Following on from Eliot Van Buskirk’s Wired column Who’s Killing MP3 and iTunes? (in which he pontificated on the future of the MP3 file format in comparison to DRMed alternatives like Apple’s AAC format as sold in their iTunes online store) there is the news that EMI has announced that it will no longer produce CDs with DRM.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer but this would seem to be an indication that even the record companies are coming to doubt the efficacy of DRM.
Frankie Flood a University of Illinois School of Art and Design student produced a number of beautiful but deadly looking pizza-cutters for his MFA Thesis Exhibition[via]
This is my favourite of his works featured.
PLF “Pizza For Life” 2002
Powder coated aluminum, stainless steel, and ball bearings
4″ x 9 1/2″ x 1 1/2″
This one looks like a particularly vicious weapon as used by an assassin in a steampunk novel. Cardinal Chang of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
BBC columnist Bill Thompson discovers that forgetting a password might be an opportunity for reinventing yourself.
An employee who forgot their password to log in to the corporate network would probably get a withering look from the support staff as they grovelled to have it reset.
By contrast it seems that young people who forget their MySpace logins are just as likely to make a new account as fret over their lost friends or painstakingly constructed homepage decorations.
Multiple personalities is the new black.
The second of the BBC’s Doctor Who spin off series The Sarah Jane Adventures has gotten off to a great start with their special pilot episode. Let’s just hope that they can keep up this level of quality for the series proper and not go the way of Torchwood.
Coincidentally a half-year review of the Torchwood team has been leaked on to the interweb.
To: All Staff
From: HR Director
Importance: High
Subject: Half-Year Review – Some Essential RemindersAs we are all aware, we at Torchwood have undergone a drastic downsizing and restructuring exercise during Q1 and Q2 of the current period. Painful as the process has been, the Board is confident that we have now turned the corner and that the organisation is poised to build on its strengths over the coming months to emerge as a strong and vital entity with continued assured growth potential.
Brilliant stuff.