"Get Over It"
Nathan Hodge writing for the Wall Street Journal:
“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation. Then later... “Get over it,” he said. “We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be. … Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.” Micheal Barrett is THE Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, the top ranking non-commissioned office in the entire Corps. Read the whole article.
Draconian ISP Copyright Enforcement Coming Soon To Your Computer
Greg Sandoval writing for CNet:
After years of negotiations, a group of bandwidth providers that includes AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are closer than ever to striking a deal with media and entertainment companies that would call for them to establish new and tougher punishments for customers who refuse to stop using their networks to pirate films, music and other intellectual property, multiple sources told CNET. The details... Participating ISPs are given plenty of leeway to choose how to proceed. They can select from a "menu" of responses outlined in the plan, such as throttling down an accused customer's bandwidth speed or limit their access to the Web. For example, a suspected pirate may be allowed to visit only the top 200 Web sites until they stop illegal file sharing. The subscriber may also be asked to participate in a program that educates them on copyright law and the rights of content creators. And the part that really pisses me off: In addition to the NCTA, the White House was also instrumental in encouraging the parties to reach an agreement, the sources confirmed. President Obama has vowed to step up the fight against piracy and counterfeiting, and his administration has lobbied Congress the past several years to pass new pro-copyright legislation while instructing federal law enforcement to make antipiracy a priority. Not why I voted for you, Mr. President. It's becoming more and more clear to me that both political parties are the enemies of consumers & technology.
Final Cut Pro X Released
Well. The day is finally here. Final Cut Pro X has been released. Already announced back in the spring, but just to reiterate the price has been cut from $999 to $299, a move that is sure to make Avid and Adobe nervous. You can buy it on the Mac App Store, right now.
While no full featured reviews are out yet, Macworld has had an early release version for the past week or so and their excellent video guy Gary Adcock has written a first-look about the new application:
Apple has revamped Final Cut Pro's hands-on user experience in three major areas: Editing, media organization, and post-production workflow. New tools such as the Magnetic Timeline, Clip Connections, Compound Clips, and Auditions provide a smooth, intuitive editing experience. With the rise of data-centric workflows and tapeless video recording, organizational tools such as Content Auto-Analysis, Range-based keywords, and Smart Collections work in the background to automate formerly tedious and time-consuming manual processes. Post production workflows now offer customizable effects, integrated audio editing, color grading, and a host of streamlined delivery options.
New Futurama Icon Set Released From the Iconfactory
If you're a long time Mac & Twitter user, then you're probably familiar with The Iconfactory, makers of the original native Mac Twitter client, Twitterrific.
Gedeon Maheux, Principal/Designer, at The Iconfactory just released Volume 7 of their long running freeware Futurama icon cet. This latest set is called 'Extras' and is comprised with many of the supporting characters of the show. This icon set has been long in the making, with Volume 1 having been released back in August of 2005. Each icon set is available for Mac or Windows. Also, if you own a license to The Iconfactory's Candybar App, you can download the icon set in a Candybar compatible container file.
If you want to download all 7 volumes of this set, you can do so on their Web site.
Everything Is A Remix Part 3
Everything Is a Remix, Part 3 has been released. Everything Is A Remix is an ongoing video project on exploration of remix techniques involved in producing creative work, created by Kirby Ferguson. I recommend you watch Part 1 and Part 2 first.
Horrible, Almost Unforgivable Dropbox Authentication Bug Yesterday
Christopher Soghoian emailed Dropbox, posted over on Pastebin telling them how he had discovered a massive security vulnerability on Dropbox in the wee hours of yesterday morning. If you want to read the entire email thread of how he discovered it, do so, but the short of it is, for a period of 4 hours yesterday, anyone could log into any dropbox account without having to know their password. Any password worked for any account. Dropbox says they've fixed the issue, patching the bug just 5 minutes after they found out about it, however that doesn't change the fact that this happened. If you, like me, are worried about if anyone logged into your account during that period, check your Dropbox account event log.
The Price Of "Free"
Richard Muscat, writing at Serious Simplicity:
My contention is that “Free” as described and used in many contemporary web-based businesses is a non-business model that is not only broken, but actively harmful to entrepreneurship. Free rarely works, and all the times that it doesn’t, it undermines entrepreneurial creativity, destroys market value, delivers an inferior user experience and pumps hot air into financial bubbles. I think this piece hits it out of the park. Why should you price your product as a pay-for-service or good? This article lays out all of the reasons and why free should never be your decision.