21 Aug 2002

Wed, 21 Aug 2002

Browsing Zope documentation better than Robin Williams

I was browsing the zope documentation, when I came across this gem:

It's not necessary to inflationate the documentation with such adjetives.

Then, I came across this:

Anonymous User: quit cutting the hairs people
Anonymous User: The expression is "splitting" hairs.

I'm still laughing. At the risk of overstating the obvious, I think allowing comments inline in the documentation is working against them and I think sleep deprivation is making me giddy. Good night, cheese crank.

Posted at: 23:26 | permalink

Mark Pilgrim: The Persistence of Melody

Mark Pilgrim writes, "I want to buy Busted Stuff, the new CD from Dave Matthews Band, but I find myself hesitating because I don’t know if it’s copy-protected."

While I own all of the old DMB material, I often question why somebody wants to buy the post-Glenn Ballard stuff, when the life got drained from it. Reading the reviews on amazon, it occurs to me that DMB's listener base is now largely stratified into two groups: those of us who were hooked on the funk-fusion inflected grooves of the original band, and those that prefer their DMB after it's been neatly strained by a major league pop producer into a form that does not offend anyone.

That said, I have had some experience with the atrocities committed in the name of copy protection. In the spirit of documenting the atrocities, here goes. Among the myriad music DVDs on my shelf is Kenny Loggins - Outside from the Redwoods. While I highly recommend this as a benchmark live recording in 5.1 audio, there's one problem that the recording presents: it can't be copied direct digital. I know because I tried to make a quick copy of it one day with a digital cable between my Sony DVD player and my Sony MD recorder so that I could listen to it on my tractor. The recorder quickly displayed a message indicating that it couldn't be copied due to copy protection. Sony and Columbia Music Video can go the way of the dinosaur AFAIC. And I thought it was legal to make copies as I described. I guess Sony and CMV would be happier if I strapped a portable DVD player onto the front of my tractor, but then I'd have to explain to my neighbor why his kids were included in this week's mowing.

Posted at: 08:28 | permalink