Build Date: Mon Mar 30 10:20:08 2026 UTC
Three words: LITERALIST FUCKHEAD DONUTS. You've been eating too many and you have literalist fuckhead jelly all over your literalist fuckhead face.
-- Mr. Bad
While We're At It, Burn All MP3s, Too
1999-09-20 00:29:13
So, I've been real interested in this Burn All GIFs Day thing coming up in October (ssh! that date is still secret! -- check out burnallgifs.org for more details). But I gots to say that I really hate the bullshite that's happening around MP3s, too. So, gar.
See, here's the deal: phenomenally popular little format, the MP3 doohickey. INCREDIBLE sound file compression combined with recent advances in consumer Internet bandwidth have made it possible for all of us to share lots of music and play it and see crazy acid dream shit visuals while you do so. Which is just really cool.
EXCEPT, you see, EXCEPT that after the MP3 format got all popular and there were a ton of compressors and players and trippy acid freak fest visualization programs, AFTER all that these folks at Fraunhofer IIS and the really scary anti-competitive Thomson Multimedia Corp started to get all HEAVY about a PATENT they hold on some of the compression technology that makes MP3 work.
FUCKING FUCK! More PATENTS! Gar! Just like with GIFS! I hate fucking software patents! Gar! Gar gar gar! They mean that real good software that does things that are real useful gets STIFLED and STRANGLED by morons in business suits and twerpy GERMAN LAWYERS who look like DIETER. Gar! It's just WRONG! MP3 is supposed to be an open standard! Gar! One more fucking SLAP IN THE FACE all COMPUTER USERS EVERYWHERE.
Anyways, as with PNG vs. GIF, it looks like it's up to the Free Software community and some good old anarchist organizing to get everyone else some free fucking software and a REALLY open standard. [Patented standards. Oh, MAN.] As best I can tell, there are two projects going on right now to get a high-quality audio compression format out there for all of us to use instead of MP3.
The first is Free Expression, which is linked from the GNU Project Web site and looks like a big idea and not a lot of action right now. The OTHER is at a high level of code completion. It's called Ogg Vorbis and it's linked at the bottom of this article.
Ogg Vorbis has a library available (libvorbis) and stubs for a command line player. It's still in the development stage, but there's a lot of work being done and a lot of momentum. The main developer is the same guy who did CDDA Paranoia, a cool CD ripper, so you know he knows what he's talking about.
Anyways, check out Ogg Vorbis, and if you can code, maybe actually CHECKOUT (with CVS) the current state of the code. This stuff needs some work. We need to get out from under the thumb of patent-holding pricks. So, bust a move and check it out yourself.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
The quest for knowledge never ends at the super top secret Spock Mountain Laboratory, although it is frequently interrupted by beverage breaks. Recently, a team of crack ethnomixologists returned from a dangerous expedition to the frozen expanse of Canada with the much sought recipe for a Spocktail that is destined to replace blunt force head trauma as the major cause of brain damage in the civilized world. (More...)
One of our star reporters was sent to Comdex by his employer. El Destino reports live from the biggest, geekiest trade show in the world. (More...)
Grow better illegal mushrooms than lousy "Psilocybe fanaticus"
Disclaimer: PaoTzu's a1 illegal mushroom cultivation cookbook is meant for educational purposes only. Be aware of the techniques used by hardcore criminals! Protect your children! Read, learn, educate. Do not try this at home. (More...)
On the Implementation of a Grocery Bag And Overforestation Initiative
Patient Joab and his evil cohort, Patient Steve, develop a proposal for the plastic-v.-paper problem that EVERYONE can be happy with. An EXCLUSIVE from Spock Mountain Research Labs! (More...)
It was the night of the Leonid meteor showers -- the perfect opportunity to break out the evil opaline liquor, get madder than hatters, and test wireless ethernet hardware... Would the plunging meteorites interfere with the 2.4GHz band? What about our delicate brain waves? (More...)
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
