Sep 18
In a move that will only reinforce the public’s view of a greedy music industry, a consortium of music industry groups has begun lobbying the U.S. Congress to receive what they believe is their fair share of revenue from online music performances. This includes fees for the free 30-second song samples that feature their work on websites like iTunes and Amazon.com.
The story from CNET indicates that music officials believe they should be paid a “performance” income from Apple and others for all online music including the free samples, just like when a song is played on the radio or at a sports game.
“If you watch a TV show on broadcast, cable or satellite TV, there is a performance fee collected,” David Israelite, president and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association. “But if that same TV show is downloaded over iTunes, there’s not. We’re arguing that the law needs to be clarified that regardless of the method by which a consumer watches the show there is a performance right.”
I agree that everyone in the music food chain should get their cut from music sales, but collecting a fee from 30-second samples? The music industry is clearly over-reaching (once again) and apparently doesn’t understand the concept of FREE samples. See, the idea is you give a little clip away for free with the hope that customers will pay to buy the whole song. I don’t know anyone who gets their music just by listening to these short clips. Most people just steal their music outright.
Sep 17
Many people steal software because they are too stupid to know that it’s wrong, or too dumb to get a job so they can pay for what they are stealing.
Though many pirates will tell you how smart they are because they’re getting stuff for free while the rest of us have to pay. It does sound smart, I guess, if you can get beyond that whole moral “stealing is bad” thing and the threat of bad karma.
But the stupidest pirate of all is the one that asks the software maker to help them steal their own software. Dushyant was dim enough to join the CodeSmith forums on the CodeSmith website and ask, “can any one post me the serial key to trick the CodeSmith Professional 5.1.1.8242”.
The CodeSmith moderator answered straight at first: “You will need to contact sales for a key (sales@codesmithtools.com).”
But the stupid pirate asked again. So the CodeSmith people decided to play with this dolt and responded: “enter this as the key: CS50P-0NLY4-1D10T-W0ULD-TRYT0-45KU5-TH15Q” which loosely translates as “only an idiot would try to ask us this question.”
You think Dushyant would finally realize he’s been served, but staying true to form, he responded, “The key you provided does not work to as serial key to crack the version.”
Read the thread at CodeSmith.com
Stupid-Is-As-Stupid-Does
Sep 11
A pizza with radius z and crust height a, has a volume calculated by:
pi*z*z*a
From Stefan Tanase
Sep 08
There’s a neat website that demonstrates text-to-speech technology. Enter any text, and an onscreen avatar will say it aloud.
You can choose male or female voices from the USA, UK, Scotland, Australia, India and South Africa. You can also apply various special effects such as changing the pitch, speeding or slowing the speech, and adding echo, reverb or flange.
It’s a bit freaky when the avatar’s eyes and face follow your mouse pointer around the screen.
Text-to-Speech Demo
Sep 02
The NFL has punted the popular social network Twitter.
On Monday, the National Football League announced that players, coaches, and other team personnel can use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook during the season. However, they are prohibited from using social networks starting 90 minutes before a game, through the game, and until post-game interviews are complete.
The rules extend to people representing a player or coach, such as agents, friends and family, and even include the media covering the games.
Continue reading »
Sep 01
I’m in my third decade of selling software. What’s amazing to me is how much easier it is today to market and sell software over the Web, versus back in the “old days” when we had to mess with disk duplication and mailing, snail mail correspondence, cashing checks and postal orders by hand, and providing support through dialup electronic bulletin boards.
Perhaps the greatest change is how relatively easy it is today to launch an effective global marketing campaign on a limited budget. If you’re selling software that provides true value at a reasonable price, you don’t need a Microsoft-sized budget to reach your potential customers.
So here are a few suggestions for an inexpensive marketing campaign:
Continue reading »
Aug 27
"The Longest Poem in the World" is composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme. It grows at a rate of about 4,000 verses each day. This novel site was created by Andrei Gheorghe, a web developer from Bucharest, Romania.
Here is the most recent start of the poem when it had 370,866 verses:
If life were easy and not so fast, I wouldn’t think about the past
and all the sudden, life is changing and its changing so fast.
is watching Ren and Stimpy. It’s becoming a nightly habit.
I had a dream that I had a sidekick and a rabbit.
Pride pride pride and now more harry potter!
and its only going to get hotter…
and learning again…
and then….
Tired and going to bed. Good night everyone.
cup of tea and a caramel slice anyone?
and you know this working on a new song
Second day of school and still going strong
College just gets worse and worse.
Gift and the curse!
super bored and tired. cant sleep tho
And away we go…
oh no, are the bad word police after me and my potty mouth again?
Just done something a bit mad and creative. Lets see what happens then!
The Internet; where courtesy and reason go to die.
Yup im at school and i passed up a fine ass guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, it isn’t Shakespeare, but it is a pretty cool idea. This may also go down in history as the greatest collaborative work ever.
Aug 26
This is part 12 in a series of articles on obscure programming languages.
What is L# .NET?
L Sharp .NET is a Lisp-like scripting language for .NET. It uses a modern Lisp dialect and integrates with the .NET Framework, which provides a rich set of libraries. The L# library is open source under the copyleft free software license.
L# .NET Design
L# .NET is a dynamic computer programming language intended to be compiled and executed on the Ecma-334 and Ecma-335 Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). It has a small, simple, extensible core that’s coded in C#. The source code is easy to follow, and you can easily add your own functions in C# or L#.
L# .NET History
The L# language and its first implementation were designed by Rob Blackwell in 2007. It was adapted from Paul Graham’s proposed Arc programming language and redesigned to use the .NET Framework.
“Hello World” in L# .NET
"Hello World"
References
Aug 14
We all know that software licenses are a joke. They’re overly long, full of complex legalese, and completely indemnify the software manufacturer of any responsibility whatsoever. Software is perhaps the only mainstream business in the world where it’s both expected and accepted that its products are flawed.
So it’s quite refreshing to see a software license that’s short, to-the-point, and brutally honest:
Aug 14
We’ve discussed before the “21 Laws of Computer Programming.” Now PC World has come up with “35 Unwritten Laws of Technology.” Here are some of my favorites:
The likelihood that Windows will automatically install time-sucking critical updates is directly proportional to your need to get your PC started. — Steve Fox, PC World
Your backup plan is only as good as your last successful restore. — Michael Fisher, ElephantDrive.com via HARO
Fix a computer for a friend or family member, and you’ll be tech support for life. — Danny Allen, PC World
Your laptop’s battery life is inversely proportional to the amount of work you need to get done on a single charge. — Blair Hanley Frank, Macworld
iTunes will crash. That’s it. No, really. — Darren Gladstone, PC World
35 Unwritten Laws of Technology
