The Ankle Biter @ Quibbling.net

Just a little reminder, for anyone pointing fingers at Georgie, that Billy signed the Defense of Marriage Act. And let’s not pretend that it was a momentary display of uber-federalism.

But the most interesting thing on that page is the discussion in the comments about the legal/constitutional questions. Also some interesting theorizing about the reason Gallup numbers are showing acceptance of “gay relations between consenting adults” on the decline.

I can’t believe I forgot to blog this.

So, up to this point, I haven’t made much of a fuss about not having keys to the office. My logic is, I can’t be asked to come in by myself on the weekend if I don’t have keys- someone else would have to come let me in. It’s not that I’m trying to weasel out of doing what’s needed to accomplish things, it’s that I’m willing to put in whatever kind of long hours are needed during the week to do stuff; my weekends are MINE.

Thus I’ve been fairly content with not having office keys. Until this morning.

I arrived at work to see Marylee sitting outside on a bench, having a smoke, as she often does before starting her day. I said hello, and she looked at me hopefully and said, “Do you have keys?”

Why no, no I don’t. Are you locked out?

Crud, we were both locked out of the office. She had been there for 45 minutes already. I sat down and we waited another 20 for Wendi to show up so we could all go inside.

You know you’re a grownup when you go grocery shopping and walk out congratulating yourself on how much food you got for less than $20, and none of it involves ramen.

Today is a day for The Purple Dress. I hadn’t worn it in a while, but today seemed appropriate.

Since I do sales calls to homebuilders now, I tend to spend a lot of time looking at builder websites. It’s giving me a serious, serious case of house-envy. And tomorrow I sign the lease on my very own little 1-BR closet. No, it’s not that bad. It’s a pretty decent size for one person. But still, the house envy grows.

Call this one of the strangest things I’ve ever read.

Ew.

This interview is absolutely fascinating. Thanks to Tepper for the link.

Some news my dad will be sure to spread around: Neckties can cause blindness.

No really, this isn’t like that OTHER thing your mother always told you would cause blindness… this is for real.

And what’s this? BuyMusic.com is ripping off indie musicians?

To be fair, it’s likely that BuyMusic contracted with Orchard in good faith and it’s Orchard that misrepresented the rights it held to the music it sold.

But in any case, it’s time to get a damn lawyer.

An excellent summary of the underlying conflict between RIAA and P2P technologies.

One of the greatest strengths of the Internet is its ability to distribute information/data/media through a variety of cheap methods. That’s why we have networks- data transfer. So what is the recording industry doing? Trying to bludgeon the Internet into NOT doing what it was built to do. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to try to figure out how to use the Internet to lower costs of distribution? After all, distribution is where they claim the really high costs are, which is why your favorite band might only make 45 cents off that $15 CD you just bought.

Yes, we have iTMS and BuyMusic.com and Rhapsody. But let’s face it- BuyMusic and Rhapsody are pale, pale shadows of what consumers want, with all the restrictions on what you can do with the music. Previous for-pay download sites have failed for exactly this reason- you couldn’t do anything with the tracks, so people wouldn’t buy, and then the labels pointed to that as their “good faith effort” and said, “See? We tried and no one wanted to pay. So let’s sue!”

iTMS has it almost entirely right, but it’s becoming clear that the reason the labels agreed to it is because Mac users are such a small segment of the population- they’re not so sure they like the idea of opening it up to Windows users. To be fair, I read a quote from an EMI exec this morning- he said that the quantity of money being spent at iTMS is opening their eyes to how profitable this could be for them….

I know, it’s all been said before. And yet there still seem to be a large number of people (even aside from record execs) who don’t quite get what’s really going on here- Consumers are using the Internet to get what they want. Rather than figuring out how to make money by making consumers happy, the recording industry is using the law and judicial system (that’s your tax dollars and mine, kids) to prevent consumers from getting what they want.

It’s not illegal to download music. It’s illegal to download music without paying for it. So why not charge for it and let people have most of the same freedoms that they’d have if they bought a CD? Most people would happily pay a reasonable fee for a track if they know it keeps the RIAA from knocking on their door. I mean, I’m pretty much a tightwad about my music-buying because CDs are so expensive and I just don’t have the budget to get everything I want, but I am happily, even gratefully paying a buck a track to get music that for all practical purposes is CD-quality in a digital format.

Okay boys, usually when I single you out in a blog entry, it’s to warn you not to read the rest of the entry. But not today. This entry is especially for you.

I wanted to give some free publicity and link love to Score Brownie Points, which provides a service that is such an insanely, terrifically, good idea that I am massively disappointed in myself that I didn’t think of it first. ‘Cause I’d be good at it.

Full Disclosure: I didn’t just happen across this myself. Tom met the woman at Gnomedex and got her business card. [Correction: Tom didn’t meet Jodie. He met someone with a supply of her business cards- Jodie wasn’t there, but she was a sponsor of the Mr/Ms Gnomedex competition] And no, this entry is not a hint to Tom because Tom happens to be a guy who doesn’t need this service- he does pretty well all on his own.

The way it works is this- every other month, you send Jodie $47. She assembles a package involving some sort of frilly, whimsical, female-friendly gift, an easy packaging method and a small card. She sends it to your workplace. You wrap the stuff and give it to the woman in your life, the idea being that you are giving her this gift just because you think she might like it. You “score brownie points,” all without ever setting foot into a store that sells fizzy, smelly bath products or chi-chi chocolates or silk scarves.

Some people think this is cheating, because you aren’t putting forth the effort to shop on your own. I disagree. You’re still taking the time to arrange for a gift that yo’ woman would like, you are just acknowledging that you might not be good at the frilly-girly stuff and are thus getting the expert assistance of a female. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.

Of course, all this depends on having a girlfriend/wife who likes frilly girly stuff. But look, I’m one of the most practical, no-frills females I know. And still, I have to admit that pretty things, or things that smell nice, still make me smile. Whether I admit it in public or not.

It’s nice when technology can defuse nasty situations, eh?