Via Gizmodo, a guide on how to hack the Microsoft Zune so that songs shared over WiFi don’t share their DRM, too. It ain’t easy, though, and involves the always-dangerous regedit. And if you ask me, it looks like a very clunky process. As one user points out: “Rename-upload-share-download-rename requiring 2 computers and 2 zunes is nothing more than an experiment without practical use. Just like somebody said, share a flashdrive already, ok? There are easier ways to share whatever files.”
I have never given this much thought, but that’s why I’m not in the manners business. (Cory’s the polite one at One LR Plaza.) Apparently there is a whole lot of thought going in to how we should end our emails. Generally speaking, I don’t bother with a “Love, Steve” or “Sincerely, Steve” or even “Bugger Off, Steve.” Emails are informal. But when they call for a certain formality, I tend to fall back on “Best” or “Sincerely.” Apparently, those are too cold. How do you end your emails? Love, With All Sincerity, Steve.
Quite the quote from Bob Garfield, editor at large of Advertising Age, in a story he wrote for Wired Magazine about online video:
Without being overly simplistic or melodramatic, the state of the Old Commercial Broadcasting Model can be summarized like this: a spiraling vortex of ruin. Fragmentation has decimated audiences, viewers who do watch are skipping commercials, advertisers are therefore fleeing, the revenue for underwriting new content is therefore flatlining, program quality is therefore suffering (Dancing With the Stars. QED), which will lead to ever more viewer defection, which will lead to ever more advertiser defection, and so on.
Perhaps a little melodramatic, but he does a nice job summarizing the challenges of monetizing online video in the story.
A strange standoff at the Miami Herald is over, apparently safely, after about three hours today. The paper’s site, Miami.com, managed to cover the standoff even though the Herald building was evacuated. Jose Verela, a freelance cartoonist for El Nuevo Herald (owned by the Miami Herald) who claimed the paper censored his work, entered the building with a gun and took over an editor’s office. The building was evacuated, and nobody was hurt. Police negotiated a peaceful end to the standoff. The Miami Herald website did a great job updating the story and even put up a bunch of examples of Varela’s work, well before the standoff ended.
A little dessert for you, as you finish your turkey meal: the famous WKRP stunt, the Thanksgiving Turkey Drop. (And ask yourself if it’s any sillier than any other sweeps stunt you’ve seen lately.) Happy Thanksgiving. We’re thankful for the smartest readers online. - Cory, Steve, Stephen, David & Richard.
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”