KiSSDVD.COM
Very very stupid site.

They are plugging products that seem most likely to appeal to geeks. For example, a DVD Player that can play Divx video clips. Divx is a relatively new compression format that is probably most commonly used to distributed bootlegs of movies and TV shows.

So, they have a fancy flash driven site, but it is designed for display on 800×600 pixel desktops. How many geeks are running their displays at that resolution? I think I can say with some confidence that the answer is : NONE OF THEM. To make matters worse, the text is nearly unreadable because of the small typeface and the anti-aliasing.

Intelligent design
This morning I was thinking of the poor snail, a creature whose anus is over its mouth and it got me thinking of this whole “Inteligent Design” rubbish that creationists want to force feed school kids as an antidote to the supposed evils of Darwinism.

I suppose though that they would just use the poor snail’s predicament as evidence that the creator is not only intelligent, he (and it is always a he with these people) also has a sly sense of humor.

I am really torked off now, because I could have sworn I stowed a link to a nice overview of Intelligent Design for the faithful that gave all sorts of examples of supposed proof of ID, but I cant find the thing. Help would be appreciated, because the pages on the subject I found on google aren’t as linkable as I’d like.

Wired News: RIAA’s Rosen Sets Sights on ISPs

Sense or nonsense, Rosen said during her keynote address at the Midem music conference in France that ISPs should pay a fee to the music industry to compensate for those losses. ISPs could then pass the cost along to their song-swapping customers.

This is absolutely outrageous. The music industry wants to get paid for doing nothing!!

They didn’t invest in the infrastructure or technology to make on-line music practical. They didn’t go to the trouble of making music available in a format that was practical for on-line distribution. They have vigourously attacked anyone who has taken steps to make it possible.

They have insulted and abused their customer base for on-line music distribution, not only calling the early and not-so-early adopters criminals, but going as far as taking legal action against some of them.

They failed to sell people what they wanted by failing to publish & distribute their back catalogs and failing to invest in new acts after indulging their urge to merge. At the same time, they killed or crippled the hundreds of new acts they had already signed by keeping them on contract while failing to release or promote their albums.

And now, after fucking things up completely, after insulting music lovers and innovative technologies, they want us to pay them for their ineptitude. It is absolute bullshit!

Stealth Affirmative Action

Last week, when President Bush denounced direct preferences for racial minorities in state university admissions, he recommended programs such as the one in Texas, which guarantees acceptance to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of each high-school class. In 1999, Bruce Gottlieb argued that it’s deceptive to pretend that such programs are anything other than affirmative action. They only work because America’s high schools are still severely segregated, and their purpose is “explicitly racial.”

This may amount to afirmative action now, but in the long run, it sounds more like those programs crafted to bring more white students into minority schools, like bussing and magnet schools.

Think about it, why wouldn’t parents of non-minority kids send their kids to minority high schools if they thought it would improve their chance of getting acceptance to a good public college?

Cheap hardware
For $230, I can get a new PC with everything except the monitor and an OS. It isn’t anything special, but it isn’t bad. For $400 and can get a new PC that is faster than anything I have now.

This creates some interesting issues around software pricing.

Scripting News

Tri-Valley Herald: “Protesters marched up Market Street to the Civic Center, where celebrity speakers including actor Martin Sheen and singers Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez addressed the crowd.” An actor who plays the President, gives a speech at a real demonstration. That crosses a line.

If politicians serve in office beholden to special interests, then why can’t an actor can remain political while portraying a politician? (Martin Sheen was politically active well before he signed up to play the president on The West Wing)

It may cross the line, but against the backdrop of today’s political landscape, it seems so insignificant.