Never mind the monster-truck jumping stunt, the nearly indestructible space shuttles, or blowing up the asteroid in the nick of time. For me the funniest part of Armageddon was the apathetic, cigarette-smoking refueling attendant on the leaky Russian space station, who ends up blowing the thing up with a stray butt. Clearly the low man on the cosmonaut totem pole, and a blast from the Cold War past.
Remember the short film "The 405" that was all over the net a year or two ago, about the airliner landing on an empty freeway? If two guys working nights and weekends for 3 months with a PC can make one of the busiest freeways in LA look empty, it doesn't make sense that a professional effects crew with a multimillion dollar budget can't simulate Sydney deserted. This has to be either a publicity thing or some unbelievable ego trip.
Wow! The International Tennis Federation must've really been out to lunch on this one, or maybe these are the same guys who run the U.S. Patent Office. Their rule against batteries was obviously meant to thwart the use of devices with enough power to physically affect play. What could a digital clock in the handle do?
They just didn't anticipate using a tennis ball's impact energy to warp the racquet to counteract the player's mistakes, which is what this racquet does.
So okay, I guess we can look forward to gyro-torque batting gloves, pass-booster elbow wraps for quarterbacks, and hockey pucks with tooth-targeting microcameras.
From the article: [Economists] argue that the current regulations, particularly the open-access requirements for DSL, actually discourage private investment... Who wants to build a new network if you then have to share it with competitors?
So the only way we can have broadband is if monopolies build it. Righto, and gambling casinos will never work either, because if people don't win they won't come back.
The BlackLight Rocket link on Wired isn't slashdotted, it's just wrong. Here's the real page and a much more informative writeup of the whole concept at space.com, April 2000, where Wired seems to have gotten most of their story. Sigh.
Looks pretty comfortable for the wrists, but I bet holding your hands up in the air like that would shift the problems up to your shoulders and back. You would need like a 3-inch tall wrist rest in front of it, which would have to be nicely padded because you would be leaning on the bones rather than the undersides... Think I'll hold off on this one (even if it is unique enough to get a patent).
For those of us old enough to remember, the corp-blog phenomenon could turn into an amusing rerun of the mainstreaming of sixties hippie culture by seventies marketing weenies. Macromedia's phrase "the blog strategy" sort of tells it all. The most important thing is sincerity... if you can fake that you've got it made.
We're gonna need a new buzzword pretty soon that means "painfully lame yet expertly produced synthetic blog". I can't think of one at the moment, but then I don't even know what "leet" means.
I've been a big fan of NLOS wireless for a couple years now. I wish the article had mentioned my favorite wireless vendor, a Canadian company called WaveRider. They have been designing and building LOS and NLOS systems for several years, including ones that are customer-installable (no "truck roll" cost). Their staff is friendly and their service is first rate, and no I don't work for them.
If they allowed you to save the files, I would be rooting for Film88 all the way. But by imposing copy restrictions on material that they don't even have rights to in the first place, these guys seem sorta like a renegade quasi-meta-RIAA. [I tried to work "crypto-fascist" into that but couldn't quite swing it. Dang.]
Yeah, it looks like the agreement only governs the use of the service, not the hardware. It doesn't seem to address the possibility of using the hardware for something other than their service. Not that I could think of anything.
The search engine was slashdotted, no big surprise there. But the thing that will keep me from ever visiting this site again is that when I repeated clicked the Back button and hit Alt-Left, I kept getting their page. Anybody who pulls that lame crap to keep people from backing out of their site SUCKS DONKEY.
The important thing is not whether felt tip pens will become illegal. It's that somebody figured out a laughably simple way to defeat something Sony must have spent a good chunk of money coming up with. I'm thinking meetings, demos, testing, approval, and at least one large congratulatory catered lunch. And now they look like idiots. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, upsets corporate management more than being made fools.
Somebody tried to sue a competitor for copyright infringement and lost. The court ruled that the material was sufficiently different that there was no infringement. Zzzzzzzz.
Coming up next: Boy Falls in Lake, Climbs Out Wet.
This 1998 market study claimed a civilian space travel industgry was feasible. Lots of graphs.
On the same subject, Discovery or TLC ran a documentary last year that said commercial airliners within the next 30 years will be designed to fly to about 40-50,000 feet, refuel from a tanker, then climb steeply out of the atmosphere and coast to a landing. Passengers will be strapped in, no snacks, no potty break. Max trip time to anywhere in the world: 45 minutes. Now that's my kind of space travel.
So think twice before shelling out $98K for a suborbital flight. You'll be able to get your 20 minutes of weightlessness on a routine flight to Hawaii.
This article, while furnishing some interesting info about the numbers, was a sickeningly typical lawyer nitpick. Instead of attacking verbiage with better verbiage, I wish these legal geniuses would address the real issue, which is whether or not copyright enforcement benefits the general public to an extent that justifies taking away other things.
America has always been big on law enforcement, but there have traditionally been limits, like search and seizure laws and rules of evidence. The rights-ownership industry (we're not talking about creative artists here) appears to think that protecting IP should become the central goal of law in America. Privacy doesn't matter -- it could be used to hide infringement. Innovation doesn't matter -- it could be used to defeat protection. Opensource doesn't matter -- it's an evil socialist plot anyway. Everybody's behavior must be restricted so as to guarantee that people like Jamie "skipping commercials is theft" Kellner get a nickel every time anybody reads, views or hears anything other than their own bodily functions.
We ought to do follow the advice put forth in some recent article posted here (can't remember the freakin one) that advocated focusing political contributions to defeat legislators who act as toadies to the entertainment industry. Every time a new tendril appears, cut it off. Blacklist the entertainment industry and see how they like it. Does anybody know who Hollings' opponent is going to be in the next election? Send him or her money. Send letters to every other senator notifying them that you are doing this and why you are doing it.
American politics tends to be a series of one-issue campaigns. Our lawmakers understand that principle very well. Make the defeat of the copyright industry your one issue and let them know it.
Speaking of cool keyboards, how bout those virtual keyboards on zdnet and elsewhere. They project keyboards on any surface and use cameras to sense where your fingers are. Msn story with a photo. Different model at ananova. I know there's no tactile feedback, but think of the compactness.
Maybe this is the answer. In their automated sales system patent, PanIP makes the following claim:
"Organizational hierarchies of data sources are arranged so that an infinite number of sales presentation configurations can be created."
Can your e-commerce system generate an INFINITE number of sales configurations?? I can't think of any kind of database that would infringe on this patent, unless maybe Zaphod Beeblebrox invented it.
Slashdot Mirror
Never mind the monster-truck jumping stunt, the nearly indestructible space shuttles, or blowing up the asteroid in the nick of time. For me the funniest part of Armageddon was the apathetic, cigarette-smoking refueling attendant on the leaky Russian space station, who ends up blowing the thing up with a stray butt. Clearly the low man on the cosmonaut totem pole, and a blast from the Cold War past.
I always thought it was designed to simulate tape stretch or a dirty playback head.
Gimme a break!
Remember the short film "The 405" that was all over the net a year or two ago, about the airliner landing on an empty freeway? If two guys working nights and weekends for 3 months with a PC can make one of the busiest freeways in LA look empty, it doesn't make sense that a professional effects crew with a multimillion dollar budget can't simulate Sydney deserted. This has to be either a publicity thing or some unbelievable ego trip.
It was tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Available long before the 23rd century.
Wow! The International Tennis Federation must've really been out to lunch on this one, or maybe these are the same guys who run the U.S. Patent Office. Their rule against batteries was obviously meant to thwart the use of devices with enough power to physically affect play. What could a digital clock in the handle do?
They just didn't anticipate using a tennis ball's impact energy to warp the racquet to counteract the player's mistakes, which is what this racquet does.
So okay, I guess we can look forward to gyro-torque batting gloves, pass-booster elbow wraps for quarterbacks, and hockey pucks with tooth-targeting microcameras.
Hey CodeMonkey -- isn't it amazing how much effort people will put into commenting on somebody else's work as opposed to doing some themselves?
Nice job!
Psst -- add wizards.
From the article: [Economists] argue that the current regulations, particularly the open-access requirements for DSL, actually discourage private investment... Who wants to build a new network if you then have to share it with competitors?
So the only way we can have broadband is if monopolies build it. Righto, and gambling casinos will never work either, because if people don't win they won't come back.
The BlackLight Rocket link on Wired isn't slashdotted, it's just wrong. Here's the real page and a much more informative writeup of the whole concept at space.com, April 2000 , where Wired seems to have gotten most of their story. Sigh.
Looks pretty comfortable for the wrists, but I bet holding your hands up in the air like that would shift the problems up to your shoulders and back. You would need like a 3-inch tall wrist rest in front of it, which would have to be nicely padded because you would be leaning on the bones rather than the undersides... Think I'll hold off on this one (even if it is unique enough to get a patent).
For those of us old enough to remember, the corp-blog phenomenon could turn into an amusing rerun of the mainstreaming of sixties hippie culture by seventies marketing weenies. Macromedia's phrase "the blog strategy" sort of tells it all. The most important thing is sincerity... if you can fake that you've got it made.
We're gonna need a new buzzword pretty soon that means "painfully lame yet expertly produced synthetic blog". I can't think of one at the moment, but then I don't even know what "leet" means.
Hey chicks and dudes, let's rap!
I've been a big fan of NLOS wireless for a couple years now. I wish the article had mentioned my favorite wireless vendor, a Canadian company called WaveRider. They have been designing and building LOS and NLOS systems for several years, including ones that are customer-installable (no "truck roll" cost). Their staff is friendly and their service is first rate, and no I don't work for them.
If they allowed you to save the files, I would be rooting for Film88 all the way. But by imposing copy restrictions on material that they don't even have rights to in the first place, these guys seem sorta like a renegade quasi-meta-RIAA. [I tried to work "crypto-fascist" into that but couldn't quite swing it. Dang.]
Yeah, it looks like the agreement only governs the use of the service, not the hardware. It doesn't seem to address the possibility of using the hardware for something other than their service. Not that I could think of anything.
Thanks for the review. This sounds like a book I definitely want to read. One small nitpick ... "achieving a liquidity event"??? Jeeez.
The search engine was slashdotted, no big surprise there. But the thing that will keep me from ever visiting this site again is that when I repeated clicked the Back button and hit Alt-Left, I kept getting their page. Anybody who pulls that lame crap to keep people from backing out of their site SUCKS DONKEY.
Ok ok ok, we get the jokes (most of us anyway).
The important thing is not whether felt tip pens will become illegal. It's that somebody figured out a laughably simple way to defeat something Sony must have spent a good chunk of money coming up with. I'm thinking meetings, demos, testing, approval, and at least one large congratulatory catered lunch. And now they look like idiots. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, upsets corporate management more than being made fools.
Right on.
Insightful??
I guess there's no "doesn't get the joke" category.
Somebody tried to sue a competitor for copyright infringement and lost. The court ruled that the material was sufficiently different that there was no infringement. Zzzzzzzz.
Coming up next: Boy Falls in Lake, Climbs Out Wet.
Yet another /.spert who is already damn sure of his opinion of the book in spite of not having actually read it yet.
Sigh.
This 1998 market study claimed a civilian space travel industgry was feasible. Lots of graphs.
On the same subject, Discovery or TLC ran a documentary last year that said commercial airliners within the next 30 years will be designed to fly to about 40-50,000 feet, refuel from a tanker, then climb steeply out of the atmosphere and coast to a landing. Passengers will be strapped in, no snacks, no potty break. Max trip time to anywhere in the world: 45 minutes. Now that's my kind of space travel.
So think twice before shelling out $98K for a suborbital flight. You'll be able to get your 20 minutes of weightlessness on a routine flight to Hawaii.
This article, while furnishing some interesting info about the numbers, was a sickeningly typical lawyer nitpick. Instead of attacking verbiage with better verbiage, I wish these legal geniuses would address the real issue, which is whether or not copyright enforcement benefits the general public to an extent that justifies taking away other things.
America has always been big on law enforcement, but there have traditionally been limits, like search and seizure laws and rules of evidence. The rights-ownership industry (we're not talking about creative artists here) appears to think that protecting IP should become the central goal of law in America. Privacy doesn't matter -- it could be used to hide infringement. Innovation doesn't matter -- it could be used to defeat protection. Opensource doesn't matter -- it's an evil socialist plot anyway. Everybody's behavior must be restricted so as to guarantee that people like Jamie "skipping commercials is theft" Kellner get a nickel every time anybody reads, views or hears anything other than their own bodily functions.
We ought to do follow the advice put forth in some recent article posted here (can't remember the freakin one) that advocated focusing political contributions to defeat legislators who act as toadies to the entertainment industry. Every time a new tendril appears, cut it off. Blacklist the entertainment industry and see how they like it. Does anybody know who Hollings' opponent is going to be in the next election? Send him or her money. Send letters to every other senator notifying them that you are doing this and why you are doing it.
American politics tends to be a series of one-issue campaigns. Our lawmakers understand that principle very well. Make the defeat of the copyright industry your one issue and let them know it.
repeat {
lather();
rinse();
}
The first rule of the Lone Gunmen is, you don't talk about the Lone Gunmen.
The second rule of the Lone Gunmen is, You Do Not Talk about the Lone Gunmen!
Speaking of cool keyboards, how bout those virtual keyboards on zdnet and elsewhere. They project keyboards on any surface and use cameras to sense where your fingers are. Msn story with a photo. Different model at ananova. I know there's no tactile feedback, but think of the compactness.
Maybe this is the answer. In their automated sales system patent, PanIP makes the following claim:
"Organizational hierarchies of data sources are arranged so that an infinite number of sales presentation configurations can be created."
Can your e-commerce system generate an INFINITE number of sales configurations?? I can't think of any kind of database that would infringe on this patent, unless maybe Zaphod Beeblebrox invented it.