Very interesting post by Steve Jobs on the Apple site. Basically he is saying that the use of DRM on music could be scrapped if the big music companies would agree to it. They already sell x10 as many tracks on CD as on-line with no protection at all. Removing the DRM would allow music from any provider to be played on any player, as long as the format is supported. OGG Vorbis would be my preference. There's even a new chip that can play it with less power usage than previously. There are already a number of places where you can already buy DRM-free music, sometimes in much better quality. Despite what some people say 128 kilobit MP3 is not CD quality. When I listen to music I ripped in that format several years ago it sounds noticably worse than more recent rips in 190 kilobit OGG Vorbis, at least on my Grado SR60 headphones . Now I'm using FLAC to preserve the original CD quality, but still have to sort a way to transcode it for portable use.

I have a new toy that is a clone of the Powerball. It's an exercise gadget in the form of a gyroscope that works your arms. There's a thriving community of users who like to see who can spin it fastest. I'm still struggling to reach high speeds, but we're running a league table at work. It seems to be more about technique than strength.

We've seen some very low temperatures this week. It was -7C as I drove into London today. Not quite as cold as our holiday destination. The forecast is for heavy snow tomorrow, so I intend to stay at home to work.