Ditch iTunes - Use Amazon MP3

So there are a lot of people out there who are simply unfamiliar with their options in online music purchasing. So I thought I'd write this little post to explain why you should stop using iTunes and start using Amazon MP3.

So, I've been a huge detester of iTunes ever since it started. The purchases were heavily DRM encumbered (until recently you can pay more for iTunes plus, non-DRM items), the software was hugely bloated, and Apple makes no attempt to support Linux with iTunes or iPod products. (In fact they have previously gone out of their way to make iPod products more difficult to support in Linux).

So for the longest time I got my music from such sites as mp3.com and all of its later reincarnations, like the current mp3fiesta.com. The three reasons being:

1. The music comes in whatever format I want (including FLAC, which is a lossless format).
2. The music is completely DRM free, I get to decide when, where, how, and what I do with my music, forever.
3. The interface is a simple web interface that does not require I download and use some gigantic bloated piece of software.

Until recently there was no way to get any of those three reasons satisfied by a US company. (I don't want to get into the legality of mp3*.com sites, which the RIAA seems to only dislike because the RIAA doesn't control it. The RIAA argues that mp3*.com doesn't pay royalties to the artists, however mp3*.com has always told the RIAA to simply sign the papers so that mp3*.com would be allowed to send the royalties, and the RIAA refuses to do so. So it's like me complaining that you owe me money, but every time you try to give it to me I say "I don't want it.")

Anyways, as I was saying, there was no US option to get any of those 3 requirements. The Amazon MP3 service, however, at least covers options 2 and 3. They offer all of their music (at often less than iTunes prices) in the simple MP3 format. There is zero, nil, nada, DRM attached to the files. You can do anything you want with them, forever. If you wonder why I add the clause of "forever" you should read up on what happens when a DRM-ed service goes out of business: for example: Yahoo! music.

Amazon also allows you to choose whether you want to download their program which provides a cleaner interface to the music system, but is not required. You can still download songs straight through your browser. Also, Amazon not only "supports Linux" with the downloader program, but they really support Linux. When you go to the download page, and their site identifies your OS as Linux they provide you with options for four different distributions to make sure things go smoothly for you. The four options currently are Ubuntu 7.10, Debian 4, Fedora 8, and OpenSuSe 10.3. Below the download links there are separate instructions for each distribution, and then complete uninstall instructions as well.

I've had mixed feelings about Amazon in general in the past. I still remember the days when they were a bookstore and that was it. However, having learned about their DRM-less MP3 service which gives me 2 out of 3 of my requirements they have jumped a few notches in my book.

Move your purchases to the DRM-free system and use your money to show the companies that you don't like being told what you can or can't do with the things you purchase. I've said it on here before, and I'll say it again. Voting only counts when you do it with your money.

100% Guaranteed Method to Never get a Speeding Ticket

This revolutionary new idea has come straight from the think-tank to you at absolutely no cost! A radical new way of dealing with police officers that will guarantee that you never get another speeding ticket.

If you use our patented technique, described below, and get a ticket we will pay your ticket for you and any increase in your insurance premiums for up to one full year. You read that correctly, we will not only pay your ticket, but also any increase in your insurance premiums.

This method is approved and recommended by not only the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but also by every single Police Department in the country. We've been testing this incredible new tactic for over 5 years with a 100% success rate. And now we give it to you completely free.

Many people have been skeptical of our claims, as you should be. It sounds too good to be true, and most things that sound too good to be true, are too good to be true. But this is the absolute truth, it's 100% free, so try it out yourself and see that we're not lying. Then tell your friends.

So, are you ready to hear what it is?

This is it, this is our incredible new method: Drive at or below the speed limit. See, it's so simple, don't break the law, follow the posted speed limit and you will never get another speeding ticket again.


Ok, you weren't very excited to hear that were you? Well, that's too bad.

On second thought, I should have told people that they will receive this revolutionary new idea after sending me a small payment of $10 to cover publication and shipping costs... I probably could have made a fortune since people are so stupidly desperate to find ways to break the law and get away with it.

Random Poetry

Here are some random lines I wrote at some point. I found them on a piece of paper that came out of my church stuff, so I must have written them while bored at church at some point. I usually like to keep track of the dates that I write stuff, but I have no idea on this, sometime between September 2007 and April 2008. The second one can certainly use some polish, but I like them both anyways:

Untitled 1:
A cold night
The white dust falls to the ground
Silence encompasses my soul
Here I am, alone


Untitled 2:
It doesn't matter where you are today
It only matters that you're far away
Why did it take so long to meet you?
I am here, but you are elsewhere
and so we talk from afar.
The words I say travel long to touch you
Can you feel my voice in their form?

Chicago

I've been in Chicago all of this week.

Here are some random thoughts to consider.

When the counter at a fast-food restaurant is fitted from counter to ceiling with bullet-proof glass, should you be worried?

Chicagoans are actually fairly nice in general, you just have to realize that they have a Chicago attitude, and that attitude can be misinterpreted as being mean.

Conferences should not be held in areas that have little food available. Or in areas where the concierge recommends not walking around in the neighborhoods around the hotel/conference center.

Cute girls at CS conferences get a lot of attention regardless of what they're presenting or promoting.

I want to build automatic tour guides for BYU. You know the people that drive the golf carts around and talk about stuff? Those can be easily automated, and a computerized version would actually be much more helpful by providing inside views of buildings, localized overhead mapping, varying levels of details driven by the users, etc. I think it would be an incredibly fun project.

Ethiopian food is unique, but somewhat not the most exciting meal.

The nerd level of a CS conference is rather intense, but the interesting thing is the nerdiness involves people getting into in depth discussions about their cutting edge research. Most of the people here are either PhD's, or in the process of obtaining Master or Doctorate degrees.

Senses of Summer-- Tagged

Alishka tagged me, so here goes:

List the things you love about summer for each of the five senses and tag five people at the end. I'm just going to keep each category to a single item, because I'm feeling lazy.

Taste: S'Mores

Touch: An Ultimate disc. (aka Frisbee®)

Sight: Sunlight in much larger quantities.

Smell: Campfires.

Auditory: Train whistles at night.

Attention to the following 5, you have been tagged: Enigmatic, Krishna, Lavish, Olympus, hmmm... I apparently don't know enough people that I think actually read my blog. So, feel free to add yourself as the fifth person if you're reading this.

Resolution

The situation with the problem roommate has been (almost) entirely resolved. I would like to make one solid comment about something I discovered about myself in this process: If you screw with my ability to relax, feel comfortable, and feel safe in my home I will become very vindictive and wish harm upon you and your property. I'm fairly confident that most people that know me would consider me to be a nice guy, laid back, fairly easy going. But if you screw with my home I will become ruthless. I absolutely will not tolerate having my home ruined.

On Sunday afternoon I was sitting in my living room reading a book. My mom called me and I was thus talking to her. As I was in the process of relaying the events that had happened thus far his wife walks in the front door holding his key. Big no-no. The fact that he gave her his key is unacceptable, and then for her to just walk in is worse. She "just wants to come and use the laundry facilities" we have. I told her that I needed to leave (to go to ward break-the-fast) and that I wasn't comfortable with her being in our house alone. After telling me to just wait a few minutes, I told her that I couldn't because I needed to leave immediately (it was already 3:56 for 4:00 break-the-fast).
Then her disgusting, belligerent attitude comes pouring out. Basically telling me that I was out of line to ask her to leave my house. (Mind you my mom is listening to the whole exchange on the phone still). I get fed up with being polite and simply tell her to get out of my house. I tell her straight out that she is not welcome in my house and never has been and that her behavior with respect to my house has been unacceptable. She starts trying to talk back to me, multiple times, each time I cut her off and tell her to, "Leave. Now. Get. Out. Of. My. House".

Finally she steps out of the door and again begins trying to tell me off, to which I simply closed and locked the door. I had told her that she is not welcome, management says she's not allowed in the house, and that if I saw her in the house again I would call the police. Of course now I was afraid that if I left she would immediately let herself back in, but she apparently wasn't that stupid.

However, the next day Papa Funk came down stairs to find her standing in the kitchen! Apparently the roommate continues to think that he will be able to just sneak her into the house when he thinks we're not home. They left when they saw him. They have since come back a number of times, each time with her just coming in even when we're there. It's absolutely incredible the disrespect they have for our home. We spoke to management who told them they needed to have the rest of their stuff removed by Monday evening.
(See, he already has a contract somewhere else and has been moving stuff out for the past 5 days, but continues to use our stuff when it's convenient for him. For example, using our dishes and leaving them dirty on the counter, or pouring the remains of his cereal onto the counter. Or using the laundry stuff, including my dryer sheets and detergent, because it's more convenient apparently. Oh, and they took my Chili Powder! My Chili Powder! Come On! It's $4 worth of spices, was it really necessary to steal it?)

So today, after Papa Funk came home from work to find the front door left wide open (while the swamp cooler was running and they were nowhere to be found, possibly for hours) we decided to finish the job ourselves. We told management that we wanted the locks changed once they were moved out. They had left a vacuum cleaner and a piece of furniture in the house still. So we moved those items outside to the side of the house and changed the locks ourselves.

We were just sick and tired of having to worry about our stuff being gone every time we left the house, or not being able to sit in our own home and read a book without her coming in and arguing with us. So it's done now. They have nothing left inside the house and the locks have been changed, we'll simply give the new keys to management and call it finished. The more vindictive part of me really wanted to simply toss the vacuum and furniture in a dumpster and say, "Well, when we got home the door was left open, so I guess someone stole them, sorry, that's why we close and lock the doors when we leave the house." But Papa Funk told me that would be too vindictive, so we didn't.

The moral of the story is, as I said:
"Don't screw with my home, (fill_in_the_blank)!"

Well, Duh! FISA Bill

Anyone that pays any attention to national news knows that Congress is in the process of passing a bill which will grant immunity to the telecom companies that helped the Bush administration run illegal wiretaps on US citizens. The purpose of the bill is to provide reforms to the FISA court system. Bush has, several times, proclaimed that the FISA reforms in this bill are absolutely vital to the security of this country and must be passed.

However, I read a very interesting point on this subject just now.

From user Smidge204 on Slashdot:

Bush is unwilling to sign FISA without telecom immunity and has actually pocket-vetoed the same bill before because it lacked that immunity.

And yet Bush and most Republicans cry out that FISA is absolutely vital to protecting our country.

This leads us to one of two possibilities:

1) Bush feels that protecting the telecoms are more important than protecting the country, since he is willing to let us go without a revised FISA bill unless we give the telecoms what thy want.

2) The FISA bill is not actually that important for national security, but is more or less a trojan horse for covering their collective asses.

I suppose both are possible, and not mutually exclusive, but faced with this choice I find it far to unsettling that Bush would literally put our whole country at risk (as he himself claims FISA is that important) for the sake of a few dozen CEOs.
=Smidge=

That thought process smacked me in the face as "Well, Duh!" If those FISA reforms really are that vital to the security of our country then the first bill that Congress passed should have become law as quickly as possible. Instead Bush pocket-vetoed it and demanded that immunity for the telecoms be added. As Smidge points out this means either that protecting the telecoms is more important than our national security or/and the FISA reforms aren't really that important.

That's just disgustingly sad.