Thursday, March 28, 2002

11:49:15 PM   Opening day 4 days and counting.

11:47:30 PM   ABC's 'Once and Again' Ending Itsw 3-Year Run //  This sucks.  For anyone who has encountered that animal called divorce, this was excellent television.  R.I.P.

7:09:21 PM   Targeting piracy. Tensions between Hollywood and Silicon Valley over online piracy are on the rise. But is new legislation really the answer? [via CNET News.com] // More.....

7:05:47 PM   Unisys, Microsoft to launch anti-Unix ads. The two plan to launch a marketing campaign that seeks to undermine Unix, the operating system at the heart of powerful server lines from rivals Sun, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. [via CNET News.com]  //  Best excerpt from here is: "Sun responded to the campaign in a statement. "Sun still does not see Microsoft as a real threat in the datacenter market where reliability, availability, serviceability and security are key," the company said. "As for Unix being 'inflexible,' 'expensive,' and 'complex,' we feel those are terms much better suited to the closed and proprietary world of Windows."

7:01:19 PM   For those that believe that "Israel is perpetuating the cycle of violence": Suppose for just a second that Mexico invaded the United States. Not once, but twice. Imagine that the US, having defeated the Mexican invaders in battle, captured and occupied a strip of land on the ot the south side of the Rio Grande, in an attempt to dissuade future invasion. We'll call it the South Bank. Also imagine, since you got this far, that every day young Mexican's are swimming across the river and blowing up both themselves and your families. Now you've got Colombia, with their drug cartels and, crooked judges, saying "Just give Mexico back their land. They'll stop invading. Really. We mean it this time. Never mind that every time you've made a concession, they've attack with even more vigor. And never mind Cuba over there. They've pledged your complete destruction, but we'll worry about that later." Finally, lets suppose that they blew up 100 of your friends and neighbors during Easter dinner. Would you, even for a second, consider making a deal with Mexico? Or would you demand that Dubya send the calvary acorss the border to root out those bastards that killed your daughter? Think about it for a second. It's days like this when I feel like rushing out and joining the army--the Israeli army. [via Phil Ackley's Radio Thingumabob]  //  I know this much, this has to stop, some how, some way.  We can't sit back and just watch this carnage.

6:53:09 PM   Mary Wehmeier wrote a letter to Senator Hollings. It's the first letter I've seen from a user explaining the consequences the senator's bill would have on the vendors' products she depends on. In other words, users can't afford to be silent on this bill. If you like our software and you want it to keep evolving and improving, you have a stake in the outcome.  [via Scripting News]

6:50:39 PM   Net anti-piracy debate heads for House. A representative from California says he plans to bring the lower house into the copyright-protection fray with a bill similar to one recently introduced in the Senate. [via CNET News.com]

6:48:23 PM   Reuters.  A ruling by a Dutch appeals court to throw out charges against FastTrack (the P2P music sharing technology provider) could make it impossible for the music and movie industries to continue on their present course.  Prepare yourselves for an all you can eat digital media subscription service coming to a PC near you.  As I pointed out below, it's inevitable.  This ruling just accelerates it. [via John Robb's Radio Weblog] //  Here is this again, just had to highlight here a little.

6:43:27 PM   Jenny the Shifted Librarian likes her Replay TV. "Even on my 60-hour unit, I usually only have about 5 hours clear at any given time because I'm recording everything I or my family might want to watch. Some of the stuff on there has been waiting months for me to watch it. Other stuff I just delete without watching when I need the room." My TiVO works the same way, except I don't have as much storage as Jenny. A note to Eisner and the other filthy bastards who think I'm a pirate, I pay $60 per month for this service. And I largely use it to watch stuff that's broadcast over the public airwaves for $0. Go figure. [via Scripting News] // OK, this link will take you directly to Jenny on Replay TV or closer than Dave did.  Read this.  The world is changing and "shifting" or the like is going to swallow up your world if it hasn't already.   Once you touch this technology, you will want to shift and rewind everything and every body that you run across.  I call it "Tivoing"  yet I own a Dish Player which calls it Personal TV and has Microsoft WebTV branding all over it.  I pay more than Dave mentions above and even in the tech wreck unemployment scenario we are currently living in, this functionality is last to go when you trim the budget.  Once you have it you will not give it up.  //  Did I mention that my Dish Player and the Microsoft knuckleheads writing the software suck ?  and I still won't give it up, or more accurately, my wife won't give it up. And note that it is a huge step from I won't give it up to my wife won't give it up.  Tiny niche markets come from I won't give it up but huge markets where they measure what percentage of homes with it come from when my (or anybody's) wife won't give it up.  With every software release sent so swiftly to my box the software quality goes farther and farther in the dumper.  I have never in my life seen a sadder excuse for quality in my life.  And further, they can't seem to fix it to save their soles.  Please keep Microsoft in the spreadsheet world and out of my embedded technology playground.   This Dish Player is a topic for another piece someday soon.

6:24:39 PM   I hope some day the independent developers appreciate that because we've been developing in advance of Microsoft in this area, that their patents are going to be pretty hard to establish. UserLand does not patent any of its technology. This is a matter of ethics, core values and self-respect. We believe in the power to compete. We think our technology is so good that it can withstand competition. Microsoft clearly has jumped over to the dark side. It wasn't always so. At one point they were willing to bet on their engineering. Today they're betting on their lawyers.   [via Scripting News]  //  Dave is a god and I can't believe it took me to this point in my software life to find this dude.  Text is his, the bold of course is all mine.  I've been saying for years, competition is the key.  Lline them up next to each other and may the best product win.  If you are doing good work, competition should not scare you.  // Imagine if early IE had been lined up on every Windowze PC sold with IE and Netscape icons on the center of the desktop.  Imagine how different the world would be today.

5:58:27 PM   // And while I was in the monkey story territory I poked around and found a few short paragraphs on the value of UML. which I like.  It is not the silver bullet ( there is none ) but can help with improving communication on projects which is (or should be) the target for all silver bullets.

5:51:22 PM   Julian Harris: "It starts with a cage containing five monkeys."  [via Scripting News]  //  This is great.

5:32:05 PM   Reuters: "A Dutch appeals court on Thursday told an Internet software company it could distribute a software program that is designed to let users share music and films on the Internet."  [via Scripting News]  //  :-)

5:26:29 PM   Tommy Williams: "I work for Microsoft. I have worked for the company since June 1999. But it gets harder every day."  [Scripting News] // And my favorite quote at the bottom is: "What would you do if you were working for a company whose philosophy is not your own? It's easy to say you would leave, but give it some honest thought. Would you really give up the security? "   // Can & did :-)    //  Unfortunately the bottom dropped out of technology about the same time so it has been a rougher ride than I expected.  I only question giving up my BigCo job when I pay the mortgage and Cobra health insurance each month.  I also hear echoing in my head at about the same time I slip into this monthly trap a certain significant other of someone who used to work with me saying something to the effect that I worked for "the man".  It took 10+ years for me to figure this out.  What a knucklehead.

12:01:56 AM   eBay's Billpoint draws states' attention. The auction giant's online payment system is drawing the same scrutiny from state regulators as has rival PayPal. The services may be destined for a regulatory minefield. [via CNET News.com] // Paypal is definitely doing the bank thing, I'm guessing Billpoint too.  From what I've seen Paypal is gotten 2 big 4 their britches.  A little regulation might be good for them but needless to say it will cost us :-(