Monday, April 8, 2002
Don't Buy Hollywood's Broadband Script
Heather Green
Hollings' bill isn't about helping consumers. It's about protecting Hollywood. And using the broadband mess to address the digital-copyright issue is just a ploy. Hollywood has already shown it isn't interested simply in protecting digital versions of copyrighted works — it also wants to control how those works are used.
Identifont
Welcome to Identifont®, the unique font identifier that enables you to identify a font from a sample by answering a series of simple questions. It is ideal if you want to match an existing typeface, or identify a typeface you have seen in a publication.
Indian man creates world's largest pair of leather loafers
[James] Syiemiong, a 30-year-old college dropout who went into the family shoemaking business, has crafted what he believes is the world's largest pair of leather loafers, measuring 4.06 yards long and 1.24 yards wide.
Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL
Avram [Miller] is a bandwidth junky. Going further, he's a bandwidth junky with money. And that makes it especially frustrating that from his hilltop perch he can actually see, only a quarter mile away, the telephone company central office (CO) that serves his home, yet [he] can't get DSL service.
Eastgate Tinderbox
Tinderbox is a personal content management assistant. It stores your notes, ideas, and plans. It can help you organize and understand them. And Tinderbox helps you share ideas through Web journals and web logs.
Shortcuts
Dave Winer
Shortcuts make it easy to enter repetitive or hard-to-remember text in your weblog.
Map of Lost U-Boats
U-869, the submarine profiled in the NOVA program "Hitler's Lost Sub," was just one of the more than 1,100 Unterseeboote, or U-boats, sunk, scuttled, captured, or otherwise lost to German forces during World War II. Here, naval historian Timothy Mulligan describes 25 of the most historically significant U-boats. Click on the map labels and plunge into the fascinating and often tragic histories of some of Germany's most notorious "sea wolves."
Discussion at kuro5hin. One comment pointed me to an especially interesting story about U-156.
Dear Chairman Hollings
Virtually every significant computing device in use today transmits, copies, or displays digital information. While the CBDTPA-imposed restrictions seek to prevent copyrighted work from being copied from one place on a disk or the network to another, the far-reaching restrictions would also interfere with literally thousands of other legal, non-infringing uses of digital computing.
Memo to Brands: Surrender
Anni Layne Rodgers
Branding is not about communicating a message; it's about engaging in a relationship. And that isn't easy, especially in a marketplace dominated by distrust, anxiety, and scandal.
Jenny Levine
For myself, I don't trust them anymore because they've proven their intentions that they want to work against me - not with me, and I'm taking my ball and going home. Their brands mean nothing to me now.
First Wave of Homeschoolers Comes of Age
Where did we ever get the idea that 2,000 13-year-olds were the ideal people with which to socialize other 13-year-olds?
The Niles Monorail
In October of 2001, [the MONORAIL society] President Kim Pedersen dedicated the Niles Monorail, thereby introducing a new hobby to the world...rideable garden monorails.
Discussion at Slashdot.
Web surfers brace for pop-up downloads
Stefanie Olsen
In some cases, people are not even asked whether they want the software. It just installs on the hard drive — a particularly troublesome tactic that some have dubbed "drive-by download."
Discussion at Slashdot.
Google's Toughest Search Is for a Business Model
Saul Hansell
Google may be Silicon Valley's hottest company, but it has its share of challenges, including finding a way to make a profit.Monday Morning Coffee Notes
- Ethiopia Sidamo, from the Arlington Center Starbucks.
- Twinnings Irish Breakfast. I need to replenish my home supply of coffee. Tea is really supposed to be the third cup.
Dave Winer
Ladies and gentlemen boys and girls, I have a new feature to present today. But first I have to read the blogs and my email and drink some coffee. Gotta be in the right mood.Hey, what's this "shortcuts" menu doing on my desktop website?
And what are all these new verbs in the "Radio.root updates" channel? Like, for instance, system.verbs.builtins.radio.shortcuts?
Cool!
