Some Straight Truth About the Music Business

The Lefsetz Letter is a blog from industry insider Bob Lefsetz. In his recent post, he takes on the Sony rootkit fiasco, and why music sales are down.


Sony BMG has been irreparably harmed. The whole MUSIC business has been irreparably harmed. By the inane actions of ignorant people under the moniker of saving the music.You want to save the music? Make stuff people want to own for decades. And sell it to them in a way they want to listen to it.

...How did things go so horribly wrong?

1. The major labels developed a sense of entitlement. They believed that sales could never go down, that people NEEDED music, that MTV would break acts forevermore.

...The Web is like cable TV. It's about niche product. No act dominates when the public has choice. Therefore, the concept of selling ten million copies of one album has gone out the window. It's got NOTHING TO DO with ripping, burning or stealing. You just can't dominate the public consciousness the way you used to. But rather than face this reality, and retool for a new environment, the labels, in a parody of their customers two decades before, claimed I WANT MY MTV!"

Check out his blog for more on this topic.

Ultra High Security Password Generator

Steve Gibson of grc.com has a secure password generator. If you are using a wireless router, you should use one of these for your WPA password as they are uncrackable. Alternately, use portions of a the random string for your bank or online access passwords.

Moron With A Knife

Dr. Roderick T. Beaman has this to say about evolution and ID:

Now, understand one thing. As a physician, I have a scientific background, although I am not a scientist in the usual sense of the word. There is a compelling amount of evidence supporting evolution. I also hesitate to ascribe anything to supernatural forces, unless all other possibilities have been exhausted but even then, I am reluctant.

That said, the Theory of Evolution remains just that, a theory and an unproved one. There is a lot of contrary evidence that just doesn't seem to square with it.

So the good doctor does not know the scientific definition of the word theory. Does he know that medicine is based on theories? Maybe he just guesses instead of diagnosing. Oh wait, he does. He is an osteopath.

But our noble faith-healer does show some perspicacity here:

I'm also not impressed with what evolutionists cite as 'proof' of the theory. Just recently, there was a news story of new data that supports Charles Darwin's central tenets. Among the evidence cited was 25,000 generations of Escherichia Coli resulting in divergent strains of the bacterium. Sure, it supports it but all it showed was that evolution had occurred.

Hard to believe. Luckily he says it again:

A hostile reader once directed me to a website that purportedly demonstrated evolution. It was about changes that occurred in a species of fish in Lake Malawi in Africa. Once again, all it showed was that evolution had occurred,

A more involved bitch-slap of this quack can be found at PZ Meyers' house of rational thought.

Still Tied For #1 Band In The World

Hot on the heels of the World's Top Intellectual contest come the National Post's internet vote to find Canada's "most important public intellectual". What a vague title. And the nominees are equally vague. Lorne Michaels? Barbara Amiel? Margaret Atwood? Atwood is a "public intellectual"?

I truly hate internet votes. So, of course, I have to talk about them.

Thanks to CC for pointing out the article.

Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit

Here are some hints on detecting baloney. A useful reminder in these days of maximum spin.


- Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts
- Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
- Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").
- Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
- Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
- Quantify, wherever possible.
- If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.
- "Occam's razor" - if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.
- Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?