Random musings on this Saturday morning...
Cold Daze - Tallinn is under a deep freeze these days. We've hit some ugly temperatures in the minus 20s and 30s with the windchill. Makes waiting for a bus here is quite a challenge. So much for the gulf stream, eh? Being a Canadian who has lived in the coldest world capital for years -Ottawa, I brag to people around me that this is nothing, but between you and me - I'M FREEZING MY BUTT OFF!!! The forecast calls for temperatures to go up to -1 by Tuesday, how about that for extremes. Like in Canada, Estonians seem quite used to the cold weather and know how to handle it with ease. The homeless are especially having it tough on these bitterly cold days and nights although I see that there's a program in place to help them.
Party At The Palace - While Estonia's President Arnold Ruutel was traveling in the United States this week, apparently his granddaughters had some fun!! There's nothing like a good scandal. The good news for Ruutel I suppose is that he's 77 years old and probably wasn't going to run again.
How's it going, eh? - The Canadian election has made it on to the funniest and wittiest show on TV today - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Just click on 'New Osama Tape'. Speaking of the election, I see that it's looking more and more like a Conservative minority government. I think this is the best result for Canada and reflects the political times we live in. The Liberals need to go off & regroup, restaff and reinvent themselves; the Conservatives can take the wheel for awhile and try not to screw up too much; and the NDP & the BLOC will continue to do what they do best in their individual ideologies. BTW - a real good blog to check out on the Canadian election belongs to a former Chretian advisor and current Paul Martin detractor- Warren Kinsella.
So This Is Annoying - I bought myself an MP3 player over Christmas. I have some CDs with me here in Tallinn. So I want to transfer the songs from my CDs to my MP3 player. Simple right? Wrongo! I get an error message - the song are protected and can't be downloaded to the MP3 player. Are you kidding me?
NFL predictions: Denver 27 Pittsburgh 13, Seattle 35 Carolina 24
1 comment:
As a "consumer" these days, one has to be especially wary. When purchasing CDs, always check for the CD symbol on the package. If it's there, then the music should be playable on a standard device, and you should be able to shift formats; that is, rip it to mp3 or ogg or whatever. If the symbol is not on the package, then it could mean that the music is not in the standard CD format, and that you may have trouble playing it.
A signficant number of music discs now incorporate DRM technology. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, but more realistically, Digital Restrictions Management. All it does is inconvenience the average law-abiding consumer, while the copyright-infringing "pirates" which the technology is supposed to stop, laugh all the way to the bank.
If you have such a disc and have trouble playing or format-shifting the music, you should take the disc back to the retailer and tell them it is defective. If the retailers get enough returns, then maybe, just maybe, that will convince the labels (the RIAA) to drop all this DRM crap.
Check www.groklaw.net and www.slashdot.org for cases of DRM interfering/violating consumers fair use rights.
And thanks for letting me rant.
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