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February 14, 2006
R.I.P. 'Auntie' Anne
My best friends mum, Anne, passed away yesterday.
We will miss you Anne, you and your stories, and your love, understanding and love of life. You were far more than just our best friends mum, you were our best friend too.
Posted by dottie at 9:09 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2006
CDLP's anyone?
Holy moly! Its here! The future is now!
This rocks. It uses lasers to position the read head over the groove and follow it rom start to end and then uses more lasers to read the information encoded into the grooves of the record.
Fantastic.
It even allows you to skip back and forth like a CD. When you first drop the LP into the player it will scan the surface looking for breaks between tracks.
The lasers read parts of the groove that havent been touched by a needle, so the sound quality should be perfect. Combine that with a pop filter and the fact that there is no thermal noise from a needle cartridge, or rumble from the motors, or hiss and pops from dust and scratches - you will hear exactly what is on the LP.
Me want.
Posted by dottie at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)
February 8, 2006
House Partay!
Since my house warming (which one you ask!) was such a success, I have decided that every two months I'll be having a party on the last Friday of the month.
The next one is this month, last friday of the month, so the 24th of February.
As usual - wine, women and song is the order of the night.
And as some have suggested its not a housewarming - think of it as a reheat!
Posted by dottie at 3:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 1, 2006
Best explanation of fair use. EVAR
http://99words.livejournal.com/2165.html
Remember kids, DRM is bad!
Posted by dottie at 2:37 PM | Comments (0)
Temptation in China
China is one of the biggest untapped (semi-tapped...) markets in the world. Companies stand to make a lot of money by providing products and services to Chinese people.
Online services will gain much through subscription fees, advertising revenue etc. Yahoo has made the leap, Google has made the leap.
The unfortunate part of all this is that the Chinese government are draconian in their methods of dealing with 'subversives'. Any company that provides services in China must do so according to the rules of the Chinese government.
Last year the Chinese government asked Yahoo to reveal the secret profile details of a subscriber to their services. Yahoo did so which resulted in a chinese journalist being jailed for ten years.
Doesnt sound so bad until you look at what the journalist is meant to have done. He shared a summary of a Chinese Communist Party directive with foreign sources. The directive had warned of possible unrest during the anniversary of the June 4 Movement - commemorating the Tianamen square massacre and associated events.
Yahoo had the choice - dont share the information and face penalties or at worst expulsion from the Chinese market but save a man from spending 10 years in prison or share the information, keep your profits and dont rock the boat. Bad choice Yahoo - You have now earned the ire of Amnesty International
Google has just recently come under fire for kowtowing to Chinas demands regarding censorship. I happen to trust Google a lot more than I do Yahoo. They have made mostly common sense decisions. Some of the non-issues for me were the scanning of Gmail and the insertion of context sensitive adverts. No human intervention, no storing of details - fine.
Google has to be asked the question - what price 10 years of a mans life? Would Google follow their creed of 'dont be evil' and face reprimands form the Chinese government. Would they do the right thing?
Posted by dottie at 2:28 PM | Comments (0)