The folks behind torrent site The Pirate Bay have launched a new site, OscarTorrents for all your Oscar Film needs.

To those worried about downloading in case they get sued: by our calculations, your chances of getting nailed are way less than your chances of winning the lottery. Don’t think twice about it.

To all intellectual property landlords: we are aware that OscarTorrents might annoy you — but contain your righteous indignation for a while, and think: we’re only linking to torrents that already exist. Face it: your membrane has burst, and it wasn’t us who burst it. Your precious bodily fluids are escaping.

You haven’t beaten us, so why not join us? Think of a new business model that doesn’t involve overpriced pieces of plastic and skanky cinemas hawking cheap carbohydrates while relying on $6/hr projectionists who can’t keep a film in focus — not to mention insulting your audiences by (to pick a few examples) surveilling us with nightvision glasses, searching bags, 30 minutes of commercials and bombarding us with ridiculous anti-piracy propaganda. Take a look at yourselves. Is it really any wonder we’re winning?

Zing!

Now Wal-Mart’s partying like it’s 1997 with this lovely “Unsupported Browser” message. This is so embarrassing for them… couldn’t afford a good web development company? Come on…

Update: they’re even using a spacer.gif to display the error message – talk about living in the past…

The whole of the Internets are atwitter with chatter and analysis about Steve Jobs’s “Thoughts on Music” essay published yesterday on the Apple website.

“Is it a challenge to the major record labels? An answer to the increasingly hostile European governments (Norway, France, Germany) that are pressuring Apple to “open up” the iTunes Store? A message to the press to clarify Apple’s stance on DRM? A big fuck-you to Microsoft?

It is all of these things.” – John Gruber

Personally, I think this is a bold move on Apple’s part, and hope (and believe) it’s no bluff. This is a call to arms against the music companies who have been hopelessly clueless about the ugly truth about DRM: it will NEVER work. Never EVER. The problem is, as John Gruber writes, “DRM and interoperability are mutually exclusive,” so the labels’ and others’ insistence on Apple “opening up” Fairplay (Apple’s iTunes DRM scheme) is a white elephant. The only path to true interoperability is no DRM, not open DRM.

I especially like Jobs’ analysis of existing music distribution practices – the “hello!” reminder to executives that the vast majority of the music they sell is already in the form of unprotected high-quality digital CD’s that anyone can copy/rip/burn. Why this insistence on a scheme that DOES NOTHING to prevent digital piracy?

John Gruber’s analysis
Cory Docotorow’s links @ BoingBoing

John Grubers’s Interoperability vs. DRM article

Cool… just found these Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP – a bunch of small upgrades for different parts of the windows interface – I just installed the Alt-Tab replacement – an upgrade to the regular Alt-Tab function that adds a preview of the application you’re switching to. Also interesting looking: Tweak UI, Virtual Desktop Manager and ClearType Tuner… will have to try them out tonight.

Wal-Mart launched their new video download service today, and boy does it suck. Here’s what it looks like in Firefox:

Oh yeah also, they want you to pay $15 for a 320×240 video that won’t play on iPod, Zune, Mac, or Linux. Boooooooo.

Launchy: The Open Source Keystroke Launcher for Windows – I was just doing some looking around for an application launcher for windows – because, let’s face it, the Start Menu sucks, and the Quick Launch bar just doesn’t cut it either… and so I came across Launchy, a free windows utility that indexes your applications and allows you to launch them with just a few keystrokes. I’ve only just installed it and have barely even begun to use it, but I already see myself getting lots of use out of this thing, and can see it being one of those “how did I ever live without it” utilities. Awesome.

why we do what we do.

Already?! Insane! Trent’s been working hard – this note found on the NIN website:

“Is it possible I am actually finished writing and recording a new nine inch nails record? Apparently so. We begin mixing in January!

Juggling fifteen all-new tracks around. Testing sequences. No leftovers from ‘with teeth’. Highly conceptual. Quite noisy. Fucking cool.”