Mesh Magazine SF reminds us not to buy music from record labels that persecute their fans via outrageous RIAA lawsuits.

“The companies that sued [Jammie] Thomas are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.”

More interesting information about the trial at Boycott-Riaa.com and PC World.

Boycotting the RIAA seems reasonable. It’s gonna be tough though, so prepare to sacrifice!

No more Celine Dion
no more Barry Manilow
no more Whitney Houston
no more Guns n’ Roses
no more Duran Duran
no more Alanis Morissette
no more Cher
no more Billy Idol
no more Kiss
no more Sheryl Crow
no more Billy Joel
no more Christina Aguilera
no more Kenny Chesney
no more Gloria Estefan
no more Slayer
no more Bruce Hornsby
no more Carly Simon
no more Wilson Phillips
no more Menudo
no more Backstreet Boys
no more Nick Lachey
no more Air Supply
no more Blondie
no more Crash Test Dummies
no more Neil Diamond
no more Lita Ford
no more Irish Tenors
no more R. Kelly
no more Brit… Brit… Brit…

Aww hell I just can’t do it.

Sometimes I take a lot of shots of something nice and otherwise mundane and the results wind up dull. In such a case I like to stack the images as semi transparent layers and see if anything less dull appears. In the case above it’s only slightly less dull, but I’ve got something important to say, so enough with the self-involved picture talk…

City of San Francisco did something great when they invested in the Garfield Park playfield improvements. That field has brought a lot of life to the area and it’s fun to watch.

In the past I’ve always rejected artificial turf surfaces. This one makes perfect sense. It’s not in constant use, but pretty close.

If rents weren’t already out of control, I’d probably brag about my neighborhood now.

Instead I’ll remind you that San Francisco is incredibly expensive! Really. And now there’s actually graffiti on my neighbor’s wall. Graffiti! You know what that means, right?? It means – as much as I love you and it hurts me most to say it – it means don’t move here.

Thanks!

How much mental energy do you spend filling out captchas?

Someday, friends, maybe a fraction of that energy can be accumulated and redirected toward something more entertaining.

Business planning can be not interesting. I’ve never tried to peddle the day to day stories of my thrilling economic activities. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy them. Of course I do. The stories just don’t make great reading (or writing) material.

I started including photos in the blog a long time back. I’ve had a lot of traffic via google image searches from all around the world. Swell. Makes me happy to help google sell ads. That’s a lie. It makes me indifferent.

Does the internet really need more heavily photoshopped pictures of inane subjects? Apparently so. And I don’t mind. It’s not a server load. The pictures are colorful.

Previously on the new improved blog I’d make an effort to combine the pics with some sort of quasi relevant news item or other piece of business oriented content. That’s been an okay formula and I won’t abandon it completely. I will stop making an effort to reduce the number of times that I use the word “I” in my posts. Things may become more bloglike (without the annoying comments). I don’t have a cat. I may share stories about my plants.

Above is a classic composition. I call it “bee with flower”. Tell you all about it some other time.

[tags]bee with flower[/tags]

2001. The bird survived. Left an imprint on the glass (dust? dirt? bird oil?). I took a picture. Recently found the picture on a hard drive.

Sometimes photoshop gets the better of me. In such instances it’s easy to destroy an otherwise nice image. Above is a decent example of that. You can blame the technology – photoshop has a lot of options, maybe too many. But to do so misses the point. The problem in this case wasn’t the tool. It was me. I didn’t have a clear idea of the story I wanted the image to tell.

The subject is unadulterated. I took a trip to Sacramento to register Plan Resonate as an LLC. That day I was walking through the capital district and saw a public building that had had part of it’s sign removed. It had become the secretive headquarters of the “department of”. You can fill in the blank.

Not long ago I went sailing with a family of long time friends. It was an amazing day on the bay. Was reminded of an afternoon driving around Albuquerque in the summer of 2006. Good memories.

Hello friends,

Hope you’ve all had a good summer. Mine has been great. Full of interesting projects, good people, and beautiful weather.

It’s fall now isn’t it? A lot of things to look forward to this fall. That’s for sure.

Thanks for coming,

Jeff

Quick recap:

The luxurious Xtracyle Sport Utility Bicycle (S.U.B.) exhibits your uncompromising taste in personal transportation choices.

The Phoenix 1000 luxury submarine exhibits your entirely human desire to possess the “single largest private undersea vehicle ever built“. (via Ming)

This sub illustration is the property of U.S. Submarines.
[tags] Xtracycle S.U.B., Phoenix 1000 Sub[/tags]

Class action suit against the RIAA. According to the Wired Listening Post blog:

“RIAA defendant Tanya Anderson has filed the first file sharing class action suit against the RIAA, seeking payment for “significant damages caused by the Defendants” to everyone who has been sued by the organization to date.”

One one side – it’s easy and probably unreasonable to accept that every RIAA prosecution has been as misguided as some reports would lead us to believe.

On the other – it’s easy and probably undeniable to conclude that the RIAA has a much heavier PR presence than private individuals like Tanya Anderson. How many of these stories are going on outside of the few that get public attention?

Should be interesting to see how many other abusive RIAA cases come to light.
[tags]Tanya Anderson, RIAA[/tags]