The first one’s free

(In The Happiest Geek on Earth)

The geek equivalent of the “Today, I ate a cheese sandwich” post: Today, I installed some trial/”lite” IDEs.

Read it here.

Wrist PDA! Bobo want!

Fossil, the company that makes big retro-funky and chunky digital watches, has come up with a wrist PDA. Here it is:

This wrist PDA uses infra-red beaming to communicate with your PalmOS device and download the databases from the Address Book, Date Book, To Do List and Memo Pad applications. Then you can leave that bulky ol’ PDA at home and still be able to have your information with you. Handy for clubbing, swimming (it’s water-resistant to thirty metres, should you want to check your to-do lists while snorkel-fishing) or if you’re one of those guys who’s already loaded down with way too many damned devices.

It sells for US$145.00 at the Fossil site. Feel free to buy me one.

New blog

I’ve decided to go ahead and create a new blog, The Happiest Geek on Earth. The first posting, which summarizes the differences between my work environment six months ago and now, is here.

I’m not actually planning on increasing the amount of blogging I do; I think I do more than enough already. Instead, it’s just a way for me to keep things from getting too tech-heavy for what really is a “slice of life” kind of journal. The rule of thumb will be that anything more about programming in Happiest Geek and the rest goes into AccordionGuy. Some stories are going to straddle the line between “slice-of-life” and programming (for example, today’s post); in those cases, I’ll make a judgement call. You won’t miss a thing if decide to bookmark only this blog; since I consider The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century to be the “main” blog, I’ll post a link to any Happiest Geek postings here.

As for the title of the blog, I’ve got to hand it to Cory Doctorow for coming up with that one. He’s often used it to descri himself, and he recently used it to describe me. I thought it was a fitting title for the blog, and since I couldn’t think of any decent titles (“Actually, AccordionGuy does have a day job”, “Yet another goddamned programmer’s soapbox for bitching”, “Reading this blog is like pissing in OpenCola’s mouth”), I went with that one.

Radio silence

Internet radio stations aren’t broadcasting today. It’s their “mayday” (pun intended) to the public. In three weeks, the Librarian of Congress will announce whether or not they have decided to follow the CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel) recommendations for unfairly high royalty rates and draconian listener-tracking. In case you were wondering, the people behind CARP were the RIAA and the record companies, who’d love nothing better than to make it prohibitively expensive to start an independent Internet radio station. That would clear the way for the record companies to provide you with subscription-based services, allowing them to charge you several times for the same music.

Want details? Check out SaveInternetRadio.org.

For the love of music, please act quickly.

Big Karma sticks it to Big Content™

Back in February, I wrote about a speech made by NARAS President and CEO Michael Greene entitled The Insidious Virus of Illegal Music Downloading. In this speech, which was delivered at the Grammy Awards, he blamed file-sharing for the music industry’s woes and stepped into the realm of crazed hyperbole when he called the matter of file sharing a life-and-death issue. You might also remember that I had this little message for Greene:

Mr. Greene, I respectfully suggest that you stop harassing the customers, and while you’re at it, stop harassing your own executives too.

Good news, kids. Greene’s out of a job, having stepped down from his position in disgrace.

First, there’s the matter of the sexual harassment settlement, for which a female employee of Greene’s was paid $650,000 rather than face a potentially damaging lawsuit. Six other women in his employ have filed similar complaints, and some of these cases have alos been settled out of court.

Then there’s the MusiCares scandal. MusiCares is a classic “aren’t we wonderful people?” project. Its purpose is to provide medical and financial help for ailing or indigent musicians. The problem is that only 10% of the money raised actually went to ailing and indigent musicians. The rest of the money seems to have gone to “other expenses”. The Los Angeles Times did a story on this fiasco that led to both a suit by NARAS against the Times and an IRS investigation. In light of the pious “we’re trying to help the musicians and you file-sharers are robbing them” stance, this is downright hypocritical.

I think a little schadenfreude is in order here. Let’s dance around a Maypole and pray that Hillary Rosen gets caught in a very embarassing “Mardi Gras Girls Gone Wild With Barnyard Animals” video.

Good riddance.

Recommended Reading

CNN: Grammy Boss Resigns Amid Controversy

E! Online News: Grammy Boss Resigns

MediaLife Magazine: Grammy-meister is goosed out

Los Angeles Times: Grammy in Transition After Greene Resigns, Greene Out As President of Grammys and Grammy Chief’s Pay: $1.5 million.

Please tell me you know the correct answers to these questions…

True or false?

a) Lasers work by focusing sound waves. (False. Lasers focus light.) 45 percent of the people who were asked this by the National Science Foundation got this one right.

b) Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria. (False.) 51 percent.

c) The universe began with a huge explosion. (True, according to the “Big Bang” theory widely accepted by scientists, but dismissed by some religious leaders.) 33 percent.

d) The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. (False. Dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans appeared.) 48 percent.

e) Human beings developed from earlier species of animals. (True, according to the theory of evolution, which is accepted by the majority of scientists, but not by many religious leaders.) 53 percent.

According to the National Science Foundation, Americans are in pretty sad shape in terms of general scientific knowledge. They also report that while doctors and scientists are held in high esteem, belief in pseudoscience is “widespread and growing”.

Here’s a little good news from the study:

In contrast to two years ago, when half of those surveyed were wrong, a majority, 54 percent, answered correctly when asked how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. (One year.)

You can read the full story here.