Here's what lies inside my lovely Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 40 gigs
6142 tracks
707 allbums
A Flock Of Seagulls
A Perfect Circle
The Rough Guides To Dub, Ska, Chicago Blues, Boogaloo y Asian Underground
British Murder Boys
Altered Images
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Two Long Swordsmen
Arcadia
Asian Dub Foundation
AFI
At The Drive-In
Bad Brains
Bad Religion
Bauhaus
Beastie Boys
Bebel Gilberto
Big Black
Birthday Party
Bloc Party
Bowery Electric
Brian Eno
Bushido
Cafe Tacuva
Cassandra Complex
Chicks On Speed
Cocteau Twins
Coil
Cubanate
Curve
D-Generation
David Bowie
Dead Boys
Dead Can Dance
Dead Kennedys
Depeche Mode
Dif Juz
Dimitri Pike
DJ Surgeon
Dominatrix
Drexciya
Elefant
Elysian Fields
Enrique Bunbury
Etienne De Crecy
Eurythmics
Fania All Stars
Fear Factory
Felix Da Housecat
Fields Of The Nephilim
Filter
Final Cut
Firewater
Fishbone
Fixmer Mc Carthy
Frank Black & Two Pale Boys
Front 242
Frontline Assembly
Gang of Four
Godflesh
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Gotan Project
Green Velvet
Gun Club
Handsome Boy Modeling School
Haujobb
Hell is For Heroes
Helmet
House Of Love
Hugo Largo
Icicle Works
Iggy Pop
Impossible Recording Machine
Interpol
Iron Maiden
Isis
Ismael Rivera
Jackie-O Motherfucker
Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay
James Plotkin (con y sin Mick Harris)
Jane's Addiction
Japan
Jay Z & DJ Danger Mouse
Jesu
Jimi Hendrix
John Lee Hooker
Joy Division
Juan Atkins
Juana Molina
KMFDM
Karen Dalton
Kate Bush
Khonnor
Kill Memory Crash
Killing Joke
King Crimson
Kitchens of Distinction
Kraftwerk
La Mu?eca De Sal
Laibach
Laika
Lard
LCD Soundsystem
Leftfield
Leonard Cohen
Les Rita Mitsouko
Les Savy Fav
Loop
Los Amigos Invisibles
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Los Planetas
Lou Reed
Lou Reed & John Cale
Lovage
Love and Rockets
Love Like Blood
M83
Madlib
Man or Astro Man?
Manu Chao
Marilyn Manson
Mark Burgess & The Sons Of God
Matt Elliott
Mazzy Star
McAlmont & Butler
McClusky
Meat Beat Manifesto
Medicine
Melvins & Lustmord
Ministry
Miss Kittin & The Hacker
Mission Of Burma
Modern English
Mogwai
Morrissey
Mu
Mum
Murder Inc
Muse
My Bloody Valentine
My Chemical Romance
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
Napalm Death
Neurosis
New Order
New York Dolls
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Nine Inch Nails
Nirvana
Ohgr
Orbital
Stryke
Patrick Wolf
Pepito
Pigface
Pink Floyd
Pixies
PJ Hrvey
Placebo
Porcupine Tree
Portishead
Prince
Prong
Psychedelic Furs
Queens Of The Stone Age
Quicksand
Rage Against The Machine
Rammstein
Rapeman
Raveonettes
Recoil
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Krayola
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Rollins Band
Severed Heads
Sheep On Drugs
Sigur Ros
Siouxsie & The Banshees
Skinny Puppy
Smashing Pumpkins
Social Distortion
Sonic Youth
Soundgarden
Spacemen 3
Stooges
The Strokes
Swans
Swayzak
Sweet Jesus
Swell Maps
Swervedriver
Talk Talk
Team Sleep
Tenacious D
The Beatles
The Bug
The Chemical Brothers
The Clash
The Creatures
The Cult
The Cure
The Damage Manual
The Datsuns
The Decemberists
The Dillinger Escape Plan
The Fall
The God Machine
The Icarus Line
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus Lizard
The Mars Volta
The Mission UK
The Postal Service
The Prodigy
The Ramones
The Rapture
The Rolling Stones
The Sex Pistols
The Sisters Of Mercy
The Skatalites
The Smiths
The Verve
The Walkmen
The White Stripes
THe Young Gods
Therapy?
Thursday
Tiga
Today Is The Day
Tom Waits
Tool
Torch Song
Tricky
TV On The Radio
Underground Resistance
Underworld
Yes New York
Velocity Girl
Velvet Underground
Violent Femmes
Wire
Wu-Tang Clan
X-Executioners
Yeah Yeah Yeahs"
Wired News: Big Brother Tries to Muscle ISPs
Wired News: Big Brother Tries to Muscle ISPs Big Brother Strikes Again!
I know you miss me bliiiiiiiiind (NOT!)
Sorry for the lack of any insights or personal adventures of late. I'm sure you miss me (YEAH RIGHT!). These past few weeks were full of introspection, work, and enjoying the small pleasures life brings like:
1. Killer shows (Signal Level @ Cubo 1504 pwnz) and today did a nice hour on the radio show about Wire and Mission of Burma. Thanks Angelito, for handling production duties!
2. Spending time with my lovely girlfriend. Nothing brings a couple together like watching Unleashed a.k.a. Danny The Dog and your girlfriend getting all excited about the violence Jet Li dishes out.
3. Watching Return of The Sith (twice already. Midnight pre screening and on the first day)
4. Enjoying the inevitable slide downhill towards entropy (that occurrs every may 18th), enjoying whatever presents friends, family and significant other brought to celebrate (reservoir dogs poster! terry pratchett! chocolate cake! chocolate dietary supplement for diabetics! dvds! but wait, there's more!!! two annoying co-workers quit within weeks, possible permanency at ze workplace, btw, thanks guys!)
5. Due to my constant bouts of insomnia and killer work schedule (actually I can't complain, I love my job.), I got the flu last thursday but managed to take care of it with some extreme doses of meds, vitamin C and a sensible diet.
6. Morbid instropections about the fact that it's been 20 years since my high school graduation. No, I didn't go to the class reunion. Don't miss much from the guys from those days gone by. Still liking Arcadia's "So Red The Rose" after all this time. I still dig my 'theme song' from back in the day. Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me".
7. My significant other is sick and without net access so send those good vibes her way ok? Or I'll hurt you. Like Jet Li.
8. Viv and Stiv are on their summer trip. I hope it all went well.
9. Adelphia does it again, this time with the cable. My sister's supposed to take care of that. Which means, she ain't taking care of it. The account is in her name, so that's her problem. No TV for me. Well, at least I got the 'net and it's MINE ALL MINE!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAH!
10. Anyway, reaching prime numberhood means that I'm grateful for whatever life has given me good and bad. That's part of the process called living and hopefully now I have a very good future to look up to. So, a big wet sloppy kiss to my lovely girlfriend, a big hug to my friends and haters please wait in line. The cue starts over there.
11. My music collection has grown in leaps and bounds and I love it. W00t! Also that means a lot of music going over to my friends because sharing is caring.
12. Watching the original cut of "Unleashed", as in Danny The Dog in Cantonese (as in they dubbed the dialogue from English to Cantonese) with Spanish subtitles and the original *FULL* soundtrack (as in Massive Attack only, no RZA on the end credits) is something that I look forward to experience again.
13. Somehow my sister got me some books back. As in KW Jeter's Noir, which is in the list to re-read. Currently busy with Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" and finished reading "The Walking Dead" comic series. Thanks Alberto. A zombie comic worth reading.
14. Spending quality time with one of my oldest friends, Alberto, while re-installing XP on his computer and tuning it was a really good therapy to deal with the flu. Sometimes staying at home gets the best of me and I need to get out.
Enough ranting. This should be good enough for the lot of you. Laters!
1. Killer shows (Signal Level @ Cubo 1504 pwnz) and today did a nice hour on the radio show about Wire and Mission of Burma. Thanks Angelito, for handling production duties!
2. Spending time with my lovely girlfriend. Nothing brings a couple together like watching Unleashed a.k.a. Danny The Dog and your girlfriend getting all excited about the violence Jet Li dishes out.
3. Watching Return of The Sith (twice already. Midnight pre screening and on the first day)
4. Enjoying the inevitable slide downhill towards entropy (that occurrs every may 18th), enjoying whatever presents friends, family and significant other brought to celebrate (reservoir dogs poster! terry pratchett! chocolate cake! chocolate dietary supplement for diabetics! dvds! but wait, there's more!!! two annoying co-workers quit within weeks, possible permanency at ze workplace, btw, thanks guys!)
5. Due to my constant bouts of insomnia and killer work schedule (actually I can't complain, I love my job.), I got the flu last thursday but managed to take care of it with some extreme doses of meds, vitamin C and a sensible diet.
6. Morbid instropections about the fact that it's been 20 years since my high school graduation. No, I didn't go to the class reunion. Don't miss much from the guys from those days gone by. Still liking Arcadia's "So Red The Rose" after all this time. I still dig my 'theme song' from back in the day. Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me".
7. My significant other is sick and without net access so send those good vibes her way ok? Or I'll hurt you. Like Jet Li.
8. Viv and Stiv are on their summer trip. I hope it all went well.
9. Adelphia does it again, this time with the cable. My sister's supposed to take care of that. Which means, she ain't taking care of it. The account is in her name, so that's her problem. No TV for me. Well, at least I got the 'net and it's MINE ALL MINE!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAH!
10. Anyway, reaching prime numberhood means that I'm grateful for whatever life has given me good and bad. That's part of the process called living and hopefully now I have a very good future to look up to. So, a big wet sloppy kiss to my lovely girlfriend, a big hug to my friends and haters please wait in line. The cue starts over there.
11. My music collection has grown in leaps and bounds and I love it. W00t! Also that means a lot of music going over to my friends because sharing is caring.
12. Watching the original cut of "Unleashed", as in Danny The Dog in Cantonese (as in they dubbed the dialogue from English to Cantonese) with Spanish subtitles and the original *FULL* soundtrack (as in Massive Attack only, no RZA on the end credits) is something that I look forward to experience again.
13. Somehow my sister got me some books back. As in KW Jeter's Noir, which is in the list to re-read. Currently busy with Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" and finished reading "The Walking Dead" comic series. Thanks Alberto. A zombie comic worth reading.
14. Spending quality time with one of my oldest friends, Alberto, while re-installing XP on his computer and tuning it was a really good therapy to deal with the flu. Sometimes staying at home gets the best of me and I need to get out.
Enough ranting. This should be good enough for the lot of you. Laters!
What's Your Favorite Word That's Not In The Dictionary?
Merriam-Webster Online: "Merriam-Webster Asks: What's Your Favorite Word (That's Not in the Dictionary)?
What a lovely bunch of vocabularians (persons who make up new words) you are! Lasterday (refers to any day before today) we squinched (action required to fit something into a space that is slightly too small) a schmiglet (a small unit of measurement) of your awesomtastic (so wonderful the words just meld in your mouth) one-of-a-kind entries into this space in preparation for our Top Ten reveal. With so many chizzy (awesome, super, happening) creations to choose from, we admit to becoming a bit flusterpated (a state of being flustered that's so intense, one's actions and words become bound up) and fahoodled (confused, esp. when trying to think of too many things at once). We craughed (to cry and laugh simultaneously), we troddled (to wander around without knowing of doing so), and finally decided to use the schwack (a large amount) of multiple entries received as the basis for the Top Ten—this is, let's not forget, all about favoritism.
From the thousands of submissions we received, here, then, are the ten words (not in the dictionary) entered the most often:
Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)
1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous
2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time
3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement
4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends
5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway
6. gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: 'My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription.'
7. phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number
8. slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy
9. snirt (n): snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed
10. lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms
View previous Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)"
What a lovely bunch of vocabularians (persons who make up new words) you are! Lasterday (refers to any day before today) we squinched (action required to fit something into a space that is slightly too small) a schmiglet (a small unit of measurement) of your awesomtastic (so wonderful the words just meld in your mouth) one-of-a-kind entries into this space in preparation for our Top Ten reveal. With so many chizzy (awesome, super, happening) creations to choose from, we admit to becoming a bit flusterpated (a state of being flustered that's so intense, one's actions and words become bound up) and fahoodled (confused, esp. when trying to think of too many things at once). We craughed (to cry and laugh simultaneously), we troddled (to wander around without knowing of doing so), and finally decided to use the schwack (a large amount) of multiple entries received as the basis for the Top Ten—this is, let's not forget, all about favoritism.
From the thousands of submissions we received, here, then, are the ten words (not in the dictionary) entered the most often:
Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)
1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous
2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time
3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement
4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends
5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway
6. gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: 'My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription.'
7. phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number
8. slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy
9. snirt (n): snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed
10. lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms
View previous Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)"
Airport screeners could see X-rated X-rays | CNET News.com
Airport screeners could see X-rated X-rays | CNET News.com
Big Brother wants to watch. Your knickers and trousers, mate!
Big Brother wants to watch. Your knickers and trousers, mate!
BBC NEWS | In Depth | 2003 | Nuclear fuel cycle | mining
BBC NEWS | In Depth | 2003 | Nuclear fuel cycle | mining
Just in case you wanted to know how nuclear weapons are made. O algo.
Just in case you wanted to know how nuclear weapons are made. O algo.
NewsForge | Detroit high school opens its desktops
NewsForge | Detroit high school opens its desktops Using open source software in high schools. YAY!
Cinematical - Lucas idea for a new star wars prequel
Cinematical
Cash in now honeeeeeeey!
Cash in nowwwwwwwwwwwww
Cash in now babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
Cash in now honeeeeeeey!
Cash in nowwwwwwwwwwwww
Cash in now babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
Wall Street Journal - Intel CEO Extols Patience; Yahoo Stresses Personalization; Blogger Take Center Stage
Intel CEO Extols Patience;
Yahoo Stresses Personalization;
Bloggers Take Center Stage
By JASON FRY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
May 25, 2005 11:43 a.m.
This notebook contains highlights from The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference, which was held Sunday through Tuesday.
Paul Otellini, the new CEO of Intel Corp., showed off a number of whizzy demonstration products and discussed a number of innovative uses for his company's chips, from desktops for the Chinese market to WiMax, which would offer much broader "hotspots" for wireless access. But consumers will have to be patient.
On Tuesday at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Mr. Otellini displayed a sleek PC that doubles as a tablet. It is being sold to Chinese consumers -- a market Mr. Otellini noted includes 60 million urban households that have the money and desire to buy a PC, but haven't. He also showed off a management console for Chinese Net cafes that could serve as "IT in a box" for small businesses, and a thin, light, silver desktop. "The desktop machine needs to be reinvented," he said.
[Paul Otellini]
That prompted a question from Wall Street Journal columnist and conference co-host Walter S. Mossberg: Why are Intel's demo products always cooler than the actual products its customers make?
"Part of the problem is today the desktop [computer] business is a zero margin business for many of our customers," Mr. Otellini said, noting that has led to a chicken and egg problem: the lack of a perceived customer base has starved investment. "A, people have to buy them and B, people have to build them," he said. (He did add that he thinks the increasing popularity of notebook PCs could break desktop design out of its rut.)
Patience is the rule elsewhere, too. Mr. Otellini touted the potential benefits of WiMax, which can supply wireless access in a 50 kilometer radius. But while he said 75 trials are underway, with some roll-outs planned for early next year, he warned regulatory issues about spectrum will play a role, and WiMax being pervasive is "a number of years off."
Unfortunately, so are hardware-based answers to security problems affecting the Wintel platform. Mr. Otellini ran down a series of hardware-based steps designed to improve security, articulating a vision of "virtualization" technology that keeps a virtual machine built into a PC isolated, and thus safer from attack, hardens that machine against hazards, and provides for remote repair after an attack.
But asked when such solutions would be available to mainstream users and usable by them, Mr. Otellini said "I think we're still a few years away." The problem can't be solved by hardware alone, he noted -- hardware solutions take years to be adopted, and remote recovery of a PC, for example, will require service providers to offer that.
Pressed about security by Mr. Mossberg, Mr. Otellini had a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer. And when further pressed about whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC, he said, "If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else."
Yahoo Stresses Personalization Plan
Trying to sum up Yahoo Inc.'s strategy going forward, co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo lean heavily on a single word: personalization.
Interviewed during the final session at D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., the two Internet pioneers were asked how they would respond to a barrage of products from heavyweight competitors such as Microsoft and Google Inc. Microsoft's Bill Gates, for example, had earlier showed off a new product called Virtual Earth that includes aerial images with mapping software.
Mr. Yang admitted that Yahoo would almost certainly follow suit with its own aerial-imaging service. "The feature race is on, there is no question," he said.
But Yahoo is likely to try to enhance such a service with submissions from others, perhaps combining existing images with landmarks or features that are designated by users or businesses, the two men said.
[Jerry Yang]
A much bigger battle looms over search, Google's primary business, which Microsoft's Mr. Gates also has described as a major point of focus for the software giant. Yahoo, which began ago as a directory based on recommendations from its staff, also expects to drive search technology forward by making searches more relevant based on a user's interest or preferences, "what you've said you like and what you've said you don't like," said Mr. Filo.
The two men, who reminisced about past successes and failures for the 10-year-old company, also said building new connections to users will be key to the success of their just-launched music service, which made a stir for its low price of $6.99 a month. Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said Sunday there was a running bet inside his company about how soon Yahoo would raise their pricing.
Mr. Yang conceded that the company described its initial price as "introductory," while not specifying any potential change. He was quick to point out, however, that Yahoo also has a running bet about when Apple will start a subscription service in addition to selling individual song downloads.
More important, Mr. Yang argued, will be other ways to engage users to contribute to its music service in ways that will cause users to stick with Yahoo's site and reduce "churn" -- a costly tendency of customers to jump from service to service. "We are really working to drive sustainable stickiness," he said.
--Don Clark
Bloggers Debate Media, Rise of Blogs
On the third day of the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., the bloggers had their day, or at least their morning, debating how more-established media should react to the rise of blogs, and noting how blogging itself has changed.
"Never underestimate journalists' desire to read about themselves," said Ana Marie Cox, editor of Wonkette.com, who took pains to examine why blogging is different from traditional media and how it isn't.
[Ana Marie Cox]
Ms. Cox called herself the person in the center of a happy media orgy. But amid the jokes about Wonkette's liberal use of cuss words, she noted that the site offered the kind of inside-the-story banter with a nasty edge that's ubiquitous in newsrooms, but only lives at the edges of traditional newspaper accounts. Calling that gossip misses the point of why it's so interesting, she suggested. "You're trying to figure out why people are doing what they're doing," she said, adding that "Washington is a very conservative town, it has a very conservative media -- not in a political sense, but in a sense of what is proper."
Ms. Cox also noted how blogs themselves are changing, observing that more-political blogs that have served as watchdogs on the mainstream media now look more like that segment of the media themselves: "They're cliqueish, they're arrogant, they get things wrong." As an example, she cited the Power Line blog (www.powerlineblog.com), whose investigations helped debunk the now-notorious CBS memo about President Bush's National Guard service, but which then got "memo-happy" in the case of the Republican strategy memo on Terri Schiavo, decrying it as a fake. GOP Sen. Mel Martinez later said an aide had written the Schiavo talking points.
"They wouldn't back down -- just like CBS," she said. (In an interview Wednesday morning, Power Line's Scott Johnson disputed that assertion, saying the blog was quick to link to a Washington Post story that identified the memo's author, and also published an examination of Power Line's role in the flap.)
Dan Gillmor, the former San Jose Mercury-News columnist who founded Grassroots Media Inc., noted that pressure on old-line media is not coming just from the greater choices in what to read, but in how readers interact with what they read.
"People have all these new options in terms of where they get what they want and how much they want to participate," he said, comparing what's happening in journalism to "bringing the conversation into what had been a lecture," with readers now talking back to journalists.
Mr. Gillmor ascribed some of the discomfort among journalists to the fact that "we are being watched like hawks," but had faith that journalism will be the better for it, noting that "people who think I'm wrong tend to be the ones I learn from, not people who think I'm right."
Mena Trott, co-founder of Six Apart, which created the TypePad service and Movable Type software, sought to remind the audience that not all blogging is made for a national or even international mass audience, observing that "I had no ambition to write in a political form … I was the chief egotist at my house."
Ms. Trott said blogs' average connection is about six people and called herself an "accidental entrepreneur," noting that her desire to tell stories about her family and her childhood led her to create a software product.
Ms. Trott's advice for established media was to start small and go slow in adapting to the blogging world: For example, let readers join the conversation in areas away from politics that are of interest to them, such as dining.
"That's a really good way to get your feet in the water and not get attacked," she said.
Ms. Cox noted the "neverending frenzy" of blogging, observing that Powerline and related sites are now being themselves watchdogged by another generation of bloggers. She compared blogging to the self-renewing tumult of punk rock: People at the top will get commercialized, but "there's always someone in the garage."
Publishers Grapple With Industry Changes
Following the bloggers, it was the turn of the mainstream media: Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company; Peter Kann, chairman and CEO of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Online Journal; and Tony Ridder, chairman and CEO of Knight Ridder Inc.
While all three men evinced enthusiasm for blogs – Mr. Graham said blogging "literally takes us back to the roots of newspapers" with one-man operations like Ben Franklin's – that's not to say they don't have reservations.
Mr. Kann said he thinks there's a fundamental difference between blogging and traditional journalism. "You ought to have a certain degree of trust" that news and opinion are separate, hidden commercial agendas aren't influencing the news, and that reporters and editors are trying to find the truth, he said. "I think there is a difference," he said, adding that "I'm not sure that viewing this as a blended continuum is the best way to look at it."
Or as Mr. Graham wryly noted, in the blogging world there's "one person who's Ben Franklin and 100,000 people who think they're Ben Franklin."
Beyond blogging, all three sought to grapple with being a business in transition: print readership is declining, online readership is gaining, and a business model has to emerge from that change.
All three tried to portray that change as a challenge, not a problem.
"If we're in trouble, shame on us," said Mr. Graham, noting that making a business out of the combination of print and Web sites is "a harder job" than the standalone newspaper business, "but not impossible." Mr. Graham said 82% of adults in the Washington, D.C., area read either the print Post, the free Express paper or the Post Web site each day, blaming the decline in print readership on population growth far from central D.C., the fact that younger readers may not read or choose to read online, and language barriers with new arrivals.
Mr. Ridder noted that 53% of adults in the U.S. read a daily newspaper – down from 62% in the late 1980s, but still a large number. And he sought to put things in context, saying that Knight-Ridder's biggest challenges were with its largest eight or nine newspapers, with essentially no impact on smaller, more-rural papers. "It is a big-city phenomenon," he said. He also saw struggles to capture younger audiences as nothing new, expressing faith that "as people grow up, as they get into the community, as they're affected by the community, they tend to become newspaper readers."
"I think the key is, do we capture those people who may be migrating away from print within our own publishing franchises," Mr. Kann said, talking of the "inevitable, gradual" migration to the online world. He added that he can imagine the Online Journal's circulation (currently it has 731,000 paid subscribers) equaling that of the print Journal (which currently has 1.8 million subscribers) and said that "I don't regard that as particularly threatening."
Speaking of Dow Jones's decision to begin charging for the Online Journal in 1996, Mr. Kann said that "I don't think we were particularly visionary – I think we were rather traditional" in thinking that Dow Jones's proprietary content had value. In fact, Mr. Kann said he thinks publishers in general have underpriced their products.
"No one in this room thinks twice about spending $2 buying a bad cup of coffee walking through an airport," he said, adding that "we're probably all too cautious about raising subscription prices."
Scott McNealy Sounds Off
Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy owns one of tech's sharpest tongues, with an aw-shucks, Jimmy Stewart delivery that makes the razor edges on his quips bite deeper.
Sun's decision to make peace with Microsoft Corp. more than a year ago gave Mr. McNealy's company some $2 billion in cash, which probably took the sting out of the fact that he was expected to lose some of his best material: According to various McNealy gibes over the years, Microsoft is run by "Ballmer and Butthead" and its Windows operating system is "a welded-shut hairball."
[Scott McNealy]
But peace didn't exactly leave Mr. McNealy with nothing to say. At the D: conference, his conversation with Wall Street Journal columnist and conference co-host Kara Swisher ranged from what Sun will do with $7.5 billion in cash (think acquisitions) to the revival of the network-computer concept.
Mr. McNealy compared Hewlett-Packard Co. to a car dealer, whereas Sun, International Business Machines Corp. and the combination of Microsoft and Intel Corp. are auto makers. (The latter two are "General" and "Motors," he said, reusing an old line that's been told with more venom.)
"At some point a car company that buys all the pieces is a car dealer," he said of Hewlett-Packard, arguing that H-P has "hollowed out" its research-and-development efforts. Not that that rules out some kind of alliance, he noted, saying that "I went to Carly [Fiorina] a long time ago and said we should be partners and not competitors. IBM Global Services is everybody's enemy, and it makes a lot more sense to partner. She didn't want to partner." (No matter, he indicated: "I'll call Mark" Hurd, Ms. Fiorina's replacement in the top job.) Later, he said that "it's mankind vs. Global Services."
The famous "hairball" remark even made an encore, with Mr. McNealy saying of the slow adoption of so-called thin-client network PCs that "it'll take as long to unravel the hairball as it did to ravel it." But he then added that by that he meant "the PC-industry hairball," not specifically Microsoft.
He admitted he misses the days of the Internet bubble: "People used to come in with green-spiked hair and body piercings and say 'Where's my server?' and throw money at us." Now, he says, customers are smarter and Sun has to work harder. And what if the bubble had continued for a time? Mr. McNealy looked up at the ballroom's collection of banners with trademark "Wall Street Journal" dot-drawings, spotted his own, and cracked that "I would have been right up here in front instead of in back." (So where would he like his to be? He pointed up above the stage with his usual slightly off-kilter grin: "Right there. Like Mao.")
Mr. McNealy compared Sun's agreement with Microsoft to a pair of boxers who shake hands by tapping gloves and "promise not to bite each other's ears off." But he got in at least a nip, telling the audience that while Sun does run Windows to ensure interoperability, employees who aren't in engineering aren't allowed "to connect Windows to our network for security and viruses reasons. … For another $2.4 billion maybe I won't say that."
Bill Gates's Backup Plan
Should this tech thing not work out, Bill Gates might have a future in the movie business.
[Bill Gates]
The Microsoft Corp. chairman's appearances in parody videos have long been a staple of Comdex and other digerati gatherings, showing a more-playful, self-deprecating side of the Redmond, Wash., tech titan and its leader. Mr. Gates's latest video incarnation, shown at the D: conference Monday, cast him in a send-up of "Napoleon Dynamite," with Mr. Gates tagging along with the movie's vertically haired title character (played by Jon Heder) and playing straight man to his rambling questions about Microsoft technology (no teleporting either of mice or men), listening patiently to Napoleon's Dungeons & Dragons-style ideas for Microsoft Bob, and weathering Napoleon's scorn that the powers that come along with Mr. Gates's knighthood are decidedly limited. (No, Mr. Gates does not lead centaur armies, though Napoleon does warn a co-worker that "he's a flipping knight -- he can like joust and everything.")
After his star turn onscreen, Mr. Gates took the stage for a discussion of Microsoft and its many businesses with Wall Street Journal columnist and conference cohost Walter S. Mossberg, from security to the new Xbox 360.
Asked about computer security, Mr. Gates said Microsoft's recent focus on improving Windows security had set back Longhorn, the next major release of Windows, by about a year (it's expected by the end of 2006), but added that "I feel great about the priorities we set." He noted that many of today's attacks succeed not for technical reasons, but through social engineering: Users are tricked into downloading code that can damage their computer or breach its security. That's something Microsoft is addressing by establishing a reputation network in which feedback from users gives downloadable applications a reputation rating, as well as other safeguards aimed at easing the flood of spam and exposing "phishing" sites.
But Mr. Gates seemed to startle some audience members with the observation that "during the last year, if you had up-to-date Windows, you would have been safe if you didn't have" antivirus software also running. And he endured a hostile question from a member of the audience who identified himself as being from ZoneLabs, a maker of security software, who blamed Microsoft for a litany of security problems and therefore decried Microsoft's forthcoming move to charge for a security suite, Windows OneCare, as "like something out of 'The Godfather.' "
Mr. Gates was unruffled by that and by the suggestion that Microsoft should partner with security-software makers, replying that "we're partnering with GeCAD, which is a company we bought." (Microsoft acquired Romanian antivirus company GeCAD Software Srl in June 2003.)
Mr. Gates also showed off some of the capabilities of the Xbox 360, Microsoft's next-generation videogame machine and a potential living-room hub, given its ability to display content from PCs on the same wireless network. Asked how that wasn't a direct competitor to Hewlett-Packard, Dell and other PC makers working with Microsoft to make Media Center PCs, Mr. Gates offered a not-terribly-convincing scenario in which different TVs in a house would interact with different devices – many hubs, if you will. He appeared most animated discussing Microsoft's continuing efforts on Tablet PCs, swearing that "we're going to make Tablet the most mainstream thing" that's ever happened. While the Tablet PC's reception has been underwhelming so far, Mr. Gates was serenely confident that it will catch on as graphic user interfaces did, quickly going from a fringe feature to a mainstream way of working.
Given that the D: conference is heavily seeded with computer-industry veterans, it was no surprise that the shadow of the past seemed to hang over many of Mr. Gates's remarks. He said desktop search will be integrated with Longhorn, then made reference to comments by his old rival, Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, from the same stage Sunday night: "Steve made a pitch for [operating-system] integration" of desktop search, he noted. "I was glad to see someone independent make that pitch. It's a good pitch." (He did take a shot at Mr. Jobs, however, when talk turned to relationships with hardware manufacturers: "Apple had a licensing strategy and they bankrupted everybody who took advantage of it.")
Asked about current high-flyer Google Inc., he recalled that Microsoft had a 10-year run of soaring stock prices and success, observing perhaps a touch wistfully that "it's kind of nice in a way, but it's kind of confusing as well." And he expressed patience about working with cellphone-service providers, despite their standing between Microsoft and the ultimate users of its software and sometimes tinkering with Microsoft's software for their own business reasons.
"We're a very patient company -- we don't need overnight successes," he said, then followed that up with a simple expression of faith in software's ability to smooth out any rough spots not only for consumers, but for business relationships as well: "The more magic it gets, the more control over that they'll grant."
'True Nerds' Take the Prize
The College Bowl lives: The old game-show format has been revived for the D: conference, pitting today's tech giants against each other when it comes to knowledge of the computer revolution. (Attendees could buy raffle tickets and drop them in the bucket of the competitor they thought would win, with drawings for prizes and the money supporting the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.)
Team #1, billed as the "True Nerds": Rob Glaser (RealNetworks Inc. founder and CEO), Stewart Alsop (venture partner, New Enterprise Associates, and former InfoWorld editor in chief), Mitch Kapor (president, Open Source Applications Foundation) and Mary Meeker (Morgan Stanley Internet analyst).
Team #2: Bill Gates (Microsoft Corp. chairman and chief software architect), Eric Schmidt (Google Inc. CEO and former Novell Inc. CEO), Mitchell Kertzman (venture partner, Hummer Winblad), and Esther Dyson (longtime tech thinker, now CNET editor at large). Team #2 adopted the moniker "Same Team," a dig at the rivalry between Microsoft and Google, and dug out t-shirts – but only Ms. Dyson wore hers.
Last year's champion, Mr. Kapor, quickly showed how he earned that title, nailing questions about the derivation of "Wiki," the origins of Electronic Arts Inc. and Gary Kildall. Both Mr. Gates and Mr. Kapor whiffed on how much RAM was standard on the first IBM PC motherboard – Mr. Gates said 32K, Mr. Kapor 64K. (It was 16K.) Mr. Gates almost instantly identified the first few words of his 1976 letter to computer hobbyists, famous for his observation that "most of you steal your software," while Mr. Glaser got the year the first version of Windows was released – though Mr. Gates mildly disputed that it was 1986, not 1985. Perhaps the best-received moment was when Wall Street Journal columnist and conference co-host Kara Swisher caught Mr. Gates and Mr. Schmidt chatting about the invention of integrated circuit after the True Nerds whiffed on the question: "Are you collaborating again?"
The contest was True Nerds in a walk, 285-100, with Mr. Kapor emerging as champion once again. But the final round, with him and Mr. Gates answering as many tech trivia questions as they could in two minutes, was most notable for the fact that neither man was particularly good at the mechanics of game shows. Mr. Kapor (who did have a big lead), passed on questions he didn't know early but then got distracted late, while Mr. Gates tried to parse questions and worried away at them when his only chance at winning was to pass and answer others. Perhaps both men are more used to solving problems then watching game shows.
Jobs Promises Podcast Support in iTunes
The conference got underway Sunday night with Apple's Jobs giving a sneak preview of a forthcoming version of iTunes, the software for buying and managing digital-music files, that could boost the popularity of podcasting.
Podcasting, an inexpensive, do-it-yourself style of broadcasting, has become increasingly mainstream: Mr. Jobs cited podcasts put together by everyone from enthusiastic amateurs to major media players such as Clear Channel Communications, Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting and NPR. But until now, he noted, downloading and subscribing to podcasts has required users to download third-party applications to run atop iTunes.
MORE ON APPLE
• Apple Explores Use of Intel Chips for Macs
That will go away in iTunes 4.9, which Mr. Jobs demonstrated for conference attendees and said would be available within the next 60 days. ITunes 4.9 will integrate free podcasts as a menu item, allowing users to listen to podcasts and subscribe to them, with new podcasts they subscribe to downloaded to their iPods when the devices are synched to an iTunes-enabled computer.
"I think this will send it into orbit," Mr. Jobs said, adding that he sees podcasts evolving into an advertising-supported medium similar to radio. In what was either a bit of self-deprecating theater or an object lesson in the perils of demos, Mr. Jobs then played the beginning of a podcast by former MTV personality Adam Curry that began with Mr. Curry lamenting that he'd restarted three times because his Mac had been acting up.
Addressing a range of other Apple-related issues in a give-and-take with Wall Street Journal columnists and conference hosts Walter S. Mossberg and Kara Swisher, Mr. Jobs expressed doubt about the prospect of cellphone-service providers making substantial inroads into Apple's dominant market share of digital-music players. (See related Portals column.) Mr. Jobs said downloading music from cellphone-service providers would be "a lousy buying experience" likely to be two or three times as expensive as Apple's 99-cent downloads, adding that "it's hard to see their customers as that stupid."
Mr. Jobs also cast doubt on Yahoo Inc.'s announcement of a $60-per-year music subscription plan, saying that price point was "substantially" below Yahoo's costs and would be raised. Mr. Jobs then claimed Apple employees had a betting pool on when Yahoo would raise the $5-a-month rate, with Mr. Jobs putting his money on five months.
Mr. Jobs proclaimed himself a solid believer in the "halo effect" of iPod sales fueling Mac sales, pointing to strong growth in recent quarters. Asked when Apple would reach a 10% market share – up from the low single digits -- he said he didn't know. But he added that "it's possible … if people learn about our products, many of them choose them."
On the subject of viruses and security holes in the Mac operating system, Mr. Jobs refused to crow about Apple's lack of incidents in comparison with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, noting that since all PC makers face the security challenge, machines shouldn't be marketed that way.
"One thing you never want to do in dealing with security and viruses is be cavalier," he said.
Mr. Jobs was mindful of the presence in the audience of his longtime rival, Microsoft's Mr. Gates. At one point, he polled the audience to see how many had iPods. Seeing quite a bit of upraised hands, he peered into the crowd and asked, "Bill, do you have your hand up?"
Write to Jason Fry at jason.fry@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed the Web address for the Power Line blog. The correct URL is www.powerlineblog.com.
Yahoo Stresses Personalization;
Bloggers Take Center Stage
By JASON FRY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
May 25, 2005 11:43 a.m.
This notebook contains highlights from The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference, which was held Sunday through Tuesday.
Paul Otellini, the new CEO of Intel Corp., showed off a number of whizzy demonstration products and discussed a number of innovative uses for his company's chips, from desktops for the Chinese market to WiMax, which would offer much broader "hotspots" for wireless access. But consumers will have to be patient.
On Tuesday at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Mr. Otellini displayed a sleek PC that doubles as a tablet. It is being sold to Chinese consumers -- a market Mr. Otellini noted includes 60 million urban households that have the money and desire to buy a PC, but haven't. He also showed off a management console for Chinese Net cafes that could serve as "IT in a box" for small businesses, and a thin, light, silver desktop. "The desktop machine needs to be reinvented," he said.
[Paul Otellini]
That prompted a question from Wall Street Journal columnist and conference co-host Walter S. Mossberg: Why are Intel's demo products always cooler than the actual products its customers make?
"Part of the problem is today the desktop [computer] business is a zero margin business for many of our customers," Mr. Otellini said, noting that has led to a chicken and egg problem: the lack of a perceived customer base has starved investment. "A, people have to buy them and B, people have to build them," he said. (He did add that he thinks the increasing popularity of notebook PCs could break desktop design out of its rut.)
Patience is the rule elsewhere, too. Mr. Otellini touted the potential benefits of WiMax, which can supply wireless access in a 50 kilometer radius. But while he said 75 trials are underway, with some roll-outs planned for early next year, he warned regulatory issues about spectrum will play a role, and WiMax being pervasive is "a number of years off."
Unfortunately, so are hardware-based answers to security problems affecting the Wintel platform. Mr. Otellini ran down a series of hardware-based steps designed to improve security, articulating a vision of "virtualization" technology that keeps a virtual machine built into a PC isolated, and thus safer from attack, hardens that machine against hazards, and provides for remote repair after an attack.
But asked when such solutions would be available to mainstream users and usable by them, Mr. Otellini said "I think we're still a few years away." The problem can't be solved by hardware alone, he noted -- hardware solutions take years to be adopted, and remote recovery of a PC, for example, will require service providers to offer that.
Pressed about security by Mr. Mossberg, Mr. Otellini had a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer. And when further pressed about whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC, he said, "If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else."
Yahoo Stresses Personalization Plan
Trying to sum up Yahoo Inc.'s strategy going forward, co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo lean heavily on a single word: personalization.
Interviewed during the final session at D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., the two Internet pioneers were asked how they would respond to a barrage of products from heavyweight competitors such as Microsoft and Google Inc. Microsoft's Bill Gates, for example, had earlier showed off a new product called Virtual Earth that includes aerial images with mapping software.
Mr. Yang admitted that Yahoo would almost certainly follow suit with its own aerial-imaging service. "The feature race is on, there is no question," he said.
But Yahoo is likely to try to enhance such a service with submissions from others, perhaps combining existing images with landmarks or features that are designated by users or businesses, the two men said.
[Jerry Yang]
A much bigger battle looms over search, Google's primary business, which Microsoft's Mr. Gates also has described as a major point of focus for the software giant. Yahoo, which began ago as a directory based on recommendations from its staff, also expects to drive search technology forward by making searches more relevant based on a user's interest or preferences, "what you've said you like and what you've said you don't like," said Mr. Filo.
The two men, who reminisced about past successes and failures for the 10-year-old company, also said building new connections to users will be key to the success of their just-launched music service, which made a stir for its low price of $6.99 a month. Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said Sunday there was a running bet inside his company about how soon Yahoo would raise their pricing.
Mr. Yang conceded that the company described its initial price as "introductory," while not specifying any potential change. He was quick to point out, however, that Yahoo also has a running bet about when Apple will start a subscription service in addition to selling individual song downloads.
More important, Mr. Yang argued, will be other ways to engage users to contribute to its music service in ways that will cause users to stick with Yahoo's site and reduce "churn" -- a costly tendency of customers to jump from service to service. "We are really working to drive sustainable stickiness," he said.
--Don Clark
Bloggers Debate Media, Rise of Blogs
On the third day of the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., the bloggers had their day, or at least their morning, debating how more-established media should react to the rise of blogs, and noting how blogging itself has changed.
"Never underestimate journalists' desire to read about themselves," said Ana Marie Cox, editor of Wonkette.com, who took pains to examine why blogging is different from traditional media and how it isn't.
[Ana Marie Cox]
Ms. Cox called herself the person in the center of a happy media orgy. But amid the jokes about Wonkette's liberal use of cuss words, she noted that the site offered the kind of inside-the-story banter with a nasty edge that's ubiquitous in newsrooms, but only lives at the edges of traditional newspaper accounts. Calling that gossip misses the point of why it's so interesting, she suggested. "You're trying to figure out why people are doing what they're doing," she said, adding that "Washington is a very conservative town, it has a very conservative media -- not in a political sense, but in a sense of what is proper."
Ms. Cox also noted how blogs themselves are changing, observing that more-political blogs that have served as watchdogs on the mainstream media now look more like that segment of the media themselves: "They're cliqueish, they're arrogant, they get things wrong." As an example, she cited the Power Line blog (www.powerlineblog.com), whose investigations helped debunk the now-notorious CBS memo about President Bush's National Guard service, but which then got "memo-happy" in the case of the Republican strategy memo on Terri Schiavo, decrying it as a fake. GOP Sen. Mel Martinez later said an aide had written the Schiavo talking points.
"They wouldn't back down -- just like CBS," she said. (In an interview Wednesday morning, Power Line's Scott Johnson disputed that assertion, saying the blog was quick to link to a Washington Post story that identified the memo's author, and also published an examination of Power Line's role in the flap.)
Dan Gillmor, the former San Jose Mercury-News columnist who founded Grassroots Media Inc., noted that pressure on old-line media is not coming just from the greater choices in what to read, but in how readers interact with what they read.
"People have all these new options in terms of where they get what they want and how much they want to participate," he said, comparing what's happening in journalism to "bringing the conversation into what had been a lecture," with readers now talking back to journalists.
Mr. Gillmor ascribed some of the discomfort among journalists to the fact that "we are being watched like hawks," but had faith that journalism will be the better for it, noting that "people who think I'm wrong tend to be the ones I learn from, not people who think I'm right."
Mena Trott, co-founder of Six Apart, which created the TypePad service and Movable Type software, sought to remind the audience that not all blogging is made for a national or even international mass audience, observing that "I had no ambition to write in a political form … I was the chief egotist at my house."
Ms. Trott said blogs' average connection is about six people and called herself an "accidental entrepreneur," noting that her desire to tell stories about her family and her childhood led her to create a software product.
Ms. Trott's advice for established media was to start small and go slow in adapting to the blogging world: For example, let readers join the conversation in areas away from politics that are of interest to them, such as dining.
"That's a really good way to get your feet in the water and not get attacked," she said.
Ms. Cox noted the "neverending frenzy" of blogging, observing that Powerline and related sites are now being themselves watchdogged by another generation of bloggers. She compared blogging to the self-renewing tumult of punk rock: People at the top will get commercialized, but "there's always someone in the garage."
Publishers Grapple With Industry Changes
Following the bloggers, it was the turn of the mainstream media: Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company; Peter Kann, chairman and CEO of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Online Journal; and Tony Ridder, chairman and CEO of Knight Ridder Inc.
While all three men evinced enthusiasm for blogs – Mr. Graham said blogging "literally takes us back to the roots of newspapers" with one-man operations like Ben Franklin's – that's not to say they don't have reservations.
Mr. Kann said he thinks there's a fundamental difference between blogging and traditional journalism. "You ought to have a certain degree of trust" that news and opinion are separate, hidden commercial agendas aren't influencing the news, and that reporters and editors are trying to find the truth, he said. "I think there is a difference," he said, adding that "I'm not sure that viewing this as a blended continuum is the best way to look at it."
Or as Mr. Graham wryly noted, in the blogging world there's "one person who's Ben Franklin and 100,000 people who think they're Ben Franklin."
Beyond blogging, all three sought to grapple with being a business in transition: print readership is declining, online readership is gaining, and a business model has to emerge from that change.
All three tried to portray that change as a challenge, not a problem.
"If we're in trouble, shame on us," said Mr. Graham, noting that making a business out of the combination of print and Web sites is "a harder job" than the standalone newspaper business, "but not impossible." Mr. Graham said 82% of adults in the Washington, D.C., area read either the print Post, the free Express paper or the Post Web site each day, blaming the decline in print readership on population growth far from central D.C., the fact that younger readers may not read or choose to read online, and language barriers with new arrivals.
Mr. Ridder noted that 53% of adults in the U.S. read a daily newspaper – down from 62% in the late 1980s, but still a large number. And he sought to put things in context, saying that Knight-Ridder's biggest challenges were with its largest eight or nine newspapers, with essentially no impact on smaller, more-rural papers. "It is a big-city phenomenon," he said. He also saw struggles to capture younger audiences as nothing new, expressing faith that "as people grow up, as they get into the community, as they're affected by the community, they tend to become newspaper readers."
"I think the key is, do we capture those people who may be migrating away from print within our own publishing franchises," Mr. Kann said, talking of the "inevitable, gradual" migration to the online world. He added that he can imagine the Online Journal's circulation (currently it has 731,000 paid subscribers) equaling that of the print Journal (which currently has 1.8 million subscribers) and said that "I don't regard that as particularly threatening."
Speaking of Dow Jones's decision to begin charging for the Online Journal in 1996, Mr. Kann said that "I don't think we were particularly visionary – I think we were rather traditional" in thinking that Dow Jones's proprietary content had value. In fact, Mr. Kann said he thinks publishers in general have underpriced their products.
"No one in this room thinks twice about spending $2 buying a bad cup of coffee walking through an airport," he said, adding that "we're probably all too cautious about raising subscription prices."
Scott McNealy Sounds Off
Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy owns one of tech's sharpest tongues, with an aw-shucks, Jimmy Stewart delivery that makes the razor edges on his quips bite deeper.
Sun's decision to make peace with Microsoft Corp. more than a year ago gave Mr. McNealy's company some $2 billion in cash, which probably took the sting out of the fact that he was expected to lose some of his best material: According to various McNealy gibes over the years, Microsoft is run by "Ballmer and Butthead" and its Windows operating system is "a welded-shut hairball."
[Scott McNealy]
But peace didn't exactly leave Mr. McNealy with nothing to say. At the D: conference, his conversation with Wall Street Journal columnist and conference co-host Kara Swisher ranged from what Sun will do with $7.5 billion in cash (think acquisitions) to the revival of the network-computer concept.
Mr. McNealy compared Hewlett-Packard Co. to a car dealer, whereas Sun, International Business Machines Corp. and the combination of Microsoft and Intel Corp. are auto makers. (The latter two are "General" and "Motors," he said, reusing an old line that's been told with more venom.)
"At some point a car company that buys all the pieces is a car dealer," he said of Hewlett-Packard, arguing that H-P has "hollowed out" its research-and-development efforts. Not that that rules out some kind of alliance, he noted, saying that "I went to Carly [Fiorina] a long time ago and said we should be partners and not competitors. IBM Global Services is everybody's enemy, and it makes a lot more sense to partner. She didn't want to partner." (No matter, he indicated: "I'll call Mark" Hurd, Ms. Fiorina's replacement in the top job.) Later, he said that "it's mankind vs. Global Services."
The famous "hairball" remark even made an encore, with Mr. McNealy saying of the slow adoption of so-called thin-client network PCs that "it'll take as long to unravel the hairball as it did to ravel it." But he then added that by that he meant "the PC-industry hairball," not specifically Microsoft.
He admitted he misses the days of the Internet bubble: "People used to come in with green-spiked hair and body piercings and say 'Where's my server?' and throw money at us." Now, he says, customers are smarter and Sun has to work harder. And what if the bubble had continued for a time? Mr. McNealy looked up at the ballroom's collection of banners with trademark "Wall Street Journal" dot-drawings, spotted his own, and cracked that "I would have been right up here in front instead of in back." (So where would he like his to be? He pointed up above the stage with his usual slightly off-kilter grin: "Right there. Like Mao.")
Mr. McNealy compared Sun's agreement with Microsoft to a pair of boxers who shake hands by tapping gloves and "promise not to bite each other's ears off." But he got in at least a nip, telling the audience that while Sun does run Windows to ensure interoperability, employees who aren't in engineering aren't allowed "to connect Windows to our network for security and viruses reasons. … For another $2.4 billion maybe I won't say that."
Bill Gates's Backup Plan
Should this tech thing not work out, Bill Gates might have a future in the movie business.
[Bill Gates]
The Microsoft Corp. chairman's appearances in parody videos have long been a staple of Comdex and other digerati gatherings, showing a more-playful, self-deprecating side of the Redmond, Wash., tech titan and its leader. Mr. Gates's latest video incarnation, shown at the D: conference Monday, cast him in a send-up of "Napoleon Dynamite," with Mr. Gates tagging along with the movie's vertically haired title character (played by Jon Heder) and playing straight man to his rambling questions about Microsoft technology (no teleporting either of mice or men), listening patiently to Napoleon's Dungeons & Dragons-style ideas for Microsoft Bob, and weathering Napoleon's scorn that the powers that come along with Mr. Gates's knighthood are decidedly limited. (No, Mr. Gates does not lead centaur armies, though Napoleon does warn a co-worker that "he's a flipping knight -- he can like joust and everything.")
After his star turn onscreen, Mr. Gates took the stage for a discussion of Microsoft and its many businesses with Wall Street Journal columnist and conference cohost Walter S. Mossberg, from security to the new Xbox 360.
Asked about computer security, Mr. Gates said Microsoft's recent focus on improving Windows security had set back Longhorn, the next major release of Windows, by about a year (it's expected by the end of 2006), but added that "I feel great about the priorities we set." He noted that many of today's attacks succeed not for technical reasons, but through social engineering: Users are tricked into downloading code that can damage their computer or breach its security. That's something Microsoft is addressing by establishing a reputation network in which feedback from users gives downloadable applications a reputation rating, as well as other safeguards aimed at easing the flood of spam and exposing "phishing" sites.
But Mr. Gates seemed to startle some audience members with the observation that "during the last year, if you had up-to-date Windows, you would have been safe if you didn't have" antivirus software also running. And he endured a hostile question from a member of the audience who identified himself as being from ZoneLabs, a maker of security software, who blamed Microsoft for a litany of security problems and therefore decried Microsoft's forthcoming move to charge for a security suite, Windows OneCare, as "like something out of 'The Godfather.' "
Mr. Gates was unruffled by that and by the suggestion that Microsoft should partner with security-software makers, replying that "we're partnering with GeCAD, which is a company we bought." (Microsoft acquired Romanian antivirus company GeCAD Software Srl in June 2003.)
Mr. Gates also showed off some of the capabilities of the Xbox 360, Microsoft's next-generation videogame machine and a potential living-room hub, given its ability to display content from PCs on the same wireless network. Asked how that wasn't a direct competitor to Hewlett-Packard, Dell and other PC makers working with Microsoft to make Media Center PCs, Mr. Gates offered a not-terribly-convincing scenario in which different TVs in a house would interact with different devices – many hubs, if you will. He appeared most animated discussing Microsoft's continuing efforts on Tablet PCs, swearing that "we're going to make Tablet the most mainstream thing" that's ever happened. While the Tablet PC's reception has been underwhelming so far, Mr. Gates was serenely confident that it will catch on as graphic user interfaces did, quickly going from a fringe feature to a mainstream way of working.
Given that the D: conference is heavily seeded with computer-industry veterans, it was no surprise that the shadow of the past seemed to hang over many of Mr. Gates's remarks. He said desktop search will be integrated with Longhorn, then made reference to comments by his old rival, Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, from the same stage Sunday night: "Steve made a pitch for [operating-system] integration" of desktop search, he noted. "I was glad to see someone independent make that pitch. It's a good pitch." (He did take a shot at Mr. Jobs, however, when talk turned to relationships with hardware manufacturers: "Apple had a licensing strategy and they bankrupted everybody who took advantage of it.")
Asked about current high-flyer Google Inc., he recalled that Microsoft had a 10-year run of soaring stock prices and success, observing perhaps a touch wistfully that "it's kind of nice in a way, but it's kind of confusing as well." And he expressed patience about working with cellphone-service providers, despite their standing between Microsoft and the ultimate users of its software and sometimes tinkering with Microsoft's software for their own business reasons.
"We're a very patient company -- we don't need overnight successes," he said, then followed that up with a simple expression of faith in software's ability to smooth out any rough spots not only for consumers, but for business relationships as well: "The more magic it gets, the more control over that they'll grant."
'True Nerds' Take the Prize
The College Bowl lives: The old game-show format has been revived for the D: conference, pitting today's tech giants against each other when it comes to knowledge of the computer revolution. (Attendees could buy raffle tickets and drop them in the bucket of the competitor they thought would win, with drawings for prizes and the money supporting the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.)
Team #1, billed as the "True Nerds": Rob Glaser (RealNetworks Inc. founder and CEO), Stewart Alsop (venture partner, New Enterprise Associates, and former InfoWorld editor in chief), Mitch Kapor (president, Open Source Applications Foundation) and Mary Meeker (Morgan Stanley Internet analyst).
Team #2: Bill Gates (Microsoft Corp. chairman and chief software architect), Eric Schmidt (Google Inc. CEO and former Novell Inc. CEO), Mitchell Kertzman (venture partner, Hummer Winblad), and Esther Dyson (longtime tech thinker, now CNET editor at large). Team #2 adopted the moniker "Same Team," a dig at the rivalry between Microsoft and Google, and dug out t-shirts – but only Ms. Dyson wore hers.
Last year's champion, Mr. Kapor, quickly showed how he earned that title, nailing questions about the derivation of "Wiki," the origins of Electronic Arts Inc. and Gary Kildall. Both Mr. Gates and Mr. Kapor whiffed on how much RAM was standard on the first IBM PC motherboard – Mr. Gates said 32K, Mr. Kapor 64K. (It was 16K.) Mr. Gates almost instantly identified the first few words of his 1976 letter to computer hobbyists, famous for his observation that "most of you steal your software," while Mr. Glaser got the year the first version of Windows was released – though Mr. Gates mildly disputed that it was 1986, not 1985. Perhaps the best-received moment was when Wall Street Journal columnist and conference co-host Kara Swisher caught Mr. Gates and Mr. Schmidt chatting about the invention of integrated circuit after the True Nerds whiffed on the question: "Are you collaborating again?"
The contest was True Nerds in a walk, 285-100, with Mr. Kapor emerging as champion once again. But the final round, with him and Mr. Gates answering as many tech trivia questions as they could in two minutes, was most notable for the fact that neither man was particularly good at the mechanics of game shows. Mr. Kapor (who did have a big lead), passed on questions he didn't know early but then got distracted late, while Mr. Gates tried to parse questions and worried away at them when his only chance at winning was to pass and answer others. Perhaps both men are more used to solving problems then watching game shows.
Jobs Promises Podcast Support in iTunes
The conference got underway Sunday night with Apple's Jobs giving a sneak preview of a forthcoming version of iTunes, the software for buying and managing digital-music files, that could boost the popularity of podcasting.
Podcasting, an inexpensive, do-it-yourself style of broadcasting, has become increasingly mainstream: Mr. Jobs cited podcasts put together by everyone from enthusiastic amateurs to major media players such as Clear Channel Communications, Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting and NPR. But until now, he noted, downloading and subscribing to podcasts has required users to download third-party applications to run atop iTunes.
MORE ON APPLE
• Apple Explores Use of Intel Chips for Macs
That will go away in iTunes 4.9, which Mr. Jobs demonstrated for conference attendees and said would be available within the next 60 days. ITunes 4.9 will integrate free podcasts as a menu item, allowing users to listen to podcasts and subscribe to them, with new podcasts they subscribe to downloaded to their iPods when the devices are synched to an iTunes-enabled computer.
"I think this will send it into orbit," Mr. Jobs said, adding that he sees podcasts evolving into an advertising-supported medium similar to radio. In what was either a bit of self-deprecating theater or an object lesson in the perils of demos, Mr. Jobs then played the beginning of a podcast by former MTV personality Adam Curry that began with Mr. Curry lamenting that he'd restarted three times because his Mac had been acting up.
Addressing a range of other Apple-related issues in a give-and-take with Wall Street Journal columnists and conference hosts Walter S. Mossberg and Kara Swisher, Mr. Jobs expressed doubt about the prospect of cellphone-service providers making substantial inroads into Apple's dominant market share of digital-music players. (See related Portals column.) Mr. Jobs said downloading music from cellphone-service providers would be "a lousy buying experience" likely to be two or three times as expensive as Apple's 99-cent downloads, adding that "it's hard to see their customers as that stupid."
Mr. Jobs also cast doubt on Yahoo Inc.'s announcement of a $60-per-year music subscription plan, saying that price point was "substantially" below Yahoo's costs and would be raised. Mr. Jobs then claimed Apple employees had a betting pool on when Yahoo would raise the $5-a-month rate, with Mr. Jobs putting his money on five months.
Mr. Jobs proclaimed himself a solid believer in the "halo effect" of iPod sales fueling Mac sales, pointing to strong growth in recent quarters. Asked when Apple would reach a 10% market share – up from the low single digits -- he said he didn't know. But he added that "it's possible … if people learn about our products, many of them choose them."
On the subject of viruses and security holes in the Mac operating system, Mr. Jobs refused to crow about Apple's lack of incidents in comparison with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, noting that since all PC makers face the security challenge, machines shouldn't be marketed that way.
"One thing you never want to do in dealing with security and viruses is be cavalier," he said.
Mr. Jobs was mindful of the presence in the audience of his longtime rival, Microsoft's Mr. Gates. At one point, he polled the audience to see how many had iPods. Seeing quite a bit of upraised hands, he peered into the crowd and asked, "Bill, do you have your hand up?"
Write to Jason Fry at jason.fry@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed the Web address for the Power Line blog. The correct URL is www.powerlineblog.com.
Averatec intros ultra-light 1000 series, wide screen 4200 series - Engadget - www.engadget.com.
Averatec intros ultra-light 1000 series, wide screen 4200 series - Engadget - www.engadget.com. w00t!
ml_iPod Winamp plug-in frees iPod owners from iTunes - Engadget - www.engadget.com.
ml_iPod Winamp plug-in frees iPod owners from iTunes - Engadget - www.engadget.com.
yer welcome you ipod freaks!
yer welcome you ipod freaks!
HOW-TO: Connect your Linksys WRT54G network to the internet wirelessly - Engadget - www.engadget.com.
Comic Book Resources - Comic Book News, Reviews and Commentary - Updated Daily!
LYING IN THE GUTTERS VOLUME TWO COLUMN 1
For the last twelve years I've been writing a rumour and gossip column while some have insisted I'm the only investigative journalist in comics. A label I was happy to refuse, as I was more interested in providing a column for entertainment.
The birth of my first daughter, Eve, nine weeks ago, gave me the chance to take a sabbatical and consider something new.
So for the next six weeks, Lying In The Gutters will be run as an investigative journalism column. Just to see what the fuss is all about. Fewer but longer stories, much less nonsense, maybe a little more substance. And probably the cheeky grin of my former self sneaking through. After six weeks, you'll be given the opportunity to vote which version of the column you prefer to continue.
MOORE SLAMS V FOR VENDETTA MOVIE, PULLS LoEG FROM DC COMICS
[The League]Alan Moore, co-creator of the "V For Vendetta" comic, has publicly disassociated himself from the upcoming Warner Brothers movie project based on the comic book and written and produced by the Wachowski Brothers. And as a result, he has cut his remaining ties with DC Comics, including future volumes of the "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen."
Moore has promised future "League" comics will be published by a US/UK collaboration between Top Shelf and Knockabout.
Extraordinary Adaptations
Alan Moore has written some of the most critically acclaimed comic books of the eighties, nineties and two thousands, across genres, countries and publishers. His early British work for Marvel UK, "2000AD" and "Warrior," led to DC Comics asking him to write a number of their titles, leading to the British invasion of US comics and at least two publisher imprints. He is regarded by many as the medium's greatest living creator, with titles such as "Watchmen," "V For Vendetta," "From Hell," "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen," "Top Ten" and "Promethea" continually successful and remaining in print. However, while every publisher would like to work with him, many have found him unwilling. Moore has had a tendency to "punish" publishers for what he believes are personal betrayals or shoddy behaviour. And he refuses to change, even when circumstances do.
Moore's work has often been a source of inspiration for others, including Hollywood, and a number of directors credit him openly. So it was natural that his comic book work might be seized upon as the comic-book-film trend became more popular. But the kindest thing that can be said about the films "From Hell," "Constantine" and "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is that they're not as good as the comics.
Alan's oft-repeated stance on this is that the original comics remain untouched. "As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them, enough to keep them separate, take the option money, I could be assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably naïve on my part."
This has changed. Speaking to me on Friday, Moore added to this sentiment, telling me "after the films came out, I began to feel increasingly uneasy, I have a dwindling respect for cinema as it is currently expressed." This came to a head when Alan Moore was sued as part of a suit against 20th Century Fox for plagiarism of the screenplay "Cast Of Characters" which bore heavy resemblance to the movie version of "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" starring Sean Connery.
Alan On The "V For Vendetta" Movie
Alan gave some details about bits of the V For Vendetta shooting script he'd seen. "It was imbecilic; it had plot holes you couldn't have got away with in Whizzer And Chips in the nineteen sixties. Plot holes no one had noticed."
What Moore found most laughable however were the details. "They don't know what British people have for breakfast, they couldn't be bothered. 'Eggy in a basket' apparently. Now the US have 'eggs in a basket,' whish is fried bread with a fried egg in a hole in the middle. I guess they thought we must eat that as well, and thought 'eggy in a basket' was a quaint and Olde Worlde version. And they decided that the British postal service is called Fedco. They'll have thought something like, 'well, what's a British version of FedEx... how about FedCo? A friend of mine had to point out to them that the Fed, in FedEx comes from 'Federal Express.' America is a federal republic, Britain is not."
David Lloyd was reported to have commented on the script at the recent Bristol comics convention. Superherohype posted a fan report talking to Lloyd, saying "he thinks it was very good for an Action Thriller, but is very much different from the Graphic Novel. He said that the character of Evey is less of a victim in this film and that he had met with The Wachoski Brothers."
Alan's Previous Problems With DC
Alan, along with a number of creators such as Frank Miller, protested against DC's planned use of labelling comics to be age-specific, as well as the guidelines this would involve.
Co-creator Rick Veitch was dropped from "Swamp Thing" and his final issue abandoned as it featured Jesus Christ, publisher Jeanette Kahn going over editor Karen Berger's head. DC's given reason, that they don't feature real people, was instantly dismissed by many other examples.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons signed a deal with DC that "Watchmen" would revert to them after the comic book went out of print. He didn't know it would still be in print twenty years later. The evasion of royalties on the "Watchmen" Button Set by labelling them promotional items was the cherry on that one.
"League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" #5 was pulped and reprinted on Paul Levitz's authority when the use of a real Victorian advert for a Marvel Douche was considered beyond the pale.
"Despite the Cobweb" story in "Tomorrow Stories" referring to individuals and a particular story in print in another of DC's titles, Paul Levitz' refused to allow this story to be printed. Newsarama reported that this led to Alan Moore's withdrawal from the Watchmen 15th Anniversary hardcover.
In the end it seems to come down to Alan Moore finding it hard to work with a large corporate publisher with concerns other than the success and quality of a particular comic book.
Top Shelf And Knockabout?
Top Shelf have been publishing a wide variety of comic books and graphic novels of all genres over the last decade as Chris Staros' business has grown. Their most high profile project to date was "Blankets" by Craig Thompson and they've published Alan Moore's DC-rejected "Cobweb" story, "The Mirror Of Love" and distributed Moore's poetry and original "From Hell" artwork from Eddie Campbell.
Knockabout are a small UK comics publisher, a counterpart to the US' Rip Off Press. They are best known for their UK underground work, from the likes of Hunt Emerson and Gilbert Shelton. They've also published Alan Moore's work, most memorably for the "Outrageous Tales Of The Old Testament."
Alan Makes An Appearance
Alan Moore has been invited by Patti Smith to appear at the Meltdown festival for an evening of homage to William Burroughs on the 16th June, attended by Barry Adamson, Portishead, Tom Verlaine and Jason Spaceman. Moore will either read extracts of Burroughs, or a suitable work of his own composition.
What's Next For Alan?
"Jerusalem" is the new novel by Alan Moore, his follow up to the recently reprinted "Voice Of The Fire." "Voice" told stories set in Alan Moore's home town of Northampton, over 10,000 years. He mockingly told me, "I feel it was a little too cosmopolitan. So my next novel is set in just three or four blocks in Northampton, where I grew up. It's the most important historical area anywhere anyway."
He's started drawing the cover, something he hasn't done in a long time, and he's enjoying discovering it again.
Alan is also considering a new album with Tim Perkins, but something different to his previous spoken word creations.
Alan is one hundred pages into an unnamed graphic novel for Avatar - something he committed to when faced with a tax bill and an imminent cashflow problem over an unexpected reduction in royalty payments on another project. Avatar Publisher William Christensen fronted Moore the necessary funds, Moore took an agreed holiday (his first he can recall in twenty-five years) and is now well into the project.
Although in all his new works, he is insisting that his contract become null and void if the publisher is bought by another, to avoid a repeat of the Wildstorm and DC Comics situation.
The Irony Age Of Comics
One final thought. Alan finds a last little irony, after recently reading Gerard Jones's "Men of Tomorrow." Specifically the chapter when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster finally received their settlement payment from DC Comics at the time of the Superman movie, and got their credit on the film, as the summit of their fight for creative rights.
Alan's own fight for creative rights with DC has seen the exact opposite happen.
"The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was a series Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill created for Wildstorm, a comic studio and then part of the publisher Image Comics. The series takes the entirety of Victorian pulp fiction as a backdrop for new adventures for a team of very familiar characters. As part of his ABC line for Wildstorm, the comics continued even after DC Comics bought Wildstorm. Moore's history with DC Comics over creator ownership and corporate attitudes had seen him swear off working with them, so a "firewall" was built up so Moore could continue the line, but never have to deal with DC Comics. However, DC editorial occasionally interfered with published work, leading Alan Moore withdrawing cooperation from an anniversary reprint and CD of his iconic superhero work "Watchmen."
The "League" was very well received, critically and commercially. Moore had sold the movie options before the first issue had been solicited. But the lawsuit shocked him to the core. Moore seems amused by this now, though at the time he was not.
"They seemed to believe that the head of 20th Century Fox called me up and persuaded me to steal this screenplay, turning it into a comic book which they could then adapt back into a movie, to camouflage petty larceny." This led to Moore giving a ten-hour deposition - he believes he'd have suffered less if he'd "sodomised and murdered a busload of children after giving them heroin."
My own research into this story showed that there was some resemblance between the "Cast" and "League" screenplays - but mostly over aspects of the film that did not appear in the comic book, Quatermain as the lead hero, the appearance of Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray with Huckleberry Finn as the revealed villain amongst others. It's arguable that the case had merit, but not against Alan Moore. However, by 20th Century Fox settling the case, Moore felt this was almost an admission of his guilt.
Moore felt that enough was enough and decided that if something was worth reacting to, "it was worth overreacting to." He stated "I'd have nothing to do with films anymore. If I owned the sole copyright, like with 'Voice Of The Fire,' there would not be a film. Anything else, where others owned copyrights, I'd insist on taking my name off future films. All of the money due to me would go to the artists involved. I'd divorce myself from the film process, the film industry and any adaptations. And I felt a sense of moral satisfaction."
Moral satisfaction however doesn't always pay the bills. "When Karen Berger rang me up to give me money for the 'Constantine' movie, I asked her to take my name off the film and split the money with the artists. Most of it went to Rick Veitch, who although was the first to draw John Constantine yet wasn't receiving anything from the film.... The rest was split between John Totleben, Steve Bissette, Jamie Delano and John Ridgeway, divided so everyone ended up with the same amount in total.
"The same with the option money on 'V For Vendetta.' I think it was about eight grand. It went to David Lloyd. Now, I wasn't doing this because I could afford it, I was short of change actually, but I just wanted it done. Give it to Dave, take my name off the film."
"I'm Alan Moore And I Endorse This Message"
This decision has been a topic in a number of interviews with Alan Moore of late, notably the BBC Radio 4 Chain Reaction interview by Stewart Lee (transcript here).
What wasn't known until now is that earlier in the year, Alan Moore told DC, through Scott Dunbier, that if there was "any more meddling, any more pulping, any more problems" that he'd take his remaining DC project, "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen," away from DC.
Earlier in the year, Moore received a call from "V For Vendetta" writer/producer and "Matrix" director Larry Wachowski, but told him politely, "I didn't want anything to do with films and had no time this year, being in the middle of work, my day job, writing, I wasn't interested in Hollywood."
Shortly afterwards, Alan Moore was made aware of a press release sent out covering a press conference producer Joel Silver and the cast had held.
In this press release, Joel Silver, as well as announcing that the release date November the 5th 2005 was the 100th anniversary of Guy Fawkes attempt on Parliament, instead of the 400th anniversary, also said of Alan, "he was very excited about what Larry had to say and Larry sent the script, so we hope to see him sometime before we're in the UK. We'd just like him to know what we're doing and to be involved in what we're trying to do together"
Alan felt, basically, that his name was being used in vain. Not only had he expressed the opposite to Larry, but his endorsement was being used as a selling point for a movie - the reason he'd requested his credit and association be dropped from all of these movies.
Alan, through Wildstorm editor Scott Dunbier, instructed DC/Warner Brothers to issue a retraction against these "blatant lies - that's the phrase I'm groping for." He called Scott up and told him that he was "Nineteen pages away from finishing all my contracted work" for ABC/Wildstorm/DC Comics - three pages on the "League," sixteen on "Tom Strong."
Moore requested a retraction, a clarification and a modest apology, posted in a forum with a similar weight to the original press release. Moore says he'd have been happy with something along the lines of "Due to a misunderstanding, Alan Moore does not wish to be associated with the 'V For Vendetta' movie." Moore gave DC two weeks to rectify the matter as he saw it. I understand from DC sources that Paul Levitz tried personally to ellicit an apology from Joel Silver without joy and that at a corporate level, there was no possibility of issuing a corporate apology with such a similar weight as the original press release, though Silver's words were removed from the movie's Web site.
It wasn't enough. So after two weeks, Alan Moore did as he said. Moore's last remaining "League" for DC is all but completed and due this year.
A Change Of Scenario
This is "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Dark Dossier," a hardcover graphic novel coming from Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill later this year from ABC/Wildstorm/DC Comics. Moore tells me this "will slip in between volumes two and three" of the "League." Moore described it to me as "not my best comic ever, not the best comic ever, but the best thing ever. Better than the Roman civilisation, penicillin..." The human brain? "Yes and the human nervous system. Better than creation. Better than the big bang. It's quite good."
He continues, "It will be nothing anyone expects, but everything everyone secretly wanted." It's unusual to hear such hyperbole from one more commonly associated with self-deprecation. It's nearing completion and Moore tells me he was in a recording studio last week, working on part of it. Yes, that intrigued me too, though Moore refused to be drawn past the tantalising glimpse he'd deliberately dropped.
Then after that, volume three of the "League" will be published by Top Shelf/Knockabout a year to eighteen months later, in a totally new format. And future volumes will continue from this publisher collaboration (see sidebar).
Alan told me that as a result of finally and permanently splitting from DC, he's has a general feeling of elation. He feels good about himself, as if a weight has been lifted. Earlier reports I'd had from the past two weeks were that his temper was high, but speaking to him found the same calm, serene gentlemen I'd met on and off over the last ten years.
And in this spirit of bonhomie, Alan Moore decided to propose to his longterm girlfriend and co-creator of Lost Girls, Melinda Gebbie. She accepted and they have announced their engagement.
CONCERN GROWS OVER CONTINUING COLLECTION ERRORS AT MARVEL
Last week readers of the new Powers trade paperback discovered the last page of the "Wizard Edge" story was missing. The week before, people who'd bought Wolverine: Enemy Of The State hardcover discovered a page without any words.
Over the last few years it seems as if there have been a succession of similar errors, including missing pages, dialogue, repeated dialogue and corrupted dialogue in trade paperbacks and hardcovers. Some of the more significant include X-Men: Dream's End, Daredevil HC 1, Fantastic Four HC 1 and Wolverine: The Best There Is.
No replacement copies have been offerred or originals withdrawn. However recently Marvel reprinted Captain Britain TPB with its famed missing page reinstated, and Fantastic Four HC 1 with the dialogue restored.
It seems strange to some that reprinting existing material isn't easier; if the company got it right with the monthly comics, then surely it should be easy to reproduce that for the collected books.
However life is never that simple. Pages do have to be realigned for new formats, and in that process errors can and do occur as files are changed, moved and, well, lost. It's catching them in time that's the real trick. These errors have been blamed on an overworked trade paperback department, one that some consider understaffed since positions were retrenched a number of years ago to cut wasteful working practices. However Joe Quesada told me "Youngquist works his butt off on these trades and a few of the books you're talking about had mistakes from years ago, incorrect and unfair to blame them on Jeff's group. This added to the fact that DC has just as many mistakes in their books, yet no one would dare to write something like this."
DC have had similar problems, but reports are at a smaller scale, and generally on lower price-point items. DC have also shown more willingness to replace error copies by withdrawing certain offending titles and reprinting them, such as over the truncated afterword on Batman: Tales Of The Demon by John Wells or on the Crisis hardcover.
Joe Quesada has repeatedly reported that DC do not need to be profitable. This may be a reason why, when DC withdraw and reprint, Marvel feels less willing or unable to. And on the high price-point items where these errors seem to occur most, this makes issuing reprints and withdrawing error copies even more costly for Marvel. However this has echoes of the situation which led to a successful class suit against Marvel by retailers over Marvel's unwillingness to provide returns on late comics, as set out by Diamond's publisher policy.
When an error has affected an entire print run, there are no corrected replacement copies for the retailer to exchange. Retailers have to sell the flawed copies or request a refund and sacrifice precious sales, especially on high price-point items like the Marvel hardcover columes. Copies returned by customers because of errors are then sold back to other customers. And readers may feel they have to buy the flawed volume, because they are doubtful a corrected version will ever be printed and the existing version may go out of print. Waiting for the trade is one thing, waiting for the trade's second print is even more riskier.
However, Wolverine: Enemy Of The State writer Mark Millar jokingly had an alternative take on his board "I like to see these Marvel misprints as a big fuck you to all the lazy bastards who wait for the trade."
OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF
Simon Furman is returning to the IDW Transformers title as writer. However, the artist won't be a Dreamwave alumni, rather EJ Su, previously known for his Voltron work.
In mid April, Phyllis Hume was made redundant as DC's International Director, after working there licensing DC's characters and stories internationally for many number of years. This story was not covered by the comics press at the time.
Uri Gellar has admitted to buying up as many copies as he can of "Daredevil" #133 on eBay. It's the issue he appears in, fighting alongside Daredevil. There's no update on whether he's tried to bend any of the recent hardcovers…
SMALL PRINT
For other comic and non-comic book related nonsense, check out the Twistblog.
Discuss this column at the Lying In The Gutters Forum.
And contact me on richjohnston@gmail.com
You can also write to me at 8 Robin Hood Lane, Kingston Vale, London SW15 3PU ENGLAND
Or call me on 0780 135082 from the UK or 01144780 1350982 from the US.
Lying In The Gutters is published every Monday at noon, PST.
[Top]
Rich Johnston
Staff Writer, CBR
richj@comicbookresources.com Lying In The Gutters Archives
For the last twelve years I've been writing a rumour and gossip column while some have insisted I'm the only investigative journalist in comics. A label I was happy to refuse, as I was more interested in providing a column for entertainment.
The birth of my first daughter, Eve, nine weeks ago, gave me the chance to take a sabbatical and consider something new.
So for the next six weeks, Lying In The Gutters will be run as an investigative journalism column. Just to see what the fuss is all about. Fewer but longer stories, much less nonsense, maybe a little more substance. And probably the cheeky grin of my former self sneaking through. After six weeks, you'll be given the opportunity to vote which version of the column you prefer to continue.
MOORE SLAMS V FOR VENDETTA MOVIE, PULLS LoEG FROM DC COMICS
[The League]Alan Moore, co-creator of the "V For Vendetta" comic, has publicly disassociated himself from the upcoming Warner Brothers movie project based on the comic book and written and produced by the Wachowski Brothers. And as a result, he has cut his remaining ties with DC Comics, including future volumes of the "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen."
Moore has promised future "League" comics will be published by a US/UK collaboration between Top Shelf and Knockabout.
Extraordinary Adaptations
Alan Moore has written some of the most critically acclaimed comic books of the eighties, nineties and two thousands, across genres, countries and publishers. His early British work for Marvel UK, "2000AD" and "Warrior," led to DC Comics asking him to write a number of their titles, leading to the British invasion of US comics and at least two publisher imprints. He is regarded by many as the medium's greatest living creator, with titles such as "Watchmen," "V For Vendetta," "From Hell," "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen," "Top Ten" and "Promethea" continually successful and remaining in print. However, while every publisher would like to work with him, many have found him unwilling. Moore has had a tendency to "punish" publishers for what he believes are personal betrayals or shoddy behaviour. And he refuses to change, even when circumstances do.
Moore's work has often been a source of inspiration for others, including Hollywood, and a number of directors credit him openly. So it was natural that his comic book work might be seized upon as the comic-book-film trend became more popular. But the kindest thing that can be said about the films "From Hell," "Constantine" and "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is that they're not as good as the comics.
Alan's oft-repeated stance on this is that the original comics remain untouched. "As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them, enough to keep them separate, take the option money, I could be assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably naïve on my part."
This has changed. Speaking to me on Friday, Moore added to this sentiment, telling me "after the films came out, I began to feel increasingly uneasy, I have a dwindling respect for cinema as it is currently expressed." This came to a head when Alan Moore was sued as part of a suit against 20th Century Fox for plagiarism of the screenplay "Cast Of Characters" which bore heavy resemblance to the movie version of "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" starring Sean Connery.
Alan On The "V For Vendetta" Movie
Alan gave some details about bits of the V For Vendetta shooting script he'd seen. "It was imbecilic; it had plot holes you couldn't have got away with in Whizzer And Chips in the nineteen sixties. Plot holes no one had noticed."
What Moore found most laughable however were the details. "They don't know what British people have for breakfast, they couldn't be bothered. 'Eggy in a basket' apparently. Now the US have 'eggs in a basket,' whish is fried bread with a fried egg in a hole in the middle. I guess they thought we must eat that as well, and thought 'eggy in a basket' was a quaint and Olde Worlde version. And they decided that the British postal service is called Fedco. They'll have thought something like, 'well, what's a British version of FedEx... how about FedCo? A friend of mine had to point out to them that the Fed, in FedEx comes from 'Federal Express.' America is a federal republic, Britain is not."
David Lloyd was reported to have commented on the script at the recent Bristol comics convention. Superherohype posted a fan report talking to Lloyd, saying "he thinks it was very good for an Action Thriller, but is very much different from the Graphic Novel. He said that the character of Evey is less of a victim in this film and that he had met with The Wachoski Brothers."
Alan's Previous Problems With DC
Alan, along with a number of creators such as Frank Miller, protested against DC's planned use of labelling comics to be age-specific, as well as the guidelines this would involve.
Co-creator Rick Veitch was dropped from "Swamp Thing" and his final issue abandoned as it featured Jesus Christ, publisher Jeanette Kahn going over editor Karen Berger's head. DC's given reason, that they don't feature real people, was instantly dismissed by many other examples.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons signed a deal with DC that "Watchmen" would revert to them after the comic book went out of print. He didn't know it would still be in print twenty years later. The evasion of royalties on the "Watchmen" Button Set by labelling them promotional items was the cherry on that one.
"League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" #5 was pulped and reprinted on Paul Levitz's authority when the use of a real Victorian advert for a Marvel Douche was considered beyond the pale.
"Despite the Cobweb" story in "Tomorrow Stories" referring to individuals and a particular story in print in another of DC's titles, Paul Levitz' refused to allow this story to be printed. Newsarama reported that this led to Alan Moore's withdrawal from the Watchmen 15th Anniversary hardcover.
In the end it seems to come down to Alan Moore finding it hard to work with a large corporate publisher with concerns other than the success and quality of a particular comic book.
Top Shelf And Knockabout?
Top Shelf have been publishing a wide variety of comic books and graphic novels of all genres over the last decade as Chris Staros' business has grown. Their most high profile project to date was "Blankets" by Craig Thompson and they've published Alan Moore's DC-rejected "Cobweb" story, "The Mirror Of Love" and distributed Moore's poetry and original "From Hell" artwork from Eddie Campbell.
Knockabout are a small UK comics publisher, a counterpart to the US' Rip Off Press. They are best known for their UK underground work, from the likes of Hunt Emerson and Gilbert Shelton. They've also published Alan Moore's work, most memorably for the "Outrageous Tales Of The Old Testament."
Alan Makes An Appearance
Alan Moore has been invited by Patti Smith to appear at the Meltdown festival for an evening of homage to William Burroughs on the 16th June, attended by Barry Adamson, Portishead, Tom Verlaine and Jason Spaceman. Moore will either read extracts of Burroughs, or a suitable work of his own composition.
What's Next For Alan?
"Jerusalem" is the new novel by Alan Moore, his follow up to the recently reprinted "Voice Of The Fire." "Voice" told stories set in Alan Moore's home town of Northampton, over 10,000 years. He mockingly told me, "I feel it was a little too cosmopolitan. So my next novel is set in just three or four blocks in Northampton, where I grew up. It's the most important historical area anywhere anyway."
He's started drawing the cover, something he hasn't done in a long time, and he's enjoying discovering it again.
Alan is also considering a new album with Tim Perkins, but something different to his previous spoken word creations.
Alan is one hundred pages into an unnamed graphic novel for Avatar - something he committed to when faced with a tax bill and an imminent cashflow problem over an unexpected reduction in royalty payments on another project. Avatar Publisher William Christensen fronted Moore the necessary funds, Moore took an agreed holiday (his first he can recall in twenty-five years) and is now well into the project.
Although in all his new works, he is insisting that his contract become null and void if the publisher is bought by another, to avoid a repeat of the Wildstorm and DC Comics situation.
The Irony Age Of Comics
One final thought. Alan finds a last little irony, after recently reading Gerard Jones's "Men of Tomorrow." Specifically the chapter when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster finally received their settlement payment from DC Comics at the time of the Superman movie, and got their credit on the film, as the summit of their fight for creative rights.
Alan's own fight for creative rights with DC has seen the exact opposite happen.
"The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was a series Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill created for Wildstorm, a comic studio and then part of the publisher Image Comics. The series takes the entirety of Victorian pulp fiction as a backdrop for new adventures for a team of very familiar characters. As part of his ABC line for Wildstorm, the comics continued even after DC Comics bought Wildstorm. Moore's history with DC Comics over creator ownership and corporate attitudes had seen him swear off working with them, so a "firewall" was built up so Moore could continue the line, but never have to deal with DC Comics. However, DC editorial occasionally interfered with published work, leading Alan Moore withdrawing cooperation from an anniversary reprint and CD of his iconic superhero work "Watchmen."
The "League" was very well received, critically and commercially. Moore had sold the movie options before the first issue had been solicited. But the lawsuit shocked him to the core. Moore seems amused by this now, though at the time he was not.
"They seemed to believe that the head of 20th Century Fox called me up and persuaded me to steal this screenplay, turning it into a comic book which they could then adapt back into a movie, to camouflage petty larceny." This led to Moore giving a ten-hour deposition - he believes he'd have suffered less if he'd "sodomised and murdered a busload of children after giving them heroin."
My own research into this story showed that there was some resemblance between the "Cast" and "League" screenplays - but mostly over aspects of the film that did not appear in the comic book, Quatermain as the lead hero, the appearance of Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray with Huckleberry Finn as the revealed villain amongst others. It's arguable that the case had merit, but not against Alan Moore. However, by 20th Century Fox settling the case, Moore felt this was almost an admission of his guilt.
Moore felt that enough was enough and decided that if something was worth reacting to, "it was worth overreacting to." He stated "I'd have nothing to do with films anymore. If I owned the sole copyright, like with 'Voice Of The Fire,' there would not be a film. Anything else, where others owned copyrights, I'd insist on taking my name off future films. All of the money due to me would go to the artists involved. I'd divorce myself from the film process, the film industry and any adaptations. And I felt a sense of moral satisfaction."
Moral satisfaction however doesn't always pay the bills. "When Karen Berger rang me up to give me money for the 'Constantine' movie, I asked her to take my name off the film and split the money with the artists. Most of it went to Rick Veitch, who although was the first to draw John Constantine yet wasn't receiving anything from the film.... The rest was split between John Totleben, Steve Bissette, Jamie Delano and John Ridgeway, divided so everyone ended up with the same amount in total.
"The same with the option money on 'V For Vendetta.' I think it was about eight grand. It went to David Lloyd. Now, I wasn't doing this because I could afford it, I was short of change actually, but I just wanted it done. Give it to Dave, take my name off the film."
"I'm Alan Moore And I Endorse This Message"
This decision has been a topic in a number of interviews with Alan Moore of late, notably the BBC Radio 4 Chain Reaction interview by Stewart Lee (transcript here).
What wasn't known until now is that earlier in the year, Alan Moore told DC, through Scott Dunbier, that if there was "any more meddling, any more pulping, any more problems" that he'd take his remaining DC project, "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen," away from DC.
Earlier in the year, Moore received a call from "V For Vendetta" writer/producer and "Matrix" director Larry Wachowski, but told him politely, "I didn't want anything to do with films and had no time this year, being in the middle of work, my day job, writing, I wasn't interested in Hollywood."
Shortly afterwards, Alan Moore was made aware of a press release sent out covering a press conference producer Joel Silver and the cast had held.
In this press release, Joel Silver, as well as announcing that the release date November the 5th 2005 was the 100th anniversary of Guy Fawkes attempt on Parliament, instead of the 400th anniversary, also said of Alan, "he was very excited about what Larry had to say and Larry sent the script, so we hope to see him sometime before we're in the UK. We'd just like him to know what we're doing and to be involved in what we're trying to do together"
Alan felt, basically, that his name was being used in vain. Not only had he expressed the opposite to Larry, but his endorsement was being used as a selling point for a movie - the reason he'd requested his credit and association be dropped from all of these movies.
Alan, through Wildstorm editor Scott Dunbier, instructed DC/Warner Brothers to issue a retraction against these "blatant lies - that's the phrase I'm groping for." He called Scott up and told him that he was "Nineteen pages away from finishing all my contracted work" for ABC/Wildstorm/DC Comics - three pages on the "League," sixteen on "Tom Strong."
Moore requested a retraction, a clarification and a modest apology, posted in a forum with a similar weight to the original press release. Moore says he'd have been happy with something along the lines of "Due to a misunderstanding, Alan Moore does not wish to be associated with the 'V For Vendetta' movie." Moore gave DC two weeks to rectify the matter as he saw it. I understand from DC sources that Paul Levitz tried personally to ellicit an apology from Joel Silver without joy and that at a corporate level, there was no possibility of issuing a corporate apology with such a similar weight as the original press release, though Silver's words were removed from the movie's Web site.
It wasn't enough. So after two weeks, Alan Moore did as he said. Moore's last remaining "League" for DC is all but completed and due this year.
A Change Of Scenario
This is "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Dark Dossier," a hardcover graphic novel coming from Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill later this year from ABC/Wildstorm/DC Comics. Moore tells me this "will slip in between volumes two and three" of the "League." Moore described it to me as "not my best comic ever, not the best comic ever, but the best thing ever. Better than the Roman civilisation, penicillin..." The human brain? "Yes and the human nervous system. Better than creation. Better than the big bang. It's quite good."
He continues, "It will be nothing anyone expects, but everything everyone secretly wanted." It's unusual to hear such hyperbole from one more commonly associated with self-deprecation. It's nearing completion and Moore tells me he was in a recording studio last week, working on part of it. Yes, that intrigued me too, though Moore refused to be drawn past the tantalising glimpse he'd deliberately dropped.
Then after that, volume three of the "League" will be published by Top Shelf/Knockabout a year to eighteen months later, in a totally new format. And future volumes will continue from this publisher collaboration (see sidebar).
Alan told me that as a result of finally and permanently splitting from DC, he's has a general feeling of elation. He feels good about himself, as if a weight has been lifted. Earlier reports I'd had from the past two weeks were that his temper was high, but speaking to him found the same calm, serene gentlemen I'd met on and off over the last ten years.
And in this spirit of bonhomie, Alan Moore decided to propose to his longterm girlfriend and co-creator of Lost Girls, Melinda Gebbie. She accepted and they have announced their engagement.
CONCERN GROWS OVER CONTINUING COLLECTION ERRORS AT MARVEL
Last week readers of the new Powers trade paperback discovered the last page of the "Wizard Edge" story was missing. The week before, people who'd bought Wolverine: Enemy Of The State hardcover discovered a page without any words.
Over the last few years it seems as if there have been a succession of similar errors, including missing pages, dialogue, repeated dialogue and corrupted dialogue in trade paperbacks and hardcovers. Some of the more significant include X-Men: Dream's End, Daredevil HC 1, Fantastic Four HC 1 and Wolverine: The Best There Is.
No replacement copies have been offerred or originals withdrawn. However recently Marvel reprinted Captain Britain TPB with its famed missing page reinstated, and Fantastic Four HC 1 with the dialogue restored.
It seems strange to some that reprinting existing material isn't easier; if the company got it right with the monthly comics, then surely it should be easy to reproduce that for the collected books.
However life is never that simple. Pages do have to be realigned for new formats, and in that process errors can and do occur as files are changed, moved and, well, lost. It's catching them in time that's the real trick. These errors have been blamed on an overworked trade paperback department, one that some consider understaffed since positions were retrenched a number of years ago to cut wasteful working practices. However Joe Quesada told me "Youngquist works his butt off on these trades and a few of the books you're talking about had mistakes from years ago, incorrect and unfair to blame them on Jeff's group. This added to the fact that DC has just as many mistakes in their books, yet no one would dare to write something like this."
DC have had similar problems, but reports are at a smaller scale, and generally on lower price-point items. DC have also shown more willingness to replace error copies by withdrawing certain offending titles and reprinting them, such as over the truncated afterword on Batman: Tales Of The Demon by John Wells or on the Crisis hardcover.
Joe Quesada has repeatedly reported that DC do not need to be profitable. This may be a reason why, when DC withdraw and reprint, Marvel feels less willing or unable to. And on the high price-point items where these errors seem to occur most, this makes issuing reprints and withdrawing error copies even more costly for Marvel. However this has echoes of the situation which led to a successful class suit against Marvel by retailers over Marvel's unwillingness to provide returns on late comics, as set out by Diamond's publisher policy.
When an error has affected an entire print run, there are no corrected replacement copies for the retailer to exchange. Retailers have to sell the flawed copies or request a refund and sacrifice precious sales, especially on high price-point items like the Marvel hardcover columes. Copies returned by customers because of errors are then sold back to other customers. And readers may feel they have to buy the flawed volume, because they are doubtful a corrected version will ever be printed and the existing version may go out of print. Waiting for the trade is one thing, waiting for the trade's second print is even more riskier.
However, Wolverine: Enemy Of The State writer Mark Millar jokingly had an alternative take on his board "I like to see these Marvel misprints as a big fuck you to all the lazy bastards who wait for the trade."
OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF
Simon Furman is returning to the IDW Transformers title as writer. However, the artist won't be a Dreamwave alumni, rather EJ Su, previously known for his Voltron work.
In mid April, Phyllis Hume was made redundant as DC's International Director, after working there licensing DC's characters and stories internationally for many number of years. This story was not covered by the comics press at the time.
Uri Gellar has admitted to buying up as many copies as he can of "Daredevil" #133 on eBay. It's the issue he appears in, fighting alongside Daredevil. There's no update on whether he's tried to bend any of the recent hardcovers…
SMALL PRINT
For other comic and non-comic book related nonsense, check out the Twistblog.
Discuss this column at the Lying In The Gutters Forum.
And contact me on richjohnston@gmail.com
You can also write to me at 8 Robin Hood Lane, Kingston Vale, London SW15 3PU ENGLAND
Or call me on 0780 135082 from the UK or 01144780 1350982 from the US.
Lying In The Gutters is published every Monday at noon, PST.
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Rich Johnston
Staff Writer, CBR
richj@comicbookresources.com Lying In The Gutters Archives
As cartoons go digital, something gets lost
MEDIA & MARKETING
As Cartoons Go Digital,
Something Gets Lost
By VAUHINI VARA
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
May 24, 2005; Page B1
Cartoon fan David Mackenzie has been on the Internet griping about a cartoon called "Gorilla My Dreams," recently released as part of a DVD collection of 60 restored Looney Tunes classics from Warner Bros.
[nowides]
Mr. Mackenzie, an 18-year-old film student in Glasgow, Scotland, says there's something missing from the seven-minute cartoon, about a motherly primate who takes Bugs Bunny on a romp through the jungle: Pause the DVD, and as the two get ready to swing through the air, a piece of vine seems to dissolve.
The glitch is easy to miss. But hardcore animation fans say the case of the vanishing vine is only the latest example of technology gone awry.
"Casual fans will think it's just people nitpicking, but it's really not," Mr. Mackenzie says. "If Gene Kelly's arm disappeared while he was dancing in 'Singin' in the Rain,' everybody would notice."
As studios release more classic movies and television shows on DVD, they are increasingly using digital restoration to smooth over scratches and dirt specks on old film. But the process can also remove some of the lines that make up the animation -- for example, blurring Tom's face in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or erasing lines in Woody Woodpecker's fast-moving beak.
The technology at issue -- called "digital noise reduction," or DNR -- works by removing lines that appear in one frame of a film but not the next, reasoning that the line doesn't belong. In live-action films, that usually works well. But in cartoons, the process gets sketchier. A fast-moving cartoon is made up of a series of drawings with sharp ink lines. To the casual viewer, the drawings appear to move fluidly from one moment to the next. But in fact, they often change radically from frame to frame. And when DNR is applied, a deliberately drawn line can be mistaken for a stray and removed.
"It's really irritating to watch," says Mr. Mackenzie, who grew up on the Ren & Stimpy cartoons of the 1990s. He keeps a log of what he sees as the most egregious errors on his Web site: One shot from the Looney Tunes cartoon "Have You Got Any Castles?" shows an image of a dancing old man disappearing into a grayish haze.
Until recently, film studios kept old animation tucked away in storage. But as DVDs become more popular, studios have done the math and found that classic cartoons are relatively cheap to restore and sell well. "DVD is the medium for collectors. They gobble this stuff up," says Robert Mayo, senior vice president of video at Classic Media Inc., of New York, which has released two DVD sets of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends. "It has given all the studios, us included, a reason to go back and remaster all these things."
Craig Hoffman, a spokesman for Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., which released the Looney Tunes DVDs last fall, declines to comment on the complaints about the restored cartoons. "There's a wide audience: children, collectors, people who grew up loving them," he adds.
One commonly used DNR product is made by Sweden's Digital Vision AB, which sells equipment ranging in price from $35,000 to $150,000. Hugh Heinsohn, president of the company's U.S. unit, compares his product with a hammer: It's a powerful tool that must be used with care. It can muddy the image depending on the skill of the technician using it.
Digital noise reduction isn't unique to DVD: Earlier, it was used in transferring old cartoons to VHS and laserdisc. The problem was harder to spot in VHS. But studios now are releasing more classics on DVD, and fans are becoming more aware of the issue. Many say it points to a broader problem in Hollywood: Years after the golden age of animation in the 1950s, studios don't pay much attention to classic cartoons.
"Animation is considered a poor stepchild to the whole motion-picture industry," says Jerry Beck, who has written several books on classic animation and serves on the board of the International Animated Film Society. "It's just not up there with movies starring Brad Pitt."
Animator Milton Gray, who worked on "The Simpsons" in the 1990s, describes high-quality animation as "poetic" and "dance-like." Every frame matters, he says. Like many enthusiasts, he studies the classics frame by frame -- which makes it especially frustrating when pieces are missing, he says.
Studios say the elimination of scratches and dirt makes up for a blurred line here or there. And glitches can be largely avoided if digital noise reduction is done by a skilled technician. "Sometimes it's being used with no ill effects," says Jeff Stabenau, who oversaw the Rocky & Bullwinkle restoration at an outside DVD production company. "If it is used carefully, it can enhance the animation."
Some animation fans say they see some adverse effects of DNR in some of the restored Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. Mr. Stabenau says he hasn't heard any complaints. "I think the images look great," he says. "Based on the age and condition of the material, it's restored as faithfully as possible."
Walt Disney Co. has largely avoided criticism of its cartoon restorations. For most of its projects, Disney doesn't use digital noise reduction, relying instead on artists to inspect each frame of film and remove defects either manually or with proprietary software. "If you just take a film and throw it through a noise-reduction system, you're never going to get the same standard of quality," says Jeff Miller, president for world-wide post-production and operations.
DNR's negative side effects are more exception than rule. But for purists, a few seconds of messed-up animation can spoil an otherwise perfect collection.
Thad Komorowski, a Niagara Falls, N.Y., 16-year-old, who helps run a Web site about classic animation, plays scenes over and over to study facial expressions and gestures of characters in early Warner Bros. cartoons -- exactly the kind of fast-moving animation style that can be mangled by digital noise-reduction. "My friends don't really see it as a big deal," Mr. Komorowski says, "but it makes me really mad."
Write to Vauhini Vara at vauhini.vara@wsj.com
As Cartoons Go Digital,
Something Gets Lost
By VAUHINI VARA
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
May 24, 2005; Page B1
Cartoon fan David Mackenzie has been on the Internet griping about a cartoon called "Gorilla My Dreams," recently released as part of a DVD collection of 60 restored Looney Tunes classics from Warner Bros.
[nowides]
Mr. Mackenzie, an 18-year-old film student in Glasgow, Scotland, says there's something missing from the seven-minute cartoon, about a motherly primate who takes Bugs Bunny on a romp through the jungle: Pause the DVD, and as the two get ready to swing through the air, a piece of vine seems to dissolve.
The glitch is easy to miss. But hardcore animation fans say the case of the vanishing vine is only the latest example of technology gone awry.
"Casual fans will think it's just people nitpicking, but it's really not," Mr. Mackenzie says. "If Gene Kelly's arm disappeared while he was dancing in 'Singin' in the Rain,' everybody would notice."
As studios release more classic movies and television shows on DVD, they are increasingly using digital restoration to smooth over scratches and dirt specks on old film. But the process can also remove some of the lines that make up the animation -- for example, blurring Tom's face in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or erasing lines in Woody Woodpecker's fast-moving beak.
The technology at issue -- called "digital noise reduction," or DNR -- works by removing lines that appear in one frame of a film but not the next, reasoning that the line doesn't belong. In live-action films, that usually works well. But in cartoons, the process gets sketchier. A fast-moving cartoon is made up of a series of drawings with sharp ink lines. To the casual viewer, the drawings appear to move fluidly from one moment to the next. But in fact, they often change radically from frame to frame. And when DNR is applied, a deliberately drawn line can be mistaken for a stray and removed.
"It's really irritating to watch," says Mr. Mackenzie, who grew up on the Ren & Stimpy cartoons of the 1990s. He keeps a log of what he sees as the most egregious errors on his Web site: One shot from the Looney Tunes cartoon "Have You Got Any Castles?" shows an image of a dancing old man disappearing into a grayish haze.
Until recently, film studios kept old animation tucked away in storage. But as DVDs become more popular, studios have done the math and found that classic cartoons are relatively cheap to restore and sell well. "DVD is the medium for collectors. They gobble this stuff up," says Robert Mayo, senior vice president of video at Classic Media Inc., of New York, which has released two DVD sets of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends. "It has given all the studios, us included, a reason to go back and remaster all these things."
Craig Hoffman, a spokesman for Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., which released the Looney Tunes DVDs last fall, declines to comment on the complaints about the restored cartoons. "There's a wide audience: children, collectors, people who grew up loving them," he adds.
One commonly used DNR product is made by Sweden's Digital Vision AB, which sells equipment ranging in price from $35,000 to $150,000. Hugh Heinsohn, president of the company's U.S. unit, compares his product with a hammer: It's a powerful tool that must be used with care. It can muddy the image depending on the skill of the technician using it.
Digital noise reduction isn't unique to DVD: Earlier, it was used in transferring old cartoons to VHS and laserdisc. The problem was harder to spot in VHS. But studios now are releasing more classics on DVD, and fans are becoming more aware of the issue. Many say it points to a broader problem in Hollywood: Years after the golden age of animation in the 1950s, studios don't pay much attention to classic cartoons.
"Animation is considered a poor stepchild to the whole motion-picture industry," says Jerry Beck, who has written several books on classic animation and serves on the board of the International Animated Film Society. "It's just not up there with movies starring Brad Pitt."
Animator Milton Gray, who worked on "The Simpsons" in the 1990s, describes high-quality animation as "poetic" and "dance-like." Every frame matters, he says. Like many enthusiasts, he studies the classics frame by frame -- which makes it especially frustrating when pieces are missing, he says.
Studios say the elimination of scratches and dirt makes up for a blurred line here or there. And glitches can be largely avoided if digital noise reduction is done by a skilled technician. "Sometimes it's being used with no ill effects," says Jeff Stabenau, who oversaw the Rocky & Bullwinkle restoration at an outside DVD production company. "If it is used carefully, it can enhance the animation."
Some animation fans say they see some adverse effects of DNR in some of the restored Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. Mr. Stabenau says he hasn't heard any complaints. "I think the images look great," he says. "Based on the age and condition of the material, it's restored as faithfully as possible."
Walt Disney Co. has largely avoided criticism of its cartoon restorations. For most of its projects, Disney doesn't use digital noise reduction, relying instead on artists to inspect each frame of film and remove defects either manually or with proprietary software. "If you just take a film and throw it through a noise-reduction system, you're never going to get the same standard of quality," says Jeff Miller, president for world-wide post-production and operations.
DNR's negative side effects are more exception than rule. But for purists, a few seconds of messed-up animation can spoil an otherwise perfect collection.
Thad Komorowski, a Niagara Falls, N.Y., 16-year-old, who helps run a Web site about classic animation, plays scenes over and over to study facial expressions and gestures of characters in early Warner Bros. cartoons -- exactly the kind of fast-moving animation style that can be mangled by digital noise-reduction. "My friends don't really see it as a big deal," Mr. Komorowski says, "but it makes me really mad."
Write to Vauhini Vara at vauhini.vara@wsj.com
BLABBERMOUTH.NET - GINGER: 'The Glory Is Not In Never Failing, But In Rising Every Time You Fail'
BLABBERMOUTH.NET - GINGER: 'The Glory Is Not In Never Failing, But In Rising Every Time You Fail' VH1 Fodder. A long read, but like a car accident, you can't help yourself and watch.
Data at Bank of America, Wachovia, others compromised - May. 23, 2005
Data at Bank of America, Wachovia, others compromised - May. 23, 2005
And they call ME paranoid. *Starts to hide his money inside his mattress* LOL
And they call ME paranoid. *Starts to hide his money inside his mattress* LOL
So Much For The War On Drugs, eh?
America's shitty Drug Plan finally Collapses - [War on Drugs]
The Independent
Washington's 'war on drugs' in Colombia is collapsing in chaos and corruption, while drug producers remain the winners. 'Plan Colombia', which has cost the US [losers] more than 3 billion dollars in the past 5 years, is being abandoned, Condoleezza Rice has announced.
Last year, the hugely expensive effort to poison coca bushes - whose leaves are the source of cocaine - by aerial spraying ended in complete failure. More bushes were flourishing in January this year than in January 2004. Meanwhile, complaints have been multiplying regarding the damage done by chemical poisons to the health of humans, especially children, as well as to livestock, fish and the environment. Plan Colombia was designed to eradicate narcotics, control powerful left-wing guerrillas and strengthen the position of the US military in South America. The scheme was eventually expected to cost $7.5bn.
The government of Colombia, the world's principal source of cocaine, has sent out an emergency appeal to the Bush administration for an extra $130m to supplement the $600m it already expects to receive in 2006. Kiss your tax dollars goodbye, Americans. Bush fucked up, once again.
No wonder the CIA has smuggled cocaine in the past - how could they afford not to?
Colombia's appeal for more cash comes in the wake of the details quietly put out by the White House during the Easter holiday about last year's spraying debacle. On January 1st, 2004, US satellite pictures showed 281,323 acres of coca in Colombia. Nearly 340,000 acres were sprayed with poison, in vain. The acreage of coca bushes has since increased and will probably continue to do so.
Consequently, as Congressman Bob Menendez, leader of the Democratic caucus in the US lower house and a critic of Plan Colombia, remarked last week, the international price of cocaine has refused to rise - as it would have if the anti-drug efforts had dented its availability.
Drug profits have corrupted some US troops stationed in Colombia. This month a US Green Beret lieutenant-colonel and a sergeant were caught selling 32,900 rounds of ammunition to the right-wing death squads who are flush with drug profits. In March, five US soldiers were arrested after 16 kilos of cocaine were found in the aircraft taking them from a military base in southern Colombia back to the US.
I'm surprised the US hasn't gone after Colombia's oil yet.
The Independent
Washington's 'war on drugs' in Colombia is collapsing in chaos and corruption, while drug producers remain the winners. 'Plan Colombia', which has cost the US [losers] more than 3 billion dollars in the past 5 years, is being abandoned, Condoleezza Rice has announced.
Last year, the hugely expensive effort to poison coca bushes - whose leaves are the source of cocaine - by aerial spraying ended in complete failure. More bushes were flourishing in January this year than in January 2004. Meanwhile, complaints have been multiplying regarding the damage done by chemical poisons to the health of humans, especially children, as well as to livestock, fish and the environment. Plan Colombia was designed to eradicate narcotics, control powerful left-wing guerrillas and strengthen the position of the US military in South America. The scheme was eventually expected to cost $7.5bn.
The government of Colombia, the world's principal source of cocaine, has sent out an emergency appeal to the Bush administration for an extra $130m to supplement the $600m it already expects to receive in 2006. Kiss your tax dollars goodbye, Americans. Bush fucked up, once again.
No wonder the CIA has smuggled cocaine in the past - how could they afford not to?
Colombia's appeal for more cash comes in the wake of the details quietly put out by the White House during the Easter holiday about last year's spraying debacle. On January 1st, 2004, US satellite pictures showed 281,323 acres of coca in Colombia. Nearly 340,000 acres were sprayed with poison, in vain. The acreage of coca bushes has since increased and will probably continue to do so.
Consequently, as Congressman Bob Menendez, leader of the Democratic caucus in the US lower house and a critic of Plan Colombia, remarked last week, the international price of cocaine has refused to rise - as it would have if the anti-drug efforts had dented its availability.
Drug profits have corrupted some US troops stationed in Colombia. This month a US Green Beret lieutenant-colonel and a sergeant were caught selling 32,900 rounds of ammunition to the right-wing death squads who are flush with drug profits. In March, five US soldiers were arrested after 16 kilos of cocaine were found in the aircraft taking them from a military base in southern Colombia back to the US.
I'm surprised the US hasn't gone after Colombia's oil yet.
Lecturer censored in Spanish University (UPV) for defending P2P networks - Zeropaid File Sharing News
Lecturer censored in Spanish University (UPV) for defending P2P networks - Zeropaid File Sharing News So much for freedom of speech at la madre patria.
BBC NEWS | Technology | A back-to-basics mobile launched
BBC NEWS | Technology | A back-to-basics mobile launched Sometimes simple is good.
Cuba to switch computers to Linux, dumping Windows - Yahoo! News
Cuba to switch computers to Linux, dumping Windows - Yahoo! News So commies *do* use Linux! LOL!
Netscape 8 Intro - Netscape 8 review - Browsers - CNET Reviews
Netscape 8 Intro - Netscape 8 review - Browsers - CNET Reviews. Yep an alternative to the crappy and lousy Internet Explorer.
The World According to Ballmer
The World According to Ballmer Steve Ballmer's arrogance is funny as hell.
Software Piracy Will Get Worse, Study Says - Yahoo! News
Software Piracy Will Get Worse, Study Says - Yahoo! News Bring out The Boogeyman! Part 1.
NewsForge | Opera and Firefox: A side-by-side review
NewsForge | Opera and Firefox: A side-by-side review
Pope John Paul the 2nd (RIP) was born
Mt. St. Helens blew up
Ian Curtis Killed
Reggie Jackson was born
I was born as well.
Today was a really cool day. Got a new hard drive and some music as well. Spoke with my lovely woman, and I got good news from the job front. An evil influence was gone for good. Cool. Gonna talk to my boss to see if there is any chance of getting a permanent job.
Fingers crossed.
Did I mention I'm gonna see Star Wars tonight and tomorrow? BWAHAAHAHAAHH!
Pope John Paul the 2nd (RIP) was born
Mt. St. Helens blew up
Ian Curtis Killed
Reggie Jackson was born
I was born as well.
Today was a really cool day. Got a new hard drive and some music as well. Spoke with my lovely woman, and I got good news from the job front. An evil influence was gone for good. Cool. Gonna talk to my boss to see if there is any chance of getting a permanent job.
Fingers crossed.
Did I mention I'm gonna see Star Wars tonight and tomorrow? BWAHAAHAHAAHH!
HP to offer customized Linux for notebooks in Europe
HP to offer customized Linux for notebooks
Europe, Middle East and Africa. Meanwhile the rest of us are fooked.
Europe, Middle East and Africa. Meanwhile the rest of us are fooked.
Microsoft-Free Home Part 4: The Linux HTPC--ExtremeTech Build It
Microsoft-Free Home Part 4: The Linux HTPC--ExtremeTech Build It How to Build a Linux Home Theater PC
Cosas que hacer un domingo
Filmacion del video "Incierta Realidad", concierto en vivo de Los Psiconautas.
Este domingo en Rumba. YAY! Gratis!
CNN.com - Connecticut?serial killer awaits death - May 12, 2005
CNN.com - Connecticut?serial killer awaits death - May 12, 2005
Well, he wants to die, so let's grant him this wish.
Well, he wants to die, so let's grant him this wish.
CNN.com - FBI drug sting nabs soldiers, law enforcement - May 12, 2005
CNN.com - FBI drug sting nabs soldiers, law enforcement - May 12, 2005
Guess what happnens when you get soldiers in the so-called war against drugs. Que mal!
Guess what happnens when you get soldiers in the so-called war against drugs. Que mal!
Sere un numero primo, antojos y otras cosas.
En seis dias sere un numero primo otra vez. 37. Me invitaron a descojonarme en NY viendo a NIN y otras propuestas deshonestas pero a la postre no podia darme ese gustito.
So yendo cuesta abajo hacia cuatro decadas en esta existencia podria estar mucho peor, pero estoy bastante contento dentro de las circunstancias. Tengo trabajo, ya pronto podre empezar a hacer las gestiones para largarme de aqui y tengo una mujer que estoy perdidamente enamorado de ella y viceversa. Tengo que cuidar mi salud y no es chiste. Esta mierda de la diabetes es algo serio y jode bastante.
Estoy agradecido por lo que tengo y la compan~ia que tengo al lado. Agradecido con los muchachos de FA a quienes quiero demasiado you fucking bitches. Siempre agradecido por lo que tengo que para algunos sera poco y para otros sera mucho pero por lo menos estoy conciente de lo que me cuesta lograrlo.
No tengo planes para celebrar mi cumplean~os. Nunca los tengo. Pepe fue super nice con lo de Damon's el an~o pasado. Angelito y yo iremos a la tanda de medianoche a ver Revenge of The Sith en las ventas del infierno pero todo cool.
En verdad me gustaria pasarlo este anyo con Maria, el FA Kru y varias amistades being our usual selves. Nada fancy. Nada del otro jueves. Just chilling like the villains. La locura y las ocurrencias siempre vienen por anyadidura.
"Collapse The Light Unto Earth" me hizo llorar como es. Pesante y sus recomendaciones can't fucking fail. Musicalmente he estado escuchando ademas de Porcupine Tree, Sonic Youth viejo, And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Japan, Krafwerk, NIN y varias cosas mas.
La linea de DSL esta de lo mas bien. Very nice. Worth the money.
Antojos?
1. Un hard drive externo nuevo. Este que tengo esta repleto de musiquita. Kenny es Dioj y me consiguio muchas cosas buenas.
2. Un sistema bueno, bonito y barato se hace esencial. La desktop que Zinatrax un dia buscara (si si si. segun el) se ha convertido en parte esencial de mi arsenal cibernetico. Estoy en la disyuntiva si ahorrar para una Emac o Mac Mini o conseguir una PC barata. Sub300.com tiene varios setups de lo mas tasty y baratos y corren Linux. Pero puej.
3. Mi propio lugar. Tengo que separarme de esta fucking noverla ya. Necesito estar fisicamente fuera de aqui.
4. Siempre tengo antojo de mi novia asi que...... :D
5. Conseguir mejor paga y eso. Mi trabajo me gusta mucho, pero hay que buscar alguillo mejor. O al menos la permanencia.
Bueno ya escribi bastante. Cuidense mucho.
PS - Serge: God Says No! For now...... :D :p
So yendo cuesta abajo hacia cuatro decadas en esta existencia podria estar mucho peor, pero estoy bastante contento dentro de las circunstancias. Tengo trabajo, ya pronto podre empezar a hacer las gestiones para largarme de aqui y tengo una mujer que estoy perdidamente enamorado de ella y viceversa. Tengo que cuidar mi salud y no es chiste. Esta mierda de la diabetes es algo serio y jode bastante.
Estoy agradecido por lo que tengo y la compan~ia que tengo al lado. Agradecido con los muchachos de FA a quienes quiero demasiado you fucking bitches. Siempre agradecido por lo que tengo que para algunos sera poco y para otros sera mucho pero por lo menos estoy conciente de lo que me cuesta lograrlo.
No tengo planes para celebrar mi cumplean~os. Nunca los tengo. Pepe fue super nice con lo de Damon's el an~o pasado. Angelito y yo iremos a la tanda de medianoche a ver Revenge of The Sith en las ventas del infierno pero todo cool.
En verdad me gustaria pasarlo este anyo con Maria, el FA Kru y varias amistades being our usual selves. Nada fancy. Nada del otro jueves. Just chilling like the villains. La locura y las ocurrencias siempre vienen por anyadidura.
"Collapse The Light Unto Earth" me hizo llorar como es. Pesante y sus recomendaciones can't fucking fail. Musicalmente he estado escuchando ademas de Porcupine Tree, Sonic Youth viejo, And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Japan, Krafwerk, NIN y varias cosas mas.
La linea de DSL esta de lo mas bien. Very nice. Worth the money.
Antojos?
1. Un hard drive externo nuevo. Este que tengo esta repleto de musiquita. Kenny es Dioj y me consiguio muchas cosas buenas.
2. Un sistema bueno, bonito y barato se hace esencial. La desktop que Zinatrax un dia buscara (si si si. segun el) se ha convertido en parte esencial de mi arsenal cibernetico. Estoy en la disyuntiva si ahorrar para una Emac o Mac Mini o conseguir una PC barata. Sub300.com tiene varios setups de lo mas tasty y baratos y corren Linux. Pero puej.
3. Mi propio lugar. Tengo que separarme de esta fucking noverla ya. Necesito estar fisicamente fuera de aqui.
4. Siempre tengo antojo de mi novia asi que...... :D
5. Conseguir mejor paga y eso. Mi trabajo me gusta mucho, pero hay que buscar alguillo mejor. O al menos la permanencia.
Bueno ya escribi bastante. Cuidense mucho.
PS - Serge: God Says No! For now...... :D :p
DrunkenBlog: Deconstructing Maui X-Stream
DrunkenBlog: Deconstructing Maui X-Stream Cronica de unos gansos. O algo.
SIGamp - Now Playing Sigs for Winamp, iTunes, foobar2000, Quintessential Player (QCD) and Windows Media Player - What are you listening to?
SIGamp - Now Playing Sigs for Winamp, iTunes, foobar2000, Quintessential Player (QCD) and Windows Media Player - What are you listening to?
Nice little tool.
Nice little tool.
Can somebody please explain how Pilar Montenegro a Mexican singer is doing something called euroreggaeton? Anyone?
Outlook Express vs Thunderbird: an e-mail client comparison - Part 1 :: Open Source versus :: Open Source versus Proprietary Software
The Huffington Post | The Blog
The Huffington Post | The Blog
This post is so freaking ironic coming from someone who used to run the RIAA, one of the most monopolistic, Luddite, and idiotic organizations in the U.S.
This post is so freaking ironic coming from someone who used to run the RIAA, one of the most monopolistic, Luddite, and idiotic organizations in the U.S.
una eterna tarde gris
una eterna tarde gris
un silencio comodo
un vacio reconfortante
cerrar los ojos y flotar
disfrutar en la nada
navegar y volar
un silencio comodo
un vacio reconfortante
cerrar los ojos y flotar
disfrutar en la nada
navegar y volar
House passes Internet hunting ban
House passes Internet hunting ban WTF? part 2. Funny thing is, I wonder if they'll ever legislate against the inbreeding there. LOL.
Gracias
A LS por alegrarme, ser solidaria, ser tremenda compan~ia y tener la capacidad de virar el dia 180 grados. Te amo mucho.
A Eze por ser tan insistente y ser tremendo ser humano.
A Angelito, Io y a Fidel por ser tremendos profesionales.
A Pelle, Alfredo, Jorge Castro y los artistas de Signal Level (Cornucopia, Introdujos, Ciencia Fixion, Charles Cohen, Loess y Carlos Giffoni) por tirarse una velada musical tan buena y variada.
A Alberto por compartir con el y su familia
A Kymill y a Stiv un buen viaje
Anyway, feliz dia de las madres, aunque yo estoy que no soporto a la mia.
Bye bye piojitos!
A Eze por ser tan insistente y ser tremendo ser humano.
A Angelito, Io y a Fidel por ser tremendos profesionales.
A Pelle, Alfredo, Jorge Castro y los artistas de Signal Level (Cornucopia, Introdujos, Ciencia Fixion, Charles Cohen, Loess y Carlos Giffoni) por tirarse una velada musical tan buena y variada.
A Alberto por compartir con el y su familia
A Kymill y a Stiv un buen viaje
Anyway, feliz dia de las madres, aunque yo estoy que no soporto a la mia.
Bye bye piojitos!
NewsForge | My Workstation OS: Kanotix LiveCD
NewsForge | My Workstation OS: Kanotix LiveCD As of today, best distro EVER!
A by product of 9 years of Catholic Schooling..............
For the record, I consider myself more of an agnostic person, but hey the fact that this quiz found me between atheism and satanism is very amusing. Blame Anais for this one!
 | You scored as atheism. You are... an atheist, though you probably already knew this. Also, you probably have several people praying daily for your soul. Instead of simply being "nonreligious," atheists strongly believe in the lack of existence of a higher being, or God.
Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com |
Technology - Why Google Scares Bill Gates - FORTUNE
Technology - Why Google Scares Bill Gates - FORTUNE Face it Bill. You're just way too jealous.
Puts & Calls: Mellifluous discord
Puts & Calls: Mellifluous discord Another piece of RIAA propaganda, but I blogged this because this lovely, short and sharp reply.
Apple updates the iMac G5 - Engadget - www.engadget.com /
Apple updates the iMac G5 - Engadget - www.engadget.com / I luuuuuuuuuuuuuuv ze technology curve. Mommy, I want one!
AOpen’s Pentium M-based XC Cube Mini MZ855-II - Engadget - www.engadget.com /
AOpen’s Pentium M-based XC Cube Mini MZ855-II - Engadget - www.engadget.com / Yes, I'm pandering to my inner technofetishist.
The Orbe kinesthetic synthesizer - Engadget - www.engadget.com /
The Orbe kinesthetic synthesizer - Engadget - www.engadget.com / Whoa duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!
I am afraid of the french.....i'm afraid i can't........
just jared dot com: French Aids Prevention Advertisement
From Just Jared and my lovely girlfriend. The French are going a bit too freaky with their AIDS prevention adverts.
Just check out the pics....and by the way kiddies, play safe.
From Just Jared and my lovely girlfriend. The French are going a bit too freaky with their AIDS prevention adverts.
Just check out the pics....and by the way kiddies, play safe.
Slashdot | What The Dormouse Said
Slashdot | What The Dormouse Said: "How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry". Or something.
Fla. Sets Harsher Penalties for Molesters - Yahoo! News
Fla. Sets Harsher Penalties for Molesters - Yahoo! News
Jeb Bush signs bill that among other things, allows the government in Flawriduh! to track sex offenders with GPS devices for life.
Jeb Bush signs bill that among other things, allows the government in Flawriduh! to track sex offenders with GPS devices for life.
A Non-Loser's Guide to The Insane Clown Posse || kuro5hin.org
A Non-Loser's Guide to The Insane Clown Posse || kuro5hin.org
My friend Tonya loves these guys. Here you go, sweetie!
My friend Tonya loves these guys. Here you go, sweetie!
ochentero. noventero. o algo.
Bueno estos dias he tenido la oportunidad de bregar con muchas cosas de las ultimas dos decadas pasadas. He escuchado mucho Sonic Youth y Jesus and Mary Chain. Tambien alguito de Lush y por el hecho de probar que plus ca change ces't la meme chose, The Raveonettes. Tambien he regresado a ver cosas como "Strange Days" y "12 Monkeys". El ocio es una cosa cabrona. Bueno supuestamente la huelga en la UPR termino. A ver si es cierto y si por fin puedo cobrar. Extranyando terriblemente a mi otra mitad. Joder! Bueno mi gente, siganlo que esta verde, ok?
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