DRM, also known as Digital Rights Management, is a mechanism designed to protect copyright holders by restricting or preventing duplication of media, such as music and video. The entertainment industry claimed they were losing billions of dollars each year, and strong-armed the world (such as Apple and Microsoft) into using DRM to distribute content. For example, up until last year ALL music you could purchase from either iTunes or MSN Music was "protected" by DRM. This usually meant you could not archive content you purchased, you could not transfer content your purchased to a different computer, you could not enjoy content you purchased on any media device of your choosing...you paid top dollar for a pair of handcuffs that have no keys, and you can kiss your content (and money) goodbye if you ever wanted to switch platforms or services.

So, let's say you know you will never switch platforms...you are happy with your service and the (soon to be obsolete) media device you are using. You're going with a brand name, someone you TRUST...not some small company trying to break even, like Rhapsody or Napster. You want longevity. You want content you legally purchased to always be available for you to enjoy years into the future.

So the RIAA is extremely pleased today, because they know you will purchase much of your content again now that MSN Music is about to kill DRM on their old service. That's right: the moment you buy a new computer, all of the content from MSN Music...which you paid for...stays with your old machine. You can't transfer it! Even if the only thing you do is to upgrade your OS, or re-install your OS, you've lost everything you paid for. This is how the music industry will be able to make back a small portion of the billions of dollars they lose to illegal file sharing: make the law-abiding citizens pay two, three, four times for the same content! Yes, it's an evil plan...but who has ever said the RIAA isn't evil? Besides their executives, that is...

That's how DRM rips you off! Why? Because it can be turned off at any time, leaving the content that you paid for completely useless: you'll never enjoy that content...which you paid for...ever again. Unless, of course, you decide to purchase the content AGAIN somewhere else.

Now you're saying, "But wait...there's still the Zune Marketplace. They'll always support their DRM!" Oh, really? That's what everyone said about MSN Music! Are you sure that it will never die...this time? Hey, it's not the first time this has happened: MLB fans got ripped off by DRM late last year. And all you iTunes fans...consider that your service is vastly more successful than anyone else, and then consider that iTunes has a whopping 2% success rate...do you truly believe Steve Jobs really wants to support such a failure forever? Oh, pleeze, wake up...

If you went with DRM to be a good citizen, kudos to you. But believe this: within 10 years, every DRM purchase that you've made, or will make, will be money thrown out the window...and you'll have to purchase the content all over again.

Don't be too upset, all of the experts loudly protested DRM and warned that this day would come. If you didn't believe the experts, that's YOUR fault.

The solution is simple, really...if you can't hold it in your hands, don't give them your money.

So I'm just surfing around, and come across this msnbc story about how much wasps love orchids. Researchers found that males of a species called orchid-dupe-wasps "go all the way" with Australian "tongue orchids", wasting their precious bodily fluids in the process. I couldn't think of an appropriate "perfect" response, so I'm making this one multiple-choice:

• And you thought you could always avoid perverted sex on the Internet
• "Tongue orchid" replaced the 4-star rating in Bill Clinton's little black book
• When everybody hates you, what better way to spend your short life than wasting precious bodily fluids?
• So this totally explains why they get so excited after being lured into my wasp trap...
  

First, the City of Seattle sued to keep the SuperSonics in town until at least the end of their lease with the Coliseum. Then Ballmer and friends stepped up to try and keep the SuperSonics in Seattle. Then NBA commissioner David Stern fined one of the new owners a quarter-mil for publicly saying they didn't buy the team to keep them in Seattle. Now Howard Schultz, originally a principal owner of the SuperSonics (notice a trend with the team name...?) has filed suit against the new owners claiming overt deception in sale negotiations. Of course, the first hint the new owners lied was dumping Ray Allen so quickly like they did...any idiot could see they were going for a "Major League" scenario. What's Allen doing now? Oh yeah...on his way to the championship with the Celtics.

Whether or not any of this keeps the team in Seattle, one thing should be pointed out very clearly: who the FUCK is ever going to trust David Stern again? His credibility, if not shot now, may very well be shot in the near future. I won't be surprised if discovery finds he took payola to relocate an NBA team to a tiny little market. One look at the emails, and it's easy to see he liked having his boots lavishedly and sloberly licked by Bennett.

Anyway, kudos to Seattle, Ballmer's group and Schultz...at the very least, we get nice little soap opera to bid farewell to our team.

Down the street, it has become known that Liberty Mutual has purchased Safeco at a 51% premium (hello, Yahoo...??? Still feeling smart?) Which begs the question: will they rebrand Mariner stadium? Well, one of their people sez, "It definitely will not be Liberty Mutual stadium. You'll be going to Safeco Field to enjoy the Mariners all summer long and for many summers to come." Personally, I won't be surprised if Clay Bennett is on their Board of Directors...

In other news, Hannah Montana is getting paid seven figures to write her memoir. Oh, yeah baby...I want to read a life-book of someone who isn't old enough to have a driver's license. Good reading, to be sure...

Well, Hillary won Philly. Yay. I thought that primary would NEVER come, it was like waiting for Episode 1 to be released, with the same deflating outcome. Just two more state primaries before she figures out it's a tie (at best). Personally, I'm getting tired of all the negativity she throws at the Obama camp. At least she raised almost half as much campaign funding as Obama...

Whoa, hold on...I officially throw my support behind Obama. Whew! That should keep all the phone calls down from those media outlets...

Are you holding the Olympic Torch? Yes? Can anybody SEE you holding the Olympic Torch? No? Then sit the hell down and free Tibet, for Pete's sake...jeezus, this is a little soap opera to consume an entire nation at a time that all nations should come together. Speaking of which, the Chinese are suing CNN for calling them "goons". Hold on, was there a misspelling by one character there? No? Then shut the hell up, China...

Yes, I'm in a crappy mood today.

Wikipedia wants to publish in print. I remember as a teenager, so many people had an encyclopedia, with a dozen books on a shelf. Remember all those infomercials back then? Oh yeah...I seriously want an encyclopedia that consumes an entire house, written by a bunch of basement dwellers who HAVE NO LIFE. Get real, Bertelsmann. OK, so I exaggerate a little...it'll be a "yearbook" with only the "most popular keywords" in a "condensed form". Yup, that will be an interesting read. Can't wait for Wikipedia's memoirs...

Not official yet, but c'mon, we all knew it was coming. Did we really expect the team to have him compete with Julius Jones and TJ Duckett for the starting position? To be totally fair, his numbers dropped drastically at the same time Hutch poison-pilled the team, so the new backs may find themselves with just as much of a problem (unless that offensive line gets fixed). Personally, I remember Shaun's rookie season, behind Ricky Watters: his dancing the line style was odd, but the real play that made me scratch my head was at Husky Stadium when he was supposed to pick up a block on the left side...he didn't even touch the guy, and Dilfer got planted hard, ending the drive. And it took a couple-more years before Shaun really started to get decent at blocking, but even then, he wasn't that good at it. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a great guy, and puts on a real show for nationally televised games, and I'll kinda miss seeing him play...

I used to use the term "brain fart" as an excuse, but now I can use it as a reason! YaY! Now I just gotta get me one of those brain fart hats...

• when the "supercontinent" Pangaea broke up, the event wiped out most species of life on the planet, and ended the Jurassic period
• many scientists believe a meteor triggered the end of the Cretaceous period, again wiping out most species of life such as the dinosaurs, and giving rise to homosapiens

Could humans ever hope to achieve such a cataclysmic event like these? Hardly. In comparison, global warming is just an itchy rash. Well ok, if we detonated every nuclear weapon we have, maybe we'd cause some damage...but the Earth will still recover just fine.

Here's a quoted monologue from everybody's favorite bad guy, Agent Smith:
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague..."

Kinda true. Mother Nature used to be able to keep us in check, with plagues and those kind of things, but the invention of penicillin ushered in an age of pharmaceuticals that allowed humans to drastically multiply: for example, there were about 1.2 billion people back in 1850, and grew to 1.6 billion by 1900. But in 1950, the population took a significant upswing, hitting 2.6 billion. "Modern medicine" was born, even more drugs came online, and the next 50 years saw human population explode to 6 billion people. Mother Nature introduced Herpes, AIDS, Ebola and numerous other diseases to slow us down, but it's not helping much. But wait...now antibiotic drugs are suddenly having less effect, or no effect, for many people due to over-use. The diseases are becoming resistent. Could this lead to a pandemic, perhaps with a previously unknown disease that is immune to drugs and catastrophically efficient? Well, sure it can! It might even lead to the extinction of the human race.

Oh, but humans will never become extinct, you say. We're smart. We use tools. We look for things, make us go. Well, I remember watching the Hollywood Squares back when I was about six years old, and the host offered a true-or-false scenario: humans will be extinct one day. The star said, "There are almost 4 billion of us, no, of course not. False." The contestant said, "I agree". The host then pointed out that over 99% of all species to have ever lived on the planet are currently extinct, and scientists have no reason to believe the same fate will not befall humans...circle got the square.

And once we are extinct, the Earth will begin its healing process and reverse all the damage we have wrought. In a relatively short period of time, less than a thousand years, it will be in perfect health, flourishing with life, and almost no obvious indications that we were ever here in the first place. A few billion years later, the planet will finally die: our sun will nova. If it's a small one, the atmosphere will be destroyed and turn the planet into a lifeless rock in space. If it's a big one, the planet will be vaporized.

So quit worrying that the planet is dying. It's not. It's going to be perfectly fine. Someday.

There's your story for the day. Off to bed with you. Good night! Sleep tight! Sweet dreams!

Many won't argue this point. The IRS takes our money, and if we ask politely, they'll give a small part of it back to us...without interest. Now, if you take the time to actually read the thick federal income tax publication (#17, catalog #10311G) for individuals, there are several items for which you are required to report as taxable income that you may have not thought about. Been bribed lately? According to page 87, that's taxable. Getting kickbacks? That's covered on page 89. Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must also be included on your 1040 if from your self-employment activity. So I guess that means if you're employed by a drug dealer, you're in the clear...he's the one who has to withhold your earnings for tax purposes. If you steal, you have to report the property's fair market value...unless of course you returned it to the rightful owner during the same taxable year, and what thief doesn't just borrow something until Christmas time, huh?

In other stupid government things going on, Hillary has been using a tear-jerker story on the campaign trail about a woman who got pregnant, lost the baby, then lost her life due to complications...all because she was denied treatment for being broke and having no insurance. Naturally, the hospital where this woman went for help provided records showing she actually did receive treatment. No word yet if the woman was under threat of sniper fire on her way in...

More stupid people? OK, let's move to our favorite repeat target, Pacman Jones. He goes on a radio program and sez, "Man, I'm at the end of the cliff, and if I slip off, I fall off." Sounds like he finally realizes that he's got to walk the straight and narrow if he wants an NFL career, right? Um, maybe not...first he sez that he plans to stay out of strip clubs "for a couple years" and backed that statement up by saying, "You never say never". Yup, I'm sure the commish has no idea about that radio program...good luck, Dallas!

Let's cover an entire company. Yahoo COULD have agreed to a buyout of 44.6 bill-yun dollars. But they didn't...now the value of the offer is only 41B. How would you like to be the boss to have blown nearly four billion dollars? And then have your company under threat of being violently stripped out of your control? Guys, you're not Google...