Here’s how the system might work: at the store, someone buying a new DVD would have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD’s RFID tag.

Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter his or her password or fingerprint. The system would require consumers to buy new DVD players with RFID readers.

[via]

I’m embarrassed to live in the same city with these people.

And Ian Pierpoint, senior vice-president at market research company Synovate (though he lives in Vancouver, not Toronto) drops what might be the most loathsome phrase I’ve heard in weeks: “why spend $700 if no one knows you spent $700?”. Mr. Pierpoint, I do believe you have jumped up your own ass.

I read too much. The sad thing is, I don’t even read normal books anymore. I keep buying them, but I haven’t read one in months. Here’s what I’m always reading:

daily:

• 8-10 web sites (just the ones I feel compelled to read that don’t have news feeds)
• Email from 6 accounts (I have more, but those are the accounts with regular traffic)
• ~120 news feeds (in four main groups: entertainment, general, news & politics; there’s a fifth group with hundreds of feeds that I don’t read, but filter using keyword watches)

weekly:

• Eye Weekly
• Now Toronto
• the Saturday Star
• 100 pages of whatever textbook I’m currently working on

monthly:

• Esquire
• Spin
• Stuff (the British gadget magazine, not the crappy American lad mag)
• Playboy (before you mock…this was a gift from my wife, along with Spin and Stuff, and cliche though it may be, the articles are surprisingly good. last month there was an in-depth examination of the origin of life & science vs. religion, an collection of final thoughts from Hunter Thompson, a short story by Chuck Palahniuk, interviews with James Spader and Vitali Klitschko and a look at stranger-than-strange Pentagon projects. then again, it also featured “The Real Desperate Housewives”. So, fine, it’s not The Economist.)
• Toronto Life

By the way, this doesn’t include what I read at work, which involves half a dozen sites, about fifty news feeds that update every three hours, and god knows how many emails bearing god knows how many attachment.

How, in the name of all that’s holy, could anything in my profile make Ticketmaster think I want to go see Pop-Tarts Presents American Idols Live?

Speaking of transmission-ripping, my Nomad just served up the following four-song set:

1. Blink 182 – “Dammit”
2. Stan Rogers – “Forty-Five Years”
3. A Perfect Circle – “Judith”
4. Bruce Springsteen – “The Line”

Cursed Old Navy. Their latest ad — you know, the one that rips off The Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” — plays every morning while my wife watches Breakfast Television, and it’s been stck in my head for two days. I’ve been trying to blast it out with decent music on the Nomad, but as soon as the earphones come out it comes slipping back, all slimy and grating.

I don’t want to resort to my two sure-fire methods of getting rid of it — a pyrrhic victory to be sure — but I may have to. My sure fire methods, by the way, are as follows:

• hum the intro to “My Charona” — you know…duh duh DA DA duh DA duh DA duh duh DA duh duh duh DA DA duh DA MY CHARONA!! — over and over
• if that doesn’t work, sing the chorus of “We Built This City On Rock and Roll”. this, truly the nuclear option, should only be used in extreme cases.

That last one was taught to me by a guy named Dean a few years back and hasn’t failed me yet, though I worry for my own sanity when I do use it. Recovering usually involves some strong whiskey and a few leeches.

My boss (also a student of politics) and I were discussing “conservative” politics the other day, and how it means something very different in America than in the rest of the world. Historically conservatives have stood for smaller government: lower taxes, fewer social programs, less interference in commercial enterprise, etc. However, in America it has come to mean something very different. Traditionally Republicans have been considered the more conservative party, but Republicans today are no longer “conservatives” in the political sense. Rather, they are pro-life, anti-gay, pro-religion (Christian, specifically) and, to a lesser extent, pro-war and pro-gun.

As such, it seemed to us that every issue seized upon by American conservatives gets twisted into those main talking points. Debate over judicial nominations becomes a debate about “godly” versus (one assumes) “godless”; school science classes become a debate about evolution versus “intelligent design”; every address by an elected official, no matter the subject, ends with “God Bless America”; same-sex marriage is cast as an affront to God; and so on. There is little room for reasoned debate; arguments are defined as “holy” vs. “unholy”, “godly” vs. “godless”, “moral” vs. “immoral”, “with us” vs. “against us”, etc. They ask themselves, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”, but they seem to find a different answer than the left / progressives / liberals / whatever you choose to call them.

It’s nothing new; fifty years ago McCarthy was attacking godless communists and having religious language inserted into the pledge of allegiance, and many schools still didn’t teach evolution. I’m just baffled that it’s gone on so long, and that it hasn’t seemed to catch on in Britain or Canada. Why not? Or has it, and I’m just blind to it?

Sorry about the brevity and vapid content of my recent posts. The confluence of work & school have (rightly) cut into my blogging time of late. Shortly I expect to rant about politics & work (which, really, are kinda the same topic). Stay tuned.

Speaking of politics, if you need something to read you could always head over here.

The new Nine Inch Nails disc (metacritic | pitchfork) is good. The new Spoon disc (metacritic | pitchfork) is gooooooooooooooood.

I read the Globe today for the first time in months.

I thought I’d miss it.

I don’t.