I haven’t ever bought one song through iTunes - and it’s because of their stupid DRM (Digital Rights Management) which controlled where you could play that music you bought. That might be changing now as Apple announced at MacWorld (though I heard it through ReadWriteWeb) that they will be offering the 10 million songs in the iTunes store without the onerous restrictions. They will even offer re-downloads of songs you may have already purchased (at high quality) without it. There have been many times that I wanted to grab something off iTunes but refused to do so on principal (and because I have Linux machines that I wouldn’t have been able to listen to the stuff on afterward) and I’m happy to see Apple has finally gotten bold enough to stand up to the record companies on this issue.

Time magazine reports that recent earthquakes at Yellowstone have been raising fears that the volcano at Yellowstone, which normally expresses itself only through the benign rhythmic spouting of the Old Faithful geyser, may be re-awakening. A recent check of the USGS page for earthquakes in the last 7 days at Yellowstone listed 273 earthquakes in that period in the region under Yellowstone Lake. The USGS refers to that as a ‘notable swarm’ of earthquakes, which is somewhat less than reassuring.
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As folks who read this blog know, I’m always checking out new ways to access, sort through, catalog, and otherwise enjoy my music files. As a long time Mac user (at least since they dumped their old OS and started using BSD), iTunes has really been the slickest, easiest to use and most fully functional music player available to me. But Apple’s incessant attempts to impose more ingenious and arguably ever more diabolical forms of their DRM (digital rights management) upon me in order to limit what I can do with my own music have basically forced me into an as-yet unending search for a better, free and open solution.
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Earlier in the year Bloomberg TV reported on hidden fees in 401k retirement plans, and how in some cases they may amount to a net loss for plan contributors over the term of the plan. The 401k providers are apparently not required to reveal all the fees, and in at least one case, specifically Walmart, the contract with the provider actually stipulated that Walmart was forbidden to reveal information about the plan to employees! Bloomberg recently won an Emmy for their investigative reporting on this issue.

The videos are posted on YouTube if you want to add financial insecurity to your list of worries this holiday season. Click read more for links.
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Wil Wheaton made us aware that the original number one has passed the galactic barrier. She was made immortal of course as the voice of the comuter, and as Nurse Chapel on the TOS (The Original Series), but maybe even more famous as Lwaxana Troi, mother of Deanna on TNG (The Next Generation) where she was able to develop her character a bit more. As the wife of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek she probably had as much influence on the series as anyone. Trektoday has some links and much more info about her can be found on memory alpha. As a fan, I’m very sad.

Make some time to get out and observe the moon this weekend if weather permits. It appears much larger and brighter than usual because the full moon just happens to coincide with the point in it’s oval orbit when it is nearest to the Earth (it has reached it’s perigee). The difference (about 30,000km or 18,000 miles closer than usual) isn’t much given that the moon is about 405,000km (251,000 miles) away at its furthest point, but if you happen to catch it when it close to the horizon, the real difference will compound with the optical illusion that makes the moon appear much bigger to the eye when it’s near the horizon for a truly spectacular experience. This sort of coincidence is rare. It’s been 15 years since this happened last and it will be 2016 before we can enjoy it again.

BBC story
The Guardian

A form of addiction just sucked two hours of my life away. Now that I have all my music collected together in one place (I didn’t have room on the old machine for both the music and anything else), I’ve set about the monumental task of correcting all the ID3 tags and adding cover art to the files, filling in the missing information, etc. It is a task that is both tedious and exhilarating at the same time.
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