I’m fairly sure this will be the one and only time I will ever say this, but I wish I had the right to vote in Finland. In what may well be the first time a politician running for a national office has based his campaign on appealing to geeks (and not just any geeks, mind you, but geeks who understand Klingon), Jyrki J.J. Kasvi, current member of Finland’s Parliament, just relaunched his website in four languages – Finnish, Swedish, English and, yes, Klingon.

“pe’vIl parmaq vIvoq. qo’ vIDub vIneH; motlhwI’ vIqaD vIneH; ngoch ngachlu’taHvIS qechmey chu’ vIchel vIneH,” states Kasvi in Klingonese. Translation: “I strongly trust in love. I want to improve the world, challenge standards, and add new ideas when policies are being debated.” (more…)

This story is getting such extensive coverage in the Blogosphere, you’d think Moses just discovered an 11th Commandment etched on the back of one of his stone tablets. Something to the effect of, “Thou shalt not restrict a user’s ability to exercise a license they’ve legitimately paid for.”

Well, Steve Job isn’t Moses, but he is as close as you get to an iconic authority on the subject of downloadable music. And here’s what Steve had to say on the subject of Digital Rights Management, or DRM, in an opinion piece posted to Apple.com earlier today:

“The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.”

For a media executive – and let’s face it, as the majority stockholder in Disney, Steve Jobs is a media executive – this is nothing short of sacralidge. And unbelievably cool.

To read Mr. Jobs treatise on the whole DRM issue, click here. It’s a good read, and we highly recommend it.

I’ll admit it, I’m a Digg.com addict. For those not in the know, Digg is a news site where stories, generally posted elsewhere first, are submitted by, and then voted on, by Digg’s users. The more votes, the more diggs, the higher a story places on the site.

Being a fan of the weird, I can always depend on Digg to find the oddest stuff on the Internet for me, generally on a daily basis.

Take, for example, this recent Digg post. According to the Digger, “On a recent business trip to Tokyo, I happened to stop by the Apple store. There was this guy selling magazines or something right outside the store…I happened to take a photo.”

What’s supposed to be going on in this illustration I won’t speculate. Just thought I’d share. And to Digg, a big shoutout for continually serving up the Internet’s strangest flotsam.

In fact, now that we’ve set-up an author account on The Geek Beat for Digg, from now on when we find something especially interesting (or bizarre) on the Digg site, not only will we post it here, but you’ll get a change to “digg” it yourself (see the links below.)

read digg post | digg (vote for) story

It seems if you’re looking for reasons to hate Microsoft, you never have to look very far. Case in point: It was reported today on CNN.com that Microsoft paid a blogger to make changes to certain entries on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that is maintained by volunteers. Typically, companies and their representatives are not allowed to update Wikipedia entries because of the risk of bias being introduced into what is supposed to be an objective repository of fact. (more…)

Attention all you wild gamers: Nintendo is so concerned that the cord attaching your Wiimote to its wrist strap might snap – sending Wiimote sailing across the room and into your precious TV – they’re stepping up with a fix.

The company announced today it will replace about 3.2 million wrist straps for controllers that work with the popular Wii game console. The voluntary exchange program comes in the wake of countless reports of wrist straps fraying and controllers slipping out of users’ hands during vigorous play with the motion-sensing devices. (more…)