aubreyturner.org

Stephen Green’s earlier post about Steely Dan’s new CD reminded me that although I like most of their music I’ve never bought any of it (and no, I haven’t downloaded it either).  I quickly rectified that situation by preordering the new CD as well as ordering some of their previous ones.

I have to say, though, that Amazon makes this entirely too easy.  I’m afraid to total up what I’ve spent with them over the past year.

It looks like Doubleclick and the others of their ilk can’t resist the lure of knowing everything about you.

Condé Nast owner Advance Publications, for one, recently began testing a product from Tacoda Systems that promises to compile detailed information about the Web site visitors of its Advance Internet news network.

And it’s got company. Tacoda, launched by the executives behind Internet ad network Real Media, said it has so far signed up at least 10 other publishing customers, including Weather.com, USAToday.com, Tribune Interactive and Scripps Networks.

Tacoda’s technology is designed to give Web publishers more insight into their visitors so that they can better target their ads. At its full potential, Tacoda’s Audience Management System can create profiles that include a person’s age, gender, location, billing address, e-mail address, Web surfing habits and subscription information to offline publications. To do this, it draws from data-mining technology, tracking software such as cookies and Web site registration information.

Just last week, the company signed a deal with ad technology provider DoubleClick that could further boost the two-year-old company’s profile among Web publishers that want to court advertisers with better audience-targeting tools. The deal essentially makes it easier for companies that employ DoubleClick’s widely used ad-serving system to also use Tacoda’s profiling software.

There’s a reason that these kinds of tracking systems were met with such an outcry when they first came out.  And frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass how many so-called “safeguards” they add to it, I don’t trust them with my data.  A company has to have a lot of trust and goodwill built-up before I will knowingly allow them to have this amount of data about me.

But more importantly, where might this data turn up in the future?  The government would love to get its cloven hooves on this data through TIA if it could, which is brought up by a privacy advocate in the article.

Smith said he had little concern about the practices of Web publishers collecting data on consenting individuals in order to send targeted advertisements to them. But the nut of the privacy issue, he said, is that anytime profiles are amassed, there runs the risk that they could fall into other hands.

“If you’re just going to show ads with them, that’s no big deal, but what else is going to happen with them? Will law enforcement get their hands on them some day?” he questioned.

No, I don’t trust these bastards with this data and I don’t trust that it won’t end up somewhere it doesn’t belong.

A pox on all of these wankers and their apologists.

At least I was able to hit the range today after work and play with my Springfield and Kimber.  There is something almost zen-like about shooting.  It was hot and stuffy in the range, but I didn’t notice until I quit shooting.  Shooting forces you to concentrate on the gun and the target—putting all that other crap out of your mind.

Today was one of those surreal days where despite the technical and professional stuff working out, nothing really registered, as I was distracted by something that I was told this morning.  I won’t go into the gory details, but I guess it confirms that I was a damn fool for thinking certain things.  Oh well, c’est la vie.

I was reading the latest rant from Rachel Lucas and her warning to her dog Sunny about her upcoming bath reminded me of the dog we used to have when I was growing up.

Her name was Missy, which came about as a weird variant of “Messy” (which we called her because of the deworming she’d had before we got her from the shelter as a puppy). 

This dog had the habit of going into the nearby pasture and rolling around in cow manure.  Then she’d come home and rub up against you.  You wouldn’t realize you’d been “tagged” until you noticed the smell.  She also had a pathological hatred of baths, to the point that the mere mention of the word would send her into hiding.  I’d have to drag her out from under the table and carry her to get a bath.

I miss having a dog.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell – The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test

Hmmm….  It appears that being a non-believer puts you at a serious disadvantage in this test.

I’ve seen a number of postings on a variety of weblogs about the latest craptastic idea that is infesting the collective brain cell of the RIAA.  I’m not likely to download music, and I’m even less likely to run some unknown EXE file like “SILENCE” that RIAA is working on (this one will erase all the music files on a computer).

If something like this were to somehow get onto my system, I’d be extremely pissed.  Why?  Because all of my music files were fully paid for by me (all 4736 of them).  I’ve only ever downloaded one song from an MP3 site, and the only reason I did it was that I was a fan of that band and I wanted their new single which wasn’t yet available to purchase.  I had the CD preordered, so it wasn’t like they were losing a sale.

I understand their worry about widespread downloading.  However, I’m strongly of the opinion that a little private sharing actually helps music sales, at least among people like me.  But the RIAA’s heavy-handed tactics are in serious danger of alienating the people like me, who are their serious customers.  I currently own 366 CDs, and I buy 20 to 30 per year.  But I do have to admit that I’m tired of getting CDs just for a couple of songs.  What I want is an online service that lets me buy the songs I like (which is why I’m watching the Apple offering, although it’ll have to come to the PC before I have anything to do with it—and it’d be preferable for me if they had a Linux client, although I can live without it).  However, it must be unencumbered by silly DRM schemes.  I’m perfectly willing to pay for my music, but I am most decidedly not willing to pay for the priviledge of being treated as a potential criminal.

If they’d put together a service where I could get high-quality MP3s (or any other open format)  that I could use as I see fit (i.e. on my computer, in the truck’s MP3 player, etc), I might actually buy more music.  As an example, there are a number of pieces on SomaFM’s Secret Agent Lounge stream that I’d buy if they were available individually.  But I am not as inclined to buy a whole CD from these artists, as I haven’t heard of most of them before.  However, I would be inclined to purchase a few of their other songs to try them out. 

Of course, the RIAA is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this model, because it means they won’t be able to pass off a bunch of crap mixed in with a few good songs and charge $15 to $17 for it.  It means that the end-user (I hate the word ‘consumer’) will get to pick and choose based on their tastes.  Ultimately, it may have the potential to make the music industry stronger, but only if the music industry gets ahead of the curve.  If they fight too much, they will lose their core customers through alienation.

Electronic distribution of music is a train that is leaving the the station.  The RIAA has a choice: be on the train or under it.

Can I say that I hate phones?  I find them very frustrating because so much context is lost.  Even normal vocal inflections can be missed, because the 4KHz bandwidth loses high and low tones.  I have to work really hard while listening on the phone; much harder, in fact, than I would talking to someone in person (even if I’m not looking at that person).  I also happen to think that this is one reason that cell phones are so distracting to people who use them while driving.

The other thing I hate is when people don’t call you back after saying that they will…

This guy can’t seem to understand the whole personal boundary thing.

Raymond C. Dublin rejected a deal yesterday to spend another six months behind bars for allegations he sneaked up behind a Woonsocket, R.I., woman last year at Save-A-Lot supermarket in Bellingham and licked her toes, court papers show.

At first, I was mildly amused, but then I read this:

In 1991, he was convicted of first-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 15 years with 10 to serve; in 1998 he was convicted of second-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 15 years with five to serve.

He’s quite vividly demonstrated that he can’t be trusted to live in free society.  Why is this guy still running around on the streets?

It’s definitely spring in East Texas:

And with spring comes a swarm of insects (as evidenced by the splat in the middle of the picture).