It may be old news, but as I was browsing through Rolling Stone (a free subscription just started coming to me, I don’t know why), I saw this little bit about the Universal Music Group, the RIAA, and Nine Inch Nails:

Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, recently launched a worldwide crackdown against Nine Inch Nails fans who posted songs from the band’s new album, Year Zero, on music blogs. But according to sources close to NIN, the label didn’t realize that frontman Trent Reznor leaked the tracks on purpose, as part of an elaborate marketing campaign for the disc…

One song-poster who was billed and sent a cease-and-desist letter reported that a month later

“Universal contacted me, stating that all of this was a big mistake. Some persons weren’t aware of what other persons were doing.” The company returned his money and invited him to see a NIN show and meet the band.

Jessica had originally tipped me off about this track-leaking phenomenon some months ago by pointing me to her friend Patrick’s site, where he’d gathered up some coverage of it. I haven’t really been keeping up, but it sounded like a fascinating plan. Too bad the record companies are full of morons.

I upgraded WordPress to version 2.1.3 today. It was about time. I also read this:

• cpbotha, a critical look at ubuntu feisty beta on an hp nc8430 laptop

• Barbara Quint, “A World of Riddles“—not much substance
• Jill E. Grogg and Beth Ashmore, “Google Book Search Libraries and Their Digital Copies“

I’ve been pretty much Window-free on my personal computer for about three months now. I started a new blog to document my foray into the world of Linux.

That is all.

Mostly school work today.

• Stephen Baker with Bremen Leak, “Math Will Rock Your World”
• Ian Hacking, chapter 3, “Public amateurs, secret bureaucrats,” from The Taming of Chance
• Ian Hacking, chapter 13, “Regimental chests,” from The Taming of Chance
• Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., chapter 3, “The Railroads: The First Modern Business Enterprises, 1850s-1860s,” from The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business
• Theodore M. Porter, chapter 2, “How Social Numbers Are Made Valid,” from Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life
• Simon A. Cole, chapter 2, “Measuring the Criminal Body,” from Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification

Jesus! originally uploaded by mrwilloby.

I had to pose with it.

Experienced webmasters start email marketing campaigns for the promotion of their websites. It helps them in getting good traffic which causes an increase in ppc. It also boosts the process of search engine optimization to some extent. Other factors also matter a lot such as reliable web hosting and keyword based domain names.

I read quite a few articles and other such stuff online most days, but I never talk about it with anyone usually. I don’t keep track of it either. I figured I could use this “web log” as it is to just link to them for my own purposes and maybe someone else will care.

• John C. Dvorak, The Little Things I Hate About PCs
• John C. Dvorak, Inside Track v26n09
• Gary North, Iran’s Pre-Emptive Strike
• William S. Lind, Blinking Red Light
• Scott McCartney, WiFi in the Sky: Airlines Prepare Cabin Hotspots
• Alvaro Vargas Llosa, The Ethanol Alliance
• Michael Arrington, Mozilla To Build Social Networking Into Firefox: Bad News For Flock
• Shawn Hardin, Mozilla Labs - ‘The Coop’
• Gene Healy, ‘Security Is the New Freedom’