Linked List: August 31, 2007

Friday, 31 August 2007

Best Gorilla Movie I’ve Seen All Week 

Impressive. (Via Steve Delahoyde.)

Python 3.0a1 Release 

If Python 3.0 ships before Perl 6, I’m going to cry.

Greg Storey on Web Site Design Rip-Offs 

“First things first, admit it: you suck. You’re a moron and a cheat.”

An Open Letter to NBC re: Leaving Apple’s iTunes Store 

Jeremy Horwitz to NBC:

In other words, the per-episode price people are accustomed to paying for what you show on television is “zero”, or something very close to it.

FastMac 

My thanks to FastMac — “makers of batteries, power adapters, optical drives, CPUs, LCDs and wireless upgrades for Macs, iPods, and iPhones” — for sponsoring DF’s RSS feed this week. They sell a ton of cool stuff. Use the code “SMJAJ1DF” before next Wednesday and you save 10 percent off any battery or CPU upgrade.

Michael ‘The Beer Hunter’ Jackson Dies 

My wife bought me Jackson’s Great Beer Guide a few years ago; it’s the bible for beer lovers. Beers in his honor tonight. (Via Andre Torrez, who also points to Jackson’s entry at Wikipedia.)

This made my week.

Letterman to Appear on ‘Oprah’ 

Cool. I can’t remember the last time Letterman appeared on anyone else’s show.

Apple to NBC: Go Fuck Yourselves, You Greedy Morons 

So NBC and Apple couldn’t agree to terms to sell NBC TV shows for the upcoming fall season. Apple issued a point-blank press release explaining why:

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes Store. The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Five bucks per episode is ridiculous.

New York Post: Apple Set to Sell Ringtones Via iTunes Store 

It’s The New York Post, so take it with an appropriate grain of salt. If true, though, it’s great news for Ambrosia — why pay a buck (or whatever) for each ringtone when you can spend $15 and convert any non-DRM-protected song you already own into one? This whole “ringtones are something different than songs and you have to pay for them” thing is a racket, and everyone knows it. (Via Mat Lu.)

Update: Ends up iToner works with DRM-protected songs from iTunes, too. Sweet.

‘Creative Leader’, Huh? 

I love the credit in the footer: “Site concept and CSS by SimpleBits.com”. True, if by “by” he means “ripped off from”.

iToner 

New $15 utility from Ambrosia Software, lets you add ringtones to your iPhone via a simple drag-and-drop application. It’s that easy — no other hacking required. I wonder, though, whether Apple plans to add custom ringtone support to iTunes in a near-future update.