Sony’s tail is wagging the whole damn dog

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Sony used to rule the world in personal electronics. We all remember that (if you don’t, you’re too young to read this site, sonny). In the digital audio world, though, they’ve been a complete also-ran, if even that. The reason, say some, is their holdings in entertainment: the music industry folks at Sony won’t let them release something simple and good like an iPod because they fear digital audio and buy into the music industry’s line that it’s downloading, not crappy artists, that are destroying the label system.

Consequently, they keep trying to sell consumers on devices that play only Sony’s own proprietary format, and that impose DRM restrictions on music you already own (i.e., you rip your CD to play on your Sony device, and there’s a limit to what you can do with that digital file; no such limit exists with virtually any other music format as long as we’re talking about music you rip yourself from CDs).

Now, if we looked at Sony’s bottom line and saw that the entertainment lines of business were contributing some huge chunk to Sony’s net profits, this could conceivably make sense (well, maybe not; it’s probably better to make no digital player at all than to make one as widely ridiculed as their efforts have been). But that’s not the case: Sony Electronics is the 500-pound gorilla on the balance sheet, so by rights they ought to be working their Walkman-era magic on the whole market space. But they’re not. And it’s not changing, either. (More here and here.)

I don’t understand what drives firms with a history of good products to suddenly create unrepentantly half-ass products, but it’s certainly bewildering (see also Motorola; Nokia came on the scene with a dramatically better product when the world was shifting to digital cell phones in the late 90s, and Motorola has done essentially nothing to counter the Finns’ momentum. A V60 is within a rounding error of a mid-nineties flip-phone in terms of user experience, for crying out loud, and it shows in Motorola’s dwindling market share.)

We wish he’d just say what he means, and not beat around the Bush

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Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek vis MSNBC:

The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been “We’re at war; all these niceties will have to wait.” As a result, we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure. If the world is not to be trusted in these dangerous times, key agencies of the American government, like the State Department, are to be trusted even less. Congress is barely informed, even on issues on which its “advise and consent” are constitutionally mandated. Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving Iraq postwartroop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Sistani AliWashington’s assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world. Whether he wins or loses in November, George W. Bush’s legacy is now clear: the creation of a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Americanism around the globe. I’m sure he takes full responsibility.

We can’t help but admire the sheer bullheaded stupidity of this

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A recent Pentagon email orders military personnel not to read the widely-published Taguba report.

Wow.

Less funny and more disturbing, though, is the claim (not yet verified) that Halliburton is yanking email access from our Iraqi installations. I have yet to see this from a traditional news outlet, but it’s come up on two different commentary blogs so far (Kathryn Cramer and Daily Kos). I wouldn’t mention it at all, except it makes sense: the damning photos that took the Abu Grahaib scandal over the top were digital, taken not by press corps photographers but by the soldiers themselves, and then circulated by email. Food for thought, at least.

In which we discuss things best left undiscussed

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The Worm Within is a hilarious, if somewhat overly frank, account of what happens if you manage to acquire a tapeworm. In Belgium. Not that I think Belgium has any culpability here, mind you, odd menu choices aside.

The article has been widely blogged this week, I’ll admit; I cribbed it from Laura.

(Now: my father was a veterinarian; while he did treat dogs and cats similarly afflicted on a regular basis, I have no recollection of any event resembling the climax of this poor chap’s tale.)

Something has survived

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It’s been said several times that “the best operating system to use is the one you like, unless that operating system is VMS.” It’s funny, and especially snarky, and it contains at least a glimmer of truth; VMS has been essentially abandoned in the last 15 or so years. In my professional computing life, I’ve only worked in one place that used it: TeleCheck. They did so for very good reasons, of course; when they built their all-proprietary, custom system, VMS and Vax/Alpha hardware provided something not easily found on other platforms: failover via clustering. That VMS’ other great feature, versioning built right into the file system, gave us an easy way to retreat from buggy upgrades was just icing on the cake.

Still, with the rise of cheap, commodity hardware, the place in the world for the Digital Vax and Alpha machines dwindled. The rise of Unix, then NT, and then Linux left VMS alone and behind. Windows servers look like your desktop, and Unixy servers all look more or less the same, but takes a whole different skillset to manage a cluster of Alphas — and it’s a skillset that is in short supply, notwithstanding the oft-cited trusim that the last COBOL programmer will be able to name his price.

I last saw VMS in 1997, which is far later than most folks. I left TeleCheck and joined the boom, and spent my time on Solaris and Aix servers, with the occasional and ill-advised Windows NT box thrown in for variety. (Since then IBM has thrown in its lot with Linux, and Sun is clearly circling the drain, leaving Windows and Linux almost alone in the server market.) I assumed, in the years since then, that VMS had gone the way of all flesh, especially after Microsoft made much noise about its NT-on-Alphas move (hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time; ultimately, I think I only ever saw one Alpha running NT, and it was run by the single least competant big-company IT man I ever saw (no, I won’t tell you the client [HDANCN?])).

All of this is just background, of course, to this story. See, Compaq and Digital merged, and then HP and Compaq merged, and now it comes to this.

TechTV on the coming Ashcroft Porn War

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Quoth Gina Lynn:

Mrs. Ashcroft should tie her husband up in front of a sinfully large television and make him watch “Footloose.” While drinking an Irish coffee. I don’t care where you identify yourself on the political or religious spectrum. Having Ashcroft in your bedroom is an intrusion you should not have to put up with. Indeed, I’m sorry I even planted the image in your head. Ew.

Full story here.

In which the French contemplate posthumous eviction

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Paris’ Pere Lachaise would like to show Jim Morrison the door, but they’ve wanted to do this for years. We visited in 1995, and found his gravesite festooned with flowers, cigarettes, condoms, whisky, joints, and hippies.

Of course, Oscar Wilde’s grave is “decorated” as well, so there you go. Lachaise is huge, too; I’d tell you how long it took us to find Jim, but that would be embarrassing.

On the off chance you didn’t realize how evil PATRIOT is

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The ACLU filed suit a few weeks ago challenging the FBI’s methods of obtaining some business records, but provisions of the act itself prevented them from announcing the suit.

“It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court,” Ann Beeson, the ACLU’s associate legal director, said in a statement. “President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it.”

(WaPo story; use nogators@nogators.com / nogators for access.)

Having eaten there, I’m in no way surprised

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Restaurant Magazine has announced its ’50 Best Restaurants in the World,’ and for the second year running, Thomas Keller’s French Laundry took the top prize.

Other US notables include five New York establishments, none of which are surprising: Gramercy Tavern (No. 11, also singled out as a great value), Daniel (12), Jean Georges (18), Balthazar (40), and Craft (44). American cuisine matriarch Alice Waters isn’t neglected, either, but we expected her influential Berkeley bistro Chez Panisse would come in higher than 37 (or at least higher than LA’s Spago, at 35). Our Jackson office will be pleased to note the inclusion of Charlie Trotter’s eponymous eaterie in Chicago (32), which also has the distinction of being the only listed American restaurant not in California or New York.

Of course, I’m sure there’s no reason to worry about this

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It’s not news that Bush has finally agreed to testify in front of the 9/11 commission. What you may not know the conditions for said testimony, among them:

  • Bush and Cheney will appear and be questioned together;
  • Said questioning will be behind closed doors;
  • No transcript or recording will be made; and
  • Neither official will be under oath.

But don’t worry about that last part. Scott McClellan has already assured us that they will “tell it exactly how it happened.”

Right, Scott. Right.

Because, you know, sometimes they get cold. Or maybe because some people want them furry. We don’t know.

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In New Zealand, you can buy possum fur nipple warmers.

We know what you’re thinking, though. “But Uncle Heathen, if I wear those, they won’t match my panties!” You’re fashion conscious. Of course you are. And you should be. Fortunately, the Kiwis have that covered, too.

(Links are to images only, since the website won’t allow bookmarks to specific products; the store link is here.)