Home of DJ and technophile Jonathan Puddle (aka J Puddy)
Archive for September, 2007
Reading for end of September, 07
Sep 30th
“Government” of Myanmar turns off internet to the country. What horrors are taking place now?
AT&T amends Terms of Usage to silence criticism by plan holders. – Update: AT&T update their terms… to stop the backlash.
Recent iPhone update ruins phones that have been unlocked, and maybe damages others too? Said update from Apple might also be breaking the law.
Amazon MP3 store – best I’ve seen yet – Amazomg?
Sep 26th
Amazon has just launched their MP3 store into public BETA, and after spending a few minutes looking around, and then downloading some music, I’m convinced it’s the best store I’ve seen yet.
Highlights -DRM free -256KB MP3s (variable and constant rate) -Browser based… I don’t care for an application needed to buy music, especially when iTunes is using 84MB of RAM, just to sit there and do nothing. I use Winamp to play music. -Cheap! Their prices are cheaper right off the bat. Furthermore pricing is based on song length, with “regular” length songs dropping in at around 89c. Albums feature a More >
The Pirate Bay sues Big Media
Sep 23rd
The Pirate Bay are a large bittorrent tracker. That means they provide tracking data so you can download bittorrent files, which are streamed from other people’s computers. They made a documentary recently about their experience with the Swedish police and the US government.
In a nutshell, by Swedish law they are providing nothing more than metadata for people. Any files downloaded are pulled from participants computers, not The Pirate Bay. Think of Pirate Bay as a phone book, maybe. So the MPAA (evil) calls up the Whitehouse and says “These Swedish kids are hurting our profits. Help.” So Uncle Sam threatens Sweden More >
Dear Jonathan and Maija,
Sep 22nd
Your flights have been confirmed.
Tue, Dec 11 08:25 PM to 10:05 PM Helsinki, Finland (HEL) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA)
Stop – Change planes in Frankfurt, Germany (FRA)
Tue, Dec 11 11:30 PM to 06:25 AM Arrive on Thu, Dec 13 Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) to Sydney, Australia (SYD)
Thu, Dec 13 07:35 AM to 12:35 PM Sydney, Australia (SYD) to Auckland, New Zealand (AKL)
Sweet goodness. My mother dearest and some other kin have sprung to fly Maija and I to New Zealand for my uncle’s wedding and then Christmas! And then an excellent holiday. We shan’t return to these fair but frigid shores till More >
Steal NIN’s music
Sep 19th
Trent Reznor says:
“…Has anyone seen the price [of music] come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’. Because one way or another these mother****ers will get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that’s not right.’
Most polluted places in the world
Sep 17th
Before you think, Toronto! or New York city! try this article on for size.
Norilsk, Russia — This city above the Arctic Circle contains the world’s largest metal smelting complex and, therefore, some of the world’s worst smog. “There is so much pollution going into the air from this place that there is no living piece of grass or shrub within 30 kilometers of the city,” Fuller says. “Contamination [with heavy metals] has been found as much as 60 kilometers away.”
It disturbs me how (reportedly) easy some of these problems are to solve, or lessen. Maija points out that China have the More >
MediaDefender illegal video warriors, hacked
Sep 17th
MediaDefender offer their services to studios and record labels. Their services are methods of disrupting illegal video sharing, such as uploading bogus torrents and torrents filled with advertising (to attempt to regain lost revenue). Not surprisingly some of their practices have been shouted down by the bittorrent community, but it seems there’s traction to some of what the community has complained about.
Some interesting reading can be found here, and here… regarding 700mb of internal staff e-mail being leaked to bittorrent. Seems like they’re not totally above board. Reminds me a lot of the Sony DRM malware scandal. Especially the part More >
Writing process used by Bioware
Sep 16th
I found this article quite interesting. It’s about Bioware, the company who makes Knights of the Old Republic, among other games. Knights is an RPG game, with a load of conversation. How a game with this much conversation and changeable morality based plot lines is actually planned out and written, is something that has intrigued me.
Halo 3 madness
Sep 15th
Before those not interested in video games write this off… hear this! Things are happening in this video game industry that have not happened before… wierd and wonderful things. It’s not going to be long, my friends, until Peter Molyneux’s vision of games being as accepted an artform as movies and books becomes reality.
Take a look at this. And this. And this. Microsoft have just stepped up their final phase of marketing for Halo 3, which drops in a few days. Most of all, take a look at this. If nothing else, it’s one of the most impressive uses of More >
Going to scream
Sep 14th
I was half way through a long and amusing tale about living in Finland when my browser ate all the pies, and I lost it. I’m so fed up with my current web platform… this Joomla and WordPress union. It’s not doing it for me anymore. I need something easier and smarter. That’s part of the reason I don’t blog very much, it’s become such a chore from the perspective of the hoops I need to jump through to make it happen.
Damncakes.