So we're all in agreement about where the real creativity rests in the Disney-Pixar partnership, right? Because when it comes to animated features, Pixar is 5 for 5, and by most measures each and every one of those flicks was a grand slam; Disney, on the other hand, has been churning out a lot more material, but the signal-to-noise ratio is a lot lower, and there have been some downright flops from a box office perspective. Nothing against Disney as an institution, mind you, but we doubt that many attentive observers would argue with the statement that for the past ten years or so, Pixar's been a superstar while Disney's been a little more hit-and-miss.

Indeed, the analysts certainly aren't rushing to defend Disney's honor. We stumbled across a Hollywood Reporter article which says that Disney zagnut Michael Eisner has "confirmed earlier company statements that the studio has several sequels in the works to the blockbuster films Pixar has created for the company"; given the plethora of utterly missable direct-to-video let's-squeeze-the-parents-for-more-cash sequels that Disneys's been shoveling out recently (The Little Mermaid II: The Return to the Sea, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, etc. ad infinitum), we shudder to think of what those unPixarian sequels might be; Toy Story 3 is a given, of course, but what will it be, exactly? Buzz Goes To Treasure Atlantis? Woody vs. Piglet: High Noon? The mind reels.

Steve, being no fool, has voiced his frustration with this situation in public: "We feel sick about Disney doing sequels because if you look at the quality of their sequels... it's been pretty embarrassing." Which brings us to the analysts. Reportedly Jessica Reif Cohen of Merrill Lynch feels that, financially speaking (which is all that ever counts, right?), the prospect of non-Pixar-produced sequels to the Pixar stable of films would be "a positive for Disney," because hey, instant money; Disney has made a cool billion smackers from cheesy direct-to-video releases so far. However, she makes it pretty clear that this sort of dreck may likely hurt Pixar, instead: "The unproven writing and graphics quality of Disney's work with computer-guided-image animation may have an unintentional 'contagion' impact since consumers may subconsciously associate these films as Pixar product." In other words, Disney's sequels are going to blow chunks but Pixar's going to be standing right in the spatter zone.

Which is, of course, horribly, soul-crushingly unfair; Pixar has no input whatsoever into making sure these sequels aren't embarrassingly awful, yet no matter how bad they turn out to be, Disney makes money and Pixar looks bad. This, incidentally, is exactly the sort of thing that had Steve negotiating for less-stinky contract terms with Disney before he walked away. Worse yet, The Impossibles isn't even out yet, but Disney will have the right to churn out crappy sequels to that, too-- and even to Cars, which is due for release next year. And yet, the only thing Pixar can do is hide under a tarp and hope it doesn't get splashed with too much spew before it can finally make movies without having to live in constant fear of a direct-to-video Disney sequel lurking in the not-too-distant future...

Say, are you running a little low on Righteous Indignation these days? Were you sailing right into a long weekend with no fire in your belly about some issue or other that sticks hard and fast in your craw? Well, we can't have that, now, can we? So we're going to suggest that you try to get good and riled about something that can sustain a slightly elevated blood pressure for the next three days, because really, what other form of exercise are you realistically going to get? See, we're just looking out for your welfare, here.

As far as topics go, may we suggest the state of the music industry? What with the major labels trying to bolster their bottom line by suing twelve-year-old kids instead of by selling good music at fair prices, it's sort of a hot-button issue these days-- and nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent Frontline interview with David Crosby-- he of Crosby, Stills, & Nash, et al-- that was pointed out to us by faithful viewer greekcow. If you're at all interested in music, it contains some fascinating insights from a forty-year veteran into how far the business has fallen into a baseline state of corporate greed. He speaks pretty eloquently (well, okay, he does lapse into caveman talk at one point, but it's just for effect) about the "cardboard cutout"/"flat tummy" nature of mass-produced modern pop and the "de facto censorship of the commercial power of the conglomerates." It's engaging and impressive stuff, especially considering that this interview was recorded just two days before the guy got busted on drug and weapons charges again.

Of course, the last thing we want is for you just to get ticked off about how the recording industry is run by a pack of fatcat weasels who are only "selling units," because that's nothing but stress and doesn't do anyone any good. But the great thing about this particular David Crosby interview is that the man heaps so much praise upon the iTunes Music Store that you'd think he's seen the face of God or something. (We could mention the drug charges again, but it'd be too easy.) Check out this warm fuzzy: "I think the only way to sell records that I know about now that does look really, really, really promising is iTunes. I think Apple is the smartest company in the country, and they are doing something brilliant."

In a nutshell, Crosby thinks that the music business as a whole is "going in a tank" (while he's "standing on the sidelines applauding") because the suits aren't "going to look for a new way" to do their thing. "But I see Apple out there doing it," he says; "iTunes is a good idea. It delivers the music to you cheap, pays us, doesn't cheat anybody, and it cuts out all middlemen." Which is all terrific, though of course it's not true... yet. As you all know, Apple currently pays a sizeable chunk of each song sale to the label who owns the recording, not to the artist who recorded it; sure, the artist gets paid by the label (theoretically), but as it currently stands, the system is still all about middlemen.

That's not to say, though, that it'll be that way forever. Apple would never have stood a chance getting the iTMS off the ground without offering the major labels' songs, so it was a necessary deal with the devil. But let's say that a few years down the line, the iTMS is a ubiquitous delivery mechanism supplying digital music to Macs, PCs, and directly to player devices in every home-- and the RIAA as we know it is no more. (Maybe it gets bludgeoned into oblivion by rampaging mobs after it sues some blind six-year-old with cancer for being in the same hospital room as a guy playing a Kazaa'd Metallica album on his laptop. Whatever.) In addition to continuing to sell songs from independent labels, who's to say that Apple couldn't start offering music direct from the artists themselves?

And that's what's so cool about David Crosby; the man honestly seems to think that the major labels will eventually collapse under the weight of their own greed and the iTMS will survive the transition to a more direct artist-to-audience sales model. You just gotta love the optimism. Of course, to a certain extent ol' Dave seems to think the transition has already happened, but, well, you know... the drug thing, and all.

Oh, like we never take the easy ones. Deal with it.

Okay, so as a platform the Mac's been taking some dings on the security front lately. The ID3 tag vulnerability wasn't major, but it apparently it started the ball rolling. The Word 2004 Trojan wasn't even a Mac OS X breach, but rather a raw social engineering exploit; that didn't make it any less dangerous, of course. And it was the Help Viewer flaw that finally wrenched the Mac platform into the realm of critical security holes allowing remote parties to execute arbitrary code, the land where Microsoft hangs out at least twice a month. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, Apple's fix didn't actually, um, fix things, and as of right now we're still waiting for a patch that works.

All of this has surely forced you to endure some smug gloating from various Windows-using cronies who are cackling with glee over what they see as proof positive that the Mac isn't any safer than Windows is these days. And yes, we're fully aware of just how annoying that can be, but buck up, Buckaroo, because we're here to tell you that those Windows apologists are wrong.

Seriously, think about it for a second; did anyone report damage of any sort arising from the Help Viewer hole? We've looked, but we can't find a single instance whereby someone got hit by an actual malicious web page; there were dozens of harmless sample exploits, but not one bona fide victim to be found. Meanwhile, Wintel users recently had to run around trying to eradicate all traces of Sasser, the auto-spreading worm of the month; the most energy any of us spent on the Help Viewer thingy was trying to decide between RCDefaultApp and Paranoid Android.

Here, chew on this: faithful viewer Frank Davis forwarded us a Enterprise Security Today article which reports that Microsoft plans to blow a huge wad of cash on trying to tighten up security in Windows. How huge a wad? Try $300 million huge. And while a flaw that allows people to run local scripts on your system by sending you a URL is a serious hole that needs to be plugged, an operating system so swiss-cheesed that you need to spend well over a quarter of a billion dollars getting your customers to install a Service Pack that addresses the more glaring problems (a Service Pack that isn't slated to ship until fall, no less) is a catastrophe massive enough to affect the tides.

Still not convinced? Then consider this one: faithful viewer xylouris pointed out a Symantec Security Response (via Lockergnome) that describes W64.Rugrat.3344, the "first known virus for 64-bit Windows." The thing is, 64-bit Windows isn't even out yet! Granted, there's a Customer Preview version, but still, we're having a hard time accepting that the Mac platform is just as unsafe as Windows when those guys are dealing with viruses for operating system versions that haven't even technically shipped yet. So go gloat over that for a while.

And relax a little! Sheesh.