Poor Rudolph Is Now Stuck In Folsom Prison

I wonder if the inmates are allowing him to join in any inmate games?

Play song [quicktime required]

Who Knew?

I always thought Michael Stipe just mumbled because, well, because he mumbled. Who knew that we were supposed to be paying to know the words?

I really do think this may be going a bit too far.

The internet download wars hotted up this week with one of the world's biggest music companies, Warner Chappell, leading a crackdown on websites that offer free song lyrics, scores and guitar licks.

OK, all of you who remember the words to that birthday one. . . into the Memory Eraser right now!

Executives at Warner Chappell are fed up with internet entrepreneurs "ripping off" songs - from perennial favourites such as Happy Birthday and Rhapsody in Blue to the music of Madonna and Sir Elton John.

This goes beyond reasonable protection of content and walks all over the entire world's right to use the internet as a repository for and a disseminator of information. Eventually, the internet as these people envision it, will be nothing more than one big place for them to sell people something, be it product, content, ideas or thought and woe unto anyone who crosses them.

The Music Publisher's Association (MPA), headed by a nice fellow named Lauren Keiser, is serious about their campaign which they intend to launch in 2006.

Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective".

Right. That'll fix 'em. Lock them up for remembering the words to the songs and sharing them with others. Not like we have anything better to be doing with our jails and other law enforcement resources.

As Gilbert Gottfried says oh so well. . .
"Hey, Lauren Keiser, what the f*ck?"

Aw Geeze...

I mean, this really makes us look good in the eyes of the world. NOT.

BEIJING, Dec. 10 -- China will return three containers of substandard medical supplies donated by US charity organizations, which included stained bedding, used surgical clothes and expired equipment . . . Some of the medical equipment had a use-by date of 1998 . . . Dirty quilts and clothes were also found, the paper said.

I'm aware we need to find some place for this stuff to end up aside from the beaches of the East Coast but really. . .

A press official surnamed Shao from the national charity federation said it frequently received donations from around the world, but it was the first time it had received medical waste.

I just don't think this is good at all.

OK, So It Really Is Much Worse...

Back on November 15 I mentioned Sony's other DRM method, MediaMax from SunnComm in a post titled "It May Be Worse, Much Worse", and I quoted the excellent "Freedom To Tinker" blog like so:

What few people realize is that Sony uses another copy protection program, SunnComm’s MediaMax, on other discs in their catalog, and that this system presumably is not included in the moratorium. Though MediaMax doesn’t resort to concealing itself with a rootkit, it does behave in several ways that are characteristic of spyware.

So, not being one to indulge in any sort of "I told you so" type of gloating, it pains me to report that. . . err. . . I told you so. It is, apparently, much worse than anyone thought or could have even begun to believe. Not only has the SunnComm malware recently been shown to indeed open a security hole in the user's computer (and remember, this is also the users who actually clicked on "NO, DON'T INSTALL ANY OF THAT CRAP ON MY COMPUTER") but the patch recently released to close that hole does so while opening a second security hole of its own.

However, the day after the patch was released, Professor Ed Felten and Alex Halderman identified a new problem. We take any security problems identified by these security researched very seriously. They "recommend for now that if you have a Windows PC, you:

• do not use the MediaMax patch
  
• do not use the previously released MediaMax uninstaller, and
  
• do not insert a MediaMax-bearing CD into your PC."

Presumably if you are lucky enough to have previously bought and played one of these infected CDs on your computer you should now just not turn your computer on until such a time as Sony and their software suppliers get around to being responsible business persons and standing behind their products and their actions.

We should not be holding our breaths, folks.

How much longer do SONY expect anyone to continue to buy their products while they continue to demonstrate both a complete disinterest in the rights, desires and welfare of their customers and a complete ignorance of what exactly they are doing? Neither trait is representative of a company, particularly a technology based company, that I will personally choose to do any further business with. How much longer will the retailers responsible for foisting these products off on the consumer continue to stock this malware on their shelves? It was one thing for them to carry these Copy Protected CDs before all this came to light but for them to continue to carry this company's products in light of all this continuing mess certainly doesn't make me want to do any more business with them, either. SONY keeps saying "Oh, okay, this is the complete list of all the problem items" but has yet to release any sort of honest and comprehensive list or admission of any sort of guilt or culpability until after the fact. It is always "complete disclosure until we get caught some more."

I'm also wondering what undiscovered surprises all the other forms of DRM that are floating around and being delivered on other companies' products have in store for us.

More Unacceptable News On The SONY Front

Seems the New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office sent secret shoppers out to a number of stores to see if SONY are living up to their recent promise to pull malware infected CDs from retailers shelves. The results are not very good.

Spitzer's office sent investigators disguised as shoppers to several large music chains, including Virgin Megastore, FYE, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sam Goody, and Wal-Mart; the investigators were able to purchased copy-protected CDs at all the stores they visited.

They were also promised quick delivery of the CDs in question from 5 of 7 online retailers.

"It is unacceptable that more than three weeks after this serious vulnerability was revealed, these same CDs are still on shelves, during the busiest shopping days of the year," said Spitzer in a statement.

Yes, couldn't agree more. Apparently SONY forgets the big guy is making a list and checking it twice. . .

How Time Flies

I often wonder why so many blogs I look at seem to lie fallow for so long after a good beginning. I see now that it takes more effort to actually post daily than I thought it was going to. It seems like just a few days that I've not been here and have felt like I was just "too busy" or "just not inspired enough" to post anything but I see that it has actually been well over a week.

I have been a little busy, creating and putting a new website on line for a customer of my business, Captain's Designs, and I've still got some work to do on that site, mostly to try and get it to render correctly with Firefox as well as with IE, but I haven't been so busy I shouldn't had enough free time to put up a post or two.

I'm not sure if I can do any better, but I'll try.

Encouraging and Discouraging

First the encouraging:

Sony BMG initially rejected the uproar over XCP as technobabble.

In retrospect, this was possibly an ill advised tactic. The EFF has filed suit against SONY based on a California law which bans collecting personally identifiable information through deceptive means, allowing consumers to sue for damages.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against Sony BMG demanding that the record label repairs the damage done by anti piracy technology that it bundled on millions of its audio CDs.

The suit targets not only the XCP technology which for the past weeks has been at the centre the Sony controversy, but also the SunnComm MediaMax software that Sony has included on more than 20 million CDs. Another 2 million CDs were shipped with the XCP technology.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the State Attorney General has filed suit based on the new Texas Spyware statute.

The Texas spyware law allows the state to recover damages of up to $100,000 in damages for each violation. Abbott said there were thousands of violations, and that any money would go to the state.

However, getting to the discouraging part and proving that the herd of cash cows will continue to blindly, deafly and most of all dumbly walk behind the leader right on into the slaughterhouse:

. . . despite three weeks of stinging criticism and calls for boycotts, consumers appear to be buying and using Sony CDs just as they always have.

According to data from market tracker Nielsen SoundScan, the discs carrying Sony's copy protection software suffered little, if any, decline in sales compared with other medium-selling titles at similar points in their release cycles--at least up to the point of Sony's recall last week.

Well, perhaps only those consumers who actually use their computers to play music are the ones who are understandably alarmed and refusing to do business with SONY?

Err, no, apparently not.

Another measure of albums' popularity is provided by Gracenote, whose CDDB--Compact Disc Database--service counts how many times people put CDs in their computers using a media player such as iTunes, Windows Media Player or RealPlayer. These programs automatically look up the album name and song titles.

A representative for Gracenote said the company's data shows no appreciable difference in trends--and specifically no obvious drop-off in listening--between Van Zant and similar-selling albums that don't carry the rootkit. The same goes for several other recalled Sony titles, it noted.

Apparently, as soon as we get done playing The Who - "Won't Get Fooled Again" we can cue up The Kinks - "Give The Sheeple What They Want".

Sheesh.

Free Thoughts On The DRM Debacles

Excellent read at Groklaw, re: the DRM fiascos:

DRM is not your friend. Remember: they can't pull this off without us.

The article focuses on the UK AOP (UK Association of Online Publishers) but has information relevant to all interested humans who don't want to be spoon fed the gruel of someone else's choice when the bell rings.

Here's the latest. They are thinking that DRM would be a benefit to consumers, because we can buy "the right to read a book just once or pay a fraction of a penny every time" we play a song. Excuse me. When I buy a book in paper form, I already get to read it more than once. On what legal basis are publishers now proposing to sell me a book I can't reread? Copyright law limits copies. But limiting reading? This is an opportunity for me how?

Ah yes, benefiting consumers has always been their highest priority. Right.

I'm probably missing something.

Well, he's not alone. I'm apparently missing the whole enchilada. All I can manage is an eloquent "Huh?? Say WHAT??"

Consumers are to be fleeced at all costs. To the max. Now they've figured out a way to make us pay to browse. It's like the movie moguls. 99 cents isn't enough for a song now, by the way, according to reports that Hollywood is trying to sit on Apple to make them charge more. More and more for something that costs essentially nothing to duplicate forever.
Apple advertizes their iPod as holding 15,000 songs, and at .99 a song, that is $14,850 from my pocket alone to fill my iPod. That isn't enough?

Or $395,000.10 for a holographic disc. No, apparently it is *never* enough.

How Many Songs Is That?

Now we're talking.

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Maxell Corp. of America, and InPhase Technologies are teaming to develop holographic media for optical media storage.
The media provides storage capacities to 1.6 terabytes per (5.5 inch removable) disk and data rates as high as 120 megabytes per second, and provides long archival life.

Nobody bother these guys until after they're done, please.

The companies plan to bring holographic media to market by Sept. 2006.

No Mas, No Mas

Oh, goody, I can hardly wait.

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Gamma blew along the coasts of Belize and Honduras on Saturday as it threatened to turn onto a path that could threaten South Florida this coming week.

Really, enough is enough already.

Florida has been pummeled by eight hurricanes and three tropical storms in the past 15 months. Insured losses from this year's storms are estimated at more than $10 billion in Florida, according to the state Department of Financial Services.

What were those dimensions, again?

Well, It's A Start

Major download sites get tough on spyware

Some of the largest names on the Internet have come together to crack down on the spread of adware and spyware through piggybacking hidden software along with legitimate downloads.

They Aren't? Are You Sure?

Given the fact that they are deprived of their freedom, this seems like an odd statement to me.

"Whether it is a painting or other work produced, there is a social interest in making it available to view it or read it," said Heins, adding, "Prisoners are not deprived of constitutional rights."

One has to wonder, what exactly is this guy going to do with these profits?

A colored pencil sketch of Jesus Christ kneeling in a desert by Alfred Gaynor, a serial killer serving four life sentences for sodomizing and choking to death four women, went on sale on Tuesday on a Web site operated by a prisoner advocacy group.

It was one of nearly 300 artworks offered for auction through December 18 on The Fortune Society's Web site. If sold, nearly all proceeds from the work entitled, "A Righteous Man's Reward," will go to Gaynor, the group said.

Not wanting to betray my mostly liberal beliefs and not wanting to go against my firm belief that every human being deserves to be treated with fairness and dignity, I still have to say that I find this whole attitude odd.

Marjorie Heins, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said freedom of expression extends to prisoners even if it causes emotional distress or offense to the victim's families.

If protecting the families of the victims from any further assault or infringement by the perpetrator of the crimes against their loved ones upon whatever peace and security is left in their lives isn't the first priority of any punishment meted out against the guilty party then it certainly should be.

Sorry, but I share this D.A.'s anger and firmly believe the feelings of the victim's families are far more important than this asshole's right to sell his pictures.

It May Be Worse, Much Worse

To answer the question, "How bad can that really be?", the answer begins to look like it may be: "Far worse than you originally thought."

Not only have the first exploits of the root-kit that SONY so recklessly installed on thousands of computers in a self-serving and thoughtless attempt to protect their own interests appeared...

The Troj/Stinx-E Trojan horse appears to have been deliberately spammed out to email addresses, posing as a message from a British business magazine. . .
. . . If the attached program is run, the Trojan horse copies itself to a file called $sys$drv.exe. Any file with $sys$ in its name is automatically cloaked by Sony's copy-protection code, making it invisible on computers which have used CDs carrying Sony's copy protection.

And not only has the web-based XCP uninstaller that SONY has provided been shown to be dangerous in its own right...

. . . I have confirmed that Sony’s Web-based XCP uninstallation utility exposes users to serious security risk. Under at least some circumstances, running Sony’s Web-based uninstaller opens a huge security hole on your computer. We have a working demonstration exploit.

But it also seems that SONY has used other copy protection schemes. One in particular appears to be just as bad, if not even more deceitful, than the XCP is.

What few people realize is that Sony uses another copy protection program, SunnComm’s MediaMax, on other discs in their catalog, and that this system presumably is not included in the moratorium. Though MediaMax doesn’t resort to concealing itself with a rootkit, it does behave in several ways that are characteristic of spyware.

Like XCP, recent versions of MediaMax engage in spyware-style behavior. They install software without meaningful consent or notification, they include either no means of uninstalling the software or an uninstaller that claims to remove the entire program but doesn’t, and they transmit information about user activities to SunnComm despite statements to the contrary in the end user license agreement and on SunnComm’s web site.

And, in possibly in the biggest display of disdain for the customer SONY has shown through this whole period of displaying nothing but disdain for their customers...

When a MediaMax-protected CD is inserted into a computer running Windows, the Windows Autorun feature launches a program from the CD called PlayDisc.exe. Like most installers, this program displays a license agreement, which you may accept or decline. But before the agreement appears, MediaMax installs around a dozen files that consume more than 12 MB on the hard disk.

How SONY or any other company can justify using software such as this to protect themselves and their content while abusing the property and privacy of their customers is a mystery to me.

To summarize, MediaMax software:

• Is installed onto the computer without meaningful notification or consent, and remains installed even if the license agreement is declined;
  
• Includes either no uninstall mechanism or an uninstaller that fails to completely remove the program like it claims;
  
• Sends information to SunnComm about the user’s activities contrary to SunnComm and Sony statements and without any option to disable the transmissions.

Hopefully SONY's use of the MediaMax software will come under the same scrutiny and be subject to the same recalls, apologies and legal ramifications that their use of the XCP root-kit has.

A-Rod Edges Out Ortiz In AL MVP Ballot

Alex Rodriguez, with a level of grace unusual in multimillionaire athletes, was voted the American League's MVP for the second time in three years.

"A-Rod" tried to show restraint when asked to explain the choice of him over clutch slugger David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox.

"It's such a hard call," said Rodriguez yesterday after the ballot count was announced. "Who the heck am I to make the call?"

The new MVP, in point of fact.

Being named the league's MVP is an achievement in itself. Moreover, A-Rod is, in fact, the first Yankees player to earn MVP since Don Mattingly way back in 1985. It is even more impressive as it comes after one of the best seasons a right hander has ever had in the history of a team with a huge and storied history.

"Not even the revered Joe DiMaggio hit as many homers right-handed as Rodriguez did with a Yankees-record 48 in 2005 – not to mention a .321 average and 130 RBI"

In New York, though, it is never enough.

He is the best player on what everybody calls the best team going into every season. He is the richest player in history playing on the richest team in history. He hasn't won yet and the Yankees haven't won since 2000. So far they are made for each other.

And, in Boston, it is time, once again, to let the whining begin.

It was the safe, easy way to vote because baseball purists are never to overlook the finer points of the game.
So A-Rod got the trophy.
Ortiz got the shaft.

All I have to add is:
Congratulations, A-Rod. Well done. Better luck next time, David.

Well, and maybe a tiny little bit of a snicker.

What About Housing?

Newly enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame I give you...the cardboard box.

"I think every adult has had that disillusioning experience of picking what they think is a wonderful toy for a child, and then finding the kid playing with the box," said Christopher Bensch, chief curator of the Strong Museum. "It's that empty box full of possibilities that the kids can sense and the adults don't always see."

He never even mentions its usefulness as emergency housing during those low moments on the sofa-circuit.

Again With The Understatements.

“This was not a good thing that happened. It was just very callous how she was treated.”

Not good? . . . No, I'd say not. Callous? . . . Perhaps, yes. Downright disgustingly cruel and thoughtless? . . . Getting closer.

He's talking about an Illinois woman who, while being searched and arrested for a misdemeanor marijuana charge experienced a heart attack which the police, despite being told of her prior history of cardiac problems, chose to ignore while leaving her handcuffed on the floor to complete their search.

A search that turned up, oh, less than 2.5 grams of marijuana. One hopes the Mundelein, Illinois police department maintains a good umbrella insurance policy because the Federal Lawsuit this woman has filed might be a bit of a problem for them when it comes to budget time.

Mundelein officials declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying they had not seen it.

Yes, I imagine they would be declining comment.

To paraphrase Art Carney in Firestarter:
"I must have woken up in Roosha this morning."

LocoWorld Has Opened For Your Enjoyment.

LocoWorld has just opened. Many of the rides have yet to open but I'm sure in time it will be a great place to visit.

Congrats.

Says It All

I have nothing to add to this except "nyuk nyuk".

Well, It's A Start

Information Week: FTC Pulls Plug On $100 Million Adware Business

A U.S. federal court has shuttered one of the world's top five adware and spyware suppliers at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. . . .
. . . The court also put a stop to the actions of an affiliate, the Ohio-based iwebtunes.com, from helping to spread the adware and spyware by offering blogs free background music.

Visiting this "iwebtunes" (are you paying attention, Apple?) site the user was offered a variety of music files, ringtones and lyrics but pop ups masquerading as security alerts warned users about browser security holes and offered free upgrades and patches. Clicking on the installation downloaded and installed the Enternet spyware.

Holy Smokes...And I Do Mean Holy

I've long suspected that this guy was nuts and more than a little worrisome . . .

According to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the reason that terrorists attacked New York on 9/11 was punishment for, “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America.”

. . . but never did I realize just how nuts he really must be.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design. . .

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

The aptly named IHatePatRobertson.com blog, from which the first quote above is taken, just celebrated their first anniversary of keeping an eye on all things Pat related, which leads to a combination of scary, dumbfounding and just plain hilarious. Unfortunately the "scary" often wins out.

Sony Sued For Rootkit Copy Protection

November 10, 2005

Sony BMG Music Entertainment has been hit with at least one class-action lawsuit over its rootkit-as-copy-protection software. The lawsuit claims the software violates two anti-fraud statutes, as well as a third law forbidding placement of spyware in a computer.

Whoops. Sorry SONY, see what happens when hackers get caught?

"This service is not one of them"

Four months after the Supreme Court Decision . . .

We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.

. . . Grokster is throwing in the towel.

New York Times: LOS ANGELES, Nov. 7 - Grokster, a developer of file-swapping software used to trade copyrighted music and movie files, said Monday that it would halt distribution of the software and cut off support for its associated network as part of a landmark settlement with the recording industry and Hollywood studios . . .

For its part, Grokster has added a new message to its Web site: "There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them."

The music industry is determined to carry on their campaign against their own customers in the face of all evidence that what they are really managing to do is estrange a large percentage of the herd of possible future cash cows.

New York Times:: A result, industry executives say, should be to corral digital piracy to the point that it is a tolerable nuisance instead of a huge drain.
If the industry can hang on, music executives say, its four major record corporations will eventually rejuvenate their businesses with new products, including digital downloads, ring tones and music videos.

Hanging on by one's fingernails while hoping that ring tones will bail you out might seem a bit desperate to the more cynical amongst us.

The Motley Fool, as usual, sees things a little differently:

It's tempting to call this a victory for Hollywood. Perhaps it is. But I think it's a much bigger victory for Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer.

Whatever the spin and whomever turns out to profit the most in the future, it is obvious that the industry is not going to give up their fight to maintain complete control over the music, even if they have to alienate their customers and line the pockets of a handful of entrepeneurs in the process.

Business as usual?

What Exactly Does All That Gobbledygook Mean?

A good friend asked me yesterday what exactly MS meant with all this brouhaha about "web services".

Journalism is a cruel sport, but it does have its pleasures. One of them is watching elephants trying to dance. Such a spectacle was on offer last Tuesday in San Francisco, when a team of senior Microsofties led by Chairman Bill astonished an audience of journalists by announcing that the company planned to launch not one but two web-services operations - dubbed 'Windows Live' and 'Microsoft Office Live'.

I tried to explain but didn't do half as good a job as
John Naughton did in The Observer today.

Nov 12, 2005 Update

Microsoft Changing Leaders But Still Following

Microsoft, a company that may have never had an original idea but has never been shy about capitalizing on the ideas of others has apparently grown tired of being accused of being a follower of Apple and has found a new lead dog in Google.

Google, Libraries Post First Batch Of Books Online

Google Inc. and four U.S. libraries plan to unveil on Thursday the first collection of thousands of mostly 19th century American literary and historical works as the Web search leader seeks to regain momentum for its project to put library books online. Sidestepping lawsuits by the U.S. publishing industry that seek to derail a related effort by Google to scan copyrighted books, the company and its library partners said they will put up their first large collection of public domain works.

Microsoft To Digitize 100,000 Books

Software giant Microsoft Corp. said Friday it has signed a deal to scan and put online 100,000 books from the British Library.

Microsoft should remember: "No matter what your position, unless you are the lead dog the view never changes."

What Does It All Mean??

I'm not really sure what any of it means, but this sheds some light on where the words sprang from.

Very scholarly. Very erudite. Very thorough. Very fun.

Now also available in book form from, of all places, Amazon.com. I searched the Grateful Dead's online store and couldn't find it, even though I first read about it in the latest issue of the "Grateful Dead Almanac".

Dear God. . .

. . . be good to me.
The sea is so wide.
And my boat is so small.

A daring rescue of three lucky folks who were somewhere they should not have been. A six part story ran in the St. Pete Times and The Discovery Channel show SOS Coast Guard Rescue is scheduled to chronicle the rescue of the crew of the Mary Lynn at 8 p.m. Nov. 22.

This was far from typical helicopter flying. In a Web site listing
frequently asked questions about hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says: "It is most unlikely that anyone would attempt to fly a helicopter into a hurricane. Such aircraft are not built to withstand the severe turbulence encountered in hurricane rain bands and eye walls."

The ride was rough.

Gadgets Galore

And we all know how much we love gadgets.

SONY Hackers at work

If a private individual did this he would be subject to prosecution.

"Sysinternals' Mark Russinovich has performed an analysis of the copy restriction measures deployed by Sony Music on its latest CDs: which he bluntly calls a 'root kit'. Using conventional tools to remove Sony's digital media malware will leave ordinary users with Windows systems unable to play CDs."

How much more do they need?

Coincidentally the Bush family is in the oil business. How fortuitious.

WASHINGTON -- Top executives of three major oil companies will be asked by senators next week why some of their industry's estimated $96 billion in record profits this year shouldn't be used to help people having trouble paying their energy bills.

Wicked Wiki

Perhaps defining the term "defeating the purpose"?

Never one to miss an opportunity. . .

Never being one to miss out on an opportunity to further cash in, Stephen King said "sign me up", to the creators of Hard Case Crime Publishing, a new imprint dedicated to reviving the "Pulp Fiction" genre.

All my own innate cynicism aside, it actually looks like a fun idea. Being a big fan of pulp fiction I imagine I will be sending yet a few more of my dollars Stephen's way.

Johnny Cash Unearthed

This is a great set, by all means worth getting any way you can. The first track alone, a spare yet very powerful version of "Long Black Veil", almost makes the whole thing worth it.

George Jones still has the definitive "He Stopped Loving Her Today" but Cash certainly makes a lot of these songs his own.

Here's hoping the new movie "Walk The Line" does the man and his music justice.

Regulate This

I'll be here pretty much for the rest of the year. They say so.