Think of it as a variation on the giant doughnuts and colossal hot dogs of Googie architecture.

Rentals are primarily the top 40 new releases, cost $1 a night for each (paid by credit card only) and are due by 10 p.m. the following day. If a customer keeps the disc, they are charged $1 a day until the disc is returned or 25 days have passed, when the renter becomes the owner.

Blockbuster could learn something from this late-return policy, however I am curious about what possible financial gain could result from putting $1 on your credit card to pay for them...don't the credit card companies charge ~5% of sales just to tap into their system? Shouldn't cash be encouraged? I'm not entirely sure how it works, however I do know a liquor store that has different prices for cash vs credit purchases.

At any rate, long live laptop DVD players.

-janelane

Wired News: Order Your Big Mac and DVD to Go