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I grew up in a pretty damn good period for video games, catching the dawn of the golden home video game age – the return of the Atari under the 2600 Jr moniker and the dawn of the 8-bit era. I stayed with consoles until I caught the dawn of the FPS on the PC. And thus began the fate of the PC gamer – the never ending cycle not of keeping up with the Joneses, but of continual hardware replacements to stay one step ahead of the graphics and processing arms race so that games run at a passable rate.

And man, that was a money suck. A fun one, but damned if it didn’t get expensive. So, as I grew into a poor twentysomething the console gaming fell by the wayside. Eventually, I moved back to consoles because a couple hundred bucks on a new console every five or six years is a lot easier to manage than a couple hundred bucks every year on a new video card.

And it looks like I got out right around the perfect time, because as PC game manufacturers have taken the normal methods of DRM – disc must be present, users must type in a special code during installation – to the illogical extreme.

In an effort to fight “piracy.” videogame publishers have adopted techniques that started with the game periodically checking into a remote server while playing to requiring a constant Internet connection *. And while that might not seem to bad on the surface, as just about everyone who wants broadband internet has it now, that means you can’t play when the internet is down. Or when you’re traveling. Or, worse, when the company you legally purchased your video game from decides that keeping that server – the one the game has to check in to – online is just too much money.

And publishers will eventually turn those servers off. All servers eventually get turned off. Or moved. This little fact of internet life means that a legally purchased game has an expiration date, after which it cannot be played again. However, the pirated version of game that came with a crack to route around the DRM scheme? That illegal version of the game will work forever.

What’s worse is, publishers typically don’t tell potential buyers that the game has an unplanned obsolescence date. I mean, why would they? Of course, as a potential video game buyer, this makes purchasing any video game either risky or research intensive. Buyers must either: read reviews, meet minimum standards and research a publisher’s DRM scheme or throw down $60 and take a gamble on a publisher treating the customers with at least some measure of respect.

The entire ordeal is so goddamn frustrating that I’ve got half a mind to chart out which publishers should be avoided and the respective titles, tossing the entire mess up on a website.

But I’ll probably just read a book instead.

*And we’re not just talking about multiplayer games. Major publishers are slapping this kind of DRM on single player games with no other online aspects.

What a day. Here’s a rundown.

Apple Announced iBooks2 and iBooks Author

The news came, as expected from early rumors, Apple was going to revamp their eBooks to support more interactive elements. The software is nice, feeling a lot like a robust Keynote that outputs Epub files. I haven’t had time to dig through the output code yet to see just how good it is (I have serious misgivings about code produced by WYSIWYG editors after seeing work done by Front Page and Dreamweaver). However, before jumping head long into pumping out books via iBooks Author, there’s some sneaky BS hidden in the EULA.

Perhaps people really did learn from the Human CentiPad episode of South Park?

Perry Out, Endorses Newt. Newt Attempted to Endorse The Wrong Open. Iowa Flipflops

Perry, after a lifetime of swearing he has never quit, well, quit. On his way out, he endorsed Gingrich. Almost at the same time, news leaked that Gingrich essentially asked his second wife to have an open marriage, admitting that he was sleeping with his now third-wife. And, 8 districts in Iowa’s votes showed up, switching the winner from Romney to Santorum. Fantastic.

Who Needs SOPA?

Remember on Wednesday when everyone really expressed their concern with the government attempting to enact Hollywood-written legislation which would allow for easy censoring of the internet? Well, the DOJ proved they don’t even need that just the very next day by taking down cyberlocker site MegaUpload, indicting 7 and arresting 4 individuals all the way in New Zealand.

So…if Hollywood needs new legislation because they can’t get rogue sites, I think reality showed that either they currently have those powers or they’ve got enough pull with the DOJ and DHS (by way of ICE) to carry out broadscale censorship without new laws.

At least Archer comes back tonight…

The idea is fairly simple, the patent has gotten so far away from its roots that it is now doing the exact opposite of what it was originally intended for – hindering business.

Source: http://frugaldad.com

I’m a fairly ardent media collector. My living room is walled by shelves which, from left to right, hold books, DVDs and CDs, each of which number in the hundreds of units.

However, as bandwidth has dropped to near-zero cost*, I have taken to streaming music. At first, streaming was just a means to listen to my music while at work. Then, streaming became a quick and easy means of new music discovery, where good albums would be either enjoyed until saturation or purchased if they were really good.

Eventually, streaming came home with me.

Now I pay for and use rdio and Pandora on both my work and home computers. I stream Pandora on my alarm clock and Boxee. Last.fm scrobbles the hell out of my 360. And I can’t even imagine downloading a podcast thanks to apps like NPR and Stitcher.

I’ve even worked myself into a new music discovery routine Tuesday through Thursday. rdio has a convenient New Release browsing option that rearranges itself based on popularity of new albums. I normally browse through on Tuesday and find albums of interest on the first four or so pages. I listen from back to front, as the most popular albums will be discovered and pushed to the front page by the end of the week.

But, today marked a change there. The new Snow Patrol album, which my girlfriend enjoyed, was available for streaming (and launched in the #1 slot on rdio) on Tuesday, was no long available for streaming on Wednesday.

Mind you, I know there are a lot of forces at play when it comes to copyright law and streaming licenses, but the whole “stream today, gone tomorrow” scenario smacks of a money grab. It’s not any different than windowing in the film or book industries – that is a means to erect an artificial barrier in an attempt to get the most money out of people possible.

And in the 21st Century where media converts on convenience over price, that’s just a douche move.

We already won the DRM war with music. How about the music industry not cripple the best alternative to piracy by playing games with streaming availability?

*except for mobile phone providers, who prefer to lower demand through fear of overage costs, rather than providing a compelling and rich bandwidth experience that would require, you know, building a realistic infrastructure.

Got the January GoodReads newsletter today, and as per usual, I scrolled through the new releases by genre only to be let down by what is currently being passed off as “fantasy.”

Skim these and meet me on the other side:

Shadow Heir by Richelle Mead

From the description, “The uneasy truce between her and her shape shifter ex-lover Kiyo is endangered by secrets he can’t–or won’t–reveal.”

Silver-Tongued Devil by Jaye Wells

From the description,”Now that the threat of war has passed, Sabina Kane is ready to focus on the future. Her relationship with Adam Lazarus is getting stronger and she’s helping her sister, Maisie, overcome the trauma of her captivity in New Orleans.”

Raven Cursed by Faith Hunter

From the description, “The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina, want to establish their own clan, but since they owe loyalty to the Master Vampire of New Orleans they must work out the terms with him.”

Sins of the Demon by Diana Rowland

From the description, “The homicide beat in Louisiana isn’t just terrifying, it’s demonic. Detective Kara Gilligan of the supernatural task force…”

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

From the description, “She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.”

Back? Okay, good. Did you catch the trend there? These aren’t fantasy books with tangential nods to the real world, they’re real world books with tangential nods (or thick gloopy swaths) of overlaid fantastic elements.

Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect to the authors of these books (and props for getting through the chain), but I am really disliking the current trend of fantasy that seems like it was put together with shovels.

The publishing industry likes to force some semblance of standardization amongst genres as well as creating finite sub genres (You know, like Supernatural Military Epic Fantasy), all in the name of making books easier to sell. However, when pushing books at the super genre level, can we at least get some damn variety in there?

I think we all know who to blame.

I don’t know exactly how you got to be the de facto copyright cops for the entertainment industry, but when you start putting out videos like this:

…you might want to make sure you’re not putting foot firmly in mouth. See, downloading illicit movies might cost that boom mike operator her job. But you know what certainly will? Reusing and recutting NYC’s anti-piracy PSA for your own benefit, thus denying a boom mike operator a job.

So…for the record, ICE has cost at least one boom mike operator a job. In the words of the video’s street huckster “you’re what’s wrong with everything.”

Man, I certainly hope ICE licensed that video. Wouldn’t it be ironic if they pirated and plagiarized an anti-piracy PSA?

Photo by Graham Biggs

After years of talk, the New York Times finally released details regarding their new pay wall yesterday. Despite receiving mixed reviews, I am failing to see how anyone could see the new Times plan as anything but a bad idea.

First, a little background. The New York Times has attempted a paywall before – and it failed miserably. So have other newspapers, and with the exception of publications that exist in specialized verticals (financials), no paywall has ever really survived. One noted paywall, the Long Island daily Newsday actually saw a mere 35 paying subscribers in its three month trial.

Granted, the new Times Paywall is less a wall and more a Byzantine collection of rules and exceptions that say if and when you can read a Times article.

Everyone gets 20 free articles a month. Links from social media sources and blogs and some search engines will be able to read the article regardless of how many other articles have been read. And readers will always have access to the front page of the site, front page of the sections and some of all the blogs and most of some of them.

Walls have it easy. The Times is putting a crap shoot and a curb between you and the content you want to read.

What’s worse is that there are so many loopholes that anyone with a passing interest in reading any article on the Times website really can. Which leaves paying for access to the website really as more of a punishment for being a less savvy internet user than something that bestows real value.

Of course, in its pricing scheme the all but admits that the website is a free bonus. How so? Well, there’s no way to buy access just to the website. You have to either pay $15 for a four week subscription to the website and the smartphone app, $20 for access to the website and the iPad app, or $35 for access to the web, smartphone and iPad app. The math behind that is crazy, but thankfully Wired already did it.

If A + B = $15 and A + C = $20 and A + B + C = $35, what does A equal?

That answer is 0.

Yes, the New York Times is saying that access to their website is essentially a giveaway value add, but you can’t have that value unless you’re a paying customer. At least not all the time. Well, you can have access when they feel like it.

Of course, nobody is saying that the Times website is worthless, least of all the advertisers. Numbers I’m seeing is that the site took in $300 million last year from ad impressions alone. But, the new pricing and access scheme concocted by the wizards at the Times feels oddly punitive especially when we consider the competitive landscape of publishing news online.

The issue facing the New York Times seems to be multifaceted, and the new paywall will do little to solve it. In fact, if the Times earns back the $40 million paywall investment within the next two years, I will be shocked.

Let’s look at the issue. First, the New York Times is not merely competing on a city or regional level. Hell, they’re not even competing on a national level. They are an international publication and they know this, as the equally vaunted and lauded paywall took effect today in Canada with the rest of world schedule to start on the 28th of this month.

Second, the New York Times is not just competing with other newspapers. News is coming from more and more spaces – all of the newspapers of the world, plus all of the television websites, the vertical websites, blogs, and the recently emerging trend of real time, unedited broadcasts from reporters on location via social networks.

Put these two together and you begin to get the picture of the modern media landscape, people have an abundance of news sources to pull from. The sea of a million periodicals allows a rapid comparing and contrasting of news that puts emphasis on loyalty to story rather than loyalty to brand.

In order to succeed online, the Times needs to stop thinking about coping with the new system while punishing those who play by the old rules and instead move to the golden rule of selling: make people want to give you money.

I know, it sounds simple. But if it were, every product would be a must have. However, since I’ve already come this far, here are just a few suggestions for how to turn the experience behind the paywall into something actually worth paying for.

First, get rid of the freaking ads. I know, newspapers have never been about selling copies and have always survived by amassing an audience and then selling that audience’s attention to advertisers. But, seriously, if I’m paying to be there, I don’t want my experience muddied up by ads.

Second, embrace your subscribers by allowing them to be heard. This is not just an argument for comments, or for restricting commenting to merely paying subscribers. This is an argument for a second commenting system that is restricted to paying customers. Reward these users by not having them mix with the aggressive and argumentative landscape of the public comments system. Allow commenters to interact with each other. And the kicker? Require your staff to participate in the premium comments.

Third, provide access. I don’t mean the current model of access which is determined on a device-by-device basis. That’s a bastardization of infinite supply. I mean real access. Access to reporters. Access to notes on an article and background information. Access to photos that were taken but not used. These are unique items that are often of scarce supply and provide a real value to readers and differentiate the Times website from the millions of others out there.

What’s more, these don’t have to all be included in one plan, they could be rolled out a la carte and at multiple levels. Level one gets you an advertising free Times experience. Level two removes adds and access to the gated community. Level three allows for communication with reporters and peels back the curtain on the story. Hell, level 15 could involve a monthly beer with the editor.

Put bluntly, the Times is selling the wrong thing. They’re trying to get people to pay for infinite and largely fungible content instead of paying for scarce commodities like access and privilege. And that is a damn foolish way to blow $40 million.

Driving used to be an occassion

Before I hit the road this holiday season, I put together a decidedly non-holiday double album for the trip. Designed to allow for casual listening, nothing is challenging. Okay, none of what follows is remotely challenging. But that’s kind of the point.Hopefully these keep me entertained for the hours on the road.

Anything But Christmas Music

Disc 1

Flagpole Sitta – Harvey Danger

The Way – Fastball

Life on Mars? – David Bowie

Thunder Road – Bruce Springsteen

The Funeral – Band of Horses

Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order

Crime Pays – Bear Hands

Me Plus One – Annie

Dog Problems – The Format

One More Minute – Authority Zero

Wasted and Ready – Ben Kweller

Drop Dead Gorgeous – Republica

It’s a Curse – Wolf Parade

Racing in the Streets – Bruce Springsteen

My My – Seven Mary Three

Babylon – David Gray

Mr. Blue Sky – The Delgados

Heroes – David Bowie

Disc 2

The Campaign for Real Rock – Edwyn Collins

The Comeback – The Shout Out Louds

The Breakup – Washington Social Club

Cool Enough – Nicole Atkins

A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody – The Lashes

Rebel Side of Heaven – Langhorne Slim

Paint it Black – The Rolling Stones

Xavia – The Submarines

Winona – Matthew Sweet

The 59 Sound – Gaslight Anthem

Laundry Room – The Avett Brothers

Neurotic Dive Bar Pirate – Roy

Champagne Supernova – matt pond PA

Eve, The Apple Of My Eye – Bell X1

Chick Lit – We Are Scientists

The Widow – The Mars Volta

Suns Up, Running For Home – Matthew Good Band

Reno, I’m Coming Home – Roy

Total Run Time - 154 minutes

Would he look more scary, or less, with a turbin?

Here’s a quick crash course in “How to be just a bit nerdier” or “Why the government can’t put Wikileaks back in the box.”

I used to frequently use the phrase “DNS is magic” when working tech support. It’s not. It’s really like visiting a library.

What is DNS?

DNS stands for Domain Name System and it’s what translates a website name, bradleyrobb.net or google.com, into the IP address of a server. It’s part gopher and part translator, which basically makes it the white pages of the internet.

A quick “how it works”

When you type my web address, www.bradleyrobb.net, into your browser your browser queries a series of servers by reading my address in reverse order. First it asks for the .net sites, then for the bradleyrobb sites within the .net sphere, and finally for the www location within the bradleyrobb sphere.

Each search gets smaller. But, like Porter in Payback, you go high enough and eventually you to get to one number – the afore mentioned IP address. Everything that happens beyond that is a communication between your computer and my server.

Here’s where things get fun

Since I own the bradleyrobb.net sphere, I control everything beneath it. Sure, right now you’re on the www subdomain, but that is just one of an infinite number of potential subdomains. And on those infinite subdomains I could put anything I want to put there, as long as I know the IP address of what I want to point you to.

They don’t even need to be on my server. They don’t even need to be…my website.

Since the company which was hosting the wikileaks.org domain name decided (conviently) that the name wikileaks.org could no longer be hosted on their system, Wikileaks has been scrambling to come up with new domain names, their primary .org is down, but a mirrored site (wikileaks.ch who’s .ch is controlled by servers in Switzerland) is still up.

But know you what else is up? wikileaks.bradleyrobb.net

It took me less than 3 minutes to create my own wikileaks subdomain. It wouldn’t take you any longer.

That’s the problem with digital information – it can be replicated infinitely with almost zero effort. Various governments can keep going after wikileaks by pressuring the domain name registrars (the people who maintain the DNS records) and the hosting companies (way to bow down Amazon), but the information can just as easily be replicated elsewhere.

It’s a reactive game, and those…those always end badly. Just ask the RIAA. Just ask Lars Ulrich. Striking Napster from the face of the Earth really stopped piracy, didn’t it?

See for yourself

If you own your own domain name, even if you’re a web novice, here’s how easy it is to setup a subdomain to wikileaks:

Open your DNS editing tool.

Create a new A record.

Name the record anything you want.

In the value field, put the IP address: 213.251.145.96

It’ll take a few minutes for your DNS settings to propagate through your server, but that’s the magic part.

Yes, I know, I don't have the copyright for this image

Know what’s awesome about this photo? It’s not the look on Tiger’s face. It’s not that Mr. Pain had the wherewithal to snap that photo seconds before being struck ball the ball. Nope, take another look.

When keeping it real goes terribly right

You see that guy? That guy is keeping it real without a shred of irony. He’s got his cigar. He’s got his mustache. He’s watching the Ryder Cup mere feet from Tiger Woods.

A better look

If I wore a hat, it would totally be off to him.