Virgin Records Sins

So I went to New York on Friday, and when I was in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, I noticed that there was a Virgin Records store there. (It's a modest store, not like a Virgin Megastore that you might be picturing) However, it gave me something to do while Amtrak switched engines. In any case, I noticed that, among the things they were selling, were coasters made from the center portion of records (where the track listings are, along with the hole to put the record onto the spindle for the record player) To do this, I imagine that Virgin had to destroy the record, and I think this is a sin. There was at least one artist that I recognized, and even though I did not recognize it, I'm sure that someone might really want a record by an artist, and now, because Virgin must have gone through its inventory and destroyed a whole bunch of records, they'll never be able to get one again. It's really a sin to do that.

Technological Musings

Google came out with a version of their toolbar which is compatible with Mozilla Firefox Beta, which is really nice, because that was holding me back on upgrading. I like the spell checking option of it especially, since if I am filling out a webform (as at the New York Times to send an article to someone), I like to check my spelling.

Apple's new iPod Video is nice, but I'm not about to run out and buy one. I usually like to listen to music while I study, and so the video portion of it would not be useful. I guess it might be useful if I was taking a long airplane flight or something, but for that I might as well buy a portable DVD player, which I would imagine are at least somewhat comparably priced.

Google came out with a new blog reader, reader.google.com It's nice because I can get to blogs that I am intersted in watching for new postings from any computer.

New Orleans

There is a post on Ernie The Attorney's Blog about his return to New Orleans, I think it is really well written.
http://www.ernietheattorney.net/ernie_the_attorney/2005/10/new_orleans_ret.html

Cold Case Music

Cold Case is my favorite show to watch on TV right now. What I really like about it is not only the story lines, but the music that goes along with it. Whoever picks the music for it does an excellent job, because they pick songs that toally mesh with the plot. They're picking songs from whatever era the show is set in. Last Sunday they had, as the ending song, Sarah McLachlan's Fallen, which was really appropriate for last Sunday's show.
Although, as I was watching it on Sunday, I called out "Seized!" when the police officers restrained someone from leaving that they wanted to question. Sigh. I suppose I've been in law school too long.

Rules for Shotgun

I'm going to link to Will Huynh's blog, he has a really clever post on his blog for how to determine who will ride shotgun.

Apple Computer vs. the Record Companies

There's been a series of articles where Apple and the record companies (some of them) have been disputing the amount of money that Apple charges for songs that are downloaded from iTunes. Basically, some of the record companies want to raise the price that Apple charges for songs. I think that the record companies need to read Aesop's Fables. In particular, the fable of the Golden Goose. (One sentence synopsis of the Golden Goose: Goose lays one golden egg a day, farmer likes this, and wants more, so he kills the golden goose to get all the eggs out of her, but there are no more left, and he is left with a dead golden goose)
According to this article in Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/2003/inventions/invmusic.html
the record companies get 65 cents per song that they sell on iTunes. This is pure profit for them. They did not have to manufacture the CD, ship the CD to the record store, or produce the plastic needed for the case/CD, or produce the album art (other than to transmit to Apple
a computer file that has the image of the cover on it) They want to raise the price for some songs, and claim that they will lower the prices for others. I'll believe the lower prices when I see them. My big concern is that I think that the record companies make too much money as it is. I think that it is important to reward artists, but the problem is that much of the money does not go to artists, but goes to the record companies.
See:
http://www.ascap.com/musicbiz/money-recording.html
for information on this.
I think that the record companies should leave iTunes alone.