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New user? Thursday, July 27, 2000
Quickies
Here'a a pile of links I found last night but didn't have time to post:
Swaine's World has excellent links as always, July 26th's news features 3 articles about Be/BeIA.
Via CamWorld, a strange article about a yearlong partnership to bundle the Bible with cereal boxes and how it died at the 11th hour.
Via Faisal, how decades of probing Mars has changed our perception of the planet. Reports of a Dead Mars Are Greatly Exaggerated.
Also, Tog says If They Don't Test, Don't Hire Them. Exactly.
In MacNN's forums, Denise McNickle discovers that Sony's MiniDisc player works out-of-the-box with recent USB Macs without drivers.
Via Mr. Damien Barrett, how an Anthropologist Sees WWF Wrestling Bouts As Passion Plays.
I haven't even finished reading this one yet, but everyone is raving about it, so here it is: Joel on Software -- Does Issuing Passports Make Microsoft a Country? (via Archipelago)
Via Wes, an Advogato article speaking out against FreeNet, and what the author Matthew Parry considers an extremist attitude of FreeNet developers.
InkWell
I'm very excited about this report on ZDNet about InkWell, the Newton handwriting recognition system for Mac OS (X?), reportedly undergoing private beta-testing.
Defintely check out the slide show. Very cool. They've added a number of cool gestures that the Newton didn't have.
Wow, talk about left-field -- the obsetity virus?
Obesity may be caused by a virus in some cases -- "And an earlier study by Dhurandhar showed that of 52 obese humans, 10 were infected with a chicken adenovirus -- known as SMAM-1. SMAM-1 is known to cause obesity in chickens. Those 10 people in Dhurandhar's study who carried the virus were the most obese of the entire group. "
Wednesday, July 26, 2000
The Inquisitor has hit the e-biz scene early
Update: was down. I guess the Inquisitor didn't get them.
Joke...
It's a joke! A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day.
Thanks Alex!
Your brain is picking sides...
Philippe "Flip" Martin and James Spahr explain why I'm more creative when I'm nearly asleep, and other neat brain stuff.
Their answers disturb me -- I really don't consider myself a left-brain person. I'm left-handed, so shouldn't I be a right-brain person? I want to be a right-brained person.
I know, I'll just bash the left side of my head against my desk for a while, then I'll definitely be a right-brained person.
My music
I've been using HitMusic.com to get music the last few days. They kick ass. On-demand music, playlists, streamed QuickTime, beautiful stuff.
Flash and QuickTime required. A fast internet connection would help too. :)
Cake
WSJ: Napster Lays Claim to New Frontier, But It Doesn't Want Any Company -- I think this adds an interesting twist to Napster's core debate. They protect their property but don't think the artists have the right do the same.
Andre Torrez
2 cool links through CamWorld:
torrez.org -- read the July 25, 2000 entry. Porn, pre-adolescent Geeks, AD&D, and what happens when you mix the three together. Hilarious stuff!
FilePile.org. Here's the what is it? document.
Some interesting MacCentral articles for a change...
A trio of interesting articles on MacCentral:
Totally Hip developing new QuickTime products
ATI on Apple leak: "It was our fault"
Totally Hip and ATI -- two cool Canadian companies. :-)
Dual processor G4 optimized apps on the way -- skip half way through, the first half is just filler.
Napster shutdown coming.
Quick thoughts about Napster. You know my opinion. That said, I think the RIAA's action against Napster is going to backfire on them. There will be a boycott, I'm sure, at least by netizens. Napster is now a martyr for the cause, and this will only make it harder for RIAA to hold on to their business model (which I think is great for both parties, btw -- I'm all for legal internet music distribution!).
RIAA would have been better served working with Napster rather than shutting them down. Since that wasn't ever going to happen, this is the natural course of things, IMHO. Napster will be back up, with a much stronger brand, once the industry is reformed.
Update: I've had some time to think about the Napster decision on my own for a while without any media influence (my Mom told me about it tonight while visiting); now I'm starting to read articles.
Here's the first:
Salon: Why the anti-Napster campaign is as doomed as Prohibition
I compared the theft of songs via Napster to the organized crime of the prohibition days a couple of weeks ago. In this reenactment, RIAA is the government, Napster/Gnutella are the mobsters, and the people are the people, who want something and aren't being allowed to have it.
RIAA should learn from history. Either Napster didn't, or they're willing to play the part of the mobsters, smuggling music for "the greater good".
Tuesday, July 25, 2000
epiphany
I've noticed I'm most creative when I'm super-tired. Late last night I was surfing on my laptop upstairs (yay!) when a cool idea hit me. I seem to remember reading reports about this phenomenon but now I can't find them. Maybe I'll find them late tonight. :-)
Another thing I had thought of last night was a rebuttal to Michael Sippey's rebuttal to Jakob Nielsen's new Alertbox, End of Web Design. And now I can't remember that either. I'll re-read it just before bed tonight and make sure to write it down this time.
wasting money on a mass scale
RC3.ORG: "The recent G7 meeting that President Clinton attended for about half a day cost 750 million bucks to put on. As the author of the article points out, you could end famine in some parts of the world with that kind of money. What a joke."
A joke indeed. A pretty sad joke.
There's a link to the article on rc3.org -- if you'd like to read the article, please visit Rafe's site to get it.
In theory, a plasma could deflect a particle beam or laser attack
Force Fields and 'Plasma' Shields Get Closer to Reality -- this is very cool stuff. Check out this caption of a picture of the plasma:
"Side view of a cold plasma inside a Pyrex glass container. Cold plasmas can cloak satellites and spacecraft from radar view and shield against attack from certain kinds of energy weapons."
And this is reality? Yikes.
