Remember books?  You know, those things printed on paper… placed between two covers?  Yeah, those things!  Well, oddly enough, I heard about two today that are worth mentioning.

In the seventh book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,an important part of the plot hinged on a fictional children’s book called Tales of Beedle the Bard.  J.K. Rowling, the author of the series, made a handwritten copy of the book and auctioned it off to charity.  Amazon.com ended up buying it and posting copious amounts of information about it on their site, sharing it with the world.

Now it has been announced that a standard edition is being released, and a deluxe version that will be exclusive to Amazon.  The standard edition will have a suggested retail price of $12.99 ($7.59 at Amazon) and  will have all of the drawings Ms. Rowling did for the original, along with all five of the fairy tales with comments and footnots by “Professor Dumbeldore”.  The deluxe edition will set you back $100 and features metal parts on the cover, 10 additional drawings by Rowling and a few other extras.

It would be easy to call this a cash grab by Rowling, but like she did with the set of text books a few years back, all of the proceeds from these books will be going to charity.  The charity, Children’s High Level Group, was set up by Rowling and Emma Nicholson MEP to help vulnerable children.

I know I gave the last book a harsh review, but it is always hard to argue with anything that is done to benefit children, so kudos to her for using her notoriety to help them out.

The second book is just amazing that it will even exist.  I have talked about Garfield Minus Garfield before, and it amazed me in this day and age of copyright lawsuits that such a creature could exist.  My amazement deepened even more when Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, talked about how he felt it was a wonderful idea.

Today the story takes an even odder turn with the announcement that Garfield Minus Garfield is becoming a book, and it will be published alongside a book celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original series.  The the Garfield Minus Garfield book will publish the original strip along with the version that features only the character of Jon Arbuckle.

This whole concept is just amazing, and congratulations to Dan Walsh, the creator of the site, on the book deal.

There has been a lot of coverage in the media, especially in the UK, that the identity of well-known graffiti artist Banksy has been discovered.  I hope it hasn’t, and if it has, I would hope people would have the good sense to keep it quiet.

For those of you with no clue who I am talking about, Banksy is a graffiti artist working primarily in the United Kingdom, though he does occasionally pop up in various locations around the United States.  While the word “graffiti” immediately brings to mind all sorts of ugly scrawls on walls, but that word does a disservice to what this person does.  His works are only graffiti in the sense that he does his work on walls without the prior permission of the property owners.

His works have been popping up since the mid-90’s, but he became well known after he helped organize a graffiti exhibition called “Walls on Fire” in 2000.  When he fully turned to using stencils to do his work, his notoriety really took off, and he was able to do some amazingly elaborate pieces due to the amount of time stencils shaved off his free hand work.

His works, such as the Tesco Flag pictured above make an an amazing use of items already in the landscape, which also shows he must plot his moves well ahead of time to build the stencils to take these items into account.  His work is always tinged with humor, but also make powerful statements on society and the establishment that are hard to miss, let alone wonder if he isn’t also a bit correct in what he asks.

Unlike the revealing of Fake Steve Jobs that sent some people into a tizzy, Banksy is not only an artist, but socially relevant.  Part of his ability to say the things he does thorugh his art can only be accomplished via anonymity, and revealing whom he is would only serve to destroy any future works he may do, and possibly tarnish the past ones.

I was one of the people who was thrilled when W. Mark Felt was revealed to be “Deep Throat”, but after reading his back story, it changed my views of the man’s motivations for his actions.  While it had been something I had wished for, I was kinda sorry to see it happen.  With Banksy, I beg of the media to just leave it be.  Don’t actively pursue this, if he slips up, he slips up, but don’t try rooting him out because it just isn’t worth it as it will probably cost him his voice in this world, and we need it in these puzzling times.

Oh, for those of you who worry about the feelings of people that own the buildings he does his work on, most of them like it as it actually raises the value of their property as they can sell it as “a work of art with a home attached”.  (this actually happened)

For the most part I have tried staying out of the whole controversy over the Olympics being held in China, except for one post about attacking the torch carriers, but now I’m annoyed.

The media had been assured they would receive unrestricted Internet access while in the Main Press Center or at the event venues.  This was in direct contradiction with the the typical censorship the Web receives in China, but was expected due to China wanting to show itself off to the world.

Now news is coming out that not only will they be restricted from some sites, it also seems they are being given miserably slow speeds that some suspect are on purpose to discourage use.  Sites such as Amnesty International and any site related to Tibet, will be blocked from the journalists, and who knows what else journalists will find blocked as they check more during the course of the games.  NBC also requested permission to film in Tiananmen Square and was essentially told not to bring the issue up any more.

Am I surprised by these moves?  No, not in the least, but I will say I’m disappointed.  I thought the Chinese might actually use this chance to change their image on the world stage, but instead they seem to be doing nothing more than reinforcing all the thoughts we already had about them.  At this late date there is little the media can do as they are already moving in, so it would be difficult to say, “Hey, we’re pulling out now!”  Deals are signed, teams ae in place, and more than likely all of them will just ride this out, but hopefully this will continue to be exposed after the games.  Sure they may be censored while they are inside the country, but there is nothing stopping them from collecting info and publishing all of it post games when they’re back home.

This certainly is not the worst thing the Chinese have ever done, but it hits close to home for me being involved with the media, and restricting the tools and freedoms of the media, while the norm in China, are just not acceptable.

The Dark Knight passed $300 million in ten days, setting a new record for the fastest ever to that mark.  The previous record holder was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest doing it in 16 days.  However, this still does not knock the film into the realm of profitability.

Now, as much as I would like to think M’s and my review of the film on Scattercast last week contributed to the $75 million dollar weekend, I shall act like it didn’t.  In all honesty, it’s a fantastic movie with a stellar performance by several of the actors, not just Heath Ledger, but it unfortunately still does not mean this movie has made a profit.

As I discussed in the first episode of Scattercast (I swear I am not link mining my podcast, just the first two episodes do relate to this!), a movie must make double its budget in domestic box office receipts to be considered profitable.  The Dark Knight had a reported budget of $180 million, meaning that the film needs to do $360 million domestic to be in the black.  This is also discounting marketing budgets, which I easily put around $20 – $25 million, but those numbers are never confirmed.  Analysts are saying they expect the film to hit $400 million on day 18, which would be a new record, beating out the previous “fastest to $400 million” holder, Shrek 2.

There are some who think this film may have the chance of finally knocking Titanic out of the number 1 spot in domestic box office, but $600,788,188 is still a long ways away.  That movie had the benefit of repeat viewings by teenage girls for a very long time and it was an extremely slow build to that level.  That record has held for 10 years now, and it seems unlikely that a movie about a guy in a silly looking bat costume will be the one to do it.

I just find it amazing that anyone is willing to gamble $180 million on any project.  How does anyone sit in an office and go, “You know, I believe in your vision for this project, here, have the equivalent of the gross domestic product of a small nation to go make it.”  Especially in the case of this film, people will always wonder if Ledger’s untimely death contributed to this box office success, and if that is a factor, it makes the executives look even crazier.  Perhaps the secret behing the Joker, he’s actually a film studio executive who decides to gives hundreds of millions of dollars to movies.

Talk about your ultimate gamblers.  Yeesh.

I’m not thrilled to report that the Missouri flooding is finally in my general vicinity.

Remember back in March I told you I was in no danger from the Missouri flooding?  Well, the Chariton River, a normally very tiny river you can throw a rock across, has gone eight feet above its flood stage, as you can see in the picture to the right.  (you can click on it for a slightly larger view)  It has begun to receded some, but now it is currently raining again, so who knows what it’s going to do now.

Some roads in my area have shut down, naturally, but luckily this is all still six miles from me, with little chance of reaching me due to distance and the number of valleys and such between me and it.

At the oppisite end of my town, the golf course’s private lake is breaking through it’s retaining wall, and they are having the city police shutting off roads and directing traffic.  It’s one thing for a river to flood, but I would love to know who is paying for protection from a private lake flooding out a section of town.

Yahoo Music is shutting down, and with them go their Digital Rights Management (DRM) servers.

What this translates to is that after October 1st you won’t be able to authorize new computers to play your tracks on, meaning your songs you bought would be living with an expiration date hanging over your head.  This news was first followed by the suggestion you burn the songs to CDs and then rip them back to MP3 format to remove the DRM protection, which could result in lower sound quality.

Yahoo told InformationWeek that they would not be abandoning their customers will be goign case by case with some sort of compensation or possibly providing DRM free versions of the MP3s.  This, however, will require you contacting Yahoo by using the “Contact Customer Care” button at the bottom of their FAQ page.

This story goes in conjuction with MSN announcing they will only support their tracks for three additional years, and Sony will stop supporting tracks bought at their Connect store at the end of the year.

Folks, when are you going to stop buying tracks with DRM coding?  You are allowing people to tell you how, when and where you can listen to music you legally purchased, and when they decide to stop supporting it, well, too bad for you.  Notice that every solution listed requires the consumer to be proactive in getting their purchases taken care of, not the other way around.  Why isn’t Yahoo coming up with either some sort of file that can be emailed out to consumers so they can strip the DRM without any extra steps, or why not just allow them to go in download versions without DRM?

Every time I write about DRM, some yaabo comes through and “schools” me in the comments on the option to burn to CD and then rip back, and now even Yahoo is suggesting this as an option.  Well, here are the problems with this method.

Blank CDs cost money – If I purchased something legally, why should I have to spend more money to make it work like anything I purchase should?

Burning CDs takes time – It’s not exactly a speedy process.

Ripping from a CD takes time – Again, not a super fast process.

Wear and tear on your equipment – I am using my equipment to correct a company mistake, so not only is it costing me for CDs and in time, but you are also asking me use up some of the life of my equipment.

Potential loss of quality – If your equipment isn’t up to snuff, you could lose some sound quality of the recordings.

So now you have DRM laden music you are facing either losing your ability to play, or having to go through steps you should never have to go through to make it work.  Someone I spoke with said this is no different than people who have vinyl running out of options of how to play it.  Well, the problem is that turntables are still being built, so, yes, that option is still very much alive to people who have vinyl albums.

This is a whole new set of problems that we have not seen before the invention of DRM, and it is just getting worse as challangers crop up to take on iTunes, and then ultimately fail.  This was never a problem before digital files, and it’s the only place that it could surface.  Imaging buying a DVD and finding out you could play it only in a Sony produced DVD player.  How long would you stand for this?  You wouldn’t, you would scream bloody murder about it.  DRM files are exactly this situation and now you are coming to find out that at any time a company could just flip off a server and… oops, no more music for you.

I just don’t get why people are allowing themselves to be shackled by the music companies like this.  Buy used CDs, trade them on sites like Lala, but whatever you do, support sites like the Amazon MP3 store which is DRM free, but just say no to DRM or you may find yourself in a very similar situation one of these days.

Welcome back to the second episode of Scattercast! I hope you all enjoyed the first one, because the second one is far better, I feel! Here is what you can look forward to this week.

Intro – Me taking care of some housekeeping of the podcast.

7:15 Bruce Lidl from DivX comes on the show – Bruce talks about the D-Link DivX Connected HD Media Player (DSM-330) which is a follow up to a list I did here called How To Watch Internet Videos On Your TV back in February.

29:30 M and I review The Dark Knight. Instead of the normal surly review by me, I bring in my best friend, M, to help with the review, and temper my opinion some.

Wrap-up of the show and info on subscribing and what is to come next week at the end of the show.

For those who wish to subscribe, you can do so by the RSS feed or on iTunes.

Here’s a link to the MP3 for those who wish to download it.

It seems Mtv has decided that it’s time for The Rocky Horror Picture Show to get a remake.  Lou Adler, the original executive producer, is involved, and they will be working from the original script, including some songs that were cut from the original movie.

I really don’t care who is involved, this is a monumentally bad idea.  No matter how much of the original you maintain, this was a horrible script at its core.  Now, you add in new actors who are conscience of the phenomenon, and they will never be able to pull this off without thinking things like, “did I pause long enought there for the audience to say their lines?”

When you have something like RHPS, there is just no copying the magic twice, and that was proved by the sequel, Shock Treatment. This is a bad, bad idea on so many levels.

Who would have thought jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch while declaring your love for your future Stepford wife could be bad for your career?

Well, it seems Tom Cruise is beginning to realize he is having problems since he went all psychotic on the Today Show, jumped up and down on that couch and then made an incoherent video for the Church of Scientology that involved insane laughing.  So with a damaged reputation, what is a former box office mega star to do?  Why, possibly return to his most well-known character of course!

Rumors are circulating of a Top Gun 2 that would have Cruise’s Maverick character back the Top Gun school as an instructor, dealing with an upstart female pilot.  Wow… there’s a shocking a twist!  Mind you the original came out in 1986, so I’m not sure why a sequel is needed 20+ years later, but by golly it sounds like they may just do it.

Between now and whenever this mythical project may be released, Cruise will have at least two other projects coming out.  First up is a “secret” cameo in the comedy Tropic Thunder, but the other is the already widely panned Valkyrie which has been plagued with production problems and a questionable script.  Rumor is that the film is suffering from some Scientology aspects that are being shoe horned into a story of people who served under Hitle in World War II.  Who knows what they are doing, but these are the rumors at this point.

You know, he’s been quiet for a while, can’t he just crawl back into his hole with his brainwashed wife and leave the rest of us alone?

Edited to add: Okay, Cruise has dropped out of this project… he’s still a whack job, though

Can we just call this “The Breast That Wouldn’t Die“?

In what seems to be the longest ever conversation about a woman’s nipple, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday overturned the Federal Communications Council (FCC) $550,000 fine against CBS for the 2004 Janet Jackson nipple exposure during the Super Bowl.  Ars Technica has one of the bust summaries of what exactly the court said:

The court not only calls the new policy “arbitrary and capricious,” but held that CBS was not responsible for the actions of the dancers: Jackson and Justin Timberlake. “Both performers were acting as independent contractors for the limited purpose of providing entertainment services for one isolated, brief program,” the justices ruled.

In the end, the court ruled that CBS did its best to control Jackson and Timberlake’s performance within the context of its independent contractor relationship with the two performers. “When a broadcaster endeavors to exercise proper control, but ultimately fails, to prevent unscripted indecency, it will not have acted with scienter [knowledge of deliberate wrongdoing],” the justices argued, “if its actions were negligent rather than reckless.”

Needless to say, CBS is thrilled, the FCC, not so much.  The FCC will be sticking to their guns and attempting later this year to argue to the Supreme Court that they need tougher restrictions and even more indecency laws.  I would normally put a quote here, but it comes from an Associated Press story, and the AP is now looking to charge bloggers a $1.50 per word to quote them.  (no… I am not kidding)

Not one to be dissuaded by courts, the Parents Television Council (PTC) has waded in on this issue.  In a statement on their website, they claim that this ruling was an example of “activist judges across the country are making a mockery of Federal Broadcast Decency laws”.  Well, I’m not quite sure how the above listed judgment, which spelled out how they reached their decision that CBS was not at fault for the actions of third parties, equates to “activist judges”.  Oh, wait… does that mean they activated their brains and actually interperted the law?

Apparently “activist judge” has come to mean “any judge that makes a ruling I don’t like”.  While the incident was unfortunate, I’ve thought the fine was excessive since the day it was issued, and I have also thought the fining of CBS out of the whole mess was just silly.  MTV produced the show, the NFL approved it, CBS was merely the company to air it, they were not part of the production.  Never let something like facts get in the way of the PTC though and their fear mongering ways.   Hopefully the Supreme Court will keep it’s head when they look into the issue this year, but who knows what will happen.

Until then… “activist judges” for the win!

I never thought I would see the day where Alan Moore’s 1980’s Watchmen graphic novel would be getting wide play in the world.

With the wide release of the trailer for the movie being released with The Dark Knight this past weekend, there are probably more people who know about this amazing series now than ever before.  Will it translate to film is still a huge issue, even though the trailer looks pretty spot on, because this is one of the most complex stories ever in comics.  Alan Moore, as with every project of his that comes to film, hates it already, but that’s just Mr. Moore.

I have written about Watchmen before, and normally this would be the point where I might give you an idea what the story is about, but something happened this weekend that changes the necessity of me doing that.  In a move unlike anything I have ever seen before, DC Comics, the publisher of the series, is making the entire series available for free.  Yes… free.  Over on iTunes of all places, you can now download the first issue (iTunes link), other issues are coming later, in an animated form.

When I say “animated”, I use the term loosely.  What they did was make portions of the comic move, and it is narrated like an audio book.  I would still prefer someone actually read the hard copy of the book, but this is a great way to introduce people to this classic work, and certainly a great marketing tool for the new film. Zack Snyder, director of 300, seems to be sticking to the original work pretty slavishly, but now everyone will be able to judge for themselves since the comic is now available to anyone with a computer, iPhone, iPod Touch or Apple TV.

Again, I say give the physical comic a try, but if you just don’t have the access or funds, then this is the answer for you.  Also, make sure to check out that trailer, it’s worth your time.

Just like last year, I rang in my birthday by working on a list for Mashable.

Man I hate being predictable!

It was a butt-kicker of a list though, and took over eleven hours to complete (I can’t say what the subject was until it’s published), but it’s finally done.  The funny thing was I didn’t look up at the clock until it was done, and then it took me a second to go, “Oh… I’m 37 now… wheee”, and I went back to hand coding some special image codes we use.

I am a wild man unleashed, let me tell ya.

Anyway, I always find it amusing now what my big plans are for my birthday, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I even cared about it.  At some point it just becomes another day, and all it changes is me double checking when I fill out a survey if I’m marking the right age-range section.

The good news is that I am actually probably in the best shape of my life.  Despite still being heavy set, I am lifting weights 3 – 4 times a week, and have more muscle mass than I’ve ever had.  My pants are about at the point of falling off of me, but I don’t want to buy new ones quite yet.  And in a true test of weight loss… my airplane seat belt was the loosest on my last weekend than it has been in a long, long time.  So, despite my creeping age, I seem to be doing okay.

Either way, it’s my 37th… the countdown to 40 continues.