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Right, well, he frequently used to post on YNOT News - an adult webmaster information board.

Doesn't mean he was one, of course. He definitely used to be 'chief operating officer' of Infonent.com, Inc. His current fax is (408)979-7969... and an example of his current work is here.

Of course, he also gets mentioned in Sex Tracker press releases. He claims to be an 'anti-porn advocate', which is interesting, given the work he does protecting the valuable intellectual property of Cinnamonbunz, 'the largest collection of sexy, erotic models!' and Suze Randall the erotic photographer.

I wondered if this had anything to do with him (if it does, he's got some nerve 'I hope you don't mind me taking a graphic from your homepage!') particularly given the reference to driving and the Skyline Blvd. address again. He works for an erotic photographer, amongst others.

Let's see what else; if that is him, he has a web page on AOL of all places
. Plugging that new information into Google we also get maki177@aol.com as a potential address; if you search Google for maki177, you discover 'makiboy' is an alias apparently used by whichever Mark Ishikawa this one is, and taking this chain of improbability to its logical conclusion we discover makiboy@hotmail.com, NYC Jock/Ballet Sissy, and, last but not least, In Search Of... Men Seeking Men. The last includes the interesting blurb, "would like to hear from or meet other trim, athletic guys, 18 - 30s, who enjoy footed nylon or lycra tights. Shiny lycra is best, but nylon is okay too, as long as the tights are footed."

Oh, and he lies to his ballet-loving pals about his age :-)

Hey, makiboy, it's all publicly available information. Now you see why people don't go snooping - they might come to the wrong conclusion - if this is wrong?

Answers on a postcard please to:

"We lurve those tights!",
19020 Skyline Blvd.
Los Gatos, CA 95033

The small print: Half of this information is speculative, uncertain, and totally devoid of context. Don't think of it as fact. But it's a similar style to the information he'll use to report you to the cops - therefore, I would consider it to be poetic justice of a sort.

Been reading Stanislaw Lem, again, haven't you?

Nope. It's NOT the result of some random and arbitrary opinion of some miscelaneous yahoo at Apple. It's the result of Jef Raskin's research on human interfaces when he was at Xerox PARC.

You about know Xerox PARC, Right? The place that invented the GUI, and inspired Apple, in the first place. And Raskin's research there showed that even the PARC researchers routinely had difficulty with the original three-button mouse. They regularly made mouse-button errors, causing Raskin to actually do the research, and develop a superior alternative. And remember, we're not talking about "joe blow at CompUSA" here. PARC was filled with computer scientists and PhDs. And even THEY routinely had those mouse button errors.

From the article I linked:

I was the 31st employee at Apple (joining in January, 1978), but I had first met Jobs and Wozniak in their garage in 1976, and told them of the wonderful work being done at PARC. Working on the Apple I at the time, they weren't interested in human factors. While I was the first PARC-savvy person at Apple, Larry Tesler was the first PARC employee to join the company. At first he was strongly opposed to the Mac's easier-to-use mouse methods, and I eventually wrote a memo that showed, point by point, that the one-button mouse could do everything that PARCs three-button mouse could do and with the same number or fewer user actions. It was faster and more efficient, and much easier to learn and remember how to use. I had observed that people (including myself) at PARC often made wrong-button errors in using the mouse, which was part of my impetus for doing better.

Apple is not ALL smoke and mirrors, contrary to what the MS drones would have you believe. They're one of the VERY few computer companies out there that actually bothers to do human interface research. Try reading the "Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines" sometime. They're the result of a LOT of research in human factors; rathar than some random programmer deciding on his own how he'd like the interface to work THIS time.

cya,
john

It may be off topic, but Forrest J. Ackerman's marvellous collection of books, artwork, and movie memorabilia is currently being auctioned to bits on Ebay.

Apparently Forrey needs some cash to retire. Sure would be nice if a benefactor could step in and preserve the collection intact. Visit the Ackermansion here.

Elliptic Curves:

curves of the form y^2 = Ax^3 + Bx^2 + Cx + D

pick values for A B C and D, the locus in 2 space (the cartesian plane, or R2) is the type of curve Escher was using.

In analysis, which is where all of the headline making math using Elliptic Curves, A B C and D (as well as x and y) can be complex numbers.

At this point things get complicated. I'm not going to fill up 1000 words explaining Riemann surfaces, algebraic functions, etc.

There are a lot of good pages out there.

Skiping commercials is theft? Then what about hitting mute? What about going to the bathroom? What about talking loudly to your loved ones during commercial? Gonna send us to jail for that?

This looks a lot like Captive Audience, a novella written in 1953 (!) by Ann Warren Griffith.

Everyone seems to agree that EULAs are legal in as far as they are enforcable (just like any other contract). [...]

Wrong, right out of the gate.

Shrinkwrap "licenses" are a legal fiction with extremely shaky basis in law, and no basis in ethics, much less common courtesy. It is a fiction with a twenty year history, but a fiction nonetheless. See my long-ish editorial on this subject for a more detailed analysis.

Moreover, a California court recently ruled that, no matter how persistently and shrilly you refer to the transaction as a "license", if the behavior you engaged in has all the characteristics of a retail sale, then the transaction is a sale. Whether the "license" effectively alters the terms of the sale after the fact is a question unanswered by the courts. However, any person with even a smidgen of common courtesy toward their fellow man will agree that no such "contract" should be held as valid.

So, no, the EULA doesn't save RadLight's legal posterior.

Schwab

(Dang, left my flame suit at home. Oh, well.)

It seems like the creators of this system have noble goals, and I appreciate their efforts. It reminds me of Esperanto's Prague Manifesto. "Every language both liberates and imprisons its users, giving them the ability to communicate among themselves but barring them from communication with others."

I think anything that can bring the disparate world together is a good thing. But we woulnd't need technology like this if everyone got off their duff and learned a second language. For the purpose of learning a common second language, Esperanto is ideal. A smart kid like you can learn it in just a few hours of study.

I've used it to communicate with people from Brazil, Korea, and Germany, without having to learn Portuguese, Korean, and German. We just learned a simple middleware language to help us communicate. The Esperanto community offers Free Tutored Courses to help you get started. It's well worth the small investment to become bilingual.

But don't take my word for it. In the words of Tolkein: "My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern themselves with the international language movement would be, 'Back Esperanto loyally.'"

-- Yekrats

When I was working for Be, Inc. (RIP), I threw together a speculative ad promoting Be's Internet Appliance offering. With very little fiddling, I'm sure it could be repurposed as a pro-UNIX piece.

Offered herewith to seed new ideas.

Schwab

And I thought I was predicting usury when I wrote this little ditty a while back.

$21/Gig? I would never have believed anyone could seriously propose such a figure. Even if it is Canadian Dollars, it's still outrageous.

Schwab

So indeed, who will pick up the mantle?

I'd be happy to do it, were I asked.

Trouble is, The Press is uninterested in intelligent, clear-thinking speakers. They want a show. (And someone who doesn't offend the oh-so-delicate sensibilities of their advertiesers.) This is why you get PR flaks from Microsoft, and not representatives of the EFF.

So, yeah, if you can get NightLine to call me up for an interview, I'd be honored to do it.

As for charismatic... Well, it's an old photo, but you be the judge.

Schwab

{hmmmm} Then I wonder what the web site contract is based on. Obviously Fox is deluded into thinking it has something of value that they're going to allow you to use, but what do you give them?

In my mind this (and this) simply state that said storage space and network traffic are my property or rental and that their spam is theft, trespass, and vandalism.

I wonder how much the personal satisfaction of terminating the business of a spammer for the benefit of users everywhere would be valued at?

Some good ideas to think about, thanks.

I wrote something vaguely similar a while back. A lawyer friend of mine tells me the contract won't work, since there is no "consideration" involved.

Schwab

Here's what they are claiming to use. Seems like this is a way to descirbe data multidimensionally in a way that isn't readily assimilated digitally.

note that last line of the excerpt i give below.

what i thinkis, if you're going to use binary data, you've got to follow the rules of the road -- shannon's law.
check it out on this website

Examples of Kolmogorov Complexity

1. Pi is an infinite sequence of seemingly random digits, but it contains only a few bits of information: the size of the short program that can produce the consecutive bits of pi forever. Informally we say the descriptional complexity of pi is a constant. Formally we say K(pi) = 0(1), which means "K(pi) does not grow".

2. A truly random string is not significantly compres;sible; its description length is within a constant offset of its length. Formally we say K(x) = Theta(|x|), which means "K(x) grows as fast as the length of x".

And it has an added bonus, too: it forces you to stay healthy so you can keep wearing it.

And you also get babes to look at you...