Liloia.com

Downloads not hurting...

Boing Boing cited a recent study listed on Copyfight stating that

"...P2P studies say that it's not hurting music"

Shocker. I rarely if ever download any music anymore, but the one thing that Tara and I have come to realize is that in the last 5 years we have purchased far more music now that we ever have in our entire lives. Why is that? It's because we are exposed to music that we would not have normally purchased, listened to, or from a radio station that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

(The music I do download will be the subject of another post soon)

Instead (as cited in the article and by Cory) there is no impact on the music superstars and their ability to buy gold encrusted Bentleys. The current music empires are using what government has been pimping to us for years. Putting the world in a state of fear over the acceptance of new technology as a problem instead of an opportunity to create new business models and practices.

For a great presentation on how this type of fear and objection to technology has been ongoing since the days when Tesla created the radio and then Marconi stole the radio, listen to Cory Doctorow's speech at Web 2.0 (from my new favorite site IT Conversations - post forthcoming)

Great start to the week

Ugh. I just got to Adams and I am soaking wet. The bus arrived half an hour late tonight (due to the reason in my last post) which is not all that uncommon. As I approached the turnstiles for the red line however, I was greeted by something unexpected. The red line was shut down due to some unknown technical issue.

Crap.

They told us to wait outside for a bus that would take the same route as the T line which seemed promising until we saw the buses. For those of you that have not seen a bus before, know that it is considerably shorter than a train. Now imagine trying to fit the same number of people from each stop onto the bus.

After about four sardine packed buses went by, I realized that the rain had become a downpour and I was drenched. Screw the bus, I hailed a cab. An industrious cabbie collected three of us heading in the same direction and offered to split the fare so it worked out for everyone. I was to pay $17. Ugh.

Whatever, it was that or stand in the rain for an hour. Everything was cool until the cabbie dropped off the first guy and cheated him out of an extra five bucks. An argument broke out through a window as I watched his meter continue to roll.

At my stop I handed him a $20 and he looked at it and said "ok, ok, this enough". What? I politely argued with him and then gave up any hope of seeing my $3.

Now I get to sleep for 5.5 hours before I back in the same direction to get to work.

This is madness.

Homeland Insecurity

As I am coming back on the bus to Boston tonight, the border patrol did a check for illegal immigrants on our bus while we were stopped at White River Junction. Their search consists of one question.

"Are you a US citizen?".

If you answer yes, they leave you alone and move on to the next person. If you answer no, they grill you for your documentation.

One young guy on the bus who lives in NYC was sitting behind me. He opted to answer "No". They ask him where he is from, to which he answers Jamaica (living in NYC) and had driven up to Vermont by car to ski for the weekend and was taking the bus home.

He did not have his paperwork with him and took him off the bus to check his documentation. Turns out that his visa expired in December of 2004 and he was technically an illegal. He was forced to stay in WRJ as our bus pulled away.

I really feel bad for the guy and the annoyance of being delayed by this situation. That said, I am baffled as to how the border patrol catches anyone this way. An illegal merely has to be able to say "Yes" in order to slip past this tightly woven dragnet.

That's right kids, the message used to be "Just say no", now that's changed to "Just say yes".

Homeland Security my a**.

Lady Shaped Lobster

My friend Leslie's son is in a band called Lady Shaped Lobster. Being curious, I asked for a link to their site and possibly some mp3's to check them out. I got both.

The site was a pain to load (Adam had a problem too getting to the page and he was in a different state as me), which clearly had nothing to do with them and everything to do with Pure Volume and whatever they have tucked inside the code on that page.

When I got to the page (after loading it three times) I downloaded their mp3's and listened to their two songs. I like their music. “New Years Eve” sounded like they were more comfortable with the song than their other one called “Burn”, and I liked the lyrics and music in NYE as well. All in all not bad.

They should think about doing a cartoon-ish version of the logo though. The one they have there looks like they just photoshopped some lobster claws onto a woman. Which is what they probably did.

Temporal Tango

Trevor is (yet again) losing one of his teeth. Tonight he noticed that the tooth is so loose that he can push it all the way up so that it is like an open garage door. The tooth is coming out soon.

We realized that there was the possibility that his tooth might come out this evening and that the Tooth Fairy would have to stop by....what?...oh no...that can't happen! The Easter Bunny is coming tonight!! They both can't come to the house tonight, could they?

This brought up an interesting conversation. What would happen if the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy both came to the same town, to the same house on the same night? Would they have a conversation? Would they argue, or play games? Have they met before under similar circumstances? What would happen to the other children who were waiting for candy and shiny quarters?

Anyway, Happy Easter to everyone! We apologize in advance that you didn't get any candy. The Easter Bunny was held up having tea and cookies with the Tooth Fairy at our house.

The Google Test

Hiring employees has become significantly more interesting since the advent of Google. No matter how obscure you think you are, your name is somewhere in these billions of pages. I'll find you.

Rip Theme

Just a quick note...Torrey brought up a good point...

I have two posts in the last week or so that have the same theme in them.

Sad Day For Dave & Bad Start

Perhaps there is a larger issue at hand, like perhaps the Twinkies I am eating by the case! Just kidding mom. I had a salad for lunch. :)

Sad day for Dave

Last year for my birthday, Tara got me the coolest, geekiest shirt.

I wear it all the time and I have had it for less than a year. I wore it down on the bus last night to Boston, and proudly snapped a few pics of the sunset for the moblog in deference to my hobby.

This morning I was getting changed, and I reached over my shoulder, grabbed the shirt (gently) by the collar. What followed was the worst sound in the world.

RIIIIIIIIIIP!!!!

Ugh. Today sucks. Send more geeky blogging shirts...

WWTDD?

What would Tyler Durden Do?

Right now on FX they are playing Fight Club, which is of course sponsored by Visa. Could there be anything more innapropriate?

Oh wait, there is. Dave Holmes just said "In Fight Club they say and 'the things you own end up owning you', but even Tyler Durden would want you to pick up the Fight Club DVD"

Then Jennifer Lothrop piped up "and don't forget to pick up a Visa Card!"

Chuck Palahniuk is kicking himself right now for letting those bastards have access to his art.

Postal Service

How is it that during the week, the mail doesn't get here until like 5PM, but on the weekends the same guy on the same route can get it here by lunchtime? Are there more people working on the weekend? (Although one would think that fewer people would be willing to work on the weekends)

Weird.

Ligers, and Tions..and Bears oh my

I love the movie Napoleon Dynamite. It is hysterical. A few weeks ago Adam and I were talking about the movie and quoting some lines from it over IM, and something really cool happened.

We both use the newest version of Trillian (which rox) instead of AOL or Yahoo (which suck) which includes links within the IM windows to the Wikipedia dictionary. As we typed the word "Liger" the word popped up as underlined with the Wikipedia dicitonary link. (These popup boxes come up as a javascript overlib box and are totally sweet).

We expected to see an entry about the movie, and Napoleon Dynamite saying something sweet like "It's probably my favorite animal, bred mainly for it's skills and magic"

Instead we found this entry. Which also then led us to this one.

As it turns out, a Liger is a real animal. It is a cross breed between a lion and a tiger:

The liger is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. It is therefore a member of genus Panthera. It looks like a giant lion, with diffused tiger stripes. Like tigers (and unlike lions), ligers like swimming.

A tigon is the cross between a male tiger and a female lion.

Known ligers exist due to human influence, either by deliberate human intervention, or by humans putting lions and tigers in enclosed spaces together. In natural conditions tigers and lions generally do not inhabit the same territory - the two species coexist in the wild today only in the Gir forest of India although their respective ranges used to intersect in Persia, China and perhaps also Beringia. Even where they do coexist, there have been no confirmed reports of interbreeding, though there are long-standing claims that this has happened.

Ligers grow much larger than tigers or lions. This is because female lions and male tigers transmit a growth-inhibiting gene to their descendants. Being the offspring of a male lion and female tiger, the liger does not have the growth-inhibiting gene and grows much more. They will grow constantly through their lifespan until their bodies can no longer sustain their size

Who'da thunk? Really cool stuff. Now we find ourselves writing nonsense phrases and words back and forth to each other just to see if they show up!

Bad Start

I am 30 minutes outside of Boston, on my weekly trip back to Vermont and things aren't going well.

First, I am getting nauseus from reading. So that nixes my magazine, book, laptop and GameBoy as acceptable forms of entertainment on the way home. Thankfully I was able to make it through my copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly before it got too bad.

Then I crossed my legs only to hear a big RIIIIIIIIP sound. My pants are now air conditioned. Bummer. I think I will try to sleep the whole trip home.

Last Night

I feel awful today.

Last night I woke up at 2:39 in the morning (well, this morning then) because my blood sugar had dropped and I was starting to experience the effects of low blood sugar. It's hard to explain what this process feels like to non-diabetics but imagine shaking all over, being really cold all of a sudden when you shouldn't be cold, and feeling intense anxiety. It was horrible.

Thankfully, I had half a bag of peanuts next to the bed and was able to grab it before things got really bad. I was eating peanuts then falling half asleep only to be woken up again by my body telling me "Nope, still too low. Enter shock mode" Zzzt.

After a little while I started to feel better but the after effects are still visible. I couldn't get out of bed this morning and everyone I see today has greeted me with the phrase "Wow, you look like crap." Thanks guys.

Wha?

I just had a british guy who works in my office walk by me and say "Either we are just a bunch of porgies or that buggin mahket is about to get right squeezed"

I looked at him for a second, couldn't come up with any response and spun back around in my chair. Thankfully he moved on and didn't force me to respond to that.

Microphone a go go

Why is it that Paul Schaeffer is always monkeying around with his microphones? Can't that guy get them into a good position? He stands in one place the entire show, for what reason does he need to move them?

Fat Actress on Letterman

The other night Kirstie Alley made the most baffling and moronic comment on The Late Show. As an overweight woman she said "There's something WRONG with guys that only want to bang fat chicks" which was then tentatively repeated by Dave Letterman right there on the stage.

The rest of her interview was equally awkward and successfully proved that she is a complete and utter nitwit. I found her to be one of the most insensitive people in the world. As an overweight woman working to get control over her diet and weight, she excluded herself from the group that she is taking advantage of by publicizing this process.

The sad part is that dumb ignorant Americans who are too lazy to think critically about anything will love her new show Fat Actress. The intention of the show seems genuine, and isn't a bad idea. That said, I think the entire thrust of the show is two-pronged

• One Giant Commercial for Jenny Craig


• The relaunch of Kirstie Alley's languishing career

The one redeeming factor that slightly helps the situation is that the Fat Actress website uses the Violent Femmes song, I hope you got fat.

You think it's cold here?

Adam sent me this image today. Just when I think Vermont is cold and snowy...