Weak Republican Senators

Think Progress lists the 8 Republican Senators "who claim to oppose sending more U.S. troops to Iraq voted the wrong way, supporting the conservative filibuster...along with their public disapprovals of Bush’s escalation plan".

Steve Jobs Wants to End DRM

Steve Jobs today, in an open letter writes that Apple would like to remove the DRM (Digital Rights Management) from its iTunes music. It seems it's a condition of the big 4 music companies, but as Jobs points out, it's fairly ridiculous. While they require it for online purchases, CDs don't have DRM so it's doing nothing to stop piracy.

I found this interesting: "a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store."

The only thing I disagree with is: "since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music." The 97% is due to users ripping their own CDs (or illegally copying unprotected music). Since other online music stores use their own DRM systems, music bought from other online stores don't play on the iPod. There is some lockin.

It's clear that Apple has benefitted from this, so I find it particularly interesting that this open letter argues to get the music companies to stop requiring DRM. I doubt Apple is trying to level the playing field of their digital music dominance. I could be that they are genuinely trying to make the user experience better. Apple both talks about that and from my experience, practices it. I suspect that DRM is in the way of some future Apple product. Maybe with iPods, iPhones, AppleTVs, Macs, etc. the 5 system limit will be hit by most users and Apple wants to up it but the music companies won't let them. Maybe this is asking for too much hoping to get less, or maybe this really is their wish. Either way, I'm pretty happy about this open letter, you don't see enough of it.

Web 2.0 Video

I don't think this video works to describe Web 2.0 to someone who doesn't already understand it, but I do think it's an interesting way of presenting information:

Alito Interview

Legal Times has an interesting interview with Justice Alito about his first year on the Supreme Court.

Bring TP to Ladies Room

Hawk Wings is running a capturing contest for this image:

White House Still Controlling Iraq Debate

Cenk Uygur writes about how the Democrats are letting the White House frame the debate on Iraq and how the Republicans in the Senate are liars. "They're going to filibuster a non-binding resolution on Iraq. What happened to up and down votes? What happened to filibusters under only most extreme circumstances?" And Chuck Hagel for all his bluster on Iraq a couple of weeks ago, caved and voted with his party.

It was funny when Bush screwed up the "fool me once" quote but he screwed up the summary too. It's doesn't mean you can't get fooled twice, it means if you do, it's your fault. Bush has to stop listening to Cheney, he's gotten everything wrong. Eh, it's already too late, it's Bush's fault.

Mac Ad: Cancel or Allow

Apple has a new Get a Mac ad up called "Security" which is a commentary on Vista's (apparent) proclivity of asking "cancel or allow" for everything you want to do.

Everything you ever wanted to know about climate change

Just read this post on the climate change report released last week. Read the whole thing, including "how Exxon-Mobil-funded denialists are already trying to pay scientists to "undermine" the report – since clearly none of the thousands of scientists who worked on the IPCC report have sufficient skepticism. What annoys me is the way in which the IPCC report, which is truly the gold standard for any scientific project, is criticised as though it were the work of a small group of cranks."

Election Posturing

I agree with Arianna Huffington in Will the Ghosts of Pro-War Statements Past Haunt the 2008 Campaign?. I think the press is going to go after the democrats on their Iraq votes again and again, and I don't think they'll have the spine to have a good answer or control the conversation. Really, they've shown no ability to do so for years, why should it change now? I watched Edwards on Meet the Press and it was painful at times. (Russet doesn't hammer Cheney that way, and we know that's why Cheney appears on Meet on the Press).

I'm tired of everyone blaming "the intelligence". The intelligence community is part of the executive branch. If you say the intelligence was wrong you should ask why Bush's administration was wrong on the intelligence. In fact there's a Senate committee that promised an investigation into this a few years ago (did they manipulate the intelligence) and we haven't gotten an answer yet. As near as I can tell the Dems aren't looking into it either.

The Democratss (and the Republicans) have an answer to explain their vote for the war, Bush lied to them on the facts. Cheney cherry picked intelligence sources and fabricated the case. If they voted for the war they were wrong to trust the administration. Then again, Obama's answer is a strong clear one, maybe that's what will keep him in first place.

Hello, I'm a PC, and I'm Bill Gates

Here's a Joy of Tech comic on the Bill Gates interview:

Move Review: Monster House

There's an old scary house in the neighborhood with a grump old man living in it, the kind that steals kids toys when they come into his (non-fenced) yard. DJ lives across the street and is obsessed with the house. When old man Nebbercracker gets hurt, the house literally starts attacking DJ and his two friends.

Monster House is up for Best Animated Feature, against Cars and Happy Feet. I liked the direction of this film the best of the three. Happy Feed seemed to have the camera on a roller coaster and I found Cars kinda slow and not as entertaining. This however has some really interesting camera angles, stuff that's normally only in a good live action film and the pacing and story are pretty good. I was also thinking that aside from the house (and some stunts at the end), this could have been a live action film. Can't say that for Cars or Happy Feet. I really enjoyed the beginning of this film but by the end my interest waned a bit. Still it was pretty good.

Mini Movie Review: Poseidon

Eh. Basically a big chase sequence with the emotional impact of a video game. Remarkably predicable. Thankfully it was short.

The Supreme Court on PBS

PBS is currently airing a 4 part series called The Supreme Court. It's narrated by David Strathairn, who played Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck. Various experts (including Chief Justice John Roberts and former Justice Sandra Day O'Conner) describe the various cases the previous Justices. Good stuff.

Superbowl Ads

Superbowl ads can be found here (and here). USA Today has a Super Bowl Ad Meter.

MTV as History

The altmusictv site is archiving all the episodes of MTVs 120 Minutes from 1986 to 2003. "The goal here is to create a retrospective of alternative music like nothing ever seen before."

VW Phaeton Ad: Shadowplays

Stimson Resigns

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles “Cully” Stimson who called for a boycott of law firms representing suspected terrorists has resigned.

"Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said ... [Stimson] had made his own decision to resign and was not asked to leave by Defense Secretary Robert Gates." Seems like a minus on Gates who should have done something for this. "The Bar Association of San Francisco last week asked the California State Bar to investigate whether Stimson violated legal ethics by suggesting a boycott of law firms that represent Guantanamo Bay detainees."

NFL Proves Copyright Law is Broken

So get this. Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianpolis was going to have a Super Bowl Bash at the church so that the congregation could watch the game together on a projection TV. Sounds like a great community event right? Well the NFL said it would be illegal. The slate article goes into details, apparently the big issue was that they were going to charge admission and they had a big screen. The law has an exception for sports bars. So bars are good but churches are bad. The copyright law is crazy.

Bizarre Interview With Bill Gates on Vista

Steven Levy interviews Bill Gates in Newsweek. Gate's answers are bizarre at times as Levy asks some questions with how Vista compares with the Mac. Matt Asay writes about some of these things in InfoWorld.

I agree with Asay. Gates' answer for why someone should use Vista is really weak. Better security, ease of use, compatibility with more devices, are all better reasons. And what he listed is clearly catchup to the mac. And he (understandably) avoids the topic of the features (WinFS) that were removed in 2004 when the whole development process changed. The search stuff is also catchup to the release of Spotlight on the mac and even Google Desktop on the PC. I was surprised to see so many questions on the mac commercials, but Gates answers are confusing on those too. In one he says he hasn't seen it, in another he says there isn't slightest shred of truth to it.

Gates security comments seem very wrong. Windows is clearly behind the Mac and Linux and BSD systems. The mac is certainly not invulnerable but it's also clearly more secure. Sure the Month of Apple Bugs found some holes, though not all of them were in the OS and not all of them were in Apple code. Nevertheless, they pale in comparison to the number of Windows exploits that have been found (and probably to the number of IE exploits that have been found). The mac is more secure because the underlying unix code base is more secure, file permissions are set appropriately out of the box, and the root account is disabled by default. These things were not true with XP and MS had to do a lot of work for Vista to catch up.

Gates talks about adding layers, that's certainly vague and there were obviously API layers, but many of Windows security issues have come from putting things like Active X controls into the browser and putting browser support into Email, without any security features. Yes they added more power, but often not for good cause, and until recently MS added such things without any thought to the security consequences. This is what needed to change at MS.

Vista looks interesting, and it seems the long beta program worked for Vista, I've seen very few reports of issues with installation. My next PC (whenever that is) will certainly have it, though I'm in no rush to run out and upgrade my current PC. On the other hand, Leopard (the next Mac OS) will be out this spring, and I'm sure I'll get it quickly.

Bush Shortchangees New Orleans

"President Bush is expected to shift $1.3 billion away from raising and armoring levees, installing floodgates and building permanent pumping in Southeast Louisiana in order to plug long-anticipated financial shortfalls in other hurricane-protection projects, a move Sen. David Vitter describes as a retreat from the president's commitment to protect the whole New Orleans area."

"The reason the West Bank projects are running short of money is that Congress asked the corps last year to hastily pull together estimates. What are normally months-long calculations were reduced in some cases to days. Subsequent increases in the cost of materials and labor further ballooned the price of the projects. But Vitter's point is that if the shortfalls are now clear, why not ask Congress for more money?"

Maybe there's a reason he didn't mention Katrina in the State of the Union.

Pentagon Miscounting 47,657 Nonmortal Casualties

The New York Times reports that "Statistics on a Pentagon Web site have been reorganized in a way that lowers the published totals of American nonfatal casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan."

On Monday, the bottom line listed a total of 47,657 “nonmortal casualties.” On Tuesday the bottom line is now “total — medical air transported,” and the figure is 31,493.

"Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of force health protection and readiness at the Defense Department, said the previous method of tallying casualties was misleading and might have made injuries and combat wounds seem worse and more numerous than they really were."

Maybe not counting vehicle accidents, sports injuries, and diseases makes some sense. I'm sure troops stationed in the US get injured too. But if you look at this table (pdf) it's clear they are trying to play games. If you wanted to accurately present the info, you would have reordered the lines and put the totals after the details in all cases so it was clear what lines were counted in the total.

Why We Can't Trust What Bush Says

Digby has a post explaining why we can't trust what the Bush administration says as it moves a 2nd aircraft carrier into the region and starts talking about Iran in its speeches.

Rumsfeld on May 24, 2002:

"The United States has no plans to invade Iraq or any other country, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday, but he refused to discuss the Bush administration's thinking about how to deal with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein"

Gates Feb 2, 2007:

"With respect to Iran, first of all, the president has made clear; the secretary of State has made clear; I've made clear -- nobody is planning -- we are not planning for a war with Iran."

And Cenk Uygur goes further, if they invade Iran we must impeach them. He cites a lot of articles and makes it clear, Iran supports the Shiites against the Sunnis. The Sunni are the ones attacking Americans. We're supporting the Shiite dominated government forces. Uygur actually points out enough reasons to impeach them now, we should listen.

Disagreeing With Chief Justice Roberts

Geoffrey R. Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, writes about Chief Justice Roberts and the Role of the Supreme Court. He doesn't agree that narrow opinions are good because the court is supposed to provide guidance, and if a ruling is narrow it provides only narrow guidance. I've heard Scalia echo similar thoughts. He also cites that unanimity is overrated as many concurring and dissenting opinions have been some of the most influential.

The Deficit

The Economist has a post saying the budget deficit isn't that bad. The comments are far more intelligent and worth a read.

MS: Don't Copy 1.0 Features, Use Latest Rev

Apparently Vista has voice recognition commands. You can speak to the computer and have it do things. Slashdot reported on this article that says websites can play sound files that can say commands to delete files or shutdown your machine. Joy.

As the article says the mac has had speech controls for years. I think many people play with them when they first find out about them and then turn them off. I use them only to turn the page when reading long files with Tofu (an app that simply formats long text in narrow newspaper-like columns to make them easy to read).

Apple hit this problem years ago too and added a configurable prefix word that must be spoken before the command. I just tried it now, having a doc open in Tofu. If I say "Stanley move page right" it moves the page (you have to be really lazy to use this and my machine is named Kubrick). If I use Quicksilver to have the mac say "Stanley move page right", it doesn't move the page, and if I recognize the lights on the control it seems that the voice recognition is disabled while the mac was speaking.

MS should copy the latest rev of apple innovations not the 1.0 rev.

These kinds of problems is why voice controls haven't taken off. They really don't work well when cubicles are involved. The only voice controls I actually like are voice dialing on my cell phone (oddly I don't use them on my home phone).