30.6.05

Being Batman

How much does it cost?

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Seduction of the World's Wildest Beasts: A How-To.

"Accidentally brush your arm against its furry leg. Mention you are tired of relationships and simply want to share moments: you're a 'stop for a drink, share the kill, and mate' kinda person."

29.6.05

Two competitors for this here service

Textpattern
Typo - major points for the name, bonus points for using Trac

Competitors in the sense of you having your own server space that you can install stuff on.

More scriptalicious links

Scriptaculous
Miraculous
Tabtastic
Behaviour
EffectsPack

28.6.05

"Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’'s interpretation of the Constitution."

Eugene Volokh and his readers present for your enjoyment some memorable one sentence lines form judicial opinions.

Wikimedia servers - From Meta; discussion about Wikimedia projects

What a loverly server farm! I'll take two please, one for here and one as a back-up.

Souter vs Kelo

LOL: "On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home."

Nike Campaign "Borrows" Album Art

If we are talking about the pain that major corporations suffer from piracy and knock-offs:

We understand that trading on the image of a legitimately punk rock, anti-corporate institution will lend some desperately needed credibility to your marketing campaign for the hearts of adolescent skate kids. But doesn't knowing full well that that institution-- in this case the venerable Dischord Records-- would never grant you permission for the use of that image, and just steamrolling the fuck over them anyway because your lawyers can beat up their lawyers negate the very ideals with which you're attempting to equate yourselves?

27.6.05

Cable wins Supreme Court battle

Cable != DSL


In a 6-3 decision led by Justice Thomas, the court overturned a federal court decision that would force cable companies to share their infrastructure with Internet service providers, such as Brand X and Earthlink.


Please, for the children, go home.

Ministers plan to sell your ID card details to raise cash

Go Home!


Personal details of all 44 million adults living in Britain could be sold to private companies as part of government attempts to arrest spiralling costs for the new national identity card scheme, set to get the go-ahead this week.

The opening of commercial talks contradicts a promise made when the Home Office launched a public consultation on ID cards in April last year, when officials pledged that "unlike electoral registers, the National Identity Register will not be open for any general access or inspection."

MercuryNews.com | 06/27/2005 | Court rules Internet file-sharing services can be held responsible for music theft

MercuryNews.com | 06/27/2005 | Court rules Internet file-sharing services can be held responsible for music theft: "``We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties,'' Justice David H. Souter wrote for the court."

26.6.05

Error Message Haikus

Petals on the wind
My external memory
Tries to catch them all

Researchers Discover That Microbes Can Produce Miniature Electrical Wires

UMass Amherst News: "Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a tiny biological structure that is highly electrically conductive. This breakthrough helps describe how microorganisms can clean up groundwater and produce electricity from renewable resources. It may also have applications in the emerging field of nanotechnology, which develops advanced materials and devices in extremely small dimensions."

22.6.05

Crash consciousness

Remember, the only good SUV is a dead SUV. Unless, umm, it's one of those hybrid Ford Escapes or you really need one or it's a Land Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser somewhere in Africa or Asia. Cuz those are cool.

21.6.05

Boing Boing: URGENT: Call your Senator RIGHT NOW or live with the goddamned Broadcast Flag forever!

Apparently some sly media industry hucksters are trying to pull a fast one on some sleepy politicians. I'll say it again: "Politicians Go Home!"

Kittens are even cheaper than librarians!

The intrepid reporter who first revealed to us the growing techno-taxidermist craze has continued her intrepid exploration of the intersection of death and technology. Something along the lines of "putting the corpse back in corporations!" We here at "It's All About Control" salute Ms. Snyder and eagerly await her next revelation.

Flickr: The Pisa pushers Pool

In which the historic Italian town of Pisa is over-run by a horde of mimes.

20.6.05

Canada Introduces New Copyright Bill

Some people complain that with our current minority government situation nothing is getting done in Ottawa. Not me, pass the budget and go home before you hurt someone.

Mukhtaran Mai

Sometimes cultural relativism can, you know, go fuck itself. On a related note, I find myself having difficulty describing what I consider to be cultural absolutes without also describing the political systems that must be in place to support them. Hrmph.

A Nagasaki Report

Pultizer prize winner George Weller's censored report -quashed by Macarthur and lost for 60 years - of the aftermath in Nagasaki

AJAX

3 toolkits that I should keep in mind
SAJAX - Simple Ajax Toolkit by ModernMethod - XMLHTTPRequest Toolkit for PHP - It says PHP, but it isn't necessary.
DWR - Direct Web Remoting - seems to be focused on a java backend.
Prototype - An object-oriented Javascript library. Its development is driven heavily by the Ruby on Rails framework, but it can be used in any environment. This is good to know as RoR is under heavy development so I expect Prototype will be kept up-to-date.

[Update] - Interestingly enough, Prototype is also available as a CPAN module - mostly to plug-in to the Catalyst MVC framework.

17.6.05

A bunch of links from SciDev.net

4 disease
Fungus could be next weapon in war on malaria
Malaria parasite 'could develop resistance to key drug'
Drinking black tea 'reduces risk of mouth cancer'
Ebola and Marburg vaccine '100% effective in monkeys'
1 other
'Treaty needed' to regulate deep-sea bioprospecting

Language, numbers and thought - Orwell & Monkeys

We report, you decide:
New Scientist Breaking News - Language may shape human thought

"Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the difference between four objects placed in a row and five in the same configuration, revealed the study

Monkey Hear, Monkey Count
Rhesus monkeys possess a natural ability to match the number of voices they hear to the number of individuals they expect to see vocalizing, new research concludes. The results indicate that abstract representation of numbers is possible in the absence of language.
Writing in the June 7 Current Biology, Elizabeth Brannon of Duke University and her colleagues describe their experiment. The researchers played the monkeys "coo" calls made by either two or three unfamiliar conspecifics. They then let the monkeys watch their choice of video images showing either two or three animals. The vast majority of the monkeys selected video images that corresponded to the number of individuals heard on the audio sample. Each monkey was tested only once and did not receive a reward.


Now I want them to redo the monkey trial with 4 or 5 voices.

Rat Laundry

To dry your rats, set the drier to the "delicate rodent" setting.

US Politicians do not react with knee-jerk rights-crushing law

How strange - Vote to Limit Use Of Patriot Act Library Access Demands

16.6.05

Deadly immunity

The tinfoil hats weren't right about vaccines where they?

Accelerando!

I like Charlie Stross. I like his books. I don't like his stupid RSS feed.

Reporters sans frontières - Blog awards 2005 results

RPF ran a contest for the best blogs defending freedom of expression. The results are in.

13.6.05

joegratz.net » Shrinkwrap Licenses for Books?

The title says all you need to know to click on the link. Sounds very much liek Doctrine-of-1st-Sale Man will save the day here, but then there is the whole computer software thing.

12.6.05

10.6.05

external memory ... *engaged*

Webcartoonist vs Webcartoonist a tabloid look at the murky underbelly of the web cartoon world.
The Adventures of Action Item ... professional hero.
A defective post about the 4th most popular New Zealand folk parody duo.

9.6.05

Articulatory Loop - Read, Repeat, Remember

This excellent poster lead me to these excellent posters. Ahhhh, a warm steaming mug of irony! *smacks lips*

Girl Genius

These two links are more for my external memory than anything else, but feel free to read and then buy.
Girl Genius 101
Girl Genius Advanced

Libre software developers receive cease-and-desist letters || kuro5hin.org

In an effort to appear foolish, Plextor sends cease-and-desist letters.

8.6.05

GONZALES V. RAICH

I hate agreeing Clarence Thomas, but home-grown medical marijuana is neither interstate nor commerce.

Homestarrunner: Behind the music...

An interview with one of the creators ...

6.6.05

Ten Most Harmful (?) Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Thesis
Antithesis

A number of IP & DRM links

AACS - copy protection for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
Breathalyzer company doesn't release source code, judge dismisses DUI charge.
US Judge rules that Offering != Distributing. **AA must prove downloads.
WIPO wants your feedback
.

3.6.05

Landover Baptist | Where the Worthwhile Worship. Unsaved Unwelcome.

Just a friendly reminder that true genius does exist. As does true sorrow.

2.6.05

AI Seduces Stanford Students

AI Seduces Stanford Students

 Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab strapped 69 student volunteers into an immersive, 3-D virtual-reality rig, where test subjects found themselves sitting across the table from a "digital agent" -- a computer-generated man or woman -- programmed to deliver a three-minute pitch advocating a notional university security policy requiring students to carry ID whenever they're on campus.
 The anthropomorphic cyberhuckster featured moving lips and blinking eyes on a head that nodded and swayed realistically. But unbeknownst to the test subjects, the head movements weren't random. In half the sessions, the computer was programmed to mimic the student's movements exactly, with a precise four-second delay; if a test subject tilted her head thoughtfully and looked up at a 15-degree angle, the computer would repeat the gesture four seconds later.

Romance novel covers

Slightly modified

Abusing Amazon images

Abusing Amazon images can lead to this. I think "Shiny" reminds me of the CBC logo.

Loverboy - Everybody's Working For The Weekend

He's funny.

1.6.05

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Quoted

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Quoted: "A murdered blogger's final entry reveals the indentity of his killer"