because ... well ... why not ...?

it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

Tuesday, June 27th

_22:23PM

Mastermind:

Once again, I'm becoming more familiar with the insides of my BetaSP tape decks than I'd like. For multi-thousand-dollar machines designed for broadcast and professional use, you'd think they'd run longer without developing problems. I guess Sony figured it was easiest just to build them with sliding rack-mount rails so you could pop them out of the rack, turn two screws, and repair them without disconnecting all the cables and stuff. Building them so they wouldn't need to be popped out of the rack and have those two screws turned so often would have been a lot more challenging.

I guess.

Still, the fact that I am giving the beta decks a workout is a good sign, because they don't get used much unless I'm doing something at least a little bit interesting: DVD authoring, making TV commercials, or--as in this case--selling foreign movie rights and cranking out the master tapes.

In the US, most places would be using DigiBeta for their standard-definition masters, but a lot of the world still uses BetaSP. That's easier for me, anyway, since I have the SP decks on hand, but for DigiBeta work, I still have to outsource to a service house or rent a deck to do the work here, something ever so much more difficult than it ought to be, given that the editing software I now use *only* works under WindowsXP, while the SDI interface cards I have require drivers that absolutely *won't* work under WindowsXP. Whee!

Trouble is that it's late enough in the day when it comes to either WindowsXP and standard-definition video, that if I did grit my teeth and update everything yet again, by the time I'd gotten everything installed and the bugs worked out, it'd all be obsolete again and I'd need to do it all over.

Which will probably happen anyway, since everybody from Microsoft to the various hardware manufacturers are working their metaphorical tails off trying to come up with ways to make all existing and future video hardware and software that might possibly be used to edit high-definition video as balky and mutually incompatible as possible.

From my perspective, it seems like far, far more thought and effort goes into coming up with ways to make any new formats *not* work than to produce the best-quality and most accessible experience for the consumer.

The reason, as best I can tell, is that the major studios and record labels live in deathly fear that people will buy legitimate, licensed copies of their products instead of buying pirated copies or pirating them themselves, which, apparently, is their greatest wish.

For example, the other day I bought a copy of See You On the Other Side by the band Korn. As far as I knew, based on Amazon's description, it was an ordinary CD; the only warning I read in the description was "Explicit Lyrics." I can deal with that; I've survived worse things in life than a few four-letter words and generally those don't harm my playback equipment nor do they cause the CD to be incompatible with it.

So you can imagine my annoyance when I found that the CD in question was not a legitimately-authored, bona fide music CD, but a disc that deviated from the CD standard in ways designed to make it unplayable on many kinds of standard consumer equipment and that it contained malicious code designed to damage a computer used as a playback device.

Kind of like handing out apples with razor blades hidden in them for Halloween.

...maybe that's not the best analogy. The razor-laden-apple givers of urban legend don't add insult to injury by charging for them.

None of this, of course, would do anything to stop a pirate from making copies of the music on the album or stop a consumer from downloading or purchasing such pirated copies...but it does mean that anyone savvy enough to steal the recording would find themselves enjoying a substantially superior version, playable on all consumer equipment rather than just some, and playable on their computers without risk of screwing up their operating systems.

It's a tough choice, but in between tactics like this and RIAA's ongoing efforts to sue its customer base into oblivion, the record labels haven't merely abandoned the moral high ground, they're actively trying to blow it up.

And this diatribe is even brought to you by someone in the movie and music distribution business. I guess the major studios and labels have to be able to afford replacement parts for their mastering decks, too, but I really do think it's possible to pay the bills without resorting to that level of unethical behavior to do it.

Friday, June 2nd

_17:12PM

Baren von Munich-hausen:

Sure, you may be starting this month off thinking up exciting plans for your summer vacation, but what about your stuffed animals? Are they going to have to stay home another year while you're off whooping it up out on the beach or wherever it is that you go to do most of your whooping?

Well, now there's Teddy-in-Munich, a travel company specializing in delightful German vacations for all your stuffed and furry friends.

Well, *almost* all your stuffed-and-furry friends. They don't take stuffed animals bigger than 50cm or heavier than 5kg, and that old burrito you've forgotten about in the back of the fridge may qualify as stuffed-and-furry by now, but I'm guessing they wouldn't take that either.

Though I imagine the vacation photos of that burrito at various romantic spots around Munich would be interesting.

Lest you be concerned that your stuffed animals will just spend their time sitting around eating German sausages and drinking beer (with the unfortunate risk of exceeding the 5kg weight limit by the end of the trip and, thus, being unable to return home), Teddy-in-Munich offers numerous exciting activities including:

• A fishing course with the fishing license included
• A golf course with included certificate for playing on Golf courses
• A painting course for beginners and more advanced Teddies (The pictures can be taken home with you).
• Bungee Jumping
• Paragliding
• House Running

I'm not exactly sure what "house running" is, but it sounds physically challenging to me. I know I can get tired running a couple of miles while carrying even just a modest-sized mobile home, so any stuffed animal that can go for a jog carrying a house has my respect.

Hmmmm...I haven't been to Munich for a couple of years myself, and i must admit that their prices are cheaper than any of the tours I'd booked in the past. Wonder if I can trim down to under 5kg by the end of summer....

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