I never played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid, but I know plenty of people that did.

For extra geek cred, check out this picture at Ars Technica.

In case you have not seen this video on the tubes here it is in all its “glory”

As you can see I changed my site design again. This is the first design that was completely done by me without taking from other wordpress themes (not that matters to most of you). Anyway, now I can actually put bigger photos on here and all in all it is a much wider layout. I still have some work to do on the sidebar, but this is all I had time for.

Here’s looking at you Hosted on Zooomr

There is a letter posted by Steve Jobs on the Apple website that looks at a world without Digital Rights Management (DRM). It is a well written analysis of the current state of affairs in digital music. It was prompted in no small part by European countries increasing hostility to Apple and its iPod lock-in. He states that he would embrace a DRM free world if the big four lables (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI) would let him.

Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company.

Now, that makes it sound like Apple has done nothing wrong. I call BS. Steve Jobs is nothing if not a shrewd business man. So shrewd that some have refused to deal with him (see Wal-Mart lining up all the movie studios before he could and Verizon turning down the iPhone) If, as he claims, Apple, Inc., would wholeheartedly embrace no DRM then I ask him why all the music that is already available on eMusic for a fraction of the cost, higher quality, and DRM free is not matched on the iTunes Store. Could it possibly be that Jobs likes his “monopoly,” but chooses to blame the labels?

To be fair, he addresses this “monopoly” and uses some of those fancy statistics to show that under 3% of music on an iPod which holds 1000 songs (supposedly the average of everything) is DRM laden from the Apple Store, and therefore not a significant monetary barrier to keep people from switching. It might only be 22 dollars worth of songs (assuming 22 songs per iPod owner), but that is 22 dollars that Apple just gets to keep and the consumer loses. Luckily for him — not necessarily for us — there is not really another player that is even close to the iPod. Anyway, its worth a read if you get a chance, but I’m not drinking the kool-aid.

Oh, and I completely agree that DRM is a waste of money and will never stop piracy.