“Rowling’s ability to stop the Potter pretenders is largely a function of the new regime of international copyright. Until recently, countries varied considerably in how they protected literary works, especially works from abroad. The United States, for instance, has a long history of providing less protection than the Europeans. Benjamin Franklin was a kind of…
“Google Inc., want to know how to compete with Microsoft? Endear yourself to us all. Listen to the likes of us the little people of the Internet. Make the toolbar cross-platform and you will endear yourself to all of us. Change the ‘BlogThis!’ to enable us to blog to whatever blog tools we use. When…
“Mr Sahhaf’s daily press briefings in Baghdad during the war, at which his statements were increasingly at odds with reality, made him a figure of fun in the West.|He was dubbed ‘Saddam’s optimist’ and ‘Comical Ali’ by media commentators, before disappearing as American forces entered central Baghdad.” —‘Comical Ali’ Resurfaces (BBC) Sahhaf is, perhaps unsurprisingly, working…
NASA Planetary CollageAFP/NASA) No image of Pluto? I’m outraged! Disney’s copyright protection schemes have gone too far! Update: I found this image on the AP newswire feed. There was no link or credit, but Rosemary Frezza writes: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-000454.html This is the closest thing I could find on a NASA site so far. I wonder who…
“Discussions of IF design often touch on intentionality — teaching the player how to interact with the game world so that he can solve puzzles and push the plot forward while maintaining a sense that he’s an active agent in the game. What Jerz fosters here is more or less the opposite — inadvertency, perhaps?…
“But although multidisciplinary study of the media is now commonplace, it is striking how little effort has gone into examining the role the media play in the public understanding of science, which is itself, by definition, a multidisciplinary activity, though one very much still dominated by natural scientists themselves. All of this tends to reinforce…
“The Vatican has revealed it has taken on a team of experts to protect the Pope’s website which is attacked by some 10,000 viruses a month and at least 30 mainly American hackers every day.” —Pope Moves against Hackers (ABC – Austrailia) Similar:Why Our Brains Make Us Click on ListsThe article-as-numbered-list has several…CultureSeattle Times ‘Outraged’ FBI…
“From Bouffant Hairdos to Platform Shoes, these are the fashion trends which were the style of the day, and the nightmare of the next decade.” —Bad Fads Museum — Fashion (Bad Fads) The site also includes pages categorized under “Collectibles,” “Activities” and “Events”. I’ve seen similar nostalgia sites that are sorted according to decades… this one…
“In the light of Microsoft rumblings about creating its own search services, we need to ask just where Google is going with a toolbar built only for a Microsoft product. Microsoft are shaping up to take Google out!” —Microsoft and the New Google Toolbar (Microdoc News) Elwyn offers his usual thoughtful critique of all things Google.…
A package from Amazon invokes this lustful passage regarding the New Media Reader: “I have been leafing through the book, and I already know it solved the problem of texts and examples for the little course I have promised to plan and teach in Media Theory this fall. But most important, it promises to sate…
“This study provides an exopolitical analysis of the policy dimensions of an historic extraterrestrial presence that is pertinent to Iraq and a US led preemptive attack. It will be argued that competing clandestine government organizations are struggling through proxy means to take control of ancient extraterrestrial (ET) technology that exists in Iraq, in order to…
“For months I’ve fought to get the number of marketing messages I receive down to a manageable number. I tried just to get to a countable number… I ran naked through my house with a tape deck, ranting. I ranted: ‘In My Kitchen… There’s a Kenmore 20 fridge, a Sharp Carosel microwave, a Rival Electronic…
Rosemary Frezza writes: I can run this program and have a “virtual commute” on those days when I work from home. —Microsimulation of Road TrafficWWW) It’s not really a “game,” but it comes close. See also my own “York Corpus Christi Pageant Simulator“. Similar:Americans grapple with recognizing facts in news stories: Pew surveyThe more you…
Old Country Wisdom: Secret of the Soup BowlLiteracy Weblog) Yesterday, my son Peter won a free dinner for participating in the library’s summer reading program, so my parents took us to Old Country Buffet (an all-you-can-eat restaurant). While I was making myself a small bowl of ice cream, the older gentleman in line behind me…
“the new google toolbar not only blocks popup ads, it comes with a ‘blog this!’ button for blogger integration.” mecran01 —Google *is* the OS (KairosNews) Is this the first sign of what happens now that Google has purchased Blogger? I don’t use Blogger, so I won’t be able to experiment with that feature. Anyone want to…
“The move underlines how desperate the music industry has become to staunch the flow of illegal downloads, which are beginning to devastate compact disc sales. In 2000, the 10 top-selling albums in the US sold a total of 60m copies. In 2001 that dropped to 40m, and last year it was 34m.” David Teather —US…
“Omigod, Earth’s core is about to explode, destroying the planet and everything on it! That is, unless a gigantic asteroid strikes first. Or an advanced physics experiment goes haywire, negating space-time in a runaway chain reaction. Or the sun’s distant companion star, Nemesis, sends an untimely barrage of comets our way. Or … ” Gregg…
“The world in which clothing, paint, lighting, rugs, and curtains all change colors to match (or influence) our mood is coming, but it’s some time away — a lot of technology has to be made affordable and durable before then. In the meantime, IFM and other companies are working on ways to weave touch sensors…
“Lying in the service of power, money and advancement — or simply to avoid embarrassment — is nothing new. Bill Clinton lied about having sex ‘with that woman’; Richard Nixon lied about his abuse of power during the Watergate scandal. Lyndon Johnson lied about American destroyers being attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf…
“I am having trouble remembering the last time I was bored. You must realize that I’m alone with myself which is endlessly fascinating!” William Shatner —Quotable Quotes (WilliamShatner.com) Thanks for the link, Rosemary. And, while I have the attention of the Trek Classic fans, here’s James Lileks’s Best 404 Message Ever (It’s a reference to the…