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STILL HATING ON MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTIONS

Jason had an insightful post on newspapers in the Internet Age on his blog wherein he suggested we donate to keep the watchdogs of the press going. In an aside, he mentioned subscriptions for music: To be honest, it's the same thing with music downloads. I've been screaming for monthly subscriptions for years now, and they're still not here. (At least not on the scale of an iTunes or Amazon.) Of course, I had to respond. Jason: I'm sorry to hear you've been screaming for years--you must be very hoarse. I believe the service you're looking for is called Rhapsody . I don't know what counts as "the same scale", but they have ads on TV. I don't know why anyone would pay $12.99/month to rent music, though. I want to own my music, I don't want some company to be able to take my access away or jack up the price at a whim. Rhapsody's main market must be people who don't own much music, have a lot of electronic devices but no interest
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I, FOR ONE, WELCOME OUR NEW PORCINE OVERLORDS . . . I read an article in the New Yorker (1) last year about the growing threat of feral hogs. Apparently they have become a major nuisance in most of the US, destroying native habitat and species, even uprooting irrigation pipes. Plus, they are so wily and tough that only an expert hunter with at least 4 dogs can defeat one. Now, I learn that wild hogs may have caused the most recent outbreak of e. coli . It's clear what's going on -- the pigs are trying to kill us! Trichinosis just wasn't doing the job. With all the bacon I've eaten, I'll be the first up against the wall after the piggy revolution (here is where my sweetie Dr. Somneblex thoughtfully points out that he's given up pork). Coincidentally, I was just reading Oryx and Crake , which features the protagonist being attacked by genetically-altered super-pigs. Clearly, a pig-related horror movie is going to go into production any minute now. A good ti
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THINGS I PAY FOR ONLINE

This I ripped off from library guru Walt Crawford , who got it from SF author and uber-blogger John Scalzi . From whom I learned that AOL still exists and that there is a paid version of LiveJournal. Who knew? And why Rhapsody? Who are these people who are willing to pay every month to rent music that could be taken away from them at any time? Those who don't want the option of making a mix CD or tape do not love music in any way I can understand. I was glad that some of Scalzi's commentors mentioned library subscriptions. Don't pay for any online encyclopedias or magazine articles if you can get them free with your library card, people! The f ree Encyclopedia Britannica subscription for bloggers is also awesome. 1. IpHouse for Internet with Qwest DSL. I could save by bundling with Qwest and get msn.com email (ugh!), but IpHouse has given me such great support over the years and I can always get someone on the phone right away. 2. Netflix (4 movies-at-a-time grandfat
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