Category: Personal

Joi Ito writes on the Chinese recording industry:

He explained that the legal music CD business in China is about 5%. In other words, 95% of the CDs on the market are pirate copies. He said that it was the teenagers who were passionate about the artists and liked to hang out in the record shops that tended to buy the legal CDs. Even in the top artists, CD sales only represented 30% or so of their income, while less known musicians actually lost money on CDs. The CDs are important, however, as a marketing and promotion vehicle.
…
My “take-away” was that in a market where the record industry basically doesn’t function, artists and agents are going to be pushing the cutting edge of music business models and might in fact discover the post DRM/RIAA business model before Hollywood does. Obviously, it helps to have a huge growing market such as China, but I think it would make sense for artists and music industry people to keep an eye on China for breakthroughs in the music business.

And the RIAA thinks they have it bad.

What’s this? Can it be? Sure, stranger things have happened. Certainly, this marks a welcome change from the more typical Rutgers experience. After all, for the first time since I first went to Rutgers in 1997, the football team put together a whole game.

Listen live to propaganda radio! Radio Sawa is, in their own words,

a service of U.S. International Broadcasting, which is operated and funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an agency of the U.S. Government. The BBG serves as a firewall to protect the professional independence and integrity of the broadcasters.

One of the guiding principles of Radio Sawa is that the long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly in Arabic with the peoples of the Middle East by radio. Radio Sawa seeks to win the attention and respect of listeners. In reporting the news, Radio Sawa is committed to being accurate, objective, and comprehensive.

Construction finally starts to repair/replace the decrepit train bridge that servers as the primary method of accessing my neighborhood. Apparently they’re building a new temporary bridge at the other end of my neighborhood, and with the choice of two roads to route all the detour traffic through, they’ve picked mine. Just because one road is lined on both sides by lots of houses (my street) and the other has a few scattered house and fields), they would decide to use the road that people might actually be caught walking/playing/parking/backing out of driveways on. Sheer genius, urban planners!

Rutgers football kicks off its season today against Michigan State, and the Hype-o-Meter is running high. Conventional wisdom (CW) among the common prediction outlets is that Rutgers will win this game, finally receiving some of that positive national attention the program has been seeking for so long.

Go Rutgers!

This week has been very long and very strange, and I’m thrilled it’s nearly over. From events at work to happenings outside, I’m just happy that it’s Friday, and I can hibernate away for a long weekend.

Since I’ve been back from California, the days have felt very disjointed. Because I’m too tired this morning to think about it, I’m going back to sleep…, err, work.

Global Crossing, a telecom firm in which I had invested money back in the 2000 – 2002 timeframe, reached a settlement earlier this year. I received the paperwork in the mail last week, informing me I was entitled to an average payment of $0.042 per share I held during the interval in question. This might yield about $2.50 – $5.00 if I’m lucky, which is still better than the MBNA check I received a few months ago for $0.03 cents.

Lest you think I seek out these class action lawsuits, they instead appear to find me. In the past two years I’ve received notice of multiple suits, including the one over Global Crossing, and others for Verizon Wireless, PayPal, MBNA, WorldCom, and CD distributos/retailers. Most of the alleged activites occurred during the 1999 – 2002 timeframe, when external pressure to meet revenue and profit forecasts led companies to engage in many shady schemes.

If there was ever an indication that the world was a strange place, this toy was it.

Original via Joi Ito, updated to fix link.

Today marked the arrival of my aunt and uncle and their “adventures” around the city. Suffice to say, with all the family around my patience have been a bit worn down. I’m looking forward to the arrival of Tammy and Scott tomorrow.