Nick Browne's Commonplace Book

"Sims, Battle Bots, Cellular Automata Gods and Go" [Daypop Top 40]

Digital Impact

These seem to be the people who are doing the SD Sense camapign.

The case for face-to-face
In a wired world, physical presence counts more than ever

Music industry commits suicide-through-bad-marketing. Great Slate story on the way that the music industry has shot itself in the foot with marketing and strategy, arguing that the "MP3 is killing music" is just as groundless as the "home-taping is killing music" argument was in the 80s.

The major labels have snubbed older music fans in recent years, yet over-40s now constitute 44 percent of the CD market, up from 19.6 percent in 1992, according to the RIAA's 2001 annual consumer profile. Unfortunately for the majors, the tastes of graying Beatles and Stones fans have fragmented, making them difficult to reach via mass-marketing. These consumers help support the many smaller labels that market alt-rock, world music, new age, reissues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, post-minimalism, and other niche genres.
Meanwhile, younger fans lose interest quickly and often don't develop strong loyalties. They're less likely to investigate a breakthrough act's previous albums or buy its next one. The genres that appeal to under-25 music fans continue to sell, but individual performers fade quickly.
This is a huge problem for the big labels, who still base their marketing on long-term stars who release multimillion-copy blockbusters. One album that sells 10 million copies is more lucrative than 10 that sell 1 million, because once a CD takes off, the only fixed costs are manufacturing and shipping, which are trivial compared to production and marketing. And long-term careers make each album less of a risk, since the most loyal fans will buy everything an artist releases and profits are high on back catalogs that keep selling.

Link

"X-Men 2 trailer" [Daypop Top 40]

Turning corpses into diamonds. A new process can turn your loved ones' remains into diamonds.

A company based in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village has accepted its first deposit for manufactured diamonds made from carbon captured during the cremation process so that loved ones -- family members or even pets -- could be mounted into a ring, pendant or other jewelry.
A small number of U.S. funeral homes, including four in the Chicago area, have signed up to offer memorial diamonds produced by Life Gem. The cost will depend on the size of the gem, starting at $4,000 for a quarter-carat.

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Semantic Web

"This resource is also known as Stupid Berry Pickers Make Idiot Jam and that fact should add suitable weight to the following declaration: I'm new to the Semantic Web. I cobbled this fair piece together in an attempt to collect my thoughts, answered questions, path-of-learning, and requisite bookmarks so that other XML hackers may follow in my footsteps. "

"Disgruntled Saudis have pulled tens of billions of dollars" This is just a step in inevitable mutual alientation.

Nondiscretionary Controls: can't live with 'em, can't... [Ray Ozzie's Weblog]

Laurel and Hardy: Stan’s tears, his absurdity and sleepiness, sit perfectly with Ollie’s plausible rotundity, irritation, ambition, and wide-eyed panic... [more]

Cadbury's advert upsets India. Media: Confectionary giant compares a brand of chocolate to the disputed territory of Kashmir, describing both as 'too good to share'. [Guardian Unlimited]

Words fail me.

Connecting a Pocket PC to the Internet via your PC using the USB cradle, serial cable or IrDa link

THIS TUTORIAL APPLIES TO POCKET PC DEVICES RUNNING THE PPC2000 OPERATING SYSTEM, AND NOT TO THOSE RUNNING PPC2002.

PPC2002 DEVICES CAN ALREADY CONNECT TO TEH INTERNET AS STANDARD WHILE IN THE CRADLE USING THE 'PASSTHROUGH' OPTION WITHIN ACTIVESYNC.

This page has been created to answer a common question posed concerning the Pocket PC:

Can I access the Internet with my Pocket PC via a link with my desktop PC?

The answer is of course ..... YES!

"GBlogs RSS Feeds" Should I add myself to this I wonder. I am quite happy with this private space. What about a BumbleBee blog?

Its periodicals are run by callow cliques of pseudo-populist snobs. It understands neither workers nor bosses. The Left is in deep trouble. Camille Paglia... [more] is back.

BBC NEWS | In Depth | dot life | Border controls crumble in DVD land It was inevitable.

St Francis of Assissi

by Paul Gallico

Microsoft Donations to New Orleans Police

Includes interesting links for Coraider background.

Booker Long List

Zadie Smith is on this even though her new novel isn't published yet. I wonder how that works? Dannie Abse of St Illtyd's sneaks in too. "To green fields set with golden flowers...."

Real education will make students so keen on chemistry that the school’s chemicals must be locked up. The kids then secretly study lock design,. [more]

A fine article by Richard Dawkins. Wonders never cease. As a rule I can't stand his writing. He reverts to form by banging on about evolution towards the end though. He often seems tone deaf to anything else.

Newsweek: Blog overview. There are half a million apparently.

From the Baltimore Chronicle: "Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."

This article was published over a week ago, but I hadn't heard of, or seen it yet. If only 10% of it is true, then we should be very afraid. Deep in my gut, I feel W.R. McDougall has hit it all squarely on the nose. Time for action America! [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

International Jewry, out to pervert all the values of civilisation, needed a secret text to guide it. The Protocols of Zion was perfect for the job. Umberto Eco explains... [more]

"Xbox Linux Project " Version 0.1. Must track this.

Bowie: "I personally don't think the copyright will exist in the next 10 years. We'll lose all authorship whatsoever." [Scripting News]

Bowie is an extraordinarily intelligent man to have this perspective.

"the most depressing man in America" Lessig again.