Deals in the Amazon MP3 Store

DRM perplexes me. It attempts to prevent users from illegally sharing music; however, it just punishes the people who are legally downloading music. The downsides of DRM are well documented:

1. When something better than an iPod comes along, I might not be able to play my songs on it. Sony never made you play Sony Albums on a Sony Record Player.
   
2. What happens if iTunes shuts down its FairPlay servers? I could loose my music that I paid for. Universal decides to are only making movies; demand listeners give back their records.
   
3. Maintaining, implementing, supporting DRM costs money. Someone has to pay for it; the honest user using iTunes Store ends up paying for it, not the college kid downloading music on a torrent.
4. Keeping an honest user honest doesn't do much. Imagine security guards only checking the bags of the people they know aren't shop lifters.
   

Wired has a humorous write up of DRM applied to handbags.

This is why I download music from Amazon's MP3 store. All songs are DRM free. The songs cost less - most songs are 89 cents - and every Friday they have five $5 dollar albums.

Say no to iTunes, say yes to Amazon MP3. Deals deals deals. I love deals.

I'll Still Watch Next Year

This year there was no collapse, no black cat, no Billy Goat, there's just the Cubs. I know I watched play the Cubs play Dodgers this October, but it was not the 97 win best record in the national league Cubs, rather the Cubs - a Cubs team where a gold glove first baseman makes an error that leads to a 5 run second inning; a Cubs team who stranded 9 runners in a 3 - 1 loss; a Cubs team who's game one pitcher walks 7 batters. Now count it, 9 post season losses in a row.

During the regular season, the Cubs thought they could win every game - no matter the score - you could see it in their swagger, their faces in the dugout, they could win. In October, they didn't even show up.

Where to go from here, get better players? This team went into the postseason with no holes: solid pitching, explosive bats. Still here we are. Maybe we can get a player with enough confidence to over come the 100 year weight, to keep the dugout relaxed, and keep the team thinking/playing like they can win ever game. Maybe then the Cubs will forget about how their supposed to win every game.

For now, for another October, the North side is quiet, and I've learned my lesson: I'm not waiting, but I'll still watch next year.

Google and League of Women Voters Team Up

Google Maps and League of Women Voters have created a great website for the election. Enter your address and it gives you links to register, check registration, days left to register, voter hotline for your state, and coming soon your polling place. Vote.

The Elements of Style

I need the Elements of Style by William Stunk Jr. and E.B. White.

It's available for free online or in paperback. The Washington Post has a nice write up from earlier this month; it's a must read for everyone.

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

Chapter 3 part 13, The Elements of Style.

"...every word tell" resonated with me. No surprise, they taught Elements of Style in freshman studies way back when.

Voter Registration

Not every state has day of voter registration like Wisconsin, so check your voter registration, find your polling, or if you haven't registered register.

D.C.

Maryland

Virginia

Other

My first trip to the polling place, I looked over my poster sized ballot 100 times; swing state, no hanging chad, no butterfly mistake, that vote was going to be counted. Best time of the year.

More Books on the Shelf

A while back I finished Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America; after a few moments of introspection and a one over of the afterword, I set it on the shelf, paused, glanced back, stared down the spine of the paperback, pryed open my MacBook, and pecked away at the keys. I was writing a post about the Great American Novel.

Around the third sentence, three or four other windows were open. I was chatting, browsing my RSS feeds, buying pointless stuff; the post died shortly there after. I prefer to think I was mentally drained by the late hour or wanted to give it 100% of my focus; however, in part, it was my suspicion that my future-self three months from now would look back at my amateur attempt in disdain. The post is still coming someday; it could come out when I am dinner, waiting for the Metro, or lounging at a Wine bar - for now I'll keep reading.

Some highlights of what I've read recently:

The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth - What if Lindenburg, a Nazi sympithizer, won the 1940 Presidential Election? After that complicated assuption, the book follows a Jewish American family living in New Jersey trying to find its way in a changing America. It is a chilling, shocking, and dishearting story; I believed every word of the bizarro-1940 America.

The Breif Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Jaun Diaz - A vivid account of a ghetto nerd in 1980's who wants to be the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and can't get laid despite his best efforts. I read this cover to cover on my flight to SF. Oscar Wao deserves a spot next to Holden Caulfield and Scout Finch as a great fictional character.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan: Not a must read like Omnivore's Dilemma, but worth the slender 256 pages. But serious go read Omnivore's Dilemma if you haven't.

This Weekend in DC

Three events this weekend in DC.

Saturday:
On Saturday morning from 8 A.M. to Noon, 17 miles of the District's streets will be closed for BikeDC - a noncompetitive and fun ride for the joy of bicyclying. The ride is an exceptional way to see the city and show your support for cyclists. You can register online before Friday for $35 or day of for $45; proceeds go to Washington Area Bicyclist Association. All ages welcome.

National Book Festival, featuring over 70 authors, also takes place Saturday from 10:30 am to 5:30 P.M. on the mall. Among authors speaking and signing include Salman Rushdie, R.L. Stine, Richard Price, Paul Schieffer, and Michelle Singletary. Metro or bike are the best transit options; not sure if there is a bike vallet.

Sunday:
Crafty Bastards, an arts and crafts festival in Adams Morgan at the Marie Reed Recreational Center, features over 100 vendors hawking handmade items and crafts. Throughout the day, there will be be live music, DJs, breakdancing, workshops, and demos to help you make your own crafts.

Check out booth #59:
Bicycle Safety - The Bike Rack Booth
10am, 2pm Basic Bike Maintenance
12pm Riding Your Bike Safely In The City

A User's Best Friend

A browser's back button is a user's best friend, and a Webdeveloper's worst enemy. Every save, create, I live in fear of somehow someway a user will find a way to save this more than once. "Save. View. Back. Back. Back, Forward. Save" and somehow there will be two records. I live in fear for important records like payments, and use tokens and other tools to prevent replication; however , when I watch users interact with a system, there is a gravitational force that pulls their mouse into the upper left corner and clicks it repeatedly until there's a visual response.

"Oh there I am, that's where I want to be."

Sometimes there's no going back: hitting a back button will not retract a submitted form; however, users like the back button. It's nice; it's there; it's consistent. And let's be real, that nice "back to search results" link you made one boring Tuesday morning is never going to get clicked.

When viewing a list of results, a user should be able to use the back button - always. They are going to say and think "I didn't find it; let me go back." and click the back button to find their results again.

Lately I see many AJAX calls to view paginated results for a list, and, for example, the url looks like "http://www.website.com/results#pageNumber" The anchor and AJAX call do not work well with one another; the browser get confused and seems to look for it on the page. Who knows, but it makes my results disappear when I hit the back button. Annoying. This should never happen.

Painted Ladies

Hello (Painted) Ladies. I'm in SF taking a weekend off from the new cycle, trying out the mobile update. This is a picture I took from Alamo square using my mobile phone; they're called the "Painted Ladies."

I'm trying to surf here!

Does anyone appreciate going to cnn.com and selecting an interesting headline only to find that it's a 1:30 video with no accompanying description? I don't.

Video and multimedia are part of the Web's future; it's a multimedia platform including text, videos, sound bites, images etc. Don't make it one dimensional by not showing the associated AP article.

I'm not trying to watch TV. I'm trying to use the internet.

DC Ministry of Bicycling Congregates

DC now has a Ministry of Bicycling - a social group to promote cycling in the District.

With a dress code of "bike tie formal (ties, white button downs/ups, poufy dresses, bike grease)," their first ride this Saturday starts at 3 P.M. in Freedom Plaza, goes through Dupont, and ends at Red Derby in Columbia Heights.

Too bad I'll be out of town; Looks like a good time. I'll catch the next ride.

Check out their website, http://dcmob.org, if you're interested.

Upcoming Blog

I'm working a new blog - a lifestyle blog - a collaborative effort involving several people. I'm excited about it; I'm going to write my own blogging engine for it.

There are plenty of ready to install options out there which will be better than mine, but that's not the point. I want to get practice working from documentation, learning a new language, and design. I'm not planning on going over the top; I'll use markdown, reCAPTCHA, and other plug-ins, but I need a framework.

Framework ideas:

Django
The built in admin system for a multi-user system is almost too tempting to turn down. I also like the idea "Don't repeat yourself" and putting the data first. There are records and objects; how their retrieved or displayed, we'll figurre that out later. Python is a robust language with a lot of support. Django itself is at 1.0, not 1.1 or 1.26. Looking back at 1.0 products from 1.1, 1.26, or 2.1 shows some large imporvements.

Ruby On Rails
Used like before. Liked it. Makes sense to me. But is it still hip? Good support/documention. Seriously there's a tutorial on everything.

Catalyst
Perl, yeah well, it's worth giving Perl another change in my life.


Anything in Lisp? Google Web Toolkit? Any other suggestions? Thoughts?

Smart Bike around DC

--$3.33 a month for alternative transit.--

My SmartBikeDC credentials arrived in the mail last week. They came in an envelope slightly larger than a postcard that was filled the brim. Inside was my card, instructions about how to activate it, bicycle safety tips, bicycle laws, and the DC bicycle map.

Activating the card online was easy. Just about how any credit card works - sign up and enter the card number. (Note: I still have reservations about the security of the website.)

On my way back from another burrito lunch, I stumbled upon the stand at Metro Center, about half the spots were open, so I opted to take a bike for trip. I swiped my card, and screen showed #9. I raised it out of the rack, adjusted the seat, and scoped out my surroundings: sidewalks packed with pedestrians, cars, delivery trucks, and buses congesting the sidewalks. It was not an attractive sight.

With a lack of a destination, a waning lunch hour, and disposition for indecision I took it for the first thing that came to mind, a spin around the block. My joy ride was short, but I got a good feel for the bike.

The red an white bikes aren't made for speed or looks, but they are a three speed sturdy ride, easy to pedal, and are equiped with the all powerfull bell. Most people will have an easy time hopping on and ride a mile or two around the city.

Currently outside of the ocassional lunch time joy ride or the after work trip to logan circle, there aren't enough stations for me to adopt SmartBike into my daily routine, but I'm happy to pay the $40 a year to support the great program.

I've got a grainy cell phone video of the ride complements of Joris:




UPDATE: check out street films coverage of SmartBike DC. The bikes are 3 speed not one. Thanks dc2wheel.

Extra! Extra!

Saturday morning at 6:45 am, I was packed up. Most everything including utensils, food, and computer was in a box taped shut or secured in its carrying case.

In a daze, I drifted across the street in flip flops and a ragged t-shirt to McDonald's for a large coffee and eeg & cheese. Below the "On Sale Here" sign, I noticed the headline "Obama Selects Biden as Running Mate" I can't remember the last time I got breaking news from the print edition of a paper.

It was surprising, refreshing; the urge to dig through my pocket to find enough change and recall my order so I could purchase that paper too and desperately thumb to page A4 and consume the rest of the story before I puruse the rest of the section for reactions, comments, and realted news.

La Blogotheque

A friend shared La Blogotheque with me a while ago. La Blogotheque is a video blogger who invites artists to perform off stage in atypical situations - elevators, on top of roofs, in a ferry, or walking down the street - and sometimes without proper instruments. The videos are shot in one take on a handheld camera. The performances shine, and the camera seems to dance and float along with the artists.

This one of Sufjan Stevens is my favorite.



The website is in French, but it's a pleasure to browse La Blogotheque's YouTube page. La Blogotheque has posted videos of Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, and Vampire Weekend. Enjoy!