Woo hoo! Go RPI! First the Ferris Wheel, then the Reach toothbrush, then Bugle Boy, now this! Oh where will these bright minds take us next! "Why not change the world?" Check.

Seiko Kinetic

Reading Rainbow reference was priceless. :)

In a word: notepad ... what would I do without it!

;-)

While Henson and Kinnear were great, McHale floors my ass week to week. "Elmo says ... f!@# the police!" Classic.

> "... we were expecting more (way more) people and generally fewer clowns."

Classic. Laughed my ass off. Thank you, Chris.

Beautiful piece. My sincere condolences. You have inspired me to spend more time with my father. Something I mistakenly take for granted. Thank you.

ouch! tough crowd :-(

st3phen -- (1) i mentioned the higher samplings when i talked about "higher quality" offerings in my post (2) i said near-zero cost, not "no-cost" ... yes, space and bandwidth are a factor here, but a 30% hike? It is in my opinion that this cost is what EMI feels that would otherwise lose from un-DRMing their music. I'm not talking about people hosting sights with un-DRM'd songs ... that's already done ... I'm talking about non-tech-savvy people now saying, "Hey ... how 'bout you, me, and Sparky here split the cost of our next music purchase."

PlaidPJs -- meow! breathe! it's okay. your mother still loves you... Never said Apple was screwing us. I just believe that offering un-DRM'd music at a higher cost with no real added value (your words, buddy: "Or, do we forget that the majority of people listening to music can't succinctly tell the difference between 128kbps and CD-quality") while still offering DRM'd music at a cheaper price is NOT as big a step forward towards unprotected bliss as it's been hyped to be ...

Is Apple screwing me? Not in the least. I will continue to to purchase $0.99 music and continue to legally use QTFairUse or simply burn and re-rip songs to get over the DRM hurdle. With these options available, the only reason to pay the 30% bump to by un-DRM'd music would be (1) you are not aware of these options or simply don't have the technical know-how or (2) you want the higher-quality tracks.

My feeling is, most people who want the un-DRM'd tracks is so they can play their music in their non-iPod devices. I'm saying Apple is penalizing (not "screwing" as you so eloquently put it) these users not once but twice. Once with the higher price. Two, with the needlessly larger file, effectively shrinking the capacity of their non-iPod device ...

... now why would Apple want competing devices to seem less capable then their iPods which can play the smaller, DRM'd music ... hmmm ...

Someone please explain this to me: How is offering "higher-quality" tracks (a near-zero cost to Apple) at a 30% mark-up supposed to show their support for DRM-free music? The biggest arguement has always been that DRM only hurts the consumers who legally purchase and have no intention of illegally distributing the music ...

It appears we're giving this same consumer the "option" now of still being hurt by DRM at $0.99/song or "penalized" at $1.29/song ... while the consumer who would have normally either stole the music or removed the DRM is still going to do so!

What motivation do I have to purchase $1.29 songs that are only going to cut my iPod capacity in half for a quality I will never be able to distinguish over most earphones (especially the ones that CAME WITH MY IPOD!)? ... Especially as well as I need only wait for the DRM to be cracked again.

The $0.30 bump is simply how much the minds at EMI calculated they would lose from otherwise "legal" consumers if they removed DRM vs. the normal $0.99 cents ... that's all ... the brilliant minds at Apple then 'hide' this bump by offering the songs to you at a higher quality that, if they really thought was better, would have offered a long time ago ...

:: sigh :: thank you browser cache :-P