News.com is reporting that the Allman Brothers and Cheap Trick are suing Sony for underpaying them for online sales. I don’t know whether it is true, but it makes my heart light and giddy when I hear about artists standing up to large corporations that treat their customers like criminals and destroy computers with illegal (I don’t know if it is really illegal or not, but it should be.) rootkit technologies posing as “digital rights” management.

Digital Rights is such a joke. I know they aren’t protecting my rights. Rather this DRM only serves to circumvent my rights to use my lawfully acquired music the way I want.

I also have a major bone to pick with Sony because their rootkit rendered my work computer useless. I lost a lot of unrecoverable data because their software “bricked” my dual processor behemoth. I listened to Switchfoot’s latest album on my computer and then a few months later I couldn’t boot my machine because those morons made their drivers load even in safe mode. I was left with only one option. I had to rebuild my computer which robbed me of days of productivity.

So, I say go Allman Brothers, and go Cheap Trick. Get out of your contract if you are in one, and leave Sony behind. They are evil, evil, evil.

Chalk one up to just accidentally stumbling on a gem. Earlier today I was treated to one of the best film makers on the net…really. His name is James D. Sandlin. His shirt is too tight, his ’stache is too porno, and his life too awesome!

Check out this quote…and I am not kidding…”The 80s was a magical period in my life, I don’t think I will every (editor’s note: This is his misspelling not mine) forget the 80s !!!”

I think that sums it up.

You need to check out his videos…Totally Awesome…Totally! (Don’t miss Walkin Through the Trailor Park !) I think James is into !Exclamation! points!! I know he is into cool !!!

You can thank me later for this little heads up!

MurDog

I just found this site from Japan. I haven’t dug that much because today is a lazy day, and I just don’t feel like it. In fact, this is a perfect site for today ’cause there’s nothing better than pretty pictures.

Apparently Isamu Sanada is a huge Apple fan who’s proficient in 3D mock-up programs. His site is full of “what-if” Apple products. Some of them are extremely far-fetched, but the vast majority are quite cool.

Go to the coffee house, get some free wi-fi, and peruse these gear-lust worthy pics.

Right under our noses, we are losing more and more rights. People all over the tech universe have been crying foul over and over again about the Digital Millennium Copyright act (DMCA) with little to no effect.

The problem is, most of the world isn’t technologically adept enough to see that rights that they will want tomorrow are being stripped away today. It wasn’t that long ago that being able to make a copy of a piece of music that you have purchased was legal. Today, it is still legal to make a copy of your music, but the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made a sneaky end-around your right to copy. The end-around is called the DMCA.

The sneaky part is the DMCA has a seemingly inocuous clause making it illegal to disable or tamper with encryption. On paper that sounds pretty good until you look a little deeper and what it means to you.

Let’s say you purchased a new CD by your favorite band. Then, let’s say you own an iPod or some other MP3 portable music device. And finally, just for laughs, let’s say you had the audacity to want to listen to your new music on your portable device. Doesn’t exactly sound like terrorist activity does it?

Well, on some new CDs, recording companies have started to encrypt music CDs in hopes of thwarting piracy. I can’t hardly blame them for wanting to protect their property…but wait. In order for you to put your new (paid for) music on your player, you are now forced to get around the encryption on the disc which makes you a criminal.

Something is broken here, and very few are crying foul because there aren’t enough of us at the party! By the time the average 52 year old man is carrying around an iPod, he will have long since lost the ability to use it in a logical way.

The DMCA is bad, and many people have been trying to let the world know about its inadequacies. Today, I read this article from CNET talking about a new piece of legislation that would not only keep the broken DMCA intact, but would go further to strip law-abiding citizens of their rights.

Below is an exerpt from the article.

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!? Things are getting way, way out of whack and it is time that we do something about it. I don’t want to steal music. I do want to buy a CD and copy it to MY iPod. It would be nice to listen to it somewhere other than SING SING!

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Originally uploaded by murdog777.

This is a great pic of MH while we were at the Farmer’s Market in Fayetteville.

Check out this NYTimes article about a new rear projection TV that Mitsubishi has just announced. Apparently, the “Big M” has developed a new TV that uses multi colored lasers to produce the images on the screen rather than the old fashioned lightbulb. It looks crazy cool, and only serves to make me more hesitant to buy a new television.

Will I ever have HD in my house?

Can we trust Trusted Computing?