Elwyn Jenkins: “Have you got your Google Word?”

I sure do. Google for “metagarbage” and press “I’m feeling lucky,” and this is the place you’ll find. For a while my picture gallery was ranked above the main site, but now it’s the way it should be. (via Scripting News)

I think I’ll start subscribing to Wired. I’ve found their articles very spot-on and insightful, though I mostly read their tech stuff. Subscribing from over seas would cost an arm and a leg, but luckily we have Press Stop here in Sweden, who import a large bunch of magazines from all over the world.

79 SEK per issue, delivered to your mail box. The Real Life one. I’ll buy a few single issues to have a look at Wired first before I subscribe via Press Stop.

Argh. I have to add Press Stop to the list of stores to avoid when I have money available. Adbusters and Metropolis look like interesting magazines as well.

I’ve noticed yet another ugly trend. The evening papers have started to use the word “spioneri” instead of “spionage,” which means, if you didn’t guess already, “espionage.”

Spioneri? Come on! That sounds like a game played by eight-year olds. It doesn’t sound serious at all compared to spionage.

…sitting at work, the clock not even six, and all work for the day done within two hours of arriving at work, albeit late to reasons explained elsewhere. Since I don’t have any work to do right now, I’m reading stuff instead. (I can’t go home either, since it requires two persons to open the vault.)

• Paul Graham: Will filters kill spam? Paul Graham writes very interesting stuff on spam prevention technology.
• RFC1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
• Voluntarily Limiting Copyright Terms
• A History of the History of the Future

(Later) Spoke too soon, as usual. A guard showed up and threw 22 blast cases at me.

The music mafia is at it again. A Wired post tells about a hush-hush company called Overpeer, whose secret mission is to infiltrate P2P networks and seed it with fake files — music of crappy quality (as in “low bitrate and poor sound,” not “Britney Spears”).

I can see exactly what will happen when they try it on Direct Connect: “Oy, this here SecretAgentManGuy is sharing a bunch of crappy-sounding music! I bet he shares kiddie porn too! Kick his sorry as the hell out of our hub!”

Sorry, but as soon as people find out that you’re sharing crappy stuff on DC, they simply check their download logs, see who they downloaded it from, and start complaining. Too many complaints, and the culprit will get a large bootprint over his ass.

Not to mention that the hubs I frequent restrict their access to certain ISPs.

The bus to work got stuck in the traffic jam from hell. Found out that there had been an attempted robbery at IKEA in Barkarby. Four masked men, at least one reportedly armed with an automatic weapon, tried to rob a transport. This perked my interest, since I happen to work at the place where the transport was headed and it was I who would have opened the gates and security doors for the guards and registered the blast cases they came with.

Well, I guess that’s one transport less to bother about tonight.

The police blocked every single road to and from Barkarby. The bus got stuck midway between Tensta and Akalla. Got off and walked from Hästa Gård to Akalla, bought something to eat at work tonight, and then walked to DNEX, and here I am.

And five minutes after I got to work, a bus broke down just outside the gates. Yay. More excitement.

Well, I’ve more or less decided to buy myself an iPod over a Zen. Computercity has a 10Gb iPod for 4491 SEK. Sure, the Zen is cheaper and gives you 20Gb, but I still think the iPod wins the race.

Still need a Firewire card, though. I’ll team up with Magnus and order two Safeway 3-Port cards from Datorbutiken (he wants one for his stationary ‘puter) and split the shipping costs. 290 SEK for that card. Probably not the highest quality, but it’s not like my disks can toss over music to an iPod at 400Mbit/second anyway.

I already have 2000:- safely tucked away in a savings account labeled “Toys,” so that leaves 2781:- to fit into the budget for an iPod. Let’s see if I can do it this month. I have the studies to think of as well — I will probably need to threaten to firebomb CSN in order to get money from them. I got approved for a study loan starting January 7, but that got delayed so now I probably have to apply again. We’ll see.

(Later) Well, their web service still lists me, so I guess I just have to call them (yay! phone queue!) and change the start date and convince them that I do study full time, which they didn’t think the last time I called them.

Wired: “The electronics industry’s attitude toward the labels is summed up by an Apple slogan: Rip. Mix. Burn. Which, a music executive once told me, translates into ‘Fuck you, record labels.’”

RIAA and its ilk are certainly fighting an uphill battle. As mentioned in the article, the five record companies sold for $20 billion last year. Sony sold electronics and computers for $42 billion. The music mafia wants exclusive rights to DRM (digital rights management) in electronics, which has seriously started to annoy the computer industry. If the music industry goes too far, the computer industry can squish them under their left pinky despite the massive amount of cash the music mafia throws at their pet politicians.

Well, at least Hilary Rosen quit. Supposedly to spend time with her family, but I sense that she’s just a scapegoat for all the retarded “stomp them thar pirates”-plans the RIAA has cooked up lately.

Their latest idiocy was the notion of blaming the ISPs for piracy, and forcing them to fork over some money the RIAA could plug in the holes of their sinking ship. The ISPs were suggested to shift the cost to their customers.

I wonder how many who would think “gee, my ISP bills me on behalf of the RIAA who thinks I’m a pirate. I guess it’s OK for me to download songs now that I’ve paid money to RIAA.“

1. Paycheck tomorrow.
2. A large list of books I want to read.
3. SF-Bokhandeln lies just 30 minutes from home.

Tim Bray: “Most people, once they start using RSS to check the news, just don’t go back, the amount of time and irritation saved is totally, completely addictive.”

I couldn’t say it better myself. I’m up to 50 feeds now. Time for some cleaning, though.