Today I bought a FreeAgent® GoFlex™ Ultra–portable Drive from FutureShop.
It came preloaded with pirated Hollywood movies.
Of course I’m outraged.
Somebody is stealing food from Brad Pitt’s baby.
I’ll head back to FutureShop to register my outrage. And to ask why they are encoded in a crappy .wmv format.
🙂
_____
After returning and replacing that drive, the next had exactly the same movies!
Turns out they are preinstalled, encrypted … and cost $10 or more to unlock. Bleh.
I am.
At first it seemed that the best case scenario would be to have a government owned digital superhighway … and let competition innovate. And keep prices low.
But can the government do anything efficiently?
If corporations build “the tubes”, shouldn’t they be able to charge what they want for using them?
Certainly. If there was competition.
But most people have 3 choices: phone company or cable company or satellite. Sadly, that’s not competition enough.
If the Internet Service providers (TELUS, Shaw, Verizon, etc.) have their way, your internet service will be about as good as your current TV service.
The worst case scenario is explained in a fun, graphic way on a new website. Click through to see it – TheOpenInter.net
Scary.
(via TechCrunch)
There are many options out there (Goodreads, Shelfari, Google Books, Anobii, WeRead), including some good ones for sharing only with Facebook friends.
About 20min research leads me to believe that the best of the bunch is LibraryThing.
It got a great review on PC Mag. And by a user jameswharris.
Check it out at librarything.com.
Sadly, I still find LibraryThing too crude. Having no widget for this WordPress.com blog is a deal breaker. … I’ll wait until something better comes along.
Leave a comment if I’m missing the perfect social network for books.
P.S.
I saw a number of warnings about one competitor, now owned by Amazon – Shelfari. … Avoid.
Americans are now spending as many hours online as they do in front of their TV screens, according to a survey released by Forrester on Monday.
The average American now spends roughly 13 hours per week using the Internet and watching TV offline, Forrester finds, based on its survey of more than 30,000 customers. …
I still think network TV viewership could drop off a cliff some day soon. Tiered TV packages are crappy. TV commercials are crappy. It’s only inertia and bad internet access that’s keeping traditional TV alive.
UPDATE: … Some have contested the TV numbers, saying the average American is still watching the boob tube 4-5hrs/ day.
But many of those hours the TV is simply on in the background, me thinks.
If you head on over to my hiking site, you’ll find my trip report hiking Tecolote Beach, Baja.
Looks a paradise, don’t you think?
Even seagulls holiday on Tecolote.
The weather and beaches are excellent. But for several years now I’ve been recommending against travel to Mexico. I’d definitely not be here this year … if Canadian dentists weren’t so over-priced.
Why?
Cost is high. Most things in Baja now cost more than they do in Canada or the States. But not much of that money goes to wages. The rich are getting richer on your tourist dollar.
Quality is low. This beach looks nice. But it’s full of starving dogs.
When they die, nobody here bothers to bury the corpse.
The litter problem is actually better than when I first started coming to Mexico. But locals still litter frequently.
Mexico is right now in a rotten stage of development. It’s certainly not a developing nation, where you might forgive some injustice and growing pains.
But it’s not enough of a developed nation that you can trust food, water or services. (Happily I’ve yet to be shortchanged this trip, though. Nor hassled by cops.)
I recommend Guatamala and Nicaragua as excellent alternatives.
I listened to two audio books lately:
• Under the Dome ~ Stephen King (1088 pages)
• Magic Street ~ Orson Scott Card (416 pages)
Both successful writers, obviously.
I can’t particularly recommend either novel. Both I enjoyed. But both were too long. Long sections that didn’t add anything to the story. Filler.
Novels these days are mostly 80,000 – 120,000 words. But why?… Is it some legacy of the dead tree publishing industry?
As an audio book fan, I’d like to see more concise novels. Shorter novels.
On Audible.com you can search their collection by number of hourse, “Running Time”.
Over the past few days I’ve nearly clicked through a couple of times to FanBox.com … something that looks like a new social network.
Email recommendations have come from friends.
It’s a scam.
Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do.
This video is very hard to watch. I forced myself. As a reminder.
From Transport Accident Commission Victoria, Australia
This campaign is a chance to revisit some of the images that have been engraved on our memories, remember the many thousands of people who have been affected by road trauma and remind us all that for everyones sake; please, drive safely.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (5min)
Thanks Brett.
A few years ago I thought blogs would completely change the world by transparency. By stating truth to power. By shouting down the corrupt and evil.
That hasn’t happened. Yet.
But we have to do something to stop the insanity at airports.
Be one of the first to see my new Airport Security Theatre blog.
With a mild climate, Lisbon, Portugal has a lot of homeless on the streets.
Twice in one day I happened upon one of them defecating in the street. … I had to restrain my inner Ayn Rand.
Having these guys sleeping outside your place of business is not good for your business. It’s not healthy for them, obviously.
What should we do with vagrants?
Note: Europe’s worse than North America in that there are so few public toilets.
Canadian traveler Jennifer snapped this photo in the U.K.
You can text to find the nearest public toilet. That’s an improvement.
… Of course this guy doesn’t have a phone. Looks like he’s heading into the Metro looking for a loo.
Rick McCharles 