lars backlund | blog of lasseman

Was in Stockholm again today. Met up with my friend eric over lunch which was nice, he should leave this town and come home to good old sundsvall.

I just read a very disturbing article about how Microsoft intend to further assrape you with DRM through their insanely shitty Windows Media Player (use the alternatives if your are not already). Once again I feel certain that Windows XP will be my last Windows system and after this move to Mac OS X or Linux. A quote from the article:

“Read the links, the entire page is scary as hell, but the licensing part takes the cake. “Windows Media Player 11 does not permit you to back up your media usage rights (previously known as licenses)”, Wow, new terminology, old idea, you are a wallet with legs waiting to be raped.”

On the same site I also read a review about the Ipod Nano that made me laugh out loud. Appearantly it’s not only me who hate all media players who also try to be “media organisers” – None of them do a good job. Maybe it’s just me who grew up without them, who got used to using folders and simply clicking to what I want to hear. Anyway, this is what cracked me up, this and the paragraphs that followed:

“I hate iTunes – I always have. I detest being forced to do things their way. I hate being unable to just drag files onto my music player in Explorer and being able to play them back. I hate the way it tries to pre-empt what I’m going to do, and gets it wrong. Every time. And I hate the way how there are no ways to do the things I want. But then I hate all the alternatives, and version 7.0 is better than its predecessors.“

I’ve finally found some information about the group called MyG and about the song “Life Goes On” which is probably one of the sweetest beats ever.

“MyG is an underground musical group. They have created 3 CD’s to date: Sidewalk Symphony, Vito y Coco, and Politick’n. They have been featured in the XboxAmped and Amped 2, Transworld Snowboarding, various snowskate and wakeboard videos, and the X Games. In 2000, MyG worked on a wakeboard video called Boombox directed by Justin Stevens.”

• The album that ‘Life Goes On’ is on
• MyG album at Amazon
• MyG at MySpace

The swedish right-wing alliance won the Swedish election 2006. In the words of Pablo Francisco – Hell yeah!

Today is the third sunday in september and it has been 4 years since the last election of goverment in Sweden so today it’s time again. I just came back from voting. I’m really hoping for a switch of goverment and I want the Socialist party & left-wing movement out of there. To give some contrast, the right-wing parties of Sweden is like the left wing parties of the US.. probably even more left :) We are after all a very socialist country, which is fine indeed since I do believe in slightly higher taxes and a more general wellfare for all than the system of the USA allows for.

Still, we need some drastic change in the public sector. As it is today it’s just very risky to get sick, our healthcare sucks. Our healthcare is bad, we’ve grown too laxed in schools and not enough jobs are generated because of overly complex rules and regulations of small and mid-sized biz.

The socialist party has been behind the wheels of this country for 12 years. Power does corrupt and the socialist party has become much of what they’re fighting. Hypocrites.

> More on the Swedish election in English