This essay entitled “Why DRM won’t ever work” by Google engineer Jeremy Allison explains what DRM (Digital Rights Management) is and why you should care in plain English. If you use a computer, buy CDs or DVDs, listen to your iPod or other music player, or want to be involved at all in today’s digital society you should read this.

Trying to make Digital Rights Management (DRM) work in the real world is like asking engineers to do ‘Star Trek’ style magic, rather than real engineering. DRM simply cannot work. For less technical readers who might be wondering what I’m going on about, DRM is the attempt to control copying on a digital file, or sometimes even to add a restriction on how many times such a file can be copied. It’s usually applied to online music or movies, but it’s never sold to the consumer for what it actually is, an added restriction on what can be done with something they’ve paid for. DRM is always explained as the ‘wonderful new technology that will help protect your medical records from thieves.’ The truth is, it can’t even do that.

I have a new review of Junnoon Restaurant in Palo Alto from last Saturday night. We ate there with Alex and Lani after seeing The African Queen at the Stanford Theatre.

Apple releases Windows version of Safari:

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs said the Cupertino technology company will challenge Microsoft Corp. on the Internet by introducing a version of its Safari browser that will work on computers running Windows.
…
‘We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari,’ said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. ‘Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari’s superior browsing experience too.’

The download is at apple.com/safari. I’m trying it out right now.

What: the insides of an Imation Disc Stakka ™ Where: office

Name: Elephant Bar
Address: 5601 Bay Street, Emeryville, CA 94608
Phone: (510) 601-1001
Web site: ElephantBar.com
Date & Time visited: Sunday, June 3, 2007, 8:00 PM
Guests: Jennifer and me
What we had: Spicy Barbecue Combo (ribs, shrimp, chicken) (Jen), Shrimp and Chicken FirePot (me).

What’s this? Shouldn’t this post be over on Project Insomnia Restaurant Reviews? Well yes, except that the meal was interrupted halfway through by a bomb scare! I have no idea whether it was legitimate or what, but our server came up to us and said they’d received three threatening phone calls and we had to leave. The restaurant was emptying out slowly, and as we left we saw several parties still at their tables. So I really don’t know what the hell was going on.

Our dishes were really good, as much as we were able to enjoy before we had to leave.

Service: Average. Iced tea refills when needed, but sans ice so it was lukewarm.

Would we go back: Probably not to this location, because we were only there to visit the nearby IKEA store to get a pair of BORGHAMN height extender units–we use them as shallow bookcases–that were not available at the East Palo Alto store. However, there’s another location near SFO that we’ve enjoyed and has a great view of the planes landing.

About this so-called bomb scare, I still have no idea what was really going on, but we didn’t have to pay for our dinner so we sort of came out ahead.