Gary Robinson's Rants

Happy Boxing Day

I was too wrapped up with family and wrapping and unwrapping the last couple of days to blog. Since I missed Christmas, I figured Boxing Data was the next best opportunity to wish you a happy one!

Update, Dec 29: I happened to re-read the above, and... er... noticed I had typed "data" rather than "day." I must have gotten distracted by receiving a work email or something. One New Year's Resolution: Do more proofreading!

MacinTouch mentioned us today

It's been a long time since we've been mentioned in MacInTouch. Thanks, guys!

Progress on Goombah is continuing steadily. Recent updates have focused on community-oriented features, like adding friends to your list of neighbors ("My Goombahs") and making it easier to communicate with the people who are most like you in musical taste.

xPods? Satellites?

Dave Winer notes an interesting rumor during a visit to San Francisco:

I've only been in SF for a few hours and I already have an interesting rumor to spread. It turns out the nextgen iPod will hook up to satellite radio, for podcasting-like features, out of the box, from Apple. The rumor has it that this pod will be announced at MacWorld Expo, next month. Maybe it'll be called the xPod?

The big question would be whether stuff that comes in over the satellite
will be legal to record on the unit's hard disk to play when you want .

Apple-Motorola phone?

Apple Computer and Motorola could soon show us the mobile phone they are developing to play music purchased from Apple's iTunes online music store.

"We've said we have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we're definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you'll be able to see more about it soon," says Eddy Cue, vice president in charge of applications at Apple. [Forbes]

Apple-Motorola phone?

Apple Computer and Motorola could soon show us the mobile phone they are developing to play music purchased from Apple's iTunes online music store.

"We've said we have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we're definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you'll be able to see more about it soon," says Eddy Cue, vice president in charge of applications at Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ). [Forbes]

Artists surveyed on file sharing

Interesting stuff in a New York Times article on a Pew Internet and American Life poll of artists:

Among the findings: artists are divided but on the whole not deeply concerned about online file-sharing. Only about half thought that sharing unauthorized copies of music and movies online should be illegal, for instance. And makers of file-sharing software like Kazaa and Grokster may be unnerved to learn that nearly two-thirds said such services should be held responsible for illegal file-swapping; only 15 percent held individual users responsible.

How not to win friends and influence people

Suicide bombers plow van into mosque. [CNN]

I obviously may be mistaken, but my intuition is that we've passed the turning point in Iraq. If the insurgents are trying to frighten Muslim Iraqis into joining their cause by killing them, I personally just cannot believe that strategy will work.

From the perspective of a software business guy, long trained in attempting to be rational, such actions appear to be irrational when considered as strategy.

In fact I think they show that the insurgents are desperate and know they are losing the "hearts and minds" of the Muslim Iraqi population. Their current actions will only increase that trend. And they are very unlikely to win that way. I feel more confident about the Iraq outcome now than in quite a few months.