search

Is the Record Industry Just Being Greedy?

Gee, what are the chances?

Jennifer LeClair at TechNewsWorld writes about record labels pushing Apple to raise the price of ITMS downloads. What's most fascinating about the piece are the fact that it uses a a seven-month-old Steve Jobs quote and a call from Apple'sEnvisioneering Group Director Richard Doherty for record labels to "open their balance sheets to show where they are losing money on this."

Oh yeah, like that'll happen.

The money quote here is: "The record labels agreed to Apple's one-price-fits-all model three years ago. However, when Apple's license expires, the…

Scientists Approach World Like Five-Year-Olds

Or is it vice-versa?

The Word I Was Looking For

in stinct n. 1. An inner pattern of behavior that is not learned and results in complex animal responses such as building of nests and nursing of young. 2. A powerful motivation or impulse. 3. A natural capability or aptitude.

It sometimes takes a brother to illuminate the obvious; Jim Teacher writes in:

Wouldn't the opposite of convention be instinct? In that it's not taught.

Instinct can't be eclipsed.

Thanks, brother. Instinct is the word I was looking for.

I've been presented with many awesome and thoughtful e-mails concerning the last couple of blog…

Punctuality Is a Tax on the Inefficient

A not completely tongue-in-cheek explanation of the late lunch.

Chaos = Order

Introducing random behavior stabilizes systems. In other words, the only way to establish an orderly system is to introduce something unpredictable. My role at Stereophile has now been justified empirically.

The Alchymical Notebooks of Isaac Newton

I'm linking to these because they are extremely cool and because John Atkinson is halfway through Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Trilogy.

One of the things I love about technology is the way it allows us all to study in detail stuff like this—artifacts that we would have rarely been able to have glimpsed in the good old days

Oh Baby, That's What I Like!

Now I can get a computer case that makes my computer run quiet as a tomb—and makes it look like a Krell or ML33!

It's priced like one, too. But this might be the answer for folks who want a media server that doesn't blow.

Sarcasm Explained

Of course, if you have to explain it, it must not be that good.

The Gun That Shoots Around Corners

And it's not made by Acme, apparently.

Experiments

My speakers haven't moved very far from where they first landed on the night that John DeVore visited Jersey City. The Arros, after the Gibbons, found a similar home — a comfortable spot, if nothing else, which works fine enough for me. It's a spot that allows me to walk into my bedroom easily, without having to brush up against a side wall or trip over any turncoat cable. A spot that appreciates symmetry and cleanliness and my apartment's obsession with order.

While I was sick, though, for all those many days, I began to feel daring and bored, and so decided to:

exper
i…