Still Playing Pandora

Pandora is the fun little online project that attempts to match your musical tastes to a personalized radio station (with a fair amount of alternative music marketing thrown in for profitability no doubt).

I created a sound candy station. It will reveal what I used to listen to before Jazz and String Classical took over my collection.

Posted in music | tech jasonn's blog

Ed Butt

Ed Butt's music for television is interesting me, specifically the theme to Life on Mars, a British drama.

Posted in music jasonn's blog

Do Only Fascists Dislike the Dixie Chicks?

Since The Dixie Chicks are a hick band from Texas, I find it somewhat amusing that their supporters flaunt their bigotry against rural and southern people. Rural folk produce the majority of America's food, a good bit of its manufacturing, and serve the lion's share of military enlistments. But, true anti-rural lefties never skip out on a good old fashioned redneck bashing. 'The Chicks' just offer another opportunity to jump in.

Posted in culture | media | music jasonn's blog | read more

You Complained, They Listened

You complained, they listened:

Sony said it will, "as a precautionary measure," suspend manufacturing CDs using controversial XCP technology and re-examine its content protection initiative. - InformationWeek

Posted in business | current events | media | music jasonn's blog

Sony CDs Expose PCs to Trojans, Hackers

Sony's Digital Rights Management software is now known to be used by hackers. It's not theoretical anymore.

In another coup for Sysinternals, their free RootKitRevealer seems your best solution for finding the DRM rootkits.

Posted in business | media | music | security | tech jasonn's blog

The Sony Hack Saga Continues

The SysInternal blog continues to report on this PR catastrophe.

Besides the obvious question of why there’s not a universal uninstall link, the error also begs the question of how the Sony site knows that the uninstall link is for a different computer? For that matter, why do you have to install an ActiveX control just to fill out a web form and why does that form have to be filled out “using the computer where the software is currently installed”? The email, web page and ActiveX control offer no hints.

Posted in business | current events | media | music | security | tech jasonn's blog | read more

Submitted by jasonn on November 10, 2005 - 8:18am.

Hey Sony: Stop Installing Stuff on MY PC Without My Asking!

Media sellers love to know what's going on in your PC. So, they install software to either track it or control it. They have a legitimate concern. People keep buying their products, like movies, audio CDs, etc. and using them in ways the media company doesn't like. They don't want you buying a music CD and copying it for your friends. To them, that's stealing. So, they take invasive action to stop it.

Posted in media | music | security | tech jasonn's blog | read more

The Music Industry Combats Filesharing With Innovation

Sometimes it's shocking how bullheaded the music industry has been about progressing technologies. Filesharing started long before Shawn Fanning bought a hand full of programming books and hacked out Napster. By 1999 (the year Napster hit the internet), the average college student was broadband enabled through university tech infrastructure and busy downloading all sorts of files through newsgroups and private filesharing networks. Suffice to say, the industry had a good heads up that their most lucrative target market was busy pillaging songs through the internet.

Posted in music jasonn's blog | read more

Enjoying The Industrial Jazz Group

I just downloaded The Industrial Jazz Group's album City of Angles from Emusic.

As I first listened to this album, I got the feeling there was something wrong with their playing, that they were missing time somewhere. I wondered if they were just missing their sync and missed it in production. But, then I thought, surely a group this skilled didn't get lazy in the studio even if it was very subtle. I listened intently and realized they weren't making mistakes. That's what messed with my head! It was like I was listening to academics playing jazz, and my brain was disturbed.

Posted in music jasonn's blog | read more

eMusic Downloads

eMusic has special introductory deals where they lure you in by offering a month's worth of free downloads. It's a commercial service, not a filesharing system. You buy legitimate files that are licensed for download. I'm a big fan of downloading. It's not the highest quality sound, but then neither is CD. A 256 bit sample (mp3) is a pretty good substitute if you can't listen to the analog version (live). eMusic offers an interesting selection of music at a deep discount to buying cds.

Posted in music jasonn's blog | read more