Huh. Vinyl LP sales are 10% of all music sales!

I know MP3 is a poor substitute for a full music CD. I know that in some cases vinyl records can outperform CDs. Arguably it can always outperform CD, but I don't have enough of a technical background to argue that one way or another. But I was quite surprised to see that "According to the RIAA, vinyl's percentage of overall sales doubled in 2004, grossing $110 million over 2000's $72 million. This growth came at a time when overall music sales dropped from $14.4 billion to $12.2 billion."

This is second of a three-part series on the future of music audio and MP3, the previous article can be found linked in the sidebar.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/audiophiles/0,2934,68891,00.html

I received an early Christmas present while in Phoenix for Thanksgiving

We stayed at my condo, currently being rented by Michelle, and she left a bottle on the coffee table for me.

http://www.eurobrews.com/monty.html



Unfortunately she only gave me one bottle. I DON'T WANT TO OPEN IT! If she'd given me two, I'd've drunk one and kept the other. Perhaps a local liquor store can order another for me. I might take the easy way out and ask her where she got it and get one for myself the next time I'm in Phoenix.

More Sony Rootkit News! YEAH!

Sony released an installer, only it installed an ActiveX control into your browser and made you vulnerable to more types of web-launched attacks. Gotta love it!

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69763,00.html


But the BEST Sony news is this XCP copy protection contains Apple's DRM system! If you know what you're doing, you can play Sony XCP protected music in an iTunes player. The problem is that Apple hasn't licensed their DRM system to anyone, which could technically make Sony guilty of theft.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=940

Rot In Peace

This links to a slide show of buildings experiencing natural decay and ponders the thought of preservation vs decay. Kind of interesting. Ten slides, very good photographs.

http://www.slate.com/id/2129660/nav/tap1/