Quite Random

Doomed DRM

Microsoft technology that protects digital files from copyright infringement has been breached, according to reports.

A program called Fairuse4wm has been posted on the net and is apparently capable of breaching Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Music download security ‘cracked’

A program pops up which allows people to remove Digital Rights Management from the music on their computers. Just watch as Microsoft’s developers and lawyers swing in to action, to close down the ‘offending’ site that offers the software, and update DRM to close whatever loophole the software opened in the first place. The boy who plugged a hole in a dyke with his thumb comes to mind.

The irony is that this software is aimed at the people who have already paid for the music they are listening to, and wish to continue to do so after they stop paying a monthly fee to MSN Music, Napster and the like. The software makes absolutely no difference to the people who already share files illegally, or download from sites such as allofmp3.com – they are sharing unrestricted MP3 format files, and pay little or nothing for them in the first place.

The record industry and software providers (well, Microsoft and Apple) are going to continue to fight against people’s desire to own the music they have paid for, to preserve revenues – all under the guise of a battle to protect artist’s rights, when the artists themselves are held hostage to high prices by the record companies they work for. It’s all arse about face.

Development of some of the core features of the Internet that we now take for granted has arguably always been led by people on the wrong side of the law – Napster started as an illegal file-sharing program, Bittorrent technology is set for ever wider use in legal applications though currently it is mainly used to share pirated content, and the development of e-commerce, marketing and video compression on the Internet has been led in no small part by pornographers. The MSN Musics and iTunes of this world aren’t the innovators – they’re doing their best just to keep up in the only truly laissez-faire free market left in the world, where millions in revenue can be threatened by a Russian teenager in his bedroom, and if people don’t want to pay for music they can’t easily share, burn to CD or put on their portable player, they don’t have to.

Watch the baby

Aw, we was only ‘avin a larf!

Hizbullah last night admitted it would not have captured the two Israeli soldiers last month had it known a war would follow.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Hizbullah leader: we regret the two kidnappings that led to war with Israel.

You can almost imagine Hassan Nasrallah coyly staring at his foot as he taps at the floor… “Who knew?”, he says, as everyone has a good laugh. “We were only doing it for a bit of a giggle, like… but Israel – pheee-ew! They went ape! I mean!”.

This goes down as Example 94 in the new series Why All Leaders Of Major Political Organisations, Terrorist Groups And Governments Are Unbelievable Morons.

Poor Gao

When asked “how can I help you Sir/Madame?”, you reply “I am here for Lucy’s Birthday Party at the Rivoli Bar”

Lucy Gao really can’t have imagined that this would happen. I almost can’t believe it’s true. Almost, were it not for people’s capacity to be such complete and total wankers.

Was she a control freak to have given her ‘friends’ such explicit instructions for attending her birthday party? Maybe. Maybe she just wanted a good night, on her 21st birthday, which is a fairly big deal for anyone, and wanted everything to be just so. She’s almost certainly as naive as hell. She was paying for the champagne and the cake – but obviously the opportunity to humiliate her was more appealing for some employees of Citibank than the opportunity to take advantage of free booze at the Ritz.

Maybe she deserves a talking to for suggesting that “it goes without saying that the more upper-class you dress, the less likely you shall be denied entry”, but the lesson to be learnt here is never, ever, ever, ever send anyone an e-mail you wouldn’t be prepared for the whole world to read. Especially if you work at Citibank.

And By The Books I Buy Shall Ye Know Me / Music

So you’re wandering around a book shop before work, as you do, and you fancy buying a new book for the weekend, because it’s a bank holiday and you’re less than bothered about getting into a murderous rage wandering around Ikea, or driving somewhere to sit in a traffic jam. Which do you buy?

• Who Moved My Blackberry?
• Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I’m a Piano-Player in a Whorehouse

Mmm. It seems that the title of a book can make it or break it… I bought the latter on the strength of the title alone, the former put me right off. So much for ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.

Finally, some recommendations for people who like music, even though I’ve recommended them before…

• Emusic, now available in a UK version, has legal MP3s available for download, from an ever-increasing range of groups. Pay a monthly subscription and get an allowance to download a number of tracks each month. As you pay to download a set number of tracks regardless of the length of the track, much of the classical music with longer track times represents brilliant value. Emusic is also well set up to provide recommendations on related music, and is generally much nicer to use than MSN Music and the like. On top of everything else, as the tracks you download are in MP3 format, they’re playable pretty much anywhere on anything and not locked down by money-grabbing-bastard DRM.
• Jamendo has a whole catalogue of free albums from new and upcoming groups from all over the world (mainly France), available for download via Bittorrent. Some gems are hidden away amongst a fair amount of mediocrity.
• Pandora is the best Internet radio station in the world. As it’s only supposed to be available in the US you need to register using a US Zip Code, but it plays music based on a band or song you have chosen, giving you a personalised radio station that only gets better as you vote for or against the tracks it plays. It plays some absolute gems, in near-CD quality, and needs no software, as it works through your web browser. Pandora is fantastic, a simple idea, simply executed, a little bit of genius.

At Lunchtime

When the bus stopped suddenly
to avoid damaging
a mother and child in the road,
the younglady in the green hat sitting opposite,
was thrown across me,
and not being one to miss an opportunity
I started to make love.

At first, she resisted,
saying that it was too early in the morning,
and too soon after breakfast,
and anyway, she found me repulsive.
But when I explained
that this being a nuclearage
the world was going to end at lunchtime,
she took off her green hat,
put her busticket into her pocket
and joined in the exercise.

The buspeople,
and there were many of them,
were shockedandsurprised,
and amusedandannoyed.
But when the word got around
that the world was going to end at lunchtime,
they put their pride in their pockets
with their bustickets
and made love one with the other.
And even the busconductor,
feeling left out,
climbed into the cab,
and struck up some sort of relationship with the driver.

That night,
on the bus coming home,
we were all a little embarrassed.
Especially me and the younglady in the green hat.
And we all started to say
in different ways
how hasty and foolish we had been.
But then, always having been a bitofalad,
I stood up and said it was a pity
that the world didnt nearly end every lunchtime,
and that we could always pretend.
And then it happened …

Quick asa crash
we all changed partners,
and soon the bus was aquiver
with white, mothball bodies doing naughty things.

And the next day
and everyday
In everybus
In everystreet
In everytown
In everycountry

People pretended
that the world was coming to an end at lunchtime.
It still hasnt.
Although in a way it has.

Roger McGough

That’d make the journey in to work more interesting wouldn’t it? It’s just a shame that on the train in to work in the mornings, most people wouldn’t notice if your head was on fire.

Bullets

• Paying
• attention
• is
• easier
• this
• way.

Bullet points cover a multitude of sins. If I write a long process document or proposal, people gamely attempt to read it and visibly glaze over soon after they pass the table of contents. You’ll see that they’re struggling, head lolling to the side, saliva eager to escape from the corner of the mouth, a sudden panicked start at almost being caught falling asleep in a busy open-plan office. I have to say in my defence that the average business process is so mind-numbingly, ball-achingly, soul-sappingly, eyeball-itchily tedious that it would take a row of Tilller girls, fireworks, dancing monkeys and copious amounts of vol-au-vents and hallucinogenic drugs to make it interesting. Even then, you might be struggling.

Maybe I just work around people with the attention span of a budgerigar, but I think it is like this everywhere - it explains why people (mainly men) all over the world ignore instruction manuals for DVD players, cookers and computers, preferring to engage in a process of trial and error - anything is better than reading the manual. Ikea do their best with the assembly instructions for shelving units, but the combined weight of spare screws and dowling rods from Ikea furniture assembled after midnight, by people whose eyes are stinging with sweat and tears after abandoning the instructions, would be enough to tip the Earth off its axis.

I tried once livening up a seminar on data protection by playing a completely irrelevant video of a chimpanzee falling off a tree branch after smelling the finger it had just been using to inspect its backside – the attendees, fairly important people from National Savings and other leading financial institutions, looked more than a little disturbed. Then I introduced bullet points, short, simple, concise nuggets of marvellous wisdom, and they were calm and reassured, positively Hindu cows. No-one should ever underestimate just how little imagination they need to make a good impression in the average business.