Warner Home Entertainment has a new plan for how consumers can easily and safely — and affordably! — convert their DVDs to digital files for use on other devices! Let us rejoice!

Public Knowledge has the punchline and a takedown, because this approach is so hilariously far of the mark as to make us wonder if it’s some sort of performance art.

For the lazy (and who among Heathen Nation isn’t?), here’s their plan:

1. Have DVD
2. Drive to local brick-and-mortar store offering “Disc to Digital” services
3. Pay shop for conversion
4. Hope conversation clerk knows what the hell they’re doing
5. Wait for conversion
6. Receive digital copy almost certainly locked so as to play only on studio-approved devices
7. Drive home
8. Hope it works

What people are actually already doing, of course, is somewhat simpler:

1. Have DVD
2. Download free software
3. Run conversion to commonly accepted format for use on laptop, iPad, etc. without regard to studio preferences, and without having to pay any more money.

The studios, of course, hate that this second alternative exists, and that people do it all the time despite the fact that it’s technically illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

It seems unlikely that “Disc to Digital” will be very successful, but I could be wrong. Some people are voting for Santorum, after all.

Somehow, Tyrese Gibson came across an email address he thought was for the ex-girlfriend of Kanye West, when in fact it belonged to and entirely different Amber. Madcap hilarity does in fact ensue.

…that I whiffed a golden opportunity yesterday re: the deaths of certain jackasses, but in truth I was just super busy.

We are better off without the likes of Andrew Breitbart on this earth, and who knows? Maybe God agreed. Breitbart created controversies for personal gain by selectively and dishonestly editing videotapes, and then calling it “journalism.” He was more interested in personal enrichment and a broken, fundamentally selfish and un-American ideology than in anything else. I was criticized in private correspondence yesterday for dancing on his grave, but the likes of Breitbart are a cancer on American discourse. He and his ilk encouraged the worst impulses of their audience and, in so doing, led them to false conclusions as a party trick. To be worthy of the title “journalist,” you need to be working to inform and educate the public. What Breitbart did was sick, craven manipulation designed to float his own boat and aid his ideological fellow travelers, and he did it in a way that makes Murdoch’s Fox look subtle.

I am sad for his family, and whatever friends he may have had. I am sad he made the choice to use what was clearly an exemplary intellect in such a morally bankrupt way. I am sad that his financial success means we will see more of this kind of media hooliganism, not less.

But I am absolutely not sad that he will make no more such noise.

Every time I hear about another social network I “need” to check out, I roll my eyes a little. Granted, by writing here I maintain a pretty rich online presence, and things like Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., are first and foremost about allowing people too untechnical to create a real blog some level of access in this still-new medium, so to a first approximation I probably should just welcome all these new tools. But who has the time?

The truly eye-rolly thing is that there are some folks who somehow insist they’re participating meaningfully in so many of these networks as to defy belief. Really? You maintain a blog, a Twitter feed, a Facebook wall, a Tumblr, and post 10 shots a day to Instagram? How, exactly? (And if the answer is “I put the same content on all of them,” well, what’s the point?)

So let’s just say that this little parody hits me exactly right, and if you share my view on these things, it may please you as well.

Via Brent Simmons. Even better is the beneficiary of the joke, btw.

(For my part, I do Twitter and Heathen almost exclusively. I’m on Facebook, but only minimally, and mostly at this point to easily communicate with family.)

Ze Frank is Bringing Back The Show.

Confused? Don’t know what this is? You’re in for a treat. Basically, Ze Frank did a brief online episode of commentary, music, comedy and general brilliance every weekday between 17 March 2006 and 17 March 2007. I linked to him often in that year. Now he wants to do some more. This is a good idea.

This is kind of huge. Basically, NPR is walking away from the whole bullshit “teach the controversy” style of reporting that refuses to make any judgements about arguments. You know what I mean: stories that end with the intellectual equivalent of “while sources at the Vatican insist scripture shows the Earth is the center of the universe”.

A journalist’s job isn’t to report what’s being said. It’s entirely possible one side really IS demonstrably full of shit; in fact, in American politics, it’s quite often the case, and quite often the Republicans doing the lying. And the only reason they get away with it is because news orgs are afraid to call them on their shit for fear of being branded “liberal” by Fox and its fellow-travelers.

Even NPR has been taken in by this false equivalency doctrine in the past; no more:

In all our stories, especially matters of controversy, we strive to consider the strongest arguments we can find on all sides, seeking to deliver both nuance and clarity. Our goal is not to please those whom we report on or to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth.

and

At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly.

I’m glad they’re returning to journalism. Or, as certain numbskull NYTimes editors called it, “vigilanteism for facts.”

MeFi points us to this post at Jezebel, about some rich alumna’s letter to the Smith College newspaper complaining about all the poor, nonwhite, lesbian students that are there now.

No, really. I’m not making this up. The letter closes with this:

I can tell you that the days of white, wealthy, upper-class students from prep schools in cashmere coats and pearls who marry Amherst men are over. This is unfortunate because it is this demographic that puts their name on buildings, donates great art and subsidizes scholarships.

Seriously.

Anyway, madcap hilarity ensues, predictably, but the single absolute best part is this comment at Jezebel itself that all by itself manages to redeem blog comments as a concept across the board:

Dear Place I Spent My Youth,

Things are not as good as they were when I was young, because my youth was the Best Time Ever.

I would like the world to reward me for my circumstances, despite the fact that I had nothing to do with them. They are still mine and I demand validation for them. Life is a game I won it, can’t you see that? Everyone loves me, or is intimidated by me, which means that everything is the way it should be.

The fact that you have shown approval to people who do not look like me, act like me, and are clearly not Life Winners like me hurts my feelings. Make them go away and restore my sense of superiority.

If you carry on including people based on their ability to thrive in an academic environment instead of their upper-class status, I will no longer be able to lord my credentials over other people. This will not stand.

Keep putting the cunt in country club,
Selfish Racist Homophobic Narcissist

That, gentle heathen, is a burn.