Nothing particularly new here in this Learn Out Loud article, but it’s a nice clean list that pretty much spells out – in non-techie terms – why DRM is, to be generous, flawed.

Read, learn, post pointers to the entry.

WATCHING:
Thank You for Smoking
Jason Reitman, director

Highly entertaining, spot-on movie about the lobbying industry and how it spins issues.

Aaron Eckhart plays the head spokesman for Big Tobacco, and he plays it so well you almost root for him. The scenes with his son are painfully accurate, such as when he explains to his son that he (Eckhart’s character) doesn’t have to be right, he only has to show that other side to be wrong. That means, for the argument, that he is right.

Well done, nicely tongue-in-cheek without going over the top. Enjoyable, but it makes you think, at the same time.

All movies

I don’t know, maybe it’s the time of the year (post-election, in the holiday season), but the blogosphere has gone relatively quiet.

I’ve actually been noticing this for some months now, on very disparate sites:

• Kottke.org – Ever since Kottke gave up the whole “get paid for blogging” experiment (disclosure: I contributed to his fund) and got married, his posts have been fewer and more of a linkage nature, rather than even a line or two saying why this link is cool.
• Jeremy Zawodny – My favorite Yahoo blogger, his posts have been fewer and fewer over the last few months (though in the last few days more posts).
• Billmon.org – A left-wing commentator with a vast grasp of politics and history; he has posted sparsely since the election – and there is still plenty to comment on vis-a-vi Iraq, Pelosi and so on.

Those are just some examples of what I’m seeing all over.

My own blog has not been updated very often the last few months, either, but that’s really not something anyone would really care about, you know?

So – the question is: Has blogging lost its luster?.

Have we all moved on to the next hot thing? (Whatever that may be – mySpace, Web 2.0, going back to actual work instead of writing about work?

I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve been noticing…

Microsoft embraces Linux.

Jeepers, Batman…

I guess resistance was futile.

William Styron has died.

To me, Styron was one of the most compelling writers of the late 20th Century. He wrote brilliant fiction (Sophie’s Choice, one of my favorite novels), as well as painfully insightful non-fiction, such as Darkness Visible, where he discusses his battle with depression.

Along with Philip Roth, Joseph Heller and John Updike (and others), Styron is a contemporary giant whose voice will be missed.