Japanese smileys! This is a little man bringing you a cup of steaming green tea. And here's... a blowfish!:     

 

A fascinating site -- Japanese lettersets have two-byte, rather than one-byte character widths and also can express Japanese (doh!) and Chinese characters. So smileys can be far more elaborate... and very culturally expressive.

10:03:17 PM  #   your two cents []

LinuxWorld: IBM's Mills sees Linux in 'new era'. Making money with open source [InfoWorld: Top News]
9:08:39 PM  #   your two cents []

Remember the case of the Algerian baggage handler in Paris who was arrested after allegedly being seen with a gun in his car by a witness? Turns out he was framed by his in-laws and is now back at work, according to the 'Paris' blog.
7:43:11 PM  #   your two cents []

Guardian wins open justice ruling. End to blanket ban on access to tribunal that investigates phone tapping and surveillance. [Guardian Unlimited]
7:39:25 PM  #   your two cents []

BoingBoing points to a blog by a janitor at Disney World in Florida. Learn all about cleaning windows in the Haunted Mansion!
7:34:57 PM  #   your two cents []

80211b News: Open source mesh networking: "People keep pointing me over the last few days to LocustWorld, a company using and creating open-source software and selling inexpensive boxes to perform mesh networking, which allows multiple routing paths for wireless data instead of single point-to-point or point-to-multipoint connections. I'm not sure why interest peaked again over the last week: they've been shipping software and hardware for months. Any community networking and neighborhood networking project should look into MeshAP as a cheap and interesting evolving solution."

7:33:13 PM  #   your two cents []

The four-winged dinosaur: "With two sets of wings, one on the forelimbs and the other on its legs, it was a strange-looking animal, something like a scaled-up, three-foot-long dragonfly, but with feathers."
7:27:07 PM  #   your two cents []

A dog-owning friend just sent me this:

>>> DOGGED PURSUIT

Was Barbara Byrne, aged 60, of Tongham, Surrey, properly concentrating on the road or was she distracted by the 27 dogs she had on board?

That was the question Huntingdon magistrates answered yesterday when they banned her from driving for a year after hearing how police spotted her estate car veering across the road.

Officers discovered she had a "spaniel-sized" dog in her lap, four in the passenger seat and another 22 in the back. The Telegraph reports that she also had a cigarette in one had and a can of Coke between her knees while on a 100-mile road trip to take her pets for a walk on the beach. It took her 15 miles to pull over for officers after they first tried to flag her down. She insisted she had done nothing wrong.

The side and rear windows were steamed up and the officers reportedly recoiled at the vehicle's canine smell.

10:59:39 AM  #   your two cents []

Blaise Pascal. "I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room." [Quotes of the Day]
10:20:44 AM  #   your two cents []

Republican senator slams database plan. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is lending his voice to criticism of a Pentagon data-mining project that could result in detailed electronic dossiers compiled on Americans. [CNET News.com]
10:20:04 AM  #   your two cents []

Vintage PC's, Fondly Collected. A lot of people have a hard time saying good-bye to their first computers. Now there is a guidebook for them.  [New York Times: Technology] ... Heh! So true. I have a boxy double disk drive Mac SE up in my attic that I've owned since the late 80s. I remember arguing that I'd never need all the storage space of the optional external harddrive. The Mac, on an industry discount, still cost around $2200. The G4 laptop I am considering, with gazillions more computing power, has a base price of $1799. BTW the Mac still starts up flawlessly,  with that little smiling Mac on its tiny black and white screen. Bliss!
10:18:37 AM  #   your two cents []

Download day aims to hit online piracy. Tracks from artists including Eminem and Kylie Minogue given away free to web users in bid to combat online piracy. [Guardian Unlimited]
10:17:36 AM  #   your two cents []

Decapitator of Thatcher statue faces jail. Judge rules actions of political protester could not be legally excused. [Guardian Unlimited]
10:17:01 AM  #   your two cents []

New Group to Oppose Proposals on Digital Piracy. Some technology companies and consumer organizations are planning to announce on Thursday that they have formed a lobbying alliance to oppose technology regulations that are favored by the motion picture industry. [New York Times: Technology]
10:16:00 AM  #   your two cents []

Because It's There: Putting Everest Online. A group of American technology experts is collaborating with a Sherpa to help establish a wireless Internet setup at a Mount Everest base camp. [New York Times: Technology]
10:15:13 AM  #   your two cents []

Rivals fear Microsoft EU antitrust ruling may be narrow. Microsoft, Commission remain far apart on issue of bundling Media Player [InfoWorld: Top News]
10:14:36 AM  #   your two cents []

From Boing Boing Blog: Hilary Rosen resigns. Hilary Rosen has resigned from the RIAA, citing her desire to take care of your kids. I've heard rumors that she's been frustrated with the intransigence of her employers at the RIAA, their unwillingness to adapt to new circumstance -- certainly, that sounds more plausible to me than "I want to take care of my kids." Link ... Wow -- her name is so closely attached to RIAA policies. Wonder if Cory (at BoingBoing) is right.
10:13:58 AM  #   your two cents []

Live on the Web: Kevin Mitnick

"After an absence of eight years, hacker Kevin Mitnick rediscovered the Web on Tuesday afternoon. He did exactly what everyone does when they first log on: He vanity surfed, wrestled with browser plug-ins and was assailed by pop-up porn ads.

Mitnick, once labeled 'the most wanted computer criminal in U.S. history,' hadn't surfed the Web since 1995, when he was arrested for breaking into the networks of software and phone companies....

When Mitnick was locked up, the Web was mostly text. Pop-up ads and multimedia were nonexistent. The last browser he used was an early version of Mosaic....

'The Internet is like the phone,' Mitnick said on-air. 'To be without it is ridiculous. I could not use an electronic toilet without permission from the U.S. government.'

Ironically, The New York Times on Tuesday reported that two federal appellate courts ruled Internet prohibition was too broad a punishment for computer criminals. The Internet is as essential as a phone, the courts said.

'The day I get off,' Mitnick said with a shrug." [Wired]

[The Shifted Librarian]
10:12:10 AM  #   your two cents []

Eircom to drop its DSL prices by over half [Irish Times, sub only]:

Eircom will cut the price of its high-speed internet service i-stream within weeks. It plans to offer this new service using DSL technology at a monthly fee of close to €50, targeted at the consumer. The current fee for Eircom's i-stream solo product is €107 including VAT.

Not unexpected as Esat/BT was opting for around this price and I was planning to move from Eircom to Esat if Eircom didn't lower the cost. The base price now is just painfully high.

10:11:12 AM  #   your two cents []