Eve: Oh Lose Shawn

(Please note BritBrit-style title and say it out loud)

Wow! It's been a while since the ole MB blog has gotten any updates, despite the deaths of many great individuals throughout the holiday season (R.I.P. Betty Page, Eartha Kitt, and Freddie Hubbard and more.) We hope everyone had great holidays.

So far in 2009, we have a new war going on in the world. We should hope and act to see that it doesn't last too long before everyone in the Gaza strip is dead. Sadly, I have heard estimates that as many as 25 percent of these people dying are children and as much as twenty five percent women. As for the rest I'm sure most of them are parents or otherwise important people to those children. The media coverage seems very lopsided to me and generally lacking and I find it frustrating. With each year it is depressing that this is STILL the way it goes down between humans. I actually heard an Adam Carolla segment with Pat Buchanan talking about it, and I was quite surprised to hear his views on it. You can listen to it here

I thought this was interesting from Spacelab magazine

"January 06, 2009
Apple Lets iTunes Music Go DRM Free, But Ain't No MP3

The move by iTunes to go DRM (digital rights management) free is a step forward for the Apple/iTunes crowd, but the change from restricted to DRM free doesn't mean that you're buying MP3s. The announcement today about the broad iTunes Plus plan (that now includes all of the music in the iTunes store) is a good step forward in The Evolutionary transition of the music industry, but don't think that you're buying MP3 files.

When you buy music from iTunes, you're still getting the AAC files, which means it will still work on an iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, or in iTunes. What does the DRM-free change mean? It means that now you can copy the file as many times you want, burn as many CDs as you want, use the song in as many iTunes libraries as you want, etc. They're not MP3 files ... yet. You can also use AAC files on other devices that support AAC, like the Sony Walkman, Zune, Wii, Xbox, certain mobile phones and a list of other devices.

Still, there are some good developments here. iTunes Plus music is encoded at 256-Kbps, meaning increased sound quality compared to the old iTunes music. You don't have to rebuy all of the songs in your library, you can just pay the upgrade price of 30¢ per song. Videos are 60¢ per song, and albums are 30% of the album price. Everybody's onboard, no outliers -- that means Universal, Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI, along and thousands of independent labels are part of the upgrade.

They've also abandoned the 99¢ line, now offering music at 69¢, 99¢, and $1.29. I'll bet that was the trade off. The major labels probably wouldn't give on DRM-free unless Apple caved on variable pricing, a line they stuck to for a very long time."


These apple folks are pretty great at making money. I wonder where the bubble will burst?

Happy New Year everyone!

It is *seventy* degreees and beautiful here and that sure helps ease all pain.