Wes Phillips

What are the chances of your dying from various causes? <A HREF="http://www.riskometer.org/">Riskometer</A&gt; tells you.

When Philip Pullman wrote <I>His Dark Materials</I>, he thought he might have written a story that would appeal to a "a few clever kids and a few intelligent adults." The series has been translated into 40 languages and has sold 15 million copies. If he was that wrong about that, he's probably wrong about what it's about, too.

<A HREF="http://www.aperionaudio.com/home.aspx">Aperion Audio</A> is teaming up with <A HREF="http://www.outlawaudio.com/">Outlaw Audio</A> to offer a holiday savings deal. Here's how it works: Purchase any Aperion speaker system costing more than $998 between now and December 31, 2007 and Aperion will email you a promo code worth 5% off any Outlaw electronic component. Go to Outlaw's site, choose your gear, and apply the promo code for your discount.

A new year-long download promotion may spell the death knell for digital rights management (DRM). The Pepsi promotion, which will be formally announced during the Super Bowl on February 3, will advertise a possible one billion downloadable MP3 files, which will be available through Amazon.com's download service, which does not feature DRM. We have not been able to obtain a list of participating labels to date, but since EMI, UMG, and Hollywood Records already participate at Amazon's MP3 store, they're probably involved. Less certain are Sony BMG and Warner Music Group (WMG), who seem to be sticking as much at the 40&#162; per song (compared to 65&ndash;70&#162; from Amazon or 70&#162; from iTunes) offered by Pepsi as at the lack of DRM&mdash;although neither label has yet offered unprotected digital files.

Last week, we passed along some observations from Benchmark Media Systems' John Siau about iTunes forcing an unnecessary <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/news/120307samplerateconversion/">sample-rate conversion</A> in its 7.5 incarnation. We received a lot of mail on the subject during the week, including some helpful suggestions from Wavelength Audio's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/196rankin">Gordon Rankin</A>, who has much experience designing <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/905listen">USB audio devices</A>.

Bagheera doesn't think either. She <I>plots</I>.

In Hucklebery's case, it's deceptive. He's not really a thinker, that cat.