The Grammar of Sound

“Say you were trying to find instances of when Bill Gates testified between May 15 and June 1. Using existing tools like full-text search engines, natural language query or speech recognition, you’d have to transcribe the audio into a text file, then index it with a lexicon of terms that included ‘Gates.’ Such an undertaking…

Hector the Hectopus

“I bet Hector would be more fun if we dipped him in gasoline. But, most toys are…….” Chad —Hector the Hectopus (Catch.com) My (completely pointless and out-of-date) Rainbow Hector Weblog has been metablogged by Catch.com. I don’t know why, and the Catch.com folks don’t seem to know either. Life goes on, and Hector keeps smiling.

Spam Sent by Fraud is Made a Felony

“Virginia enacted a law Tuesday imposing harsh felony penalties for sending such messages to computer users through deceptive means….Public outrage at spam is causing states and Congress to start looking at stronger measures against it. The Internet industry estimates that spam represents nearly half of all e-mail sent. And a new report by the Federal…