Apple’s Quick Look is one of my favorite features of their new Leopard Operating System. Quick Look allows one to view contents of most files without opening the files. However, Apple left out the ability to view the contents of .zip files and folders, a pretty useful feature.
Thankfully Taiyo has developed plug-ins to give Quick Look this ability. Here’s the zip plug-in, and the folder plug-in.
Simply download both files, unzip them and copy the .qlgenerator files to /Library/QuickLook/ or ~/Library/QuickLook/.
I had a pretty good Friday, while not being at work. I decided that because Dana had to work and I hadn’t been record shopping in awhile that I’d take a trip to my favorite store Orpheus Records.
My good friend, Travis, introduced me to the beauty that is spending an afternoon in the record store. After a couple hours perusing the bins, and checking things off my list, I managed to find WAY too many records. This is what I paired it down to (with the exception of two: one that I received from Trav, and another that I bought at a show a few weeks ago):
From the top left, going to the right the records are as follows:
Every time I go to Orpheus, I also investigate the used turntables he has for sale, because I’ve been frustrated with mine for a long time. The linear cartridge that contains the needle doesn’t recognize 10″ albums, which I have several of, and it also doesn’t play records that are slightly bent very well.
Unfortunately, I stumbled upon an amazing table for a reasonable price. I present to you, my new turntable, which I cannot express my love for enough:
What makes this news unique however, aside from the collaboration between a beat poet and an industrial artist, is the method they chose for distributing the record. The album is available online only, with two options: pay nothing and receive the record encoded in mp3 at 192kbps (not great quality); pay $5 and receive the record in FLAC, which is nearly CD quality.
Reznor has been fighting with his label recently, and was searching for a new way to distribute his next record. He and Williams saw Radiohead’s try at online distribution and thought they’d give it a shot.
I’m hoping this is going to be a new trend. While I like vinyl, I think this is a great idea, especially if artists will offer high-quality downloads like FLAC.
Here’s a sample:
Niggy Tardust by Saul Williams from The Inevitable Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust
Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Stanford, and a well-respected authority on copyright issues.
He gave a speech at the annual TED conference that eloquently illustrated the ironic harnessing effect that current U.S. copyright law is having. Lessig has often shown us that we need to change our intellectual property laws to reflect the current state of technological development, and he does so again in this presentation using some great examples.
On Monday, November 5, the House Foreign Affairs Committee blasted Yahoo for its roll in providing the Chinese government with information on a dissident journalist that lead to his arrest.
I won’t get into the details of the article, but here’s my take. There are two schools of thought on human rights abuses in China: one that says we should withhold all contact from repressive governments; and another that says we should engage them and hope that little bits of democracy will filter through and encourage citizens to revolt.
I was trained in school as a political scientist, and scientists, love case studies. Unfortunately, political scientists can’t just prop up various governments or political theories for testing. Fortunately, we have two wonderful examples of why the first of these two theories on effecting change in China is wrong: Cuba and North Korea.
America has tried its hardest to keep these two nations free of American money for decades, a practice which obviously hasn’t effected the change we were hoping. With Fidel Castro’s failing health, some hope for a change in their leadership, but I don’t see it happening.
It seems to me that it’s much better for companies like Yahoo to get involved in China and provide as much information to its citizens as the government allows. While, the government forces Yahoo to provide information on journalists like the now-jailed Shi Tao, I think this is fine (gasp!).
Dissidents know what they’re doing. They are attempting to fight the regimes repressing them and their fellow countrymen, and they are very well aware of the risks involved. If you have Yahoo and Google getting their products into a country, you’ll have a greater chance to provide that country’s citizens with access to information, and information is the most powerful weapon against repressive governments.
Last night I watched the documentary Why We Fight. I highly recommend this film for anyone, but I’d really be interested to hear a pro-war person’s take on it. Aside from the easy comments of liberal conspiracy theories. The premise is largely that the military-industrial complex is the cause for most wars, and includes several interviews with members of former President Eisenhower’s family, including his son.
I’ve always thought the Iraq War was a bullshit war. The connections between Saddam and terrorism were minuscule, at best. In addition, we’re still close friends with Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from.
The Middle East aside, the film got me thinking about another war…
Why We Fight uses President Bush’s 2002 speech, in which he defined the “Axis of Evil” to illustrate his intentions on taking action aligned with American oil interests. In that speech, Bush included North Korea as a member of the dastardly trio. It strikes me that the fact we haven’t gone to war against North Korea is further evidence of the economic incentives in going to war.
While Bush claims that our reason for going to war was to help a repressed people (after his WMD excuse fell apart), we haven’t touched North Korea, which is arguably the most repressive regime in the world (aside from perhaps Burma/Myanmar right now, and maybe Pakistan if Pervez Musharaf doesn’t straighten out). However, going to war against North Korea would have a devastating impact on two very important economic allies - China and South Korea. Yes, I said China is an economic ally. Despite backlash against China for undervaluing their currency and our mind-blowingly large trade deficit, American companies have a great deal of money invested in China.
It’s amazing to think that sometime in my life I may have the pleasure of seeing the North Korean regime fall. The Kim family regime influence politics in that region and the world for decades to come, and the fall of the regime will cause some serious hardships for those surrounding the North. One only hopes that if the regime falls, a more repressive one won’t be put in its place.
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