DRM (Digital Rights Management, or possibly Damaging Rights Management since it means I never buy downloadable music online) doesn’t work. No, really?
“In an open letter on the Apple website, Mr Jobs argues that the copy protection software used to protect digital music downloads from piracy has not worked.” BBC
In other news, snow tonight! The duck pond was nearly frozen over this morning, poor birds had to walk on top of the water like a flock of feathered Jesus.

Random article from The Age on pale Australians. I’m really not sure whether it’s for or against, but the author still seems to talk about ‘pale’ people as if they’d made an effort to be pale. It doesn’t seem to occur to people that it’s not something you really get a choice over – I can be pink or white, but I can’t be golden or brown.
Ah well. I came all the way to England, the land of the pasty, and I’m still one of the palest people I’ve ever met.

Darwin put it as “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” and now a report titled Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments (pdf) says “the skills that make you competent are the same skills that help you recognise competence.”
So could one argue that feeling less than competent is a sign of competence? Via The Age.

Just randomly, and thinking of no-one in particular *cough* James: “accents are a British obsession. I know of nowhere in the world where so many people are annoyed by hearing another person pronounce or intone words differently from the way they do.” BBC

I’ve just upgraded my Movable Type installation, and in the process of backing up, I dumped all the MT entries into a Word document. I’ve only counted since I started using blogging software (2002) so entries from 1996 until aren’t included, I’ve blogged 187,274 words, or 20,000 paragraphs.

theadgenerator.org: “The ad generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly.”

I’m on a blogging roll today (blog… roll… blogroll… geddit?).
For your viewing pleasure, two suspect images.
One is from a plush real estate marketing brochure. Is it just me or is the placement of the long rod-like object just next to the open fig a tiny bit suggestive?
Update: Foo says it’s a melon, not a fig. I guess it’s still suggestive but doesn’t have the same long history of associations as a fig.
And yes, I know it’s a knife.

I said I needed to write about what I wanted to do this year. A lot of it seems to be related to work. Am I suddenly ambitious? Or am I galvanised by the knowledge that in a year I might not be tied to a work permit and I could work anywhere in the UK? Or am I just a sucker for a challenge?
2006 was a good year because I went on some really interesting trips and worked hard on some really cool projects and I gave a conference and a seminar paper like some kind of grown-up person.
When I look back on 2007 I want to be able to say that I:

• maintained a professional blog (not this one! Google my real name and you’ll find it)
• wrote and presented two or more conference or seminar papers and/or articles for publication
• applied for and got indefinite leave to remain in the UK
• spent quality time with loved ones (friends, family, whatever)
• went on a few interesting holidays
• went surfing at least once
• started learning a language properly
• consolidated my professional skills
• used some of my leave/flexitime to work on my own projects and catch up on stuff I never get around to doing instead of going on another trip
• got my concentration span back
• seriously investigated my options for doing a Masters or PhD
• finally stopped hitting ‘F5’ on forums instead of getting on with things!

So it was good timing to get this email:
“If you want to study in the UK at the September 2007 intake you will need to submit your application by Friday 29 June 2007.
Apply now for your best chance of getting into the course you want or securing a scholarship.”
Please excuse the introspective post but I figure if I make it public I have to do it.
Oh, and the sun’s out so London doesn’t seem that bad.

last.fm tag of the day: “bands where listening to the music is basically like doing a form of psychedelic drug that goes in your ears”.

Interesting. I’ve always wondered how much research celebs do before joining a campaign. Naomi Campbell obviously didn’t mind fur all that much, and in the UK Jade Goody has apparently been dropped by an anti-bullying campaign… for bullying another contestant on Celebrity Big Brother.
Incidentally, if no-one watches ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother, will they cease to exist?
“US pop singer Pink has backed down from her call to boycott Australian wool over animal cruelty claims, admitting she failed to fully research the issue.
…
But today, Pink admitted she was misinformed about the issue and had failed to do enough research.
“I probably could have done a lot more research on my own,” she told the Nine Network.
“That’s the lesson I’m taking from this.
“My message was, in my mind, boycott animal cruelty – not an entire industry, not Australia, obviously, because it’s my favourite country.
“Then going back, I was speaking without thinking and I actually did say ban Australia, which is bullshit. It’s not something that I can agree with.”” Age