Would somebody please give Mr. Katz the link to the EFF Web site?
Try a visit to http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/media.htm l and you'll find a whole mess of news stories on the Sklyarov affair...
...but I've written stories about the Sklyarov and Felten cases. So has the New York Times. And NPR has covered it. Where exactly does Mr. Katz get his news?
I read this a year or so ago. Excellent book, and quite frightening.
There's a creepy, hilarious moment where two guys are interviewing with a job at Alibek's plant. One of them hurls a jesting insult at the other, and the insulted guy blushes with shame. Alibek can't understand the intensity of his reaction. "Don't you know who he is?" the joker asks. "He's the guy who was responsible for Sverdlovsk." Seems the poor slob was the one who'd forgotten to replace the air filters after removing an old set that had become clogged. For hours, the anthrax-saturated air inside the plant was pumped into the surrounding neighborhood with deadly results. And the same guy was still trying to get employment at a germ warfare plant. Utterly creeped me out.
Well, you certainly caught the aspect of the show that made it work for me...the story. Producers Morgan and Wong write rings around anybody else in SF TV, when it comes to strong stories and sharp dialog.
There was lots wrong with SAAB in terms of military realism. But the writing was marvelous. That's why I loved the show. I find the stilted, lame dialog of nearly all SF TV practically intolerable. SAAB, on the other hand, had writing of a poetic elegance and liveliness that you hardly ever see in an SF show, including B5. The characters didn't declaim; they talked. Producers Morgan and Wong wrote some of the best scripts for the X-Files, and they hired some excellent writers to do other scripts, including Marilyn Osborn, who wrote the best dramatic meditation on Christmas I've ever seen on TV, set in the middle of a war. Loved that show!
Space: Above and Beyond did do that. Glad somebody else remembers my pick for best SF show of the 1990s, including Bab 5. Wish somebody would bring back SAAB!
Are you kidding? The ending, though a bit too long, is way cool, and absolutely heartbreaking. Besides, if they leave at that point, they'll miss the stunning Coney Island sequence, as impressive a bit of filmmaking as Spielberg's ever done.
If they'd used 60s tech, it would have been a cell phone the size of a jail cell. Well, all right, not that big. But the tiny phones we have today were well beyond the capacity of their pre-microprocessor electronics. Every cell phone today uses a digital signal processor. Those things used to fill a room. Sure, they had portable phones that fit in a car. But in a pocket? I think not.
Am I the only one who found The Matrix rather predictable and not terribly interesting? Basically a high-tech version of a classic teen-angst theme. I and a few of my compadres are the only ones who see reality as it really is. Everybody else is living an illusion. Yawn. Nice effects though.
I kinda wrote a scorching critical essay about the Audrey after trying out a loaner. Considering that 3Com has a well earned rep for good design, I was dismayed by how utterly awful the Audrey was. It had the worst keyboard in the recorded history of sentient lifeforms on this planet. And if that weren't enough, its screen wasn't wide enough to display a typical Web page. You actually had to scroll from side to side constantly. There's simply no excuse for design this lame. I know a lot of work went into it, and it even had some good features, like the way it automatically scarfed up your e-mail, then blinked at you to come and get it. I truly feel sorry for the well-intentioned geeks who worked so hard on it. But frankly, Audrey deserved to die. And ah hepped.
I am playing with a review unit of the HP Jornada WinCE device. I've long thought the Palm was better than previous WinCE products, but have had little use for any of the handhelds; I'd just as soon tote a notepad around. But I gotta admit, the Jornada is changing my mind.
The screen is gorgeous and about a third bigger than that found on a Palm. It's got lots of pseudo-Windows functionality, but if you just want to do the basics--calendar, address book and the like--the hot buttons on the front of the unit take you right to them. I love the ability to record sound. I just did a half-hour interview and the playback sound, while not great, was quite acceptable. Can't do that with a Palm. The Jornada is heavier than most Palms, but about the same weight as Palm's color version. And that Compaq is markedly lighter than the Jornada, based on my handling a display unit at the premiere party in New York.
In all, I think Microsoft's got a real contender here. I may just end up buying one of these things...
He was here at the Boston Globe newsroom recently. We talked for about an hour, and he autographed a copy of his book.
What a cool guy! Friendly, funny, razor-sharp. We had a delightful argument about whether manned space exploration could ever be economically viable. He agreed with me that it'll take massive government subsidies to fund space exploration. But he thinks it's worth it, and that the resulting tech discoveries will more than cover the costs.
I had hold of an iPaq just yesterday. No way is it 3.1 times bigger than a Palm V. It's a bit over 6 ounces, where I believe the V is 4 ounces. And its dimensions are only slightly larger. The iPaq lacks the cool slot for adding flash memory, alas. But it's quite small and light. I'd say it's reasonably competitive with the Palm V, and a distinctly better value than the Palm IIIc, their color model.
Obviously one of the greatest inventions of all time. Sure, it's mundane, low-tech stuff. But it's the single biggest reason that human life expectancy soared during the 20th century. Most people used to die young because of infectious diseases. Such diseases, believe it or not, killed about half of all those who died in the American Civil War. Such casualty rates used to be routine for armies, in the pre-hygiene age.
But plumbing brought hygiene to everybody in the industrialized world, and even to a great many folks in the Third World. In the process, it's played a major role in the planet's population boom, which is due not to higher birth rates but lower death rates. Dysentery, typhus and cholera just don't go as far as they used to, and plumbing is why.
Three cheers for flush toilets!
Yeah, sure...blame the media!
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Believe me, I got thoroughly sick of writing about Y2K, and had made up my mind at least a year ago that it would turn out to be an utter non-event.
It's absurd to blame the mainstream media. We reported claims of disaster, but we also reported the many assurances that nothing much would happen. We gave both sides. Deal with it.
Interesting. I am aware that the DeCSS crack was originally done to enable Linux machines to play DVDs. I probably should have mentioned that in the story.
But I'm not sure this would matter, as far as the trade secrets issue is concerned. Do programmers have a right to hack into proprietary code in order to create an open source version? It's far from obvious that any such right exists. If, say, Microsoft chooses not to port Office to Linux, do you have a right to hack into it in order to do the port yourself? Don't see how...
I'm not a graphic artist type, but I didn't think SMP was of much use in the kinds of graphics apps used by so many Macophiles...Please correct my folly...
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Would somebody please give Mr. Katz the link to the EFF Web site?m l and you'll find a whole mess of news stories on the Sklyarov affair...
Try a visit to http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/media.ht
...but I've written stories about the Sklyarov and Felten cases. So has the New York Times. And NPR has covered it. Where exactly does Mr. Katz get his news?
There's a creepy, hilarious moment where two guys are interviewing with a job at Alibek's plant. One of them hurls a jesting insult at the other, and the insulted guy blushes with shame. Alibek can't understand the intensity of his reaction. "Don't you know who he is?" the joker asks. "He's the guy who was responsible for Sverdlovsk." Seems the poor slob was the one who'd forgotten to replace the air filters after removing an old set that had become clogged. For hours, the anthrax-saturated air inside the plant was pumped into the surrounding neighborhood with deadly results. And the same guy was still trying to get employment at a germ warfare plant. Utterly creeped me out.
Well, you certainly caught the aspect of the show that made it work for me...the story. Producers Morgan and Wong write rings around anybody else in SF TV, when it comes to strong stories and sharp dialog.
There was lots wrong with SAAB in terms of military realism. But the writing was marvelous. That's why I loved the show. I find the stilted, lame dialog of nearly all SF TV practically intolerable. SAAB, on the other hand, had writing of a poetic elegance and liveliness that you hardly ever see in an SF show, including B5. The characters didn't declaim; they talked. Producers Morgan and Wong wrote some of the best scripts for the X-Files, and they hired some excellent writers to do other scripts, including Marilyn Osborn, who wrote the best dramatic meditation on Christmas I've ever seen on TV, set in the middle of a war. Loved that show!
Space: Above and Beyond did do that. Glad somebody else remembers my pick for best SF show of the 1990s, including Bab 5. Wish somebody would bring back SAAB!
Are you kidding? The ending, though a bit too long, is way cool, and absolutely heartbreaking. Besides, if they leave at that point, they'll miss the stunning Coney Island sequence, as impressive a bit of filmmaking as Spielberg's ever done.
If they'd used 60s tech, it would have been a cell phone the size of a jail cell. Well, all right, not that big. But the tiny phones we have today were well beyond the capacity of their pre-microprocessor electronics. Every cell phone today uses a digital signal processor. Those things used to fill a room. Sure, they had portable phones that fit in a car. But in a pocket? I think not.
Am I the only one who found The Matrix rather predictable and not terribly interesting? Basically a high-tech version of a classic teen-angst theme. I and a few of my compadres are the only ones who see reality as it really is. Everybody else is living an illusion. Yawn. Nice effects though.
I kinda wrote a scorching critical essay about the Audrey after trying out a loaner. Considering that 3Com has a well earned rep for good design, I was dismayed by how utterly awful the Audrey was. It had the worst keyboard in the recorded history of sentient lifeforms on this planet. And if that weren't enough, its screen wasn't wide enough to display a typical Web page. You actually had to scroll from side to side constantly. There's simply no excuse for design this lame. I know a lot of work went into it, and it even had some good features, like the way it automatically scarfed up your e-mail, then blinked at you to come and get it. I truly feel sorry for the well-intentioned geeks who worked so hard on it. But frankly, Audrey deserved to die. And ah hepped.
I recently wrote about Extreme Blue, an IBM summer program for extremely smart undergrad programmers. They do a lot of work in Linux. Will that do?
The screen is gorgeous and about a third bigger than that found on a Palm. It's got lots of pseudo-Windows functionality, but if you just want to do the basics--calendar, address book and the like--the hot buttons on the front of the unit take you right to them. I love the ability to record sound. I just did a half-hour interview and the playback sound, while not great, was quite acceptable. Can't do that with a Palm. The Jornada is heavier than most Palms, but about the same weight as Palm's color version. And that Compaq is markedly lighter than the Jornada, based on my handling a display unit at the premiere party in New York.
In all, I think Microsoft's got a real contender here. I may just end up buying one of these things...
Here's my report on the end of Looking Glass. Seems they had the rug pulled out from under 'em...
Oh...and I'm also a GUY! Just like the Hiawatha in the poem by Longfellow! Sheesh! You guys need to read something besides software manuals...:-)
Hack? Yep, and proud of it. Pro-Microsoft? When I ought to be. Proud of that, too.
Damn straight! Talking to Kranz was like meeting someone from the Heroic Age of American science. He's a real hero.
He was here at the Boston Globe newsroom recently. We talked for about an hour, and he autographed a copy of his book.
What a cool guy! Friendly, funny, razor-sharp. We had a delightful argument about whether manned space exploration could ever be economically viable. He agreed with me that it'll take massive government subsidies to fund space exploration. But he thinks it's worth it, and that the resulting tech discoveries will more than cover the costs.
Anyway, we had a great time. Such a cool guy.
I had hold of an iPaq just yesterday. No way is it 3.1 times bigger than a Palm V. It's a bit over 6 ounces, where I believe the V is 4 ounces. And its dimensions are only slightly larger. The iPaq lacks the cool slot for adding flash memory, alas. But it's quite small and light. I'd say it's reasonably competitive with the Palm V, and a distinctly better value than the Palm IIIc, their color model.
Exactly the sort of fatuous nonsense that causes me to ignore most Katz pieces.
But plumbing brought hygiene to everybody in the industrialized world, and even to a great many folks in the Third World. In the process, it's played a major role in the planet's population boom, which is due not to higher birth rates but lower death rates. Dysentery, typhus and cholera just don't go as far as they used to, and plumbing is why.
Three cheers for flush toilets!
It's absurd to blame the mainstream media. We reported claims of disaster, but we also reported the many assurances that nothing much would happen. We gave both sides. Deal with it.
But I'm not sure this would matter, as far as the trade secrets issue is concerned. Do programmers have a right to hack into proprietary code in order to create an open source version? It's far from obvious that any such right exists. If, say, Microsoft chooses not to port Office to Linux, do you have a right to hack into it in order to do the port yourself? Don't see how...
I talked to an attorney for the DVD side. He certainly thinks it's a lawsuit....
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/363/business/We
I'm not a graphic artist type, but I didn't think SMP was of much use in the kinds of graphics apps used by so many Macophiles...Please correct my folly...