ryan.freebern.org

I’ve ranted in the past about how new music is largely overpriced when you buy it in physical form (i.e., a CD from a store). That rant mentions that I would feel much better if I was getting more for my money, and the example I used was Tori Amos’ Scarlet’s Walk limited edition. For $25, you get a whole lot more than just an album of music.

Well, my wife ordered Tori’s new album, The Beekeeper, and it arrived today. Once again, this is more than just an album. Along with the music CD is a DVD of music videos and a packet of wildflower seeds — creative and fun little additions that make the purchase price worth it.

So, props to Sony/BMG for going the extra mile to make this album special. (Jeers to them, though, for printing the FBI anti-piracy label directly on the CD, spoiling an otherwise beautiful design.)

Jason Kottke has decided to blog full-time and is hoping that his readers are generous enough that they’ll be able to cover his (relatively moderate) living expenses through micropayments. Wow. I am in awe of the sheer guts it must take to make a leap like this. I’m also madly jealous, since there’s nothing I want more than to get paid to spend my time on my own creative endeavours rather than the moneymaking endeavours of my employer.

A lot has been written and said about micropayments; BitPass has been making a relatively successful go at it for a while now. I’ve used voluntary micropayments in the past to make a few bucks via my LiveJournal web toys. I’m a big supporter of the idea that people should, instead of paying the arbitrary price that the creator (or marketer, or distributor, etc.) sets on something, pay what they feel it’s worth to them. Of course, this idea relies on the honesty of people in general. This probably makes me a sucker, but as John Quincy Adams said, “To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.”

I’ll be sending Jason a few bucks today, partly because I enjoy his work, but also because I want to see the concept of personal-value-based compensation become stronger. If I ever had the readership to undertake an endeavour like this, I’d want to know that there are people out there who, like me, are willing to help such an endeavour succeed.

Via Warren Ellis:

A test of the controversial US missile defence system failed on Sunday - the second time this has happened in recent months.

[...]

The MDA revealed on 14 January 2005 that this was caused by the interceptor’s internal safety system preventing lift-off.

If only every weapon contained an internal safety system like that…

Google launched a new tool today, Google Maps. Like its inferior predecessors MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps provides an interactive graphical map of any location in the U.S., but as usual, Google takes this idea and presents it in a powerful, streamlined package without all the cruft and crap that the others have.

After playing with it for a while today, I had the idea of incorporating local weather with the maps. Say you’re taking a day trip to a nearby place and you want to know if the weather’s nice. While you’re looking up the shortest route to get there, wouldn’t it be nice if you could pop up the local weather conditions and forecast at the same time?

I sent this suggestion to Google, but until they find the time to implement it, I’ve put together the following bookmarklet to help provide this sort of functionality. When you’re looking at a Google Maps result page and you click this bookmarklet, a link will be added to the right-hand panel, directly below the current address. Click that link and you’ll be taken to the Weather Underground page for that location.

To use the bookmarklet, simply drag and drop this link to your bookmark toolbar, or your bookmarks menu: Google Maps Weather. Then, next time you’re viewing a Google Maps result page, give it a try.

I’ve been hearing more and more about a new service, YouSendIt. It bills itself as a simple way to send people files that are too large for email to handle — up to 1GB. You enter an email address, upload a file, and the recipient is given a link (active for seven days) to download the file.

I don’t think I’ve actually heard of anyone using it for its intended purpose, however; everyone seems to be using it as a temporary host for mp3s that they want to share with friends. They upload the file, get the link themselves, and then post it on their weblog or IM it to everyone who wants it, and voilá, a new kind of filesharing.

When I first heard about people using the service this way, my immediate thought was that they must be crazy to just trust that the service provider won’t rat out copyright-infringers to the RIAA. Before making any judgments, though, I checked their website. Right on the top of the page is a link titled “your privacy is guaranteed.” That sounded promising.

Clicking the link and reading their actual privacy policy, however, tells another story:

IP addresses are logged [...]

We collect the e-mail addresses of YouSendIt Delivery recipients and senders [...]

We may disclose your information if necessary [...] Disclosure may be required by law or if we receive legal process.

They claim to guarantee your privacy, and then blatantly state that they log almost every bit of information that they receive and will gladly give it up if the RIAA comes knocking with a subpoena. This is crap. It almost smells like a filesharing sting operation. While many people I know are gladly going about sharing files with this service, I’m wary of doing so, and I urge anyone else with concern for their privacy to avoid it as well.