] The government of North Korea has launched a series of
] television public service announcements called "Let Us
] Trim Our Hair In Accordance With Socialist Lifestyle!"
]
]
] Snip from a BBC News story on the campaign: "It stressed
] the 'negative effects' of long hair on 'human
] intelligence development,' noting that long hair
] 'consumes a great deal of nutrition' and could thus rob
] the brain of energy."

[ Sounds like a hoax to me, but maybe it's just irrational enough to be true. -k]

Boing Boing: North Korea wages war on long hair

Oh my....

[ Yeah, oy. -k]

Newt for President 2008

Decius wrote:
] Because I own a mac I have to used itunes and an ipod, because
] they other players and music stores don't work on my computer.
] The other stores don't work on my computer because they have
] to use a DRM system and Apple will not allow them to employ
] the DRM system supported by the ipod. Basically, I have a
] several thousand dollar purchase that locks me in to a
] particular online music store. It is a monopoly, and it
] fucking sucks.

[ It's fairer to say that if you chose to use the iTunes Music Store, that you have to use an iPod to play your purchased music, regardless of wether you are a PC or a Mac user. If you purchased an iPod, then you either must use iTMS or one of the DRM-free services, which work with any player, essentially. The several thousand dollar Macintosh is mostly external to the argument. If any of the other DRM'd music stores made Macintosh clients, you could use them, and if any of the other hardware vendors made Macintosh drivers/sync software, you could use those as well. Their decision not to, in most cases, is probably more due to the miniscule Macintosh market than to the inability to break through the iTMS/iPod linkage.

I hadn't thought all the way through the issue when I called it tenuous. I've given this a lot more thought since, and I'm now willing to grant, within the understanding I possess of antitrust law, which is very limited, that Apple is being anti-competitive in linking the iTMS with the iPod. Again, though, this has little to do with your Macintosh.

The argument that tying these two devices together leverages the market of the one to swell the other is unquestioned. It happened, so one can't argue that it didn't. The iPod became huge because it was better than the other players (or more pretty, or whatever, i mean "better" in a marketing/sales sense). Then iTMS became huge because, in large part, it was the only way to buy certain tracks for your iPod. It was also because it was simple to use and the DRM didn't require an attorney to untangle, but for the sake of argument, it's fair to say that iPod users wanted to buy music online and their choices were either the iTMS or one of the non-DRM stores, which have a very limited appeal (due to not having popular music). So the argument in that direction makes a certain amount of sense.

I'm not as convinced that the gentleman who brought suit has quite as secure a position. His argument hinges on not having had non-Apple options in music stores, which is a shaky argument. The article never states if he is a PC or a Mac user, but it doesn't matter really. Apple would have to be actively discouraging other music stores from creating Mac clients, but I argue that their lack has more to do with PC/Mac market share then anything else. He may have wanted Britney Spears, but it's not really Apple's fault that iTMS is the only way to get that on a Mac. Non-drm services work fine on the Mac, and he could've paid them instead. And if he's a PC user, then he had plenty of options of both music stores and harware players. If he used iTMS despite the other options, he can hardly be said to have been forced.

Now, it's possible that now that the iTMS and iPod together share such a large market share, the barrier to entry in the market for other hardware/service vendors is much higher, because they have to offer a system which is equally integrated, since they can't leverage compatibility with either iTunes or the iPod. That suit would probably have a good chance of success, but none of the vendors has brought it yet. Real should probably consider doing so, as they have attempted to offer their service in a way that is iPod compatible, and Apple has prevented them from doing so via updates to the iPod firmware. That seems like a more realistic situation. -k]

RE: ITunes user sues Apple over iPod

] The mobile phone industry has already agreed on a DRM
] standard for locking down media - and it'll cost $1 per
] handset, plus a percentage of each piece of media
] downloaded.
]
] ...
]
] Agreement has been rapid, taking less than four months. But
] it's nevertheless a considerable burden to cost-sensitive
] manufacturers, which often balk at paying more than a few
] cents for essential software. Handset vendors only pay
] around $5 to license the air interface. The costs will
] indirectly be born by the consumers, who as always in a
] lock-down regime, end up paying more for less.

[ Sweet. -k]

Phone biz agrees on $1 DRM levy | The Register

] Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams admits he was
] paid to provide favorable coverage of the No Child Left
] Behind Act and Education Secretary Rod Paige through a
] contract between the Department of Education and a public
] relations firm. NPR's David Folkenflik reports.

[ Listen to this. Particularly outstanding is the quote from CNN founding president Reese Schoenfeld : "A whore is a whore, and when you're paid to put out an opinion without announcing to the world that you've been paid, that's not only whoring, but pretending to virtue while you're doing it." Damn. -k]

Contract Tied to Coverage Promoting Administration

For each week of 2004, we provide a graph of that week's social network activity, the most popular discussions, and the most popular users. Every link between people in the graphs represents at least one blog entry that was read and re-recommended; hence propagated further through the network. The arrows point to sources; they represent the flow of reputation. The users in each graph are those whose memes were re-recommended in the preceding two weeks. Users are colored depending on their popularity that week, with the highest scores getting the brightest colors. Links are only mapped for memes posted on a user's MemeStream. Replies in threads are not graphed.

[ Check it everyone... this is good stuff. Your Industrial Memetics team has put a great deal of effort into putting together this week by week view of site activity. It's been a hell of a year, as evidenced by the data here... read it, know it. -k]

MemeStreams - Year in Graphs 2004

] Seeking to build support among black families for its
] education reform law, the Bush administration paid a
] prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his
] nationally syndicated television show and to urge other
] black journalists to do the same.

[ Aren't you glad to see your tax dollars at work propagandizing No Child Left Behind? Yeah, me too. -k]

Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law

] Rather than seeing entertainment-focused media forms as
] adversarial to educational content, educators should
] instead embrace them. This commentary examines how
] content originally designed for entertainment purposes
] can be modified to provide natural and context rich
] language learning environments, without sacrificing its
] entertainment value. First, I examine a modification to
] the number one selling video game The Simsthat
] intelligently combines game data from the English edition
] with data from editions of other languages to form a
] bilingual gaming environment. This exposes learners to
] abundant L2 vocabulary, yet still provides enough L1
] support not to detract from the game. This principle is
] then extended to other applications such as music videos,
] typing tutors, and voice-navigated games. Finally, areas
] of otherwise wasted time are identified, such as waiting
] for Web pages to load or walking to class, with
] suggestions of how technology can facilitate language
] learning during these times.

[ Some very interesting things in here about ways to use media that are already popular and common, as teaching aids... well worth a read... -k]

YOU'RE NOT STUDYING, YOU'RE JUST...

] Maskin comes from mask: it's about switching identities
] in virtually no time. But with Maskin, changing the looks
] of a vehicle with individual designs also means extra
] protection by a "second skin" %u2013 made by Maskin.

[ Peel off auto paint, for temporary identity shifts. If it were cheap enough, an extra clearcoat of this stuff might be really useful. Let it take the pebbles and so forth, then peel it off when it's damaged enough to make you look bad. -k]

Maskin; Discover a new dimension of paint.

] "Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its
] monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online
] digital music recordings to thwart competition in the
] separate market for portable hard drive digital music
] players, and vice-versa," the lawsuit said.
]
]
] Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who "was
] also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to
] take his music with him to listen to.

[ Only a matter of time, i guess. Does iTunes music store really have a monopoly, though? The argument seems tenuous to me. -k]

ITunes user sues Apple over iPod