Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

A Canadian panel suggests that if it weren't for people stealing music, then songs would be cheaper:

Upside Software, a company that creates contract management software, has the same problem. Some 35 per cent of its revenues are spent on R&D, so if revenues go down due to pirating, the company has less to spend on it, said Ashif Mawji, president and CEO of Upside Software in Edmonton.

"There's a direct impact," he said. "If you don't support the company, they don't get the full revenue potential - think about the tax impact." It also means the cost of piracy is factored into product pricing. If everyone paid for songs off the Internet, for example, competitive pressure would force prices down (from say, 99 cents a song to 25 cents).

He neglects the fact that in Canada people pay for the downloading of music through levies on blank media. It is unlikely that competitive pressure would force these prices down when record companies are already complaining that 99 cents per song is far too low, even though there are none of the costs associated with the manufacture and distribution of a physical product.

Typical of software companies, he also assumes that every pirated copy equates to a lost sale, and throws in the red herring of lost tax revenue on sales that were never made, and probably never would have been.

Via Digital Copyright Canada.

And no, I'm not talking about the price of gasoline.

I currently live in Canada, and I subscribe to the New York Times. I picked up my paper this morning, and noticed the price - $4.50 (U.S.)/$8.40 (Canadian).

Now I'm used to things costing more in Canada - lots more. An article on the front page mentions the price of gas at $3 per gallon. I can't remember when gas was only $3 per gallon - it's around $4.25 a gallon here. But the cost of the New York Times dwarfs even that. At an exchange rate of around $0.85 Canadian to $1 US, the Canadian price should be about $5.30, netting the paper a tidy profit of $3.10, or almost 59%.

It's not as if there is any shipping cost to account for either. The paper is actually printed in Mississauga, Canada, about 45 minutes from where I live.

Is this how newspapers intend to make up for the shortfall from declining readership? By overcharging their readers?

So the Vatican wants Catholics to boycott "The Da Vinci Code". I don't understand the fuss. After all, the story is not presented as historical fact; it is a fictional story.

It's not as if it is a film about priests molesting altar boys, which sadly would be based on historical fact. And the Vatican didn't seem all that concerned in that case. I grew up Catholic and I will be going to see "The Da Vinci Code".

Via Digg.

Microsoft has been granted a patent for watching television and chatting at the same time. Ok, it's a bit more complicated than that, and it happens on the same device.

But seriously folks, this is nothing new, and nothing that complex. Does that mean that people who are using a tv tuner card to watch tv on their PCs wile chatting online are now infringing on Microsoft's patent?

Via Ars Technica.

A Canadian university is researching using your thoughts to authenticate you on your computer:

Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as "pass-thoughts" is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Even when thinking of the same thing, the brain's measurable electrical impulses vary slightly from person to person. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough to create a system that allows you to log in with your thoughts.

This sounds interesting, but not very secure. Theoretically couldn't someone in the same room scan your brainwaves and play them back to gain access to your computer? What if you couldn't concentrate on your pass-thought? And what if you were stressed?

A neat idea though.

On tonight's episode of CSI:NY, Kid Rock leaks his new unreleased CD on to the internet. He says it is a "sales tool" to juice up record sales.

Doesn't that completely go against the RIAA's suggestion that downloading hurts record sales?

My local paper is trumpeting their commitment to free speech today:

Our editorial opinions are crafted by our editorial board, whose members live and work in this community. We publish the views of our Community Editorial Board and our new Youth Community Editorial Board, citizens at large. Our pages are open to the reasonable views of all, including those who differ vociferously with our editorials. The right to free expression and a free press demands room for all these voices.

A year ago I was a member of their community Editorial Board. I wrote something that politely disagreed with the publisher. The editor explained that even though I made a good point the publisher refused to print it.

Here's what I wrote:

Record publisher Fred Kuntz, wondering why we can’t attract the kind of investment that Silicon Valley or Boston do, suggested that we had a branding problem. I respectfully disagree, having lived and worked in both Boston and Santa Clara. Those areas consist of many small yet competitive towns that co-exist without any sharing of services at all. It is that collection of towns – that area – that attracts people because of its diversity. It offers different things for different people, just as Waterloo Region does.

Here's what they printed:

I've lived and worked in both Boston and Santa Clara in Silicon Valley. Those areas consist of many small, yet competitive towns that co-exist without any sharing of services at all. It is that collection of towns – that area – that attracts people because of its diversity. It offers different things for different people, just as Waterloo Region does.

Their commitment to free speech didn't seem all that strong then. Fortunately, free speech no longer depends on ownership of printing presses.

It's funny that Microsoft, the company that created the browser that pretty much singlehandedly unleashed all of the virus and spyware holes that we have faced over the years, is now concerned about browser security.

I try plenty of software out, but IE7 is one thing I won't be trying. To me, the risk is just too great.

Besides, once they believe the risk of losing market share to Firefox has passed, they'll abandon this browser and its users just as they did with the previous version of IE.

Yes, every once in a while there are plenty of things I want to say, but I'm just too tired to say them. More than one article in today's New York Times aroused thoughts in me.

And maybe tomorrow I'll get around to them.

I've finally joined the ranks of TiVo users in Canada, now that TiVo has support there. I've seen plenty of comments from folks in Canada suggesting that TiVo is pointless now that Rogers and Bell have PVRs available. I would suggest that those people simply don't know what TiVo does. It does a lot more than just record video digitally.

I generally wouldn't consider paying for television or radio service (other than cable) but TiVo makes it so worthwhile.

Over half of all of the comment and trackback spam I see comes from blogspot.com. So as of today, any comment or trackback that contains the text "blogspot" gets deleted without prejudice.

I realize that it is a difficult problem to resolve, but something needs to happen, and soon.

It seems that forcing me to watch commercials on the DVDs I've paid for isn't enough. Philips now wants to force me to watch television commercials:

Philips Electronics has done it again. Flush with heady optimism after successful products such as the digital compact cassette (DCC) and the super audio CD (SACD), the redoubtable European giant has developed a way to keep television free for the masses for the foreseeable future - a patent application for a device which prevents a user from changing the channel during commercials.

The networks just don't seem to get the fact that the viewer actually gets a say in what they watch. But then again the viewer isn't the customer - they're the product of a sort. The television networks sell viewership to advertisers; the more viewers the higher the price for an ad. But if those viewers can't be show to be watching then ad agencies are not going to cough up big bucks for ads. There is already a huge decline in newspaper movie advertising.

The one saving grace here is the patent system itself. Perhaps manufacturers will be afraid of violating the Philips patent so they won't implement similar technology. Of course, I can still change the channel, leave the room, or I could do the unthinkable and turn the tv off.

Now wouldn't it ruin the networks' day if people just stopped watching altogether?

I was stunned by all the fuss over Katie Couric jumping to CBS as anchor. Network news is in permanent decline. What's the big deal?

From the LA Times:

"Invention should be patentable, but discovery should not."

Donald Croley, Hermosa Beach

When I'm working in Monrovia I stay at the Holiday Inn. The service is incredible, and I love the hotel.

There is just one problem. They have free WiFi.

How is that a problem you ask? Well the WiFi service is spotty at best, and frequently I can't get a connection, or the connection just disappears. It makes it very difficult to actually do much from the hotel.

But when I asked about it I got the biggest shock of all. The people at the front desk explained that the entire hotel - all 10 floors of it - shares a single 1 megabit per second connection. Though I have 5 Mbps at home, I am now reduced to somewhere around the speed of dialup, when I get a connection at all.

But it's free, right?

You know that there is a problem with privacy on the internet when even the terrorists are worried about it:

Recently, postings on jihadist Web sites have expressed increasing concern about spyware, password protection, and surveillance on chat rooms and instant-messaging systems.

One forum recently posted a guide for Internet safety and anonymity on the Internet, advising readers of ways to circumvent hackers or government officials.

Om Malik notes that Google filed a patent today for voice-based search technology. Actually Google was granted a patent today for voice-based search technology. The patent was actually filedon February 7, 2001.

Now this is probably just a simple mistake, but I am amazed at how little people actually understand patents, and how frequently they misuse terms when discussing them. From the time a company actually files an application with the patent office, it is eighteen (18) months before the patent is "laid open" and is viewable by others as a patent application. It then may take several years before the actual patent is granted. For example, this particular Google patent took over five (5) years to be granted.

So just because a patent hasn't been granted doesn't mean someone hasn't applied for one. And by the time it is granted, the idea isn't new; it's been around for a few years.

After almost 30 years, the Rolling Stones were allowed to play in China, though their song choices had to be approved by Chinese censors, who listed several songs they could not play. China is extremely protective of the culture that their citizens are exposed to. But the tickets, with a minimum price of $40 per seat, were priced far too high for local citizens, limiting attendance to mainly foreigners and prompting this comment from Mick Jagger:

"I am pleased the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of expatriate bankers and their girlfriends," Mr. Jagger said, adding that he had 400 other songs to choose from, so "it doesn't really matter."

Microsoft claims to have lost $14 billion to software piracy last year, but that might not be such a bad thing:

Of course, Microsoft executives prefer that people buy, but theft can build market share more quickly, as company co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates acknowledged in an unguarded moment in 1998.

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Microsoft sure isn't making it easy for people in developing countries to buy the products either:

The gist of the beneficial piracy argument is that the retail price Microsoft charges for signature products such as Windows and Office — as much as $669, depending on the version — can rival the average annual household income in some developing countries. So the vast majority of those users opt for pirated versions.

But Microsoft still benefits because the piracy still helps to establish their products as global standards.

Via the Huffington Post, which I occasionally read even though it attracts comments like this:

And who buys M$? Stupid people who don't know any better--like the people who are Republicans.

Does that mean that Democrats prefer Apple?

You know something's big when it makes the LA Times. Eight people were apparently murdered yesterday about an hour from where I live. Typically for Canada though the police aren't saying much: "We're not in a position to reveal how they were murdered," Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Dave Rektor said.

Police in Canada rarely give out much information. Now the spokesperson has just said that they were murdered, so they clearly know that much. So were there gunshot holes, stab wounds, or do they suspect that they were forced to ingest arsenic? It isn't really that complicated now is it? So will we ever know the truth?

Well last week there was a explosion at a Tim Hortons coffee shop in Toronto. There were initial concerns about terrorism, but the police quickly ruled that out. Their statements included this:

The ceiling fell down on the victim, bringing down a significant amounts of debris, including wires and batteries from an air-freshening device that might have contributed to suspicions of a bomb, Staff-Sgt. Cole said.

Now I have two commercial air fresheners in my basement. They each contain a single battery and no visible wires, and I expect that they would melt beyond recognition in a fire. So saying that they found wires and batteries would send up a red flag for me. But on further investigation the explosion has now been ruled a suicide:

Based on the evidence gathered at the scene from the coffee shop -- one of the busiest in Toronto -- and several eyewitness reports, investigators concluded that the incident Sunday afternoon was not accidental.

"Through various aspects of the investigation we have now determined that the injuries leading to the man's death were self-inflicted," Detective Sergeant Myron Demkiw said yesterday.

[...]

Police have said they believe gasoline in a canister ignited in the washroom.

If the police believe that the injuries were self-inflicted, shouldn't they have said that the suspect ignited the gasoline? Is there more to this story?

We'll never know, because once again, they're not telling.

Charlie Owen, of Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition Development Team, asks:

If the MacOS is so wonderful why do I need to even consider running Windows?

After using Microsoft DOS and Windows (every version from 1.0 on) for over 20 years, I switched to a Macintosh Powerbook a scant few months ago. The Mac became my primary, and only, computer, and I was able to do everything on it I could do on a PC. It was absolutely the sexiest piece of of hardware I'd ever seen. Since I got it I haven't had to think about viruses or spyware. And before I get the inevitable comments that if I properly locked down my Windows PC I wouldn't have those problems either, please note that I haven't had to learn how to lock down my Mac. I haven't had to do anything. Yes I know that is purely because of their lower market penetration but I still like it.

But there is one thing that I still couldn't do on it - develop and test Windows software - which I still have to do because a lot of folks still run Windows. And Microsoft's tools don't run on the Mac.

So I had to buy a new PC. All it has on it is a Visual Studio development environment. Nothing else. If I had known that I could do the same thing on a Mac, I wouldn't have bought the PC. If it wasn't for the need to develop Windows applications, I wouldn't run Windows XP at all.

Now there a probably a lot of people whose companies mandate the use of Windows, possibly because they use applications than only run on Windows (probably a shrinking list), but more likely because of the cheaper PC hardware. But sample comparisons show that this really isn't the case. And the Mac came with plenty of complete applications included (like iChat, GarageBand, iCal, etc.) and a very simple way to burn CDs and DVDs by dragging files into a folder and clicking "Burn". And things just work together more elegantly.

Macs aren't for everyone, but from my point of view I can do everything I need to (and everything I did before) for the same price, with lower risk from viruses and malware, and my machine also makes a fashion statement. And now I can even do my Windows development and testing on it.

Today the US Congress rejected the concept of net neutrality:

"We have an opportunity to increase competition for cable services and to unleash a race for who can supply the fastest, most sophisticated broadband connections that will provide video, voice and data services," said US Representative Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee. "This race will only benefit consumers."

And the "benefit consumers" part?

Theodore Peckler lives in Monrovia, California, and is one of the 1.5 million people in the US who uses Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems to make cheap phone calls via his cable modem connection. But last year, after five months using the VoIP service from the US provider Vonage without problems, he noticed an abrupt deterioration. "The line was choppy, very choppy and you could not understand any words spoken," he recalls. Puzzled, Peckler ran pingplotter - a program to detect problems such as packet loss and latency (delays in sending over the separate "packets" of internet traffic). It revealed major latency between his cable modem and local internet service provider (ISP).

"I contacted the ISP and was told it did not support third party VoIP," explains Peckler. "Vonage ran a test. It seems the ISP was blocking the cable modem when the Vonage adapter went into use. I ran a test of my own. I ran pingplotter for 10 minutes: no blockage, then I picked up my Vonage phone and placed a call: immediately there was a 100% blockage on the cable modem. This was a continuous loss as long as the phone was used."

That doesn't sound like increasing competition, now does it? Sounds a bit more like eliminating the competition.

Heather Hamilton at Microsoft is trying to find some awesome people, and to do so she is loosening up her criteria to include things like:

• alumni of the next ten b-schools after the top 20
• leadership in college (fraternity, sorority, organizations)
• recipients of specific kinds of scholarships, other kinds of awards
• scholar athletes
• fast career progression

So off the top of our heads, let's list a few people that Heather probably wouldn't find with this list:

• Bill Gates
• Steve Jobs
• Robert Scoble
• Larry Page
• Sergey Brin
• Jerry Yang
• David Filo

I could probably think of a few more people who might be considered awesome by some. I think that they kay criteria should be "people that don't call their customers dinosaurs".

Microsoft is now using the term "people-ready" for their software and their advertising campaigns. Does that fact that their new software is now "people-ready" mean that the software that came before wasn't? And what does "people-ready" mean?

They are also considering different versions of their Office Suite for different classes of users, such as salespeople or engineers. Why would they want to do that to themselves? I would suggest that they just aim to get one version working properly for everyone. I can just imagine the support nightmare arising from different people in the same organization using different versions of Office.

They should definitely learn to speak like their customers and stop using lines like this:

"We've really put the power train in place to connect the business application to the people and we’ve really driven a fundamentally different set of results," Witts said.

I don't want to be "connected" to any application to "drive" results. I just want software that helps me do my job better.

If I had known about this a month ago I sure as heck wouldn't have bought a Sony Vaio PC. I'd be sitting in front of a shiny 15" MacBook.

Imagine you bought a small house in downtown Toronto 50 years ago. Your mortgage is paid off, you've retired, and you're living on a fixed income. But during that time house prices rose, and some people built bigger houses in your little neighborhood. Your house is now assessed to have a market value of a million dollars. That means you're wealthy, right? Well on paper perhaps, but not in reality. And then you get hit with a huge property tax bill.

According to one economist that's just fine:

On the other hand, urban economist William Strange argues that despite its manifest flaws, property taxes have the virtue of tapping into wealth rather than income. The University of Toronto professor counters tales of house-rich seniors unable to afford their taxes: "If someone has a million-dollar house and they have trouble paying $6,000 a year, well they can get a loan for Pete's sake."

For an economist, he doesn't seem to understand that wealth on paper is not the same as liquid wealth. As I've often said, advanced education does not imply either intelligence or common sense.

Is this something you really want to hear?

"When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit," Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, said in a presentation at the InfoSec World conference here.

Windows is an incredibly complex (some would say bloated) operating system that offers many ways, including rootkits, to attack it. It may now be impossible to even determine if you've been attacked, or if you've successfully rid your system of malware. Anti-virus companies have even hidden rootkit activity so they can't be trusted either.

Are we about to start this cycle all over again with Windows Vista?

I often argue that there is no such thing as bad PR. The Business 2.0 Blog makes the same point about the Chevy Tahoe digital commercial contest:

So did the ad campaign backfire? Sure there are some negative ads, but we're all talking about Chevy Tahoes now and its ad campaign. Even if more people watch the negative ads than the positive ones, as long as awareness goes up and sales improve marginally it will have been worth it for GM.

Maybe we're wrong in this case though. The general goal of PR is to aid in selling more. And sometimes that requires making potential customers aware of the product. If that is the goal, then even negative PR is ok.

However, in the case of the Chevy Tahoe, it is not a new product and most people probably already know about it. In this case if the advertising is highly negative it could actually drive people away from the product. The fact that we are all talking about the Chevy Tahoe may be true today, but it is unlikely to translate into increased sales for GM.

Which begs the question, why doesn't GM take advantage of this negative sentiment? Issue a press release telling customers that GM is listening, and they care, and announce slight price reductions on midrange cars that could be selling better, that would be helped by some press. If the Tahoes aren't moving anyway what does GM have to lose?

And imagine the media and blogging bump they would get from a release like that.

A couple of weeks ago GM announced a contest for average folks like you and me to see who could create the best digital commercial for the Chevy Tahoe. Now I probably wouldn't drive a Chevy Tahoe even if they gave me one, because I don't like to stop at the gast station every day. But it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that there are people a lot more motivated against the Tahoe, and GM actually started to see some negative ads.

GM still considers the campaign a success:The contest is a success as a marketing campaign, according to Melisa Tezanos, a GM spokeswoman. Consumers have submitted more than 21,000 ads and have e-mailed commercials over 40,000 times, she said. Chevyapprentice.com has generated 2.4 million page views, and the average visit to the site lasts more than 9 minutes. The company anticipated before launching the contest that it may see some negative ads, but Tezanos noted that more than 80 percent of the commercials depict the Tahoe in a favorable light.

I'd be willing to be that the negative percentage was higher, and those ads were probably a lot more entertaining. People with an axe to grind are usually far more driven to create that kind of stuff. You can see an excellent example here that frankly looks as good as or better than the typical GM ad (but you'll probably have to suffer through a Microsoft ad first).

So let me get this straight. I can go around the corner to Best Buy and for $20 to $30 I can buy a DVD that was released today, be home in 10 minutes or so, and watch the DVD in any DVD player or computer I own.

Or I can pay $20 to $30 to spend a couple of hours downloading the movie, and only be able to play it on my computer but not on my home DVD player.

Just when you think the folks that sell music and movies can't possibly get any dumber they go and show you just how out of touch with reality they really are. It can only be greed that drives theme to seek the same revenue, even though they've eliminated all of the costs associated with manufacturing, warehousing, and shipping the product.

Today's New York Times Magazine has On the Homeland Front, questions for Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security. The magazine asks: With all that pressure, do you find it hard to sleep at night? Do you take Ambien?

Ambien isn't exactly the first cure for insomnia that comes to mind, but it is the product that has a one and a half page ad in the same paper starting on page 19. Coincidence? Maybe not given that Ambien has been in the news lately.

Mr. Chertoff suggests that if he did he would probably be 150 pounds heavier, given that Ambien has been linked to sleep eating.

The most interesting comment came later:

So what are you saying? That e-mail is bad because it can't be shredded?

I don't use e-mail. One reason is when you write an e-mail, you have to be mindful of the fact that nothing ever disappears. It can be deleted, but it is still in the system somewhere.

What's so bad about having an email trail? Unless of course you are trying to hide something.

I'm finally getting around to reading last week's New York Times Magazine, and I happened upon a Delta ad that said:

buy a bigger memory card.

Apparently Delta now has the most flights to Europe. But the ad gave no explanation as to why I might need a bigger memory card.

Some ads connect with customers. Some just confuse them.

Google finally puts its power to good use:

With Google Romance, you can:

• Upload your profile - tell the world who you are, or, more to the point, who you'd like to think you are, or, even more to the point, who you want others to think you are.
• Search for love in all (or at least a statistically significant majority of) the right places with Soulmate Search, our eerily effective psychographic matchmaking software.
• Endure, via our Contextual Dating option, thematically appropriate multimedia advertising throughout the entirety of your free date