Monthly Archives: January 2005

Copyright Terrorism

January 31, 2005 – 3:01 am

The Dunhuang Grottoes are one of China’s richest archaeological treasures. Built during the 4th through 14th centuries, they are a 1,000-year-old ancient art gallery of cave architecture, sculptures and murals. Rediscovered in 1900, the region has been listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1987. Despite over 100 years of exploration and study, the [...]

By Casey | Posted in Copyrights & Intellectual Property | Comments (0)



Looking For The Energy Drink TV Ad?

January 31, 2005 – 1:23 am

Based on the search terms people come to this site with, I know that there’s a bunch of folks looking for the ?energy drink ad,? or ?K-fee TV commercial,? or ?scary German,? or some such. Most people end up finding my story about Zygo energy vodka, and completely miss my story about the (deceptively titled) [...]

By Casey | Posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless. | Comments (114)

All Conversations In Warren Revolve Around Heat

January 30, 2005 – 9:55 pm

I have burned 1.6 tons of wood pellets so far this winter. The significance of the number isn’t its size, though 1.6 tons is a lot. The significance is that it represents 80 bags of pellets, each 40 pounds. The significance is that it represents about half of the pellets I’d purchased for the heating [...]

By Casey | Posted in Warren | Comments (6)

Big Bear Photos Circulating

January 30, 2005 – 2:22 am

My dad forwarded me the following pictures and story:
These pictures are of a guy who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear. He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy unloaded his 7mm Mag Semi-automatic rifle [...]

By Casey | Posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless. | Comments (320)

Language Is Of The People

January 29, 2005 – 1:39 am

I am always amazed at the lengths we’ll go through to communicate or express or simply transliterate an idea, and further amazed at how we represent the result. Take this for instance:
6th string| —0—3—3–5–5—-7-8-7-8-7-8-7-8—3-3–5-5
Once you figure it out, you’ll likely not be able to get it out of your head.
And this: sort of [...]

By Casey | Posted in Questionable...funny. Pointless. | Comments (2)



Wikipedia vs. Brittannica; Folksonomy vs. Taxonomy

January 28, 2005 – 2:03 am

A post on Techdirt notes:
You may recall that we somehow got involved in a bizarre battle over Wikipedia, when I got into a discussion with a reporter who told me that Wikipedia was “outrageous,” “repugnant” and “dangerous,” mainly because it’s not reviewed by “professionals.” Despite a valiant effort, I was unable to ever convince [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music | Comments (4)

The Tyranny Of Copyright

January 27, 2005 – 7:48 am

Last week I pointed to Will Shetterly’s “The People Who Owned the Bible” as an example of what might happen if copyright/intellectual property law continues to favor short term commercial interests over long term public interests. It’s worth noting that the original copyright laws, developed in 1600s Britain, allowed for only a seven year monopoly [...]

By Casey | Posted in Copyrights & Intellectual Property | Comments (0)

Cold Weather Operations Force PowerBook PMU Reset

January 26, 2005 – 9:57 pm

Batteries don’t work well in the cold, and with the -20°F nights we’ve had, I think I can say it’s been cold here lately. I woke my PowerBook from sleep in sub-freezing temperatures this morning and got a few minutes of work out of it before it put itself to sleep again. I popped it [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Using Your Mobile Phone As Modem

January 26, 2005 – 4:38 am

I’ve been following cell-carrier wireless data options here at MaisonBisson (here and here), but I have to admit that I don’t actually use any such solutions. I live and work (and usually travel) in range of ethernet and WiFi, so I might get a pass on this but the real reason is laziness.
Engadget has a [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

Edward Tufte Gives Presentation Advice

January 25, 2005 – 4:36 am

Edward Tufte’s passion is the graphical display of information. But his nemsis the visual lie. So naturally, he has a special dislike for PowerPoint. His poster on The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint gave me this line, which I will likely find myself repeating at a time when it is both most accurate and most politically [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music | Comments (5)

Palm Travel Guides

January 25, 2005 – 2:19 am

MyPalmLife is running a story about some new travel guides that run on your Palm-powered device. Produced as a collaboration between Rough Guides and Visual IT, they also support PocketPC and Symbion devices.
London, Paris, Rome, New York, and San Francisco are available now at an introductory price of $20 each. “Further cities will be released [...]

By Casey | Posted in Travel | Comments (2)

Feds Go Beyond Carnivore; Artists Embrace Carnivore

January 24, 2005 – 4:35 am

DefenseTech reports that the FBI has given up on Carnivore, the electronic snooping application that it used to force on ISPs serving suspects. It seems that the folks in dark suits are now using commercial software instead.
This probably has no effect on artists — yes, artists — who use an open source app inspired by [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Microsoft: Bad For Browsers; Bad For Air Travel

January 24, 2005 – 2:04 am

I just discovered This Is Broken and couldn’t help but explore the archives.
First I discovered Brill.com’s weird search results. The problem is that a search for bond funds returns a list of stories that have little to do with financial news. It looks like somebody has entered a bunch of bogus stories in their [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (1)

Browse Happy

January 23, 2005 – 4:36 am

Browse happy, by the The Web Standards Project is urging people to give up on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Their solution? Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari.

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Mac OS X Performance Questions

January 22, 2005 – 3:36 am

I was a little bummed to find my CPU busy all morning yesterday. And though I still don’t understand exactly what was causing it, it seems no longer to be a problem. A lot of people don’t know how to see what their Mac is doing, to see what it’s busy with. Here are some [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (0)