Watercooler Sensation

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Another Bite At The Apple

• Apple announced changes to the way it sells music yesterday. The news is both good and bad, depending on how you’re planning to use the site. [LAT]
• News: No longer is pricing one-size-fits-all. For years, Apple offered every song in its playbook for 99-cents, but now the pricing will be 69-cents, 99-cents or $1.29 per song, depending on how hot the music is.
• Why this is bad: That means it will cost more to download that brand-new Pink song you wanted for your workout this week.
• Why this is good: It just got a whole lot cheaper to quietly indulge your secret obsession with Barry Manilow.
• News: “Apple’s entire music catalog — 8 million songs today and the remaining 2 million by the end of March — is going to be available in versions that are stripped of anti-copying software.”
• Why this is bad: There’s a price if you want to get rid of the software on the songs you already have. “Apple said customers would be able to pay a one-time fee to strip copying restrictions from all of the music they have already bought on iTunes. The price is 30 cents a song or 30 percent of the album price.” [NY Times] 
• Why this is great: Say farewell to those invisible handcuffs that limited how many times you could burn a song onto CD or to which players you can transfer your music.

With cheaper prices for older downloads, let’s just say our library is about to get a lot more “eclectic.” Air Supply’s Greatest Hits, here we come!

Interview with Matt Miller, the author of The Tyranny of Dead Ideas

• Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; a contributing editor at Fortune; and the host of Left, Right & Center, public radio’s popular week-in-review program, recently released his new book, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
• The book can be purchased at Amazon, and more information can be found at www.mattmilleronline.com, but MicCheck was fortunate to sit down and chat with Miller about his book.
• Matt Miller on dead ideas: By dead idea, I mean one of these deep conventional wisdoms that are held by business leaders, policy makers, media people, professionals, kind of the opinion leaders of the country, that doesn’t make sense anymore. The whole aim of the book is to try and dig up these ideas that we take for granted, that we think we know and we don’t. And the fact that we’re operating on the base of these dead ideas is really holding us back.
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• Matt Miller on the next decade: The pressure of events in the next decade, with the continuing march of globalization and global competition, and the incredible pace of technological change, is going to force the inadequacy of these ideas as premises for our economy to the top of national attention. So even though now it seems like these are difficult things to unpack and get beyond, I think we are going to be forced to over the next decade, and when we look back in 2020, we’ll ask ourselves “Gee, why wasn’t it obvious that these things weren’t true any longer?”
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• Matt Miller on political leadership: I have come to believe that when we’re at the end of one regime of conventional wisdom and ideas but the new one hasn’t yet been born, these new successor ideas that actually make more sense for the  times, political leadership is very difficult. I think politicians will tell you, and their advisors will tell you, that a campaign is not the time to try and persuade voters to change their minds on something. Campaigns are about trying to communicate your values in ways that voters can see that you’re someone who can relate to them and represent their values and commitments. So I think we have to rely on something I call responsible demagogery, which is that politicians will get the right ideas in their heads about what direction the country needs to go, even if it means they’re not strictly true sometimes to what they said to get elected. I realize that it’s a dicey situation for democracy but I think its an honest assesment of where we are.
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• Matt Miller on President Obama’s agenda: One of the biggest dead ideas that I think that President Obama has the opportunity to move us beyond is what I call the idea that your company should take care of you. That refers to the whole employer-based system of health care benefits and to some extent pension benefits we have in this country. America’s really unique. We’re the only wealthy nation in the world that says companies should administer a huge chunk of our welfare state, and as a result, as you know, we have 50 million people uninsured, we’ve got another 30 million or so uninsured, and more and more people are falling through the cracks all the time. I think one of the leading things that President Obama and his team can do to improve the economic security of average Americans is to make sure people have access to good group health coverage without having to get it from their job, because that just doesn’t fit the way millions of Americans work, or don’t work now, for big employers who can provide those benefits.
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• Matt Miller on needing change:I think we know that the old formulas and the old ideas aren’t working. Look, the economy’s in the ditch, we’ve had the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and this is because, by the way, we’ve just seen the implosion of another dead idea, that financial markets can regulate themselves. So what I’m trying to lay out is that just like that dead idea ended up being exploded in a way that’s had a tremendous cost and created a lot of suffering, these other dead ideas are waiting to ensnare us unless weget out front, change the way we think about it, and thus change the way we act.
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Go read his book— all the cool kids are doing it.

Singing Those January Blues....

• Feeling a little down? Well, you’re not alone. [ABC News]
• Social workers, therapists and counselors  say more people seek help for depression in January than in December.
• Why? While going back to work, self-reflection prompted by new year resolutions and December’s credit card statements can all be downers, experts say it’s often the collection of different circumstances that can push people over the edge into a depression hole.
• And according to clinical psychologist Jennifer Falotico Taylor, by January people who felt pushed around or disillusioned during the holidays start going through a great deal of self-destructive distractions such as shopping, eating, drinking or starting romantic relationships.
• “It’s getting into a relationship to cover up their feelings,” she said.
• By January’s end, Taylor said the self-destruction can sky-rocket.
• Despite all the January blues going around, there might be a little good news: Psychologists at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline said there is not usually a sharp increase in suicide help calls during the month.
• There was, however, a annual spike in calls to the hotline over the course of 2008, where calls peaked in October, with a total of 52,233, that could be do to the catastrophic financial market that hit later in the year.
• But for the less severe January blues, psychologists have a few suggestions, including self-reflection, grounding themselves in their normal sleep, work and eating routines, and cutting out the drastic New Year’s resolutions and changes.

So, save the resolution that you will marry George Clooney for another year.

By the Numbers

According to a nonprofit group that works to prevent identity fraud, businesses, governments and educational institutions reported more data breaches last year than in 2007 (does Joe the Plumber ring a bell?). Take a look at these numbers. [Washington Post]

50%

More data breaches were recorded by businesses, governments and educational institutions than in 2007.

35.7 million

Americans reported their personal records being exposed.

656

Breaches were reported in 2008, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center of San Diego.

446

The number of breaches reported in the previous year.

37%

Of the breaches occurred at businesses in 2008.

20%

Of the breaches occurred while at schools in 2008.

16%

Of the breaches were connected to data theft from current and former employees, more than doubled from in 2007.

35%

Of the reported breach incidents came from human error, the largest single cause of data breaches. This includes lost or stolen laptops and other removable electronic devices, along with the accidental exposure of consumer data.

14%

Of the breaches reported were from computer hacking and software that steals data.

Quote Of The Day

“I would be less interested in that than I would in having cigarettes put out in my eye.”

— Director David Fincher, on whether he’d ever do a sequel to his hit movie “Se7en.” We’ll take that as a maybe? [Variety]

Speed Round

ROCK ON IN HEAVEN

The Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead this morning. Although authorities don’t know the cause of death, no foul play is suspected in the death of the 60-year old in his Ann Arbor home. [CNN]

FIGHTING HARD

“I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking. Two years seems likely if you’re going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I’d better get a fire under it.” —Patrick Swayze on his fight against pancreatic cancer. [ABC]

CONGRATS

Alyssa Milano is engaged to Hollywood agent David Bugliari, her boyfriend of more than a year. Definitely a better match than her ex, Justin Timberlake. The happy couple has not yet set a date. [MSNBC]

OH SPIKE

“Rich is Spielberg. Lucas. Gates. Steve Jobs. Jay-Z! Bruce Springsteen. I’m not complaining. But that’s money. Will Smith. Oprah Winfrey - that’s a ton of money. Compared to them, I’m on welfare!"—Spike Lee on how he’s not ‘rich-rich’, just a little wealthy. We are sure if you were on welfare, you wouldn’t be able to afford houses on the Upper East Side and Martha’s Vineyard, and private school for the kids, would you? [Perez Hilton]

BORED AT WORK?

Go take a look at vintage Barack Obama, on a local TV show in Chicago, where he was a restaurant reviewer back when he was just a state senator! [Perez Hilton]

PUT DOWN THAT COOKIE!

While physical activity has many proven to have many health benefits, new research shows that diet actually plays the key role in weight loss. Researchers found that African American women in Chicago weighed almost 50 pounds more than women in rural Nigeria. Though Nigerians weren’t more physically active than the African-American women, their diets were a bit healthier. [NBC News]

 NOT A FAN

“Quite an actor, Sean Penn. And not an a-hole like Russell Crowe.” —Josh Brolin, after being introduced by Sean Penn at an awards dinner. Those sound like fighting words, Brolin! [Access Hollywood]

HOUSE CALL

You’ve heard of house calls, but what about the web call? Hawaii is experimenting with a new way for doctors and patients to meet up on-line. “Patients use the service by logging on to participating health plans’ Web sites. Doctors hold 10-minute appointments, which can be extended for a fee, and can file prescriptions and view patients’ medical histories through the system.” [NY Times]

35.7 MILLION

The number of people who had their personal data exposed in data breaches in 2008. That’s up nearly 50% over 2007, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center of San Diego. [Washington Post]

PANTS!

He’s been mocked on late-night television. Law & Order did a “ripped-from-the-headlines” show about him. But former DC Judge Roy Pearson won’t give up; he’s re-suing to have his $54-million lawsuit over a pair of slacks that went missing at his dry cleaner’s heard in front of a new, 9-judge panel. [CBS News]

OBIT

Round 17 in our game of “Words And Phrases We Pray Are Never In Our Obits": “Man Dies After Having Penis Set On Fire” [CBS News]

LIAR!

The Burlington Liars’ Club, a fixture in the pursuit of the best fibs, untruths and whoppers since 1929, awarded the honor of Best Lie 2008 to this charmer: “My grandson is the most persuasive liar I have ever met. By the time he was 2 years old he could dirty his diaper and make his mother believe someone else had done it.” [Fox News] 

DENIED!

Prosecutors said “no freakin’ way” to Roman Polanski’s request to have the rape charges against him dropped. Polanski, remember, is still a fugitive from justice after allegedly raping a 13-year-old in Jack Nicholson’s hot-tub back in 1977. [Yahoo]