Update: iTunes have issued me a refund, albeit with a rather terse email that implies it was my fault for signing up in the first place, but then goes on to say that iTunes Match isn’t available in the UK! Err!
This evening I installed iTunes 10.5.2 update on my Mac and was surprised to find that iTunes Match was presented as an option in the sidebar. I have a UK iTunes account and iTunes Match isn’t available here yet. I assumed that I just had good timing, and clicked on the option.
A Russian scientist and a scientist from the Czech Republic had spent their lives studying the grizzly bear. Each year they petitioned their respective governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone to study the bears. Finally their request was granted, and they immediately flew to the park.
They reported to the ranger station but the chief ranger told them that it was the grizzly mating season and it was too dangerous to go out and study the animals. They pleaded that this was their only chance, and finally the ranger relented.
The Russian and the Czech were given portable phones and told to report in every day. For several days they called in, and then nothing was heard from the two scientists. The rangers mounted a search party and found the camp completely ravaged, with no sign of the missing men. Following the trails of a male and a female bear, they finally caught up with the female.
Fearing an international incident, they decided they must kill the animal to find out if she had eaten the scientist. They killed the female and opened the stomach to find the remains of the Russian.
One ranger turned to the other and said, “You know what this means, don’t you?”
The other ranger responded, “I guess it means the Czech’s in the male.”
The idea that vinyl records give better quality audio than CDs or other digital audio is still quite common. It certainly has a basis in fact: vinyl stores a smooth analogue waveform, whereas digital audio is stored as a series of “stair steps” that are reconstructed back into an approximation of the original analogue waveform.