Author: Tim Jarrett

And I don’t wanna grow up either.

One of the things that came up was my grandfather. He’s possibly my favorite relative (sorry, everyone else), and also my last living grandparent. And he’s been alternately reminding me how much I care for him and scaring me over the last couple of days.

Last Saturday, I wrote about my detour to the family reunion. I spent a lot of time catching up with family–some people I hadn’t seen in quite a while; some read this blog frequently (hi, Jack!). But I think my favorite moment was sitting around the piano with about half the thirty people there, Mom playing, all of us singing Christmas carols (and the “Hallelujah Chorus”). Part way through, Pop-Pop asked the other folks to lay back so that my he, my Uncle John, and I could take a verse. It had been years since I sang with them at all, let alone solo, and it sounded great.

I probably didn’t notice at the time because of that and other factors (like my quick drive over and my need to hit the road), but Pop-Pop wasn’t in great shape. When I got there yesterday at 1 pm, I really noticed it: while his brain was as quick as ever, his speech was a little slurred, his fine motor control was gone (hands moving spastically and constantly), he stumbled when he walked because he was dragging a foot. His diabetes, normally pretty controlled, had really spiked before Christmas, and he was still feeling the effects, they thought. My Aunt Marie and I took him to the doctor this morning, and though his blood sugar’s down he is still having the symptoms. So we took him by the hospital. They’ve ruled out a stroke and are now investigating other causes.

I want him to be ok. I want to be able to introduce him to great-grandchildren some day, so he has a new audience for whom he can be the hysterically funny gentleman he was when I was growing up. I want eighty-four to be a good year for him, not the start of a downward slope.

Breaking the silence

Whew. Whirlwind journey almost over. I have a long train ride between Metropark and Boston tomorrow, and then I’m really back. Apologies for radio silence: some things came up. I’ll probably write about a few of them shortly.

In the meantime, I wrote this update on Saturday: Sorry about the unexpected silence the last two days. I was staying with a friend who had no broadband and had given up his home phone. I spent a few days catching up with old college and work friends. I’m certainly happy to have had the chance to visit with everyone, but I’m really ready to come home now.

I spent most of the day with Esta. We drove into Charlottesville for dinner and nostalgia, and now we’re sitting in Cocke Hall blogging. At least she’s blogging–my site is down and I’ll have to post this later.

New business model: hate your customers

About a month ago, I wrote Universal Music Group to complain about reports that starting in mid 2002, all their CDs would be copy protected using a format that renders them unplayable on Macs and on many CD players. Today I got a response from an automated support email that I’ve posted. I think there are two things in the letter of interest:

  • First, they claim that they hope to include Mac-based “playability” on copy-protected discs, and that they “have not made a commitment” to put copy protection on all their CD releases. This directly contradicts the statement made in Billboard last month.
  • Second, they claim that “unauthorized CD ‘ripping’ leads to illegal Internet distribution of music.”

The second is an interesting and novel claim. Let’s break it apart. First, what does “unauthorized CD ripping” mean? The last time I checked, fair use allows me to make a copy for personal reasons. This blanket “unauthorized” accusation and the copy protection measures that attempt to prevent it are only infringing my fair use rights. Second, how does ripping lead to distribution? Last time I checked, they were two separate acts. Just because I rip one of my CDs to put it on my iPod doesn’t mean I’m going to distribute it on the Internet. I agree that file sharing programs like Napster and KaZaA are designed to facilitate distribution. But ripping? Oh man we’re in trouble if the RIAA goes after that one.

Universal: why we’re afraid of our customers

Okay, so I posted a complaint at Universal’s site like a lot of other people, which is why I got the following message today. I’ve highlighted in red the two bits that I find interesting:

From: “MusicHelpOnline.com Support”

To: [my email]

Subject: MusicHelpOnline Support

Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2002 15:01:20 -0600

Thank you for your feedback regarding copy protected CDs. We
appreciate your opinion, as the consumer experience with the music we all
love has always been a priority at the Universal Music Group.

Unfortunately, over the last few years, the music industry has been faced
with a growing problem of unauthorized CD “ripping” leading to illegal
Internet distribution of music – a practice that is hurting everyone from
recording artists to songwriters to record stores. This illegal copying is
taking place on a massive scale, with literally millions of copies being
made without any compensation to the creators of the music. If a way is
not found to protect the music from these abuses, recording artists,
songwriters and many others will be deprived of their livelihoods. The
changing economics could cause fewer new artists to get a chance to find
their audience.

Universal Music Group is committed to protecting the rights of our artists,
songwriters, and copyright holders, and, like the rest of the entertainment
industry, is evaluating emerging technologies to assess their viability while
also attempting to maximize the consumer experience. In addition,
Universal is exploring new ways to make music available in a variety of
online formats. We are also working with technology companies on new
offline formats that appeal to consumers.

We have licensed copy protection technologies developed by others and
are experimenting with the integration of those technologies into some of
our CDs as a first step in measuring their effectiveness in an evolving
marketplace. While the CDs with copy protection may not be playable in a
limited number of CD players, UMG is currently working with our
technology providers to achieve 100% playability. We also hope to
include Macintosh-based playability on copy-protected discs in the future.
We have not finalized our plans for 2002 nor have we made a commitment
to put copy protection on all of our CD releases.

UMG has also established www.musichelponline.com to provide
consumers with support and to answer any questions you may have
concerning copy protected CDs.

We appreciate your business, and your support for the musicians who
bring so much to all of our lives.

A very worthy Pilgrim

Congratulations to Mark Pilgrim’s DiveIntoMark for receiving the Best Scripting Weblog award in the 2001 Scripting News weblog awards.

After the nominations, I browsed my competition and quickly figured out that this guy was really where it was at, scripting wise. For that matter, so were my other competitors–it’s a complete mystery how I got nominated. 🙂 But it’s an honor just to have been in the running, and so thanks to Dave and all who voted for me.

Wordplay and Cornell’s prince

I guess five hours is my limit in museums these days. Boy, I’m not even 30 and my stamina is shot to hell. 🙂 However, I found a couple of really cool things in the short time I wandered around.


Cornell's Medici prince, on display in the East Gallery of Washington's National Gallery.

First, Cornell’s Untitled (Medici Boy) is in fact on display in the National Gallery’s East Wing; it wasn’t there two years ago. They’ve moved it with the two works that were previously displayed to the second level—while I didn’t get as much of a cool feeling of exclusivity as I did in the days when you had to climb up to the tower to find them, the works are placed much more prominently.

Second, Xu Bing. Contemporary Chinese artist whose medium is calligraphy—but what calligraphy! A permanently installed three story mobile chains together the word for “monkey” in eighteen languages, each fragment shaped like a monkey. A flat plane containing three dimensional Chinese characters describing birds takes flight, as characters for “bird” become shaped into a flock of birds. A room is filled with scrolls, newspapers, and books printed with “Chinese” characters that in fact have no meaning. Walls are filled with a hand calligraphed speech from Mao — but the characters are English words written as though they were Chinese calligraphy. (This was a favorite—there were two indigo iMacs in the room running a Mac OS X program that took a typed English sentence and rendered it in this style of calligraphy in near real time. Okay, after 30 seconds. But the first few words of “The Waste Land” look really cool as neo-Chinese calligraphy.)

Not that I would know

Okay, so my arms have mostly recovered from yesterday’s marathon blog. I’m still thinking about the new iMac, and my conclusion is that they’ve done a fine job of hitting their target market. Not power users, not Linux guys, but the many more people who need a computer to help them get things done. Regarding appearance, it is, as Seal said, very 2001: A Space Odyssey. I also like what “Doc” wrote yesterday from the convention floor: “What seemed to have everyone most fascinated afterwards at the press ‘viewing’ was the shiny metal arm that connects the base to the monitor. It looks like a chrome dildo…”

In Store Updates

Sorry–I lost something when my machine went down and that news item got corrupted. Anyway: 14″ iBooks are here today. New iMac will be here on Thursday for display and for sale in two weeks. Firesale pricing on old iMacs and on the DVD-only iBook. And iPhoto is available for download.

Pushback

By the way, Dave and John Robb, have to push back about content management software and Apple. My mother in law needs to be able to manage her photos. That will help Apple sell computers. They’re leaving you a space in the ecosystem to capture the mindshare of all of us bloggers.