Imagine This: Nobody Wants Your Product
Imagine this: you are a company that makes operating systems for computers. You make such popular operating systems in fact, that you become one of the largest companies in the world. Over time, you expand your business into other areas - you make your own computers maybe, or perhaps a line of digital music players.
Now, imagine this: the United States government passes some inane legislation aimed (on the surface) at preventing piracy and copyright infringement, among other things. This would be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Okay, so no imagination necessary here.
Next. A company approaches you with some copyright protection software. You look at the software and decide it’s not right for your very popular operating system or any of your digital music players, or your very popular software jukebox/music store.
Lastly, imagine that this company actually decides to sue you for not using their copyright protection software, because - get this - by not using it you are actually in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act! Not only do they try to sue you, they send a cease & desist letter telling you to stop selling your computers, operating system, and digital music players! Not only that, but they want upwards of $2500 for each product that you’ve sold that hasn’t included their copyright protection software!
That couldn’t possibly happen, right? I mean, no company would be so stupid, so greedy, so unethical, that they would actually try to force Microsoft, Apple, Real Networks and Adobe to give them money for not using their product based on creative interpretation of the law… right?
Wrong.
A company called Media Rights Technologies is doing just that. Full story available here, from Yahoo and Macworld.
I guess this answers the question of what you should do when nobody wants your product. Sue them for not using it - brilliant!
Link Love - Removing the No-Follow Tag
You’re going to see this image in the comments area of all my articles here at Modest Opinions. WordPress, among other blogging software packages and websites, institutes a "no follow" policy in any area where a user can enter information. The major search engines see this attribute in a link code:
rel="nofollow"
and they won’t follow the link to the destination. It’s supposed to help stop "comment spam" on blogs and other websites. In reality, it doesn’t work very well, and is viewed by many as a failed experiment.
I’ve got other anti-spam measures here, and I’m into sharing the link love, so I’ve installed a WordPress plugin that removes the ‘no-follow’ attribute from my comment links. What’s most bizarre is that I actually had to install a plugin to change the default behavior… you would think something like this would be an option you could set in the default Wordpress setup.
For more information, visit Randa, the creator of the "U Comment / I Follow" graphic and Loren Baker on his blog, Search Engine Journal.
Review: Top 10 Signs You’re Addicted to Woot.com
I have a collection of bookmarks that I load as a group every day and woot.com is on that list. Not familiar with Woot? Skip the list and read my review of the site. Those that are "in the know" might dig this list: my "Top 10 Signs You’re Addicted to Woot.com"
10: You check the site several times a day just in case they screwed something up and are offering a different product than they started the day with.
9: After a woot-off, you find yourself refreshing the page every 45 seconds for an hour because you don’t notice the flashers are gone.
8: You participate in the contests despite the fact that you’re not creative in the least, and check every hour to see if anyone has commented on your "masterpiece".
7: You’ve bought an item, not because you needed or even wanted it, but to keep the woot-off going (semi-hardcore).
6: You’ve bought three of an item just to keep that woot-off going (totally hardcore!).
Not So Boring Life: The Movie
The following was stolen from the trash can of Nathan Metzger, he of NotSoBoringLife.com fame. Apparently he’s a writer of some kind.
Not So Boring Life: The Movie (Screenplay)
Written by Nathan Metzger, Produced by Nathan Metzger, Directed by George Lucas.
Opening: we see our two protagonists (Donny and "Bonzo") on a fishing boat in the middle of the ocean. No land is in sight.
Donny: "Damn man, it’s hot out here. Pass me a brew."
Bonzo: "Ain’t got no brews left. Got some sparkling water, though. Hey, you want your pipe?"
Donny: "Sparkling water? Who the hell packed for this trip? Okay, yeah, gimme my pipe. Pipe smoking is cool."
Bonzo: "Yeah it is. Hey, what are you using for line there? We’re supposed to be shark fishing, it looks like you’re not using the proper line!"
Donny: "Oh, it’s proper! Back when Eddie was teaching me how to play guitar, he let me in on this little secret. You switch out your fishing line for yoyo string. It’s perfect!"
Bonzo: "You gotta be kidding me! That’s ridiculous. Only someone as dumb as you would try that."
Donny: "It’s all in your grip strength. You get a good grip on the rod, it doesn’t matter what kind of line you use. Let me give you another example of something where that’s important–"
Donny whips out a lightsaber and cuts Bonzo in half, then dumps him in the ocean (remember, it’s a George Lucas flick, so that’s okay).
Donny: "That’ll teach you to forget to bring enough brews."
————–
The preceding was a work of… well, it is clearly fiction, and not written by Nathan at all - it was written by me. This is my entry into Nathan’s contest, where he’s giving away a hundred bucks to link to a few pages of his blog in a specific way. Fun! See if you can still participate, and maybe you’ll have a shot at the scratch.
Music Review: Rush - Snakes and Arrows
Overture
- Released: May 1, 2007.
- Tracks: 13
- Format: Audio CD
- Label: Atlantic / Wea
Rush is back with their first album of original material since 2002, Snakes & Arrows. Let me explain up front that I’ve been a fan of the band for almost 20 years, so this isn’t going to be a completely unbiased review. It will, however, be completely honest.
Art That Doesn’t Suck - May 4, 2007
This week’s featured art is Metamorphosis III by Melissa Nucera
This is a fantastic piece, created in one of my favorite artistic styles. I really enjoy modern, abstract art like this. The tone is earthy and real to me, and the background texture is very well produced. It puts me in mind of some of the work of Hugh Syme, which I hope is taken as the compliment it’s intended as. Great, great stuff. The choice of framing and matting matches perfectly, though like any art at Imagekind, they can be customized by the buyer. Feel free to click the image to learn more about it or to perhaps purchase a print for yourself.
Prices for Metamorphosis III begin at $23.77, subject to change.
New art featured weekly, courtesy of the artists at Imagekind.
You Know You’ve Made It When You Get Parodied
I was on the road with my wife and kid (age 2), and I went online looking for things for her (the baby) to watch to keep her occupied for a while. I went to YouTube looking for clips from Dora the Explorer, because she digs that show for some reason. What I found was one of the funniest parodies I’ve seen in a long time:
Dreamhost Goes Green
The popular web hosting company, Dreamhost, announced recently that they’ve "gone green" by becoming carbon-neutral. Although the bulk of the movement was achieved through the purchase of "offsets", the company is making efforts by changing practices within the offices as well. Here is a short excerpt from the announcement:
Putting a price on carbon output is just one way to help make the world a better place. It’s a first step towards true energy sustainability. Organizations large and small are constantly working on reducing their environmental emissions to meet government-imposed (and self-imposed) emissions caps. When they do so a neutral third party then steps in to verify the reduction and issues what are known as “emission reduction credits”.
Yet another reason I’m proud to be a Dreamhost customer.
The emission reduction (offset) credits are not without controversy Read more
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