I'm disgusted and ashamed to live here.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you probably don't live in California. For your benefit, here is a quick explanation: Proposition eight will outlaw same-sex marriages, which are currently recognized by California state law. By voting "NO", I am voicing my opinion that same-sex marriages should have all of the same rights and privileges as a heterosexual marriage in the eyes of the law.

Proposition eight is a step backward for civil rights. If you live in California, I beg you to please vote "NO" on proposition eight!

Oh yeah, and I'll be voting for Obama too.

. . . Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

I knew I liked this guy.

It seems that Macrovision's CEO, Fred Amoroso, has formally responded to Steve's "Thoughts on Music". Luckily, John Gruber of Daring Fireball has translated the letter from PR-speak to plain English. Worth a read.

The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has, at the behest of the Chinese Communist regime, removed the weblog of Zhao Jing (who blogged under the pen name "An Ti") from its MSN Spaces service, without even providing him with the deleted files. A while back Microsoft was keen on calling Linux and other open-source software a form of communism -- I guess now we see who the true communist sympathizers are (perhaps it's because both Microsoft and the Communist Party are dinosaurs). Does Microsoft think that its much-touted freedom to innovate implies the freedom to censor? Stowe Boyd is right: it's time to boycott Microsoft.