DigitalHobbit

A short story about how the music industry has changed (though not all of them have recognized this yet).

Earlier this evening, a Twitter message alerted me to the Ghosts instrumental album that was released by Nine Inch Nails today, completely announced. I had been curious about Trent Reznor’s plans, as he had previously voiced his [...]

A few days ago, fantasy author Terry Pratchett announced some sad news on Josh Kirby’s blog (in a post titled “An Embuggerance”). Apparently he has been diagnosed with a rare, early onset form of Alzheimer’s. His blog post sounds optimistic under the circumstances:

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, [...]

Once and for all, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor sticks it to the music industry. Yesterday, he posted the following text on the Nine Inch Nails home page:

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any [...]

Last month I blogged about DRM-free Online Music Stores. Well, today Amazon unveiled their own MP3 music store: amazonmp3

Even though it’s been a while since a new Amazon feature has blown me away, I have to say I am very impressed with amazonmp3! They only offer DRM-free music in MP3 format, generally encoded using 256kbps. [...]

Techcrunch posted a nice article on finding DRM-dree music online. I have long been frustrated with the state of online music sales. While I love iTunes, I have never used the iTunes Music Store because I refuse to buy any DRM-crippled songs. The fact that Apple recently made EMI’s catalog available without DRM is a [...]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has posted a list of Frequently Awkward Questions for the Entertainment Industry, just in case you ever need to challenge one of the deceptive RIAA or MPAA representatives.

Some of my favorites:

The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That’s [...]

Dave Thomas just announced a new Pragmatic Bookshelf series called Pragmatic Fridays. I have no idea what inspired the name “Friday” in this context, but a Pragmatic Friday is a short (60 - 100 pages), low-cost ($7.50 - $10), and focussed book on a specific topic. The books are available for download in PDF form [...]

I just noticed that one of my favorite Industrial bands, Project Pitchfork, is offering a downloadable version of their latest album “Kaskade” for sale, in addition to the usual CD edition. Apparently the downloaded version consists of high quality 192kbps MP3 files without DRM or anything. A PDF version of the cover is included as [...]

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy movie (which I didn’t care for all that much, as I previously wrote), prompted me to pick up a copy of “Don’t Panic”, Neil Gaiman’s guide to the guide. The original version came out in the late 80s, but it has been updated several times since then to keep [...]

Today I saw the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” movie. It was always clear to me that it would be difficult to turn this story into a motion picture, something that Douglas Adams unsuccessfully attempted several times before his untimely death in 2001. I didn’t expect all books to be reflected in the movie, and [...]

Speaking of the original BBC series The Office: In case you haven’t done so yet, you really should check out BBC’s definitive online guide. The website has a wealth of background information such as an episode guide, interviews, wallpaper, a screensaver, video clips (such as David’s infamous dance), the lyrics and chords to Freelove Freeway, [...]

Two days ago, the first episode of NBC’s remake of the popular BBC series ‘The Office” was broadcast. As a fan of the original BBC series, I had a bad feeling about this remake. Yesterday evening, I watched the NBC pilot on my Tivo, and it turns out I was right…

Disappointingly, the story was a [...]

I saw VNV Nation in San Francisco yesterday, and I have to say that it was a great show - especially considering that apart from the live vocals and a little bit of live drumming, which was more for show than for actual percussion, there was no live music to speak of. Still, the two [...]

The upcoming Make: magazine from O’Reilly sounds very interesting. It is published as a “mook”, a magazine / book hybrid, and covers a wide array of technology and what people can do with it. It sounds like the focus will be on concrete consumer projects, including things like kite aereal photography, home entertainment, websites, etc. [...]

The first teaser for the upcoming “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” movie has been released. Frankly, there’s not much to see, as it does not contain any actual footage from the movie. Regardless, at least it is another sign that the work is proceeding. There is also a nice history of the movie. I still [...]

Out of curiosity I just did a Google search for “digitalhobbit” to find any references to my site (not that I really expected any…). One of the links that was returned among the top search results was this one. It points to a site called All Consuming, which apparently monitors blogs for Amazon book links [...]

The third book in the Pragmatic Starter Kit series, “Pragmatic Project Automation”, is now available, either from Amazon or from the Pragmatic Programmer website. I have read and can thoroughly recommend the other two books in the series, “Pragmatic Version Control” (Amazon link) and “Pragmatic Unit Testing” (Amazon link). All books in the series are [...]

Cudos to TiVo Inc., who decided to get rid of the premium Home Media Option and instead made these additional services (online scheduling, digital music, digital photos and multi-room viewing) freely available as part of the standard subscription. For an additional monthly fee, I would not have considered subscribing to these features, but for free [...]

Thanks to Boing Boing for alerting me to the upcoming Combover: The Movie. This looks hilarious!

I did a little more research on the upcoming Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. Apparently, they have started shooting last month, things are going well so far, and the movie is scheduled to be released mid-2005. The cast looks interesting as well. Martin Freeman, who is known from his role as Tim in [...]