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For those who think that I made this all up (and for those who want to study "the mystery of the disappearing article", here's a link to TFA to go with that story. Linux Powers Airborne Bots.

Yeah, Robbie...I remember when it was difficult for Bill Gates to imagine a computer program that required more than 640K of memory...

That would be funny if he actually said that but he didn't fucking say it.

Now please take your trolls somewhere else.

Sony Music wants to entertain you. Sony Electronics wants to equip you. The problem is that when it comes to digital media, their interests are diametrically opposed.

[...]

Now Apple is delivering the innovation while Sony studies the matter. What's changed since the original Walkman debuted is that Sony became the only conglomerate to be in both consumer electronics and entertainment. As a result, it's conflicted: Sony's electronics side needs to let customers move files around effortlessly, but its entertainment side wants to build in restraints, because it sees every customer as a potential thief.

(Sad that I can remember articles from 3 years ago; oh well.)

Obviously, if your computer can "see" the partition on the CD that contains the raw music tracks, there's nothing keeping you from ripping them to MP3.

Sony Music wants to entertain you. Sony Electronics wants to equip you. The problem is that when it comes to digital media, their interests are diametrically opposed.

[...]

Now Apple is delivering the innovation while Sony studies the matter. What's changed since the original Walkman debuted is that Sony became the only conglomerate to be in both consumer electronics and entertainment. As a result, it's conflicted: Sony's electronics side needs to let customers move files around effortlessly, but its entertainment side wants to build in restraints, because it sees every customer as a potential thief.

(Sad that I can remember articles from 3 years ago; oh well.)

Obviously, if your computer can "see" the partition on the CD that contains the raw music tracks, there's nothing keeping you from ripping them to MP3.

Wired on aspergers / gates.

Also: psychopathy = business-man-ness.

Well, I have a shady memory, but I saw this thing on discovery about psychopaths. One thing was that they have no social ability, but on the other hand, that they manipulate people to do what they want, which would mean more knowledge about how people work? Well anyway, then it got to business, and that manipulating people there was a thing which elevated you in profession, so their "condition" might never be found out.

The "Geek Syndrome" Wired article even gives the tendency a name: "stoppage".

It only took a week to crack their last attempt at enabling copy protection with nothing more than a pen.

Who's game? :D

...SciFi persist in making these dreary, crappy, rehashed programs ... have you even watched the new BSG? You sound like you're talking out of your ass on this one. BSG is articulate, funny, insightful with great characters, dense interpersonal conflict, etc. Hell, the one where the President stares down the Cylon suicide bomber is the sort of thing X-Files would have done in its first few seasons.

A pox on SciFi

From your parents' basement you stab at thee, huh?

Every series that started out on another network with great promise has been ruined and then unceremoniously killed by SciFi (SG-1)

What drugs are you on? SG-1 is still on, going into its 9th season and is as popular as ever.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (both the Buster Crab and Gil Gerard vehicles) "Beady-beady-beady, hey BUCK!" I don't know what was worse about that show: the snarky robot or the guy dressed up in the stupid birdman outfit. If that's your standard of better SF...

But no... American SciFi audiences have been high jacked by the action/adventure crowd. Think about how lame most science fiction is today. Almost 100% of it is war stories or action movies set in the future with a bunch of lame CGI FX. It could be so much better if the focus was on speculative fiction which extrapolates REAL science with REAL social issues and shows us what COULD be if we all band together...

Gee that would be great. The problem is that there's a limited audience for non-space opera SF. The same 20 million people buy 90% of the SF out there and, as refined consumers as we may be, much of that SF will never escape this SF Ghetto. The other 90% of the population buys into that 10% you badmouth. It's a classic Long Tail. To expect them to not like mass entertainment is the same simplistic declaration of "Stop buying Britney's albums and we won't have to deal with her TV show and marriage to K-Fed"/"Stop shopping at Wal-mart"/"Stop eating at McDonalds".

So finally Sci-Fi has found a show in BSG that has the good post-Buffy/Angel character development + fantastical universe angle and you whine because it isn't Gravity's Rainbow? Get over yourself.

If they started to give out modules that provided certain functionality, is it possible, that apache, through Wine, or some other interface, could make use of these components? Imagine having apache run .Net or ASP web applications. It may make the switch to Apache, and maybe eventually Linux cheaper and easier for many companies. Many companies have lots of money invested in .Net and ASP web applications.

• This kind of modularity is a part of IIS since its first version.
• ASP.NET is already implemented as a module, in all ASP.NET-supporting IIS versions.

Godwin's Law
Meme, Counter-meme
How to post about Nazis and get away with it - the Godwin's Law FAQ

Reuters were accused of hacking when they guessed the URL of an upcoming interim report from Swedish IT consulting firm Intentia. There's a Wired article about the incident.

Anybody remember the much hyped Rocket Science games from the mid-90's? A team of hotshot game developers form a company and nearly every game sucked ass. Rocket Science was a text book case of what NOT to do, yet history repeated itself on far, far larger scale with the dot-com mania and collapse.

BTW, I am not a script.

I am normally not for vigalante justice.

But in this case no-one is being hurt. The only thing that happens is some innocent people cannot use the fake website. It's not like a DDOS attack on a Phisher site (which causes very real problems for others), it's a sublte and free manipulation of the world that really has no downside.

Sort of related is an article I just read today, basically noting that in a world where people can so easily reach out for information they are better off with news and help from people who know more than "officals" who are inherantly removed from the situation do. In the same way why should we wait for the goverment crackdown of Phishers than can never fully come because of resource drain, and instead fix the problem as best we can? Defacing Phishing sites seems like an optimal approach as it denies them the reason (money) for continuing.

What a coincidence...I just read the new Wired (red cover with Spielberg on it) and if you pick it up you can read about the groovy thing that Dreamworks Animation did with their room. They share a lot of work across multiple sites and with clever use of bg screens, cameras and well lit rooms, they give a good illuson of having everyone in the same room, collaboratively editing documents/storyboards/"film" etc. Offline till June 3rd though, at http://www.wired.com/wired/

According to this article I was incorrect in my assumption

Yeah it's being pumped back into the water. Check this out.

Hi, I'm Blake Ross. (that's me on the left). You might know me as gorgeous teen leader of world class browser Firefox. Hey my buddies on the team like Ben Goodger call me "El Spicko" cause I'm one greasy spick mother. I even got a pass to say 'nigger', sometimes I call my spick brothers and homies, I say "hey my nigger".

When I drive around town with the hood down and the system cranking, I say to the ladies "how you doing girls?" and they say "Hey El Spicko we love you" and I just say "Hey". I used to work in kebab shop for my cousin but now I work on my browser Firefox which I invented.

All you fags who keep saying Firefox is shit, you don't know shit. Kiss my spick nigger butt is what i say. Hey. We do what the fuck I want, it's my business I run. hey.

Have you seen my photo on wired magazine ? Nice. My friend Ben, you see it's like this..he's a bit of a fat faggot and he likes all the geek stuff, me I'm more a ladies' man, i got plenty of pussy to choose from. hey.

Listen I got to go, my cousin was busted for dealing crack, and mother was a whore but I tell you something truthfull, the way I did it, the way i became the boss of Firefox and changed the world, well you see it's a gift, not everyone has it like I do, but maybe you too can make something of your lives like me one day



later, here is some more free photos for my fans...

peace

http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/2005/01/24 /ross-main.jpg

http://www.bibi.org/box/2005/janeiro/the_firefox_e xplosion.jpg

Correct. The grandparent poster should read the article and notice that nowhere did it say that the sweat irrigation was to be derived from buried pipes. It even went so far as to describe one of his PVC cold water pipe sweat condensers in detail, noting that it was out in the open.

"Irrigation:
Pipes carrying cold water run beneath fields of crops, sweating freshwater to irrigate plants and chilling their roots, promoting faster crop cycles."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.06/craven.ht ml?pg=3&topic=craven&topic_set=

363000000 km^2 x (12000 ft - 3000 ft) x (90 F - 32 F) x (4.186 J/gC)

Hi, I'm Blake Ross. You might know me as gorgeous teen leader of world class browser Firefox. Hey my buddies on the team like Ben Goodger call me "El Spicko" cause I'm a greasy spick mother. I even got a pass to say 'nigger', sometimes I call my spick brothers and homies, I say "hey my nigger".

When I drive around town with the hood down and the system cranking, I say to the ladies "how you doing girls?" and they say "Hey El Spicko we love you" and I just say "Hey". I used to work in kebab shop for my cousin but now I work on my browser Firefox which I invented.

All you fags who keep saying Firefox is shit, you don't know shit. Kiss my spick nigger butt is what i say. Hey. We do what the fuck I want, it's my business I run. hey.

Hey have you seen my photo on wired magazine ? Nice. My friend Ben, you see it's like this..he's a bit of a fat faggot and he likes all the geek stuff, me I'm more a ladies' man, i got plenty of pussy to choose from. hey.

Listen I got to go, my cousin was busted for dealing crack, and mother was a whore but I tell you something truthfull, the way I did it, the way i became the boss of Firefox and changed the world, well you see it's a gift, not everyone has it like I do, but maybe you too can make something of your lives like me one day

later, here is some more free photos for my fans...

peace

http://www.bibi.org/box/2005/janeiro/the_firefox_e xplosion.jpg

http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/2005/01/24 /ross-main.jpg

Type it out in plain text/ascii and format it properly when you get home and u/l the files to your real computer via it's RS-232 serial port. 16 + Hour battery life on 4 AA batteries that you can find anywhere. Full sized keyboard, small form factor. There have been many a journalist/writer who swears by one of these for use in absolutely primitive/harsh 3rd world conditions. These little suckers are apparently very tough and tres retro. Wired had an article about the TRS 100/102's and other old/obsolete but still serviceable computers.

Some of the lower memory versions are avaiable /near-mint/used/refurbished starting at $75.

Or check out E-Bay, found a few going really cheap right now:

• Model 100's
• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=74947&item=5197944964&rd=1

• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=1247&item=5199719083&rd=1

• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=74947&item=5200179003&rd=1

• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=74947&item=5201521879&rd=1

  Model 102's

• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=4193&item=5200512388&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=74947&item=5200683165&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

• http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=74947&item=5200683165&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

DaveC

You mean like this?

Not only have I read about this thing before, no, I have already seen it one tv before (it had a different coloring though -- black).

A quick glance at google showed an announcement from September 2000: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2002/sep/30/houseclea ning_robot_would/ and another one from June 2003: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59237, 00.html.

And electrolux is offering it in a nice red color: http://www.electrolux.co.uk/node40.asp?benefit=3&p rodid=14315

Freidnss of mine already disassembled that beast (longer time ago) to figure out if they could use it for their own, robotics, purposes. Yes, they are doing robotics more often :-)

... so what's the fuss ?

This is /so/ /interesting/!

It *is* interesting -- the I Love Bees campaign was able to generate an unprecedented amount of support and comraderie among fans, and it's interesting to see how this effort was orchestrated. Just to pull a quote from an related Wired article:

In any case, the phones keep ringing all across the United States, and they are even beginning to ring in Holland and England. Some people have driven hours to take part, and one player even braved Florida's Hurricane Ivan to answer a call at a pay phone that was destroyed shortly afterward.

"Dude," said Puppetmaster 2, "it's a hurricane. Put the phone down."

Speaking from limited experience, I haven't heard of a game marketing campaign that was so imaginative or effective. If this is how games are released in the future, I'm all for it.

It means a higher chance of an autistic child. See this for more info. Keep in mind that it's complete speculation at this point, though.

So they say... :]

Second: Torrentsearch.us
this site already indexes torrents and even has an option to search multiple torrent sites @ once. (beware the enormous java ad)

Yes I am, while not wanting to appear flippant, I noted Stonehenge as an example of making a people in the image of an icon or wonder. I'm suggesting we build, and even overbuild, not because it's economically feasible but because it will meld the efforts of several nations in a symbol that transcends political differences. The spinoffs from developing and implementing new and bleeding edge technology are manifold and not always apparent. What I'm suggesting verges on a technological totemism and, as such, may seem bathotic, but I think we are subject to a very primitive brain barely overridden by the executive center of the cortex, and likely to respond very positively to making the ISS a la the Tower of Bable. When has space exploration been an economically driven enterprise? There is probably no similar project in all of history that didn't pork feed contractors.

One of the biggest blunders to come from the baby boomer generation was the demonization of nuclear power and it was extended to the Orion project. It may be that a transnational enterprise would manage to escape the hysteria surrounding nuclear powered spacecraft giving support to Project Prometheus. (It's not uninteresting as an aside that James Lovelock, formulator of the famed, Gaia hypothesis now advocates development of nuclear power because were out of time to search out alternatives in the face of depletion and pollution of oil.)

The Japanese version of the Toyota Prius has an option for a one-button parallel park. Of course, said feature will never be seen in the US because of liability issues.

Surely, you've never heard of PacManhattan, then?
The images on the site are down at the moment, sadly, for there were some real good pics.
Anyway, here's Wired reporting on it.

Bush's response

Bush Blasts Human Clone Research
Associated Press

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,67586,00 .html

08:40 AM May. 20, 2005 PT

The White House on Friday condemned research in South Korea for producing human embryros through cloning and said President Bush would veto any legislation that loosens federal restrictions in the United States on embryonic stem cell research.

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."

Separately, he said the president would veto legislation to permit spending government money for stem cell research that would destroy human embryos. A measure by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) and Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) would lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.

Bush, in his fifth year in office, has not yet exercised his first veto. The White House also promised a veto this week of a highway bill if it exceeded the administration's spending limits.

Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life."

The remark was a public reaffirmation of his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research.

Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."

Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year's election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.

End of story

Bush's response

Bush Blasts Human Clone Research
Associated Press

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,67586,00 .html

08:40 AM May. 20, 2005 PT

The White House on Friday condemned research in South Korea for producing human embryros through cloning and said President Bush would veto any legislation that loosens federal restrictions in the United States on embryonic stem cell research.

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."

Separately, he said the president would veto legislation to permit spending government money for stem cell research that would destroy human embryos. A measure by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) and Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) would lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.

Bush, in his fifth year in office, has not yet exercised his first veto. The White House also promised a veto this week of a highway bill if it exceeded the administration's spending limits.

Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life."

The remark was a public reaffirmation of his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research.

Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."

Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year's election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.

End of story

That might explain the difference in tone between the two pieces. The Betterhumans article sounds very promsing while the Beeb's is very toned down and doubtful.

But before you go and say, well duh maybe a website called Betterhumans is obviously going to put a positive spin on things, here's two more links on the Tennessee research that sound similarly enthusiastic.

One from Wired

And one from Medical News Today

What is your point exactly? Gmail uses a few tables -- not a ridiculous number -- and they appear to not be using spacer images. (I can tell this by Firefox's Web Developer toolbar) While I like Google's technology, their markup has never impressed me.

These guys seem to have table-free sites figured out: MySQL, Wikipedia, Wired, ESPN..

Depression, bipolar disorder, mania, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger's syndrome (we can read about them in Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality by Eric S. Raymond) are very common among intelligent people in general, not only IT workers. Somewhat less common are dyslexia, schizophrenia and various types of psychosis. This seems to be rather widely known but at the same time many people tend to forget about autism. Some of you may remember that back in 2003 I made some research to find a correlation between IQ (the intelligence quotient) and AQ (the autism-spectrum quotient). The results pretty much speak for themselves. Needless to say it seems that while some of the symptoms may result from caffeinism, sleep deprivation and other drugs abuse, at least some of them seem to be directly correlated with other personality characteristics and sexual habits or the lack thereof. But we have to keep in mind that it is very easy to fall into post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. We have to ask ourselves whether these are intelligence and technical skills that cause personality weaknesses or the other way around when a weak psyche and antisocial attitude result in the concentration on abstract concepts and thinking in general. In short: those who are more intelligent do not necessarily have to be psychopaths but any sociopaths most certainly have a lot of time to think and tinker with their hardware. That may in turn result in the perception that intelligence makes people crazy which does not have to be true at all.

Perhaps this is being nitpicky, but it's worth pointing outh that "Fair Use" (and parody for that matter) are not "rights," per se. Only authors/creators of the work (not the public) are granted rights under the Copyright Act.

As a dotrine, Fair Use is an affirmative defense to a claim of infringement. This means the person claiming Fair Use has the burden of proving that their actions did not constitute infringement.

The obvious problem, if you are defending an infringement claim is that it is extremely expensive to succssfully raise a Fair Use or Parody defense, which, if it fails, causes the heavy hammer of infringement and all its penalties falls down upon you. Because of this, it's common to hear, "Yes, it's probably fair use. You will spend a billion dollars to get a chance to prove that." Just ask these guys .

Zonk,

We all know you don't read Slashdot, but we assumed you were at least reading the stories you approved. I guess we were wrong!

RFID Tags for Digital Rights Management Posted by Zonk

Anyone who read Sunday's RFID Journal story and today's Wired story would realize they're about the exact same thing.

If you really did read the two stories, and your memory is this bad, maybe you should see a doctor?

Welcome to the field of teledildonics.

Your post was for the most part correct although completely fucking mislead. What your asshat brain failed to understand is that the $10,000 per song is applied weather or not you uploaded the song.

OH yeah, I might have blew a seal (I'm surprised an idiot like you managed to spell that right) but at least I didn't fuck http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/images/FF _hillary_94_1.jpg Hillary Rosen!

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,67551,00 .html?tw=wn_tophead_8

No one noticed this was already covered last month in Wired?

Wallace & Rines' revamped spambone was to do just that. It didn't pan out.

Wallace & Rines' revamped spambone was to do just that. It didn't pan out.

What with Microsoft finally coming through on the Xbox backwards compatibility, and now this, it's pretty obvious that all three of the console makers finally get it.

The size of a game library can be just as important as the number of quality games. Consumers like choice. Just like with music, so it is with videogames. This is something that Nintendo failed to address with the Nintendo64 and the Gamecube. It's almost painful to see how well they get it when it comes to the portable market (GameBoy and family), but not their home consoles.

I, for one, am hoping they do the right thing, and make the library available for free. While they'll miss out on some revenues of old games, they'll have a guaranteed sell for the Revolution (and Nintendo typically sells it's hardware at break-even or profit), and a footstep into future sales. Combine this with sales of Gamecube games that will also work in the Revolution, and Nintendo could see itself launched into the forefront of the three console makers.

Interestingly enough, it's mostly thanks to companies like Netflix and Amazon that these companies are beginning to understand. They've made such a profitable market out of niche sales, that big business is being forced to recognize the power that is the little guy, instead of just pandering to hit sales. In the business world, they're calling this "The Long Tail", and it's turning out to be huge money. (So much so, that business executives everywhere are sitting up and taking notice.) There are articles in The Economist and Wired. The traditional thinking has been that 80% of revenues typically comes from 20% of the titles, and it's been true for a long time. However, in the internet world, where you're not limited by shelf space, and you can aggregate diverse markets, the other 80% of titles (niche titles) can bring in as much money as the most popular 20%.

Nintendo has always excelled at putting out hits (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, etc.), which is why I think they've typically ignored this facet of business, but I think that even they may be starting to take notice. Here's hoping so :-)

Wired Article

"I don't think man made diamonds are ever going to eclipse natural ones for jewelry" - I will have to disagree with you there.

I know there will always be a niche market (read people with more sense than money) who will always want naturally grown diamonds, however I think most folks will actually not care. Most (uneducated) diamond buyers simply look for 3 things beauty, cost , and carat (wow factor). This is the only reason stores such as Zales can stay in business. They sell the worst diamonds around (I-2's for their regular merchandise - usually up to $1500 and SI-2's for their "Zales Diamond", note that most reputable jewlers won't touch I-2 diamonds). The reason Zales (and other maul stores) sell so much merchandise is first location and 2nd the design, pricing and wow factor (1 carart ring for how much?!).

Now back to synthetic diamonds, eventually most folks will realize that choosing a natural diamond over a synthetic just "'cause it has to be naturally grown" is like choosing furniture built of trees that were grown naturally in a forrest vs using trees that were planted and grown on a farm. There both real trees (plus you'll get less defects in your furniture with the farm grown trees).

Now there's already a lot of companies out there growing diamonds. Check out:

Gemesis in Florida
Apollo Diamond (which uses Carbon Vapor Deposition)
Life Gem- turn the ashes of a deceased loved one into a diamond
There was also an interesting article about it on Wired a ways back: The New Diamond Age

And lastly the one "book" that taught me everything I could have ever wanted to know about the diamond business: The Diamond Invention Very interesting read.

Intersting note, after all the research and shopping (and shopping and more shopping) that I did when I was looking for an engagement ring (including researching Synthetic Diamonds) I decided on having a ring custom made by a local jeweler using moissanites instead of diamonds. Ended being a very beautiful and unique ring of a much higher quality than a mass produced setting and with quite a bit of geek factor to it as well. So I think folks will be accepting of synthetic diamonds once production ramps up to the demand (right now Gemesis is growing as fast as it can).

Which they have because they are created in an impure environment. Even with current technology one of the ways to identify a man made diamond is that it's "too pure" and "too perfect."

Other diamond manufacturers have already found ways to introduce imperfections into diamonds during the manufacturing process.

http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/dia mond.html

And this is just the beginning. Give it 10 more years and no one wil be able to tell the difference.

Have been manufactured for a couple years now:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.h tml

The link to the original article, Diamond Age, is available via the Diamond Age.

We praise our new Google overlords!

My video site http://videos.streetfire.net/ is advertising supported and growing at 30% week to week averaging 40,000 unique visitors a day. 99% of our content is Junky DV stuff, and no one video dominates our 80,000 daily video views. Check this article out. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html