May 2002 Archives
Trying out the new rssLink macro...
Mark Pilgrim is one of my more frequent detractors, but I read his site anyway, whenever it updates. I never know what to expect, but he's a smart guy, so I read his site and try to ignore the ad hominems. I know much better what my faults are than Mark does. 
[Scripting News]
I read both sites. Both Mark and Dave are opinionated and they don't always agree. I don't know that I would call mark a detractor of Dave's though...it seems a bit...harsh.
The auto-discovery for RSS is going to make Kuch happy...someday.
Brent has an interesting theory about Rumsfeld's visit to India and Pakistan. "Rumsfeld is letting those guys know that if they prepare their nuclear missiles for launch the U.S. military will take those missiles out." BTW, I think they're sending Rumsfeld because Powell struck out in the Middle East. 
[Scripting News]
Did Powell strike out or did they give him the take sign and he got beaned anyway? Rumsfeld is going because he is military and this is a military threat. Powell goes where we aren't going to threated to 'whip it out' so to speak. He is a statesman and the time for that has past in the India/Pakistan situation.
I'm kinda suprised China hasn't told both of them to put a lid on it. The last thing China wants is a war. Or at least, that's my theory...
Posted featured news blurb regarding the CIPA court opinion.
Pages affected:
- http://www.eff.org/
- http://www.eff.org/news/
Thanks to Marc and stingray we've got donations/joining working again.
Pages affected:
- http://www.eff.org/join/
Well, it looks like I can limp along over the weekend until the new drive shows up. My plan is to just not start any more apps, since it really doesn't like it when I do that, and just let it go over the weekend. I'm making backups using rsync after every post.
In case you didn't already guess...this sucks.
A long time ago, in an industry far, far away. We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is... [Consensus at Lawyerpoint]
Seems like Jack has been re-using the same speech since 1982. Boy talk about a cheap-skate! Think of the poor speech writers Jack!
My hard drive is going CLICK CLICK CLICK. Is that a bad thing?
Improving Unix Mail Storage? [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
Let's think of all the enhancements to existing protocols and how well they have done:
- IPv.6
- HTTP/1.1 (ok, this did pretty well...eventually)
- SNMP v.2
Granted the poster is asking about mail storage, but the question goes way past that into how the protocol functions itself. This is a huge problem. The existing user base out there pretty much works with what is there.
Is this an excuse for staying with what we have and never gettingg anything better. Kinda. Whatever it is you come up with better be backwards compatible and easy to implement or it won't go anywhere.
In the posts there was even mention of Exchange from MS, since it seemed to have a lot of features that people were looking for, like single instance storage of messages and attachments. Of course, it has drawbacks.
I guess my point is that you can't just dictate that something will change. Dan Bernstein thought he could do this with SMTP and DNS. It hasn't worked. Sure, a few people are running djbdns and it suits them fine.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all it takes is one person to make a change and then have the rest of the world follow. It just seems like a "boil the ocean" type problem.
"The Tinseltown Club" [Daypop Top 40]
I know that the EFF has been wanting to get this out for a couple of weeks now. Good to see that it's out there and that people seem to be enjoying it.
Bibby Puts Kings on Cusp of Finals. Mike Bibby hit a 22-foot jump shot with 8.2 seconds remaining as the Kings beat the Lakers, 92-91. By Mike Wise. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Sunday I was in a department store and they have the standard TV setup blaring music. I'm used to it being very bad. I was really shocked when I heard something playing that I didn't recognize and also didn't suck. So here it is:
The EFFector for the Tinsel Town project finally went out. Yippee! Go Ren!
http://action.eff.org/tinseltown/
Interview With BitKeeper Author Larry McVoy [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
A very good read. Larry basically slams the Free Software people for not coming up with anything new. Okay, maybe he doesn't slam them, but he takes them to task for taking him to task on Linus using BitKeeper.
Of course the RMS argument will be that any caving on Freedom is a bad thing and we will die a horrible, nasty death.
Has anyone else noticed that IE 5.1 on OS X is totally dead in the water? Omniweb and Chimera seem to be the only two browsers in active development. iCab...well you can't really figure out what those guys are doing as they haven't had a new public version in months. It's like some sort of conspiracy against OS X browsers. So if Apple wants to take Chimera and turn it into iBrowser, heck, more power to them. [ModWheel]
It only seems dead because IE has a very different development/release process. OmniWeb is so broken that they have to release quick-fix versions as soon as they can to keep people from yelling at them. Chimera is on a similar schedule as Mozilla, which is early and often.
IE is the cathedral model. But that doesn't mean it's dead. The MBU at Microsoft likes what they do and I'm sure they are working on IE. There certainly is a lot to work on for X.
If you are in SF, you might want to check it out.
http://mozilla.org/party/2002/flyer.html
As Promised, Microsoft to Offer Concealable Icons. An update to the Windows XP operating system will let users hide the computer screen icons of some Microsoft programs. By Amy Harmon. [New York Times: Technology]
This certainly will keep Microsoft from illegally crushing anybody else anytime soon...
Is this really what it's come down to?
EFF condemns hecklers. EFF regrets that several hecklers have been joining the BPDG conference call this afternoon to disrupt it. This behavior has... [Consensus at Lawyerpoint]
"Seeeeeeeeth!"
The things I hear around the office...
Echelon Architect Interviewed [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
Echelon even got a nod on The West Wing last week. I wonder how many people caught the reference?
New way to abuse HTML discovered.
TableArt: the 2002 invitational. [via Eric Costello] “TableArt is ... pictures, designs or creations made with the fantasmagorical technology of tables in HTML.”
[dive into mark]
Okay, this is totally legit, but wrong on so many levels ;-)
So I'm on a crusade of sorts to find all links to the old "Privacy Policy" and replace that with the new one. Luckily it was mostly handled by the sea of includes. Now that those are taken care of I can start hunting down the other stragglers.
But Pat, why don't you just link the old one to the new one?
I did, but I don't want to leave cruft in the pages.
But Pat, why do you care...the site redesign should take care of that.
You're right. It should, but it might not. So I need to take care of things as I find them so they don't continue to propagate from now until the end of time.
I got this IM from Kat this morning:
"do you know if you put 'halogenated' in the word spell checker, the recommendation that comes back is "halogen Ted" sounds like some kind of super hero"
Washington Post: Open-Source Fight Flares At Pentagon. [Scripting News]
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"
Brooklyn Bridge Is Briefly Closed as New York Tightens Security. The bridge was briefly closed today following a warning of vague threats against both the bridge and the Statue of Liberty. By Dan Barry and Al Baker. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
But people aren't going to deal with this kind of this very well for very long. Memories are short and traffic jams are long.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's the way of things.
Factual Error Found On Internet [Daypop Top 40]
No, I don't feel fine. When information like this can be made public on the Internet I don't feel fine! This is a tragedy of epic proportions. I'm not leaving the house today.
Wow. A pretty harsh review of his new album 18.
Everyone is banging on him for doing something that sounded like Play, only because they seem to think that he never did two albums that sound the same before. I don't know about that. A lot of his early stuff sounded really similar.
Moby has also gotten hammered in the press for being too different from album to album. Now he swings back and get hammered again. It's a good thing he really doesn't care.
DynAPI 2.9 and Mozilla compatibility ports. DynAPI 2.9 is the latest release of the popular cross-browser DHTML library, and is available at Dan Steinman's original site.... [scottandrew.com]
The original DynAPI rocked. I learned so much about JavaScript and CSS-P from Dan's site it isn't even funny.
This Modern World. A Republican's guide to debating the Enron scandal. [Salon.com]
DHTML Timeline/Keyframe Animation. Tim Morgan is working on a Flash-like timeline/keyframe extension for his DHTML toolset.... [scottandrew.com]
I understand why you might want some functionality like this. But seriously...If it isn't supposed to be easier than Flash, what void does it fill?
RMS Replies to "The Stallman Factor" [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
There is a very simple solution to RMS's problem: finish the HURD kernel and ship your own distrobution. He could call it GNU/RMS.
Should bash always be refered to as GNU/bash? Should we preface every piece of software that is under the GPL with GNU? If we don't, we deny him proper credit.
Linus works on a kernel. He is free to call it whatever he wants. RedHat sells a distribution. If RMS wants to bang on someone, go bang on them.
You may admire him on his strong stance based on his priciples. But know this, there is no compromise. Until RMS changes his mind, it is his way or the highway.
Lessig's Eldred brief online. The retroactive aspect of CTEA (The Bono Act) violates this requirement of exchange. Whatever material benefit might flow to the author or his heirs or publisher from the extension of this exclusive right, Congress has not conditioned that grant upon a gain by the public. The grant is thus a windfall, not an incentive. Link Discuss [bOing bOing] [ModWheel]
It's funny that Congress is trying to pass copyright legislation that does away with the most fundamental part of copyright. Okay, maybe it's not ha ha funny, but it's more like I'd yell and scream but it wouldn't do any good funny. Guess I'll have to vote again...
""Copy-proof" CDs cracked with 99-cent marker pen " [Daypop Top 40]
Will this finally convince them to focus on giving people a reason to buy their content? Of course not...
Don't believe it when Bush tells you he is sticking up for human rights and freedom in Cuba. What he is sticking up for is his brother Jeb. Currently running for re-election as Governor of Florida. A state with a very powerful Cuba exile community. [ link ] [ModWheel]
Greg makes a number of good points about the other scum bag, buchos that the US has backed in the last 50 or so years.
Google: Glossary, Sets, Voice Search, Keyboard Shortcuts. [Scripting News]
Wild and wacky stuff. The keyboard thing is interesting for sure. Of course, since it's a "web app" it suffers from simple problems like, well, the keys not working on some browsers.
This is really anyone's fault, it's just the way it is on the web. You never know what kind of client is going to be hooking up to your server.
So far, so good...
Critics say 'Clones' has racial stereotypes - 05/18/02 [Daypop Top 40]
So some people are getting all bent out of shape that Jango Fett "looks Latino." Heh. I thought he looked Samoan.
Harry Knowles, on-line film reviewer and author of Ain't It Cool: Hollywood's Red-Headed Step-Child Speaks Out (Time Warner), says the whole Jango ethnic premise is "reading racism into something that's not there -- it's just in the minds of the viewers. It's like calling Jar Jar racist when all he is is Bullwinkle."
Wow, finally Harry and I agree on something. I feel bad for people who have nothing better to worry about though. Why don't they go and work against real racism instead of chasing a phantom menace.
D'oh!
Microsoft's $1 Billion Bet on Xbox Network. Microsoft is betting that an Internet-based gaming service will save its Xbox video-game system which lags far behind industry leaders. By John Markoff. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Sega.net anyone?
It doesn't matter that Microsoft probably won't make the horrible mistakes that Sega made. The idea is just not solid when you have so many points of access to the Internet.
Oh well. Why listen to me? What do I know?
Tomorrow for the first time in almost four years, I will be waking up and going to a different job. Four years...big deal some of you might be thinking. Well, I'm only 28, so I haven't been in the permanent work force that long. Four years is also a long time in my field, where people are known for jumping from job to job for higher wages or better perks.
Here's to a great first day.
Would you fly with these guys? Check out the rest of Adam's nice Bay Area pix.
I don't really think I can do a fair review. Basically, I liked it better than Episode 1. See it when you get a chance, or don't. It won't really change your life either way ;-)
Bush is still running from 9/11. The president's recent evasiveness calls to mind his dodgy behavior in the hours after the terror attacks. It's time for the White House to come clean on how much it knew before Sept. 11. [Salon.com]
I'm of two minds on this. My gut reaction is that the information they had was pretty sketchy. Of course, we can't know because they will never release it, even if it shows they did nothing wrong.
Hind-sight is 20/20. Of course, the whole blame it on Clinton thing looks to be a load of crap now. Of course.
Politics is politics, but this time we payed a higher price.
Long week. Freestyle is over. Off to Chico this weekend. EFF job starts Monday.
See ya Sunday.
XML::RSSLite works for me. Patrick Berry asks whether anyone can get XML::RSSLite to work with the RSS that Radio puts out. I couldn't load [Tommy's Thoughts]
Argh. Thanks. I was creating $content as a string and not as actual content. My perl foo is rusty...
Microsoft Sells Windows Licenses For Macs? [MacSlash: A daily dose of Macintosh News and Discussion]
I wonder if you have to buy a Windows license for all those old TR-80s some schools still have lying around? I mean, it's still a computer, right? What about some of the high-end HP calculators? Maybe you should have to buy a WindowsCE license for them...
MPAA rejects Microsoft, Philips proposals. The MPAA has rejected the Microsoft and Philips DRM proposals (which the latter companies had submitted as Table A candidates).... [Consensus at Lawyerpoint]
Pardon the 'fish translation, but it sounds better in Spanish.
Man, do we really get to see a fight to see who is a bigger monopoly? Wow. What a boon for consumers! The government should ignore more monopolies and anti-competitive practices if this is what we get in return!
Tomorrow is my last day at Freestyle Interactive. This last week has been too much to really handle. That is the main reason for the lack of amazingly witty posts. Of course, since I didn't have a lot of amazingly witty posts before, it's no shock to anyone.
Monday I start my webmaster position at the EFF.
Woo-hoo!
No time to post, but today's song is "Stop It You're Killing Me" [ mp3 ] from Therapy?
The world is fucked
And so am I
Maybe it's the other way round
I can't seem to decide
...and I love the chorus as well...
Idiots authority
Promising equality
So where is the land of the free?
Stop it you're killing me
Has anyone gotten RSSLite to work with the rss that Radio spits out?
Content must be RSS/RDF/ScriptingNews/Weblog XML (or something pretty close) at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/XML/RSSLite.pm line 22.
No love.
Turmoil at Napster Moves the Service Closer to Bankruptcy. The chief executive of Napster, its founder and several of its top executives resigned Tuesday, a move that may foreshadow the company's imminent bankruptcy. By Matt Richtel. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Okay, everyone knew it was coming...I just don't think everyone thought it would take this damn long.
Wired News: Another Run to a Deep-Link Suit. Rodale Press, the publisher of Runner's World magazine and many other prominent health-oriented publications, sent a stiff note to a hobbyist website this week, demanding it delete a hyperlink to a "printer-friendly" version of a runnersworld.com article or -- face the consequences. [Tomalak's Realm]
All it costs them is legal fees to try this. If people buy it, they win. If it goes to court, we can only hope they get smacked down.
I still find it incredibly funny that web sites want to try and control how people link to them. I'm sure next they will sue when the text between the anchor tags is something they don't link, or maybe a tacked on query string with deragatorry remarks. You know, like this: Big bunch of morons
MacCentral: Apple announces rack-mount servers. “The server will have a dual 1GHz G4 processor, 256K L2, 4MB DDR L3 caches. ... Storage: 60GB and 120GB ATA/100 drives. (We support 4 drive bays, so that means 480GB max in a 1U server.)”
[dive into mark]I don't see them at the Apple Store, yet...
Some people think it doesn't make sense. Nobody thinks it's odd for other UNIX vendors to have rack-mount machines. Why should it be odd for Apple now that they are a UNIX vendor?
SpamBouncer sample . It is interesting to see what SpamBouncer considers spam and to see the rules it applies. So far, the program [Tommy's Thoughts]
Here are some cool hits for Spam Assassin:
http://www.piratehaven.org/~beej/topspam/
Sony to Cut PlayStation 2 Price by $100. Sony plans to announce on Tuesday that it will cut the price of its popular PlayStation 2 game console in North America by a third. By Chris Gaither. [New York Times: Technology]
Ah, this is what I've been waiting for. Excellent...
This Modern World. The vast left wing conspiracy [Salon.com]
If you treat them like prisoners. While I was drying the dishes, a story came on the news about an expelled student who returned to a [Tommy's Thoughts]
I'm sure the people who did this were going through some step-by-step guide that the F.B.I. has sent out. You know, because they do so well in these situations.
Kuch's Cinema Dilettante Review: Spiderman
So, moments of brilliance coupled with Hollywood imposed blandness sums this movie up. Hey! That makes it ripe for a sequel! Another franchise is born.. [ModWheel]
I give it a 'Full Price' on my "Movie Ratings" scale.
The Yahoo Privacy Storm That Wasn't. Yahoo, the vast Internet portal, set off howls of protest when it abruptly changed its marketing policy. But for all the smoke, there was little fire of reaction. By Saul Hansell. [New York Times: Technology]
Our whole company turned off all that junk in the space of an hour. Of course, what's 20 people to Yahoo?
Blizzard Gets DMCA Smackdown From Sony [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
What a bunch of goobers. Pick a side.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=riaa+sucks
I'm in the top ten at google for 'riaa sucks'
Nice.
10.2 - Oh So Sweet. Today I finally had a chance to get behind the driver’s seat of an early developer build of Mac OS [What Do I Know]
Yes I'm friggin' jealous! I want to play with it too!
Why is Dave happy this afternoon? We just closed another deal like the one with the NY Times. Yes we can dance with the BigCo's. Details next week, Murphy-willing. More great content for the Radio aggregator. Yehi!! [Scripting News]
Come on BBC...
And if Apple wanted to build positive energy in the developer community, they would also send a similar message to the developers who created such amazing tools for their users. "Look at these great developers," Apple would say. "They pour their passion into our platform." [Scripting News]
Isn't that what the WWDC is all about? What about the download section for OS X, where the showcase all the coolest apps?
Business 2.0: Hollywood vs. High-Tech. This fight goes beyond any single device -- beyond entertainment, for that matter. Pleading self-defense, the movie studios and their allies are trying to construct an instrument of control out of the very technology they decry. Citing an unprecedented peril, they have embarked on a quest for unprecedented power... [Tomalak's Realm]
The most sane thing is on the last page:
If Hollywood wants a crystal-ball view of the digital future, perhaps it should look back at its own experience with the VCR. Companies that were once unable to collect a dime without luring masses of people into theaters have now built up a huge in-home business, courtesy of an appliance they tried to outlaw.
Oh, but why bother to learn from the past? Then they wouldn't have an excuse for making the same mistakes again and again and again...
Cardinal Law Says Pedophile Matter Was Left to Aides. Cardinal Bernard Francis Law said he was aware of accusations against a priest in 1984, but he turned the matter over to his aides. By Pam Belluck. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Somebody stamp a big 'L' on this guys forehead already...
The Stallman factor Quite frankly, I don't want people using Linux for ideological reasons. I think ideology sucks. This world would be a much better place if people had less ideology, and a whole lot more "I do this because it's FUN and because others might find it useful, not because I got religion."
Linus is the master of sound bites.
Wired: Blogging Goes Corporate. [Scripting News]
Don't worry Dave, I'm hammering on the head sales guy to get clients to do this as part of their Net strategy. It will be a hard sell to show them the benefits over the obvious loss of control they will have over their "message" as it travels the blogosphere...
Kuch has a new tune up over at MutantAudio. Click the funkycoldmichigan link.
Kuch, you need to setup MutantAudio as a category in Radio. It's what I did for "Fire Ashcroft" and it makes life a lot easier ;-)
Maybe this is old news but I had no idea that you ....
Maybe this is old news but I had no idea that you can create encrypted disk images (AES-128 (Rijndael)) using Disk Copy. [Forwarding Address: OSX]
Watch out for those wireless networks though ;-)
I just received my copy of Constructing Accessible Websites. [diveintomark]
Oh boy, more books I need to get before I tackle my next job.
Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat (washingtonpost.com) [Daypop Top 40]
Slam enough sugar pills and not only will you feel better, but you will be able get those neat shakes in your hands.
Californians Call Enron Documents the Smoking Gun. The disclosure that Enron manipulated the California power market appeared to vindicate state officials who are seeking to recover billions of dollars in damages. By Joseph Kahn. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Is that an electron gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to have our $9 billion?
FAA OKs Boeing Internet System. SEATTLE (AP) -- The Federal Aviation Administration has certified Connexion by Boeing's airborne communications network to bring e-mail and other Internet services to airlines and their passengers, the company said Tuesday. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: Technology]
This is cool. I hope they have it on the plane Kat and I take to Australia. I don't know if I can go 17 hours without email!
Yes. I'm joking...I'm not quite that pathetic.
Is business the purpose of our civilization, or does civilization have some other purpose that business supports? [Scripting News]
I don't have an answer, but I'm hoping it's the latter...maybe after a few beers at trivia tonight I will have a better answer.
Joe Jenett has a new Radio 8 theme. [Scripting News]
Which I prompt stuck on Fire Ashcroft.
It just goes to show that people out there are begging to get back on the horse. One positive word, and not a hugely positive one at that, from Cisco and the whole market goes bananas.
Heck, even AAPL went up ;-)
On an unrelated note, I wonder if Reuters minds me "deep-linking" to a story on their site?
The news is out at work, so I might as well drop it here as well. My last day at Freestyle will be May 17th. May 20th will be my first day working for the EFF. I will be the new webmaster for the EFF.
I'd like to know precisely who "the rich" are. People who make over a million a year? 5 million? Who qualifies. I made allot last year, but I also paid allot in taxes. No one wants to pay taxes, rich or poor. If anything, rich people or even moderately well off folks are able to hire people to help them pay less in taxes. Wouldn't you? [ModWheel]
Sorry Kuch, that I didn't clarify any of my vague statements. I can't. I have no economic data at my disposal to back up anything that I said. Nobody wants to pay taxes. The tax system is screwed up and broken. It's like we've gotten to the end of a game on Jenga and nobody wants to take the next turn.
It would seem to me that people with the means to hire a person to help them with their taxes can pay a lot less in taxes. I know because I did that for last years taxes. I ended up paying 50% less than last year. All completely legal and "up to code" so to speak.
The tax relief thing was a cruel joke. People who got refunds generally didn't know that it was going to come out of whatever refund they thought they might get this year. Oops.
Bush sits up in office and makes sure the tax laws continue to favor all the buddies who got him into office. Now, I realize that Bill Gates shouldn't have to pay "more" just because he makes more, even if it was made illegally. But should the laws be sculpted to favor Bill Gates, Larry Elison, or even Steve Jobs?
Don't get to big a head Kuch...you didn't make jack compared to these guys ;-)
18th Pipe Bomb Found in Texas Mailbox. A pipe bomb was found in Amarillo, Tex., and it appears to be from the same source as 17 others, the F.B.I. said Tuesday. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
You know...if this guy, and I use guy because that is the default gender for most crime profiles, had a job he wouldn't have time to drive all over the middle of nowhere trying to blow up mailboxes.
And now, the bad news. Despite good news about the economy last week, President Bush's economic plan is putting the country in long-term economic danger. [Salon.com]
We've all know this since his "tax relief" bill was passed. It doesn't matter what economic question you ask Bush, the answe is always to cut taxes. The rich get richer, the class lines get farther apart, and the seeds for revolution are sown.
You would think they would learn from past mistakes.
So I'm watching the Dodgers play the Cubs on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. They have a system now that puts ads on the backstop. This isn't new. Fox started this during the play-offs last season.
I only mention this because ESPN is doing it extremely bad. There is a fuzzy halo around any left handed hitters and part of the umpire. I haven't seen blue screen this bad since local weather reports in the early 90s. Yes, it's that bad.
I understand that it's a complex problem. You are dealing with a small space that probably isn't a single color, like a blue screen. But still, it's really bad. They should stop doing it until they can do it better.
Let's say that I hold up an ad in a magazine for you to see, but I show it to you as a reflection in a mirror. Why? I don't know, maybe I thought that ad was funny if you looked at it backwards?
Am I violating a copyright here? The ad isn't being viewed as the copyright holder intended...
Maybe it's just me, but I thought that copyright was to protect a work, so that the original creator could be the one to make money off of it, for a specific amount of time.
Maybe you should read this faq at the US Copyright Office Website and see what you can make of it.
Bad Religion's Stranger Than Fiction from the album Stranger Than Fiction.
sometimes truth is stranger than fiction
life is the crummiest book i ever read
there isn't a hook
just a lot of cheap shots
pictures to shock
and characters an amateur would never dream up
Jonathon Delacour: Netscape 4.x users: Enough Already! “As if using a tenth-rate browser is a mark of distinction.”
[diveintomark]By far the best quote is
“
If you don't have a hard drive, you should run out and buy one.
”
"Truetype embedding-enabler : DMCA threats" [Daypop Top 40]
God I love reading someone poke holes in a flimsy argument!
Three Years Under the DMCA [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
Of course the *ahem* ass-tute posters at slashdot took issue with the wording of some of the examples. Of course, every post comes with a IANAL. Guess what. The EFF is a bunch of lawyers.
Bush and Reporters Share Laughs. President Bush mingled with Washington insiders at the annual White House Correspondents dinner. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
It seems I'm not really in line with what America actually wants in a President. One day a year the President is allowed to show that even though it's the most powerful position on the planet, it is still filled by a human being.
Why do we limit that to only one day a year? Why can't we see that every day a human being is having to make these decisions. Do we not want to see that?
I understand that the standards for the job are very high, but to think that there are super-humans in there is silly when we clearly know the truth. I guess we like denial.
So I just saw the new Gateway TV commercial for their new laptop. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's true then Gateway must really, really be flattering "Apple".
Oh well. It's not like "Apple" hasn't borrowed a look and feel here and there.
Yale Law School: Top Ten New Copyright Crimes. [Scripting News]
This was too funny not to link to. Thanks Dave!
Today bapper is having a May Day/House warming party. So it's off to Grass Valley. On the drive I will have to make some big decisions about the future as well.
Breaking News from Around the Globe WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate shot up to its highest level in more than 7 1/2 years in April, the government said on Friday, bolstering a belief that it may be some months before the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates. [ Reuters ]
It looks like Bush's one quarter run of economy luck has run out. As much as I want to see Bush out of office in 2004, I don't want to suffer along until then.
Attack of the Clones to Cost Economy $300m [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
Of course this bit from the story:
But it's important to retain a sense of proportion. The effect on the British economy of four weeks of World Cup football has been put at £3bn.
Also keep in mind that even though these people aren't going to their jobs, they are taking a sick day or a vacation day and going out and dropping cash directly into the economy.
God Re-Floods Middle East. JERUSALEM[~] In what theological and meteorological authorities are calling "a wrathful display of Old Testament proportions," the Lord Almighty re-flooded the Middle East Tuesday, making good on last week's threat to wipe the region clean if there was not an immediate halt to the bloodshed between Arabs and Jews. [The Onion] [ModWheel]
Unfortunately, it sounds like the only thing that would work right now. You have two leaders showing their people that they must not cave or compromise, while all along the people are dying.
So I can't use bookmarks. I use at least four different computers a day and six different web browsers.
- IE 6 for Win32
- IE 5.1 for OS X
- IE 5.1 for OS 9
- Mozilla 1.0 RC1 for linux
- OmniWeb
- Mozilla 1.0 RC1 for OS X
Sure I could use some network based bookmark storage, but that is slow, tedious and doesn't work in the native interface for the app. Yes, I know I can install the Yahoo Companion toolbar and then it will be a native function, but that only works for IE on Win32.
Bah.
"Content Syndication with XML and RSS" [Daypop Top 40]
Cool link. Saved for my own use.
No I don't use bookmarks...why do you ask?
Terms of Service. Dallas News: Registration: Terms of Service (via Scripting) [TheFlangyNews News]
No Adam, you can't link to their ToS page. Bad Adam! No Doughnut!
Adam is right on one point, they don't get the web. Which is fine. There is no law that you have to get it. But you also shouldn't try and bend the law to cover your ass just because you don't get it.
Many of the slashdot articles pointed out that they could easily prevent this on the server side, and save a bunch of lawyer bills. But something tells me that only want to tell certain people to F-off and let others still link to them.
It could just be me though...
Installing Linux On A Wal-Mart OS-less machine [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
- Insert RedHat 7.2 CD
- Click a few buttons
- Wait a few minutes
- Reboot
Adobe Says Photoshop Sales Strong. SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Adobe Systems Inc., aided by strong sales of its newest Photoshop software, backed its second quarter guidance and said it would record a charge of $1 million to $2 million as it folds Accelio Corp. into the company. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: Technology]
People found out that you don't have to do that annoying CD swap dance during this upgrade, no wonder sales are strong. I hope Adobe, and any other company thinking about implementing the same brain-dead update scheme, has learned a valuable lesson. All the extra money is probably coming from a reduced number of tech support calls.
By the way, if you still need to pull that last 5.x-6.x update off, make an image of 5.x CD, mount it, and then run the update from the 6.x CD. Otherwise you are in for a world of hurt.
I will go on record and call that upgrade the dumbest upgrade since Microsoft Office 4.0 came out on 40+ floppy disks.
Alan Cox Attacks the European DMCA [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]
I wonder if Alan is going to boycott going to Europe too? Yeah, it's a cheap shot...
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2002/04/charlieclouser/
In store next Thursday.
Thu May 9 at 7 p.m. in Palo Alto [ModWheel]
Cool. He is a remix God.