‘A blog devoted to the RIAA’s lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people.’
It’s not often that I find lawyers (that I’m not paying) with whom I agree. These guys are the exception.
More on HDCP, DRM and HD playback within WIndows Vista
It seems that ATI and nVidia have been using ‘marketing speak’ (read: lying) about HDCP support in their current line of cards/chipsets. It seems that none of the shipping cards support HDCP despite indications on the manuf. web sites, and on the retail boxes that they do. <sigh>
What is HDCP you ask? HDPC, or High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, is a specificiation to control digital audio and video content as it is sent accross DVI or HDMI connections. Basically, it’s DRM at the physical layer. You will need an HDCP complaint video card to view HD, Blu-Ray or HD-DVD content on your shiny new Vista PC. Oh, and your display device (monitor, Plasma TV, LCD TV, projector) will need to be HDCP compliant as well.
When will it end? Will I have to provide a retina scan to view my time-shifted recordings of Battlestar Galactica? DNA samples to prove that I am ‘worthy’ to watch Sopranos? Hollywood truely does hate me.
Oh, and don’t think the folks in the music industry like me either. The RIAA has recently stated that I can not resell legally purchased digital tracks, nor can I rip my legally purchased CDs to a portable player. Let’s just watch them try to stop me.
A good intro to VCs
I’ve been a part of several startups and I’ve been on the venture capital (VC) roller-coaster. This post provides a good background on the various types of VCs and some insight on what motivates them. A good read.
Fractals of Change: VC Primer from an Entrepreneur.s POV . Source of Funds
A great resource for Asterisk@Home
This site has a ton of great hints/tips/projects utilziing the Asterisk open-source VoIP PBX project.
I found the series on using your bluetooth headset/handset as a ‘presence’ detector especially intersting. It explains how to use this detector to route your calls automatically based on your presence or absence. Trécool.
Nerd Vittles » 50 Great Halftime Projects Using Your Free Asterisk@Home PBX
If it only made coffee…
Pamela is a ‘virtual assistant’ for Skype. There is a basic freeware version that provides quite a few usefull features, including auto answer, voice mail (Hurray!) and auto-reply to chat requests. I’m downloading it as I type this post; more later.
Pamela feature comparison | Free voice mail software and more for Skype by Pamela-Systems
If only more VCs (and investors) thought this way…
One of the scariest phrases/clichéI hear in board meetings and conversations among VCs is .we need a suit to run this company. or its cousin .we need a suit to take this company public.. It is so scary because so many suits are empty.
All it takes is one company destroyed by an empty suit to make you realize that it.s what is in the head and the heart that matters not what kind of clothes the person wears.
This guy (Fred Wilson from FlatIron Partners in NYC) is my new hero. It doesn’t hurt that they are an investor in what might actually save broadcast radio, HD (Digital) Radio. That, and he specifically mentions facial hair, something near and dear to my chin, in his list of things cliche VCs don’t want to find on people running companies.