You can watch his performance on his blog Tales from the Felt and also on Poker Stars Blog

• The coolest 25 key midi controllerever - the Line6 Toneport. I mean it has real analog VU meters - how cool is that!
• Korg have come good with an affordable and very feature-full 49 key midi controller - the imaginatively named Korg K49. It even comes with bundled Korg synth software emulation that can run standalone or as a plugin (Mac and PC).

You'll note that I didn't count Dwight Yoakam's Chicken Lickin's Chicken Rings as a music related posting ;)

But seriously, this is a very good thing. Microsoft can no longer be under any illusion that they can get away with behaving illegally and unfairly forever. Being the largest employer in California and having the ear of US Congressmen doesn't help you in the rest of the world. And Microsoft needs the rest of the world - even if just to protect their dominance of the US market against foreign competitors.

The former Victorian premier says Peter Costello would jeopardise the federal Liberal Party's re-election chances if he tried to force a leadership showdown.

Mr Kennett said Mr Costello did not have the support of the public and was not "owed" the prime ministership.

"What I think this does is damage Peter's brand. Peter will one day potentially be the successor," Mr Kennett said. (SMH)

Of course Kennett knows a thing or two about being ousted from leadership, and then coming back. He also knows a thing or two about shooting yourself in both feet. Costello could do worse than to look to Jeff for advice, rather than the more obvious parallel of the Hawke/Keating dustup.

If you ever need to find someone with supreme patience - George III is your man!

The upcoming changes are the single tyre manufacturer (in some ways a pity, but not that big a deal really) and the single reference ECU provided for all teams.

The second is more of a concern to me. Over the past few years, Renault's launch control system really made for interesting races - without it, their previously weak engine power would have meant they were not competitive.

If we are going to have a single ECU supply, then at least one thing we should get from it is higher reliability. The design should change less, which means that a bad ECU shouldn't end someone's race. And since the ECU will be supplied for the team, not by them, imagine how angry they would be if the externally provided ECU ended their race.

That is why it is so incredibly scary that SPEEDtv.com is reporting that the chosen ECU supplier is Microsoft. Now hopefully that is either a joke or a misunderstanding on the behalf of SPEEDtv.com. Microsoft knows nothing about ECU design and little about embedded real time systems (some would say they know little about software design at all...). In search of official information, I did a google search for site:formula1.com Microsoft. The only result I got was one page showing:

Are you trying to go a level in the directory without having the base directory present?
Invalid use of Null
Microsoft VBScript runtime error

I'd hate to get that error while heading towards a corner at over 300kph - it's not even gramatically correct!

It also has a black bezel which I think is a must. I really can't stand screens with a light bezel (like white or beige), and the silver bezels of Apple's cinema displays would really send me batty.

So here I am, 3:51am, and there is only 38/73 laps left.

11 cars are off the track already - and I missed it all.

Words cannot describe my frustration.

And why is the Wimbledon coverage delayed by so many hours?

Is SBS the only channel who understands the importance of sports that are not Rugby or AFL?

GAH!

Courtesy of BoingBoing I came across this totally mad set performed by Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street - two of my favourite things in one!

First, a funky take on the sesame street theme (link):

Second, the sweetest "Superstition" jam ever (link):

So that makes me think about copyright and fair use (remembering, of course, that there is no such concept of "fair use" here in Australia). Even the world's richest man has admitted to viewing copyrighted works illegally uploaded to youtube (Bill Gates' piracy confession). In this case, there is no obvious financial damage caused - there's nowhere I can go and buy a DVD of Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. In fact without this person uploading these videos I would probably go to my grave never having enjoyed this. Now I will probably get to enjoy this articular Wonder magic a number of times, which I am honestly sure would make Stevie Wonder happy. In addition, after browsing a few more "lost" Stevie Wonder videos, I'm sure I'll end up buying some more tracks on iTunes that I don't yet have.

Of course just because the outcome is good for the copyright holders doesn't make the original act any less illegal, but it really does make the position of the medial labels and the lawmakers look quite foolish and untenable in the long term.