] Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, has
] recently taken on a procession of corporate powers from
] Wall Street analysts to mutual funds to insurance
] brokers. Now he is casting his eyes on the music
] industry, particularly its practices for influencing what
] songs are heard on the public airwaves.

[ Spitzer is one tough motherfucker, man. The dude does not abide. -k]

Record Labels Said to Be Next on Spitzer List for Scrutiny

] Microsoft Internet Explorer is continuing to lose share
] in the browser market, as its much-smaller competitors
] chisel at its dominant position, new Web site visitor
] data shows.

[ Thank fucking god. Maybe someday i'll be able to implement a site according to web standards and have it actually work. -k]

Internet Explorer Loses More Market Share

This pretty much sums up why I hate apple weenies.

[ Yeah, tards come in all flavors. Fortunately it doesn't matter. What will kill real is the fact that they have *no* product differentiation, and a nasty stigma from past indiscretions. I have somewhat mixed feelings on this particular case, but it seemed pretty pointless. If they offered a bigger or better selection than iTMS, then there would be incentive to care. But they never bothered to convince anyone why they should bother to use the Real store. -k]

Apple zombies attack RealNetworks

] Here is IBM's Redacted Memorandum in Support of Motion
] for Partial Summary Judgment On Breach of Contract
] Claims, filed by IBM on Friday. As you will see, they are
] going for the jugular now. Astoundingly, they say that
] all parties involved in the contract between AT&T and IBM
] have now provided testimony in discovery that IBM has the
] right to do whatever it wishes with its own code,
] contrary to SCO's claims, or as the memorandum puts it,
] they all provided "unequivocal testimony that the
] agreements were not intended and should not be understood
] to preclude IBM's use and disclosure of homegrown code
] and contemporaneous documents reflect this interpretation
] of the licenses".

[ *SMACK*

Bold mine. -k]

IBM Goes for the Jugular vs SCO -- GROKLAW

] Oprah's Book Club may help sell millions of books to
] Americans, and slam poetry may have engendered a youthful
] new breed of wordsmith, but the nation is still caught in
] a tide of indifference when it comes to literature. That
] is the sobering profile of a new survey to be released
] today by the National Endowment for the Arts, which
] describes a precipitous downward trend in book
] consumption by Americans and a particular decline in the
] reading of fiction, poetry and drama.

[ Lots of good statistics to chew on here and lots of discussion to be had... i hope everyone will read this.

I for one, know, categorically, that i read more now than i ever have in the past, even during school (where i was, granted, a physics & CS student). I read constantly and not a day goes by that i don't read for at least an hour. And I'm not talking about reading memo's at work... I read blogs and memes, aritcles and journals, and then i go home and read books, sometimes fine literture, but more often science fiction, or interesting non-fiction related to philosophy or computing or biology or physics.

It may be that my peer group and I are vastly different from the norm, but even among avid readers, i believe there's been a shift in the kind of materials they pursue. I think more people are driven to be "productive" with their time, even their "free time", and have demphasized fiction in general, or feel that they'd prefer to recieve their fictions in the form of movies, TV shows or video games (which get more immersive every cycle). Doing a quick mental survey of my closest friends, i'm confident that most of them spend a great deal more of their reading time on non-fiction, magazines and technical books than they do on fiction.

The more interesting, and harder, questions to answer are those regarding the level of civic involvement, or engagement with culture and society, that follows this trend. Are we cynical from reading blogs and news feeds all day, without the buffer of literary engagements of the very topics we still face? What are the consequences of focusing on "reality" over fiction, if that's what's happening?

I certainly have argued in favor of fiction many times in the past and i continue to hold strongly to that stand. I think a good novel can often convey more information, and in a more meaningful way, than a nonfiction work covering the same conceptual bases. Not always, but often enough to make it worthwhile. Addtionally, I strongly believe in not addressing everything in a purely pragmatic sense, and feel that escapism, in moderation, is every bit as important as ticking off accomplishments. The best literature, of course, is the kind that lets you do both simultaneously, and perhaps that's the real danger... missing out on the experience of being both enlightened and entertained.

In the end of course, it's all about choices... I prefer books, and my connection to them is as much experiential as it is functional... I still like the feel of the paper and the choice of type, size, weight, design and so on. I'll be interested to see other, similar anlyses, particularly ones which investigate the amount of non-fiction reading and levels of "new media" investment.

-k

p.s. anyone find it interesting/disturbing that religious texts jumped? i wonder what qualifies too, incidentally... does my copy of The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama (which i admit isn't religious, but certainly qualifies as spiritual) count, or only my bible?]

Fewer Noses Stuck in Books in America, Survey Finds

] By selecting Edwards, Kerry went with the smooth-talking
] Southern populist over more seasoned politicians in hopes
] of injecting vigor and small-town appeal to the
] Democratic presidential ticket.

[ I think this was the right choice... Edwards appeals to lots of people, for a variety of reasons, and I think this will provide more excitement than any other pairing.

Incidentally, Fox NEWS' first story on this was one which highlighted all the "bad" things they said about each other during the primaries. Insightful journalism or low-hanging fruit? -k]

RE: Kerry Picks Edwards!

] Mr. Hatch also said the induce bill - the name is short
] for "inducement devolves into unlawful child
] exploitation" - was intended to defend children, who he
] said make up about half of the users of file sharing
] software. "This for-profit piracy scheme mostly endangers
] children, who are ill equipped to appreciate the
] illegality or risks of their acts," he said.

[ Ooohhh, it's for the children now... i see. Please, everyone, think of the children! If we don't continue to prop up the business model of this behemoth RIAA represents, what will become of the poor, doe-eyed, children?

Fucking please. You want to come out and say 'We need to strengthen IP laws in this, this and this way, to the benefit of such and such.' then just fucking do it. Couching this issue in some kind of drug-pusher, corrupting-the-minds-of-the-youth bullshit is cheap and insulting, not to mention absurd. I guess saying 'I want to remove some traditional rights given to consumers and makers of independent products, for the benefit of these record companies.' doesn't sell too good. -k]

Bill to Curb Online Piracy Is Challenged as Too Broad

] Has the entire Goddamn universe become snared by the
] siren song of City of Heroes? Everywhere I look, monitors
] glow with bobbing superhero ass. I played it, and it was
] great at what it did - Diablo plus Unprecedented
] Character Creation. I declared it inoffensive and moved
] on. And now, I'd say eighty percent of my friends can't
] pry themselves from that superteat.

[ No one beats PA for telling it like it is, that's for sure... i love those guys. -k]

Tycho on City of Heroes

] WASHINGTON -- Digital radio broadcasts that bring
] CD-quality sound to the airwaves could lead to unfettered
] song copying if protections are not put in place, a
] recording-industry trade group warned on Friday.

Sigh ... here's the "broadcast flag" for digital radio...

Wired News: RIAA Moves In on Digital Radio

] The Washington think tank responsible for 'Linux aids
] terrorism' claims two years ago is at it again. The
] Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is now casting doubt on
] Linus Torvalds' authorship of Linux, and implying that
] it's a knock-off of Unix.

Can we say "libel?"

[ Leave it to the register to come up with exactly the right headline... just dripping with that british sarcasm. Anyway, this report is a huge load of crap... tailored perfectly to come out just in time to scare a few more fools out of their OSS plans. And they better get it out before IBM finally and definitively smacks SCO into utter oblivion and lays down the law, literally, on the validity of the code in Linux. Or at least, that's what seems likely at present.

I'd love to see the AdTI jackasses get pasted for defamation tho, that'd be great. -k]

Alien puppet Linus swiped Linux from SCO, says balanced study