New iPod. Plays video. Whatever.

BUT! iTunes (in the US) now sells TV shows! The day after they air! For $2!!!

Why... has... this... taken... so... long?!

It's so darn obvious I could cry.

I guess the iTunes DRM and low quality of the videos (they're only 2.5" screens after all) has pushed the studios over the edge to allowing it to happen.

They're already talking about providing better quality. Hollywood is already freaking out. They're already discussing the death of TIVO.

Hearing some rumbles that the new format of DVD, HD-DVD may not have region coding [Slashdot].

We've gotten a variety of opinions about region controls. Even in the Steering Committee, they are extremely unpopular; we decided to not put them in. HD DVD probably won't contain any region playback controls.

Also, good to see Sony losing the recent case against "modding" of PlayStations. Now we can "legally" buy imported games. Oh no! Global market!

As far as I know it's pretty hard to find a DVD player in Australia that doesn't play all regions.

Just to think the whole PAL / NTSC thing is still seen as region coding to some.

Sounds like something a ninja would say...

It's both a blessing and a curse having an ex-insurance man as a father-in-law.

A curse because ignorance is bliss...

A blessing because he has very helpfully identified a hole in our insurance that required half a day on the phone to proove. I'm fairly sure I broke two or three insurance call-centre people with my questions. One poor girl was on her first day.

If you are in the following situation:

• You own a unit
• Your unit shares some "common land" with one or more other units (eg. a driveway)
• Each unit has their own home insurance policy rather than a shared policy across all units

... be aware that you may not be covered for legal liability on the shared common land, despite what your insurance company says.

Our policy specifically says that "you" will be covered for liabiliy under a starta. However, their definition of "you" is "you and your family". It doesn't include the seperate legal entity of the "body corporate" (which exists even if it's inactive). If someone were to fall down a drain on our driveway and sue the body corporate and not one of the unit owners directly, we would not be covered.

So now we have a seperate policy just for the legal liability on the common land.

Some useful contacts:

• Ask your insurance company for their policy disputes centre phone number.
• Insurance Council of Australia.
• Ask the ICA for a broker near you, it is impossible to get "just common land liability insurance" directly from an insurance company.

The joy of home ownership.

I also learned exactly what a Strata Title is today and it's rather strange. But it seems Starta title in Victoria has been repealed by the Subdivision Act 1988 which wraps everything up into a neat little pack-age.

Nice to see the TAC focusing on injuries rather than deaths.

www.46.com.au

Their statistics quote an average of 46 serious injuries on our roads every day compared to 1 death.

The road toll (deaths) fluctuates a fair bit from around 300 to 450 between 1999 and 2004. Serious injuries on the other hand have remained fairly consistantly in the mid to upper 3000s from the year 2000 onwards.

I'm having trouble finding a definition of "serious injury" but I remember reading or hearing that it involves at least a day in hospital and medical bills on average of around $600.

I've had a Panasonic CD/MP3 player for the past year or so. It's done quite well, however it has been dropped one to many times. Now it has a habit of scratching CDs, which is unforgivable.

So I've started thinking a flash MP3 player is the way to go. But what are my limits? I don't want an iPod or Nano or Shuffle or Mini as I don't want to use iTunes.

What's the lower limit?

• Under $200.
• At least 256Mb (2 CDs worth at 1.5Mb a minute)
• Mounts as a portable drive
• No software required for transfer
• Plays MP3

What would I prefer?

• Under $100
• At least 2Gb (2CDs uncompressed)
• Mounts as a portable drive
• No software required for transfer
• Plays anything (particularly FLAC and WAV)
• Firmware upgradeable

But that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Sure, I'd love to have 60Gb of music at my finger tips but I don't see the point. I will use the player for to and from work and that's it.

I also hate carrying around such a heavily used consumer device that costs hundreds of dollars. There is no way I'd spend $500+ on a bloody music player.

In my mind Warner and FMR have always been close. Now they're the same thing.

I find it a little irritating that last year Warner Australia dropped many Australian acts to cut costs, only to then buy more Australian acts via FMR.

Dave is playing the lyrics interpretation game with Tori Amos' "Silent All These Years". Danger danger!

I interpret it thusly (with punctuation added by me to explain):

excuse me but
can i be you for a while?:

"my DOG won't bite
if you sit real still
i got the anti-christ
in the kitchen
yellin' at me again"

yeah i can hear that

"been saved again
by the garbage truck
i got something to say
you know but NOTHING comes
yes i know what you think of me
you never shut up"

yeah i can hear that

but what if i'm a mermaid
in these jeans of his
with her name still on it?
hey but i don't care
cause sometimes i said
sometimes i hear my voice
and it's been
HERE silent all these years

The "quoted" parts are the battered wife play-acting the battering husband. I see the "yeah i can hear that" line as "yeah, I can hear you saying that". So who is "i" and "you" jumps around depending on if she is play acting or not.

The chorus is a little more confused. I could see it as the battered wife questioning if her husband sees her as just another version of his previous girl, the "her" in "with her name still on it" being the ex.

I could also see the chorus being the battered wife questioning if while she's play acting being "him" she's just "her" in his skin (jeans). She's wondering if she is not that different to her man.

The "mermaid" thing always confused me. I see it two ways. Either it's "her" thinking she is in two parts (part him and part her). Or it's a name for how she might in his jeans. I presume she is smaller and could fit both legs into one jeans leg, thus looking like a mermaid.

Or both.

Dave asks me:

The question is, who are "i", "you", and "the anti-christ" in the first verse, who is "i" and "you" in the second verse, and, who is "i" and "his" in the chorus? And so on.

You can see by my interpretation that it isn't that simple. The Anti-Christ is "her". "I" and "you" jump around depending on if she's play acting or not. One interpretation sees one of the chorus "her" as the ex.

If you like, it could probably work if verse one is "her" play acting "him" and verse two is "him" play acting "her".