Thursday, March 13, 2003

Orchids for $20 Great Plants Don't Always Come in Big Boxes. As "big box" stores like Home Depot appear across the country, independent garden centers and nurseries will have to adapt or perish. By Ken Druse. [New York Times: Business] 10:43:57 AM    comment []

I Have Two Friends Currently Writing Online Novels: One is Located on Their Blog, the Other is Via On-Demand Publishing Blogs are novelists' notebooks (too). Today in Gibson's blog, a rumination on what it feels like to be a novelist between novels: LIKE A MAGPIE WITHOUT A NEST That's how Rudy Rucker, in an email yesterday, described how it feels to be a novelist between books. No place to take the shiny things we constantly find. He's treating his own condition, he said, by writing a horror sorry about having belonged to a country club in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the early Eighties (man, that *is* scary). No place for the magpie mind to take the trinkets and bits of tinfoil, currently. If I bring them here, for instance, I'm just leaving them on your window-ledge, something no magpie would ever be satisfied with doing. I've been using this blog to keep track of stuff that needs to work its way into my novels for years now. Rucker's blog is nothing but notes on his books. Sterling says you can extrapolate his next book from this links on his blog. I betcha that's true of Warren Ellis, too. Blogs are the new novelist's commonplace book. I've been saying this for a while, but I thought I might be the only one. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 10:38:32 AM    comment []

Klings's Korollaries. Suits and Geeks is Arnold Kling's latest, and a complement to World of Ends. Arnold lists Five Clues for Geeks: Intermediaries add value Property is not evil Computer animation is not a killer application Bashing Microsoft does not make you smart Markets are not exploitative Lots to talk about there. [The Doc Searls Weblog] 10:37:03 AM    comment []

SAP to release Business One to US [IDG InfoWorld] 10:36:16 AM    comment []

My Crystal Ball Predicts Oracle will use Linux to Capture MS SQL Server Market Share Oracle deal: Good omen for Linux group?. The database maker lends UnitedLinux a hand in its turf battle with Red Hat: It will provide technical support to customers using open-source software from UnitedLinux members. [CNET News.com] 10:34:36 AM    comment []

When Did WW2 Actually Begin, and When Will History Say WW3 Actually Began? India, Pakistan Exchange Heavy Shelling [AP World News] 10:32:45 AM    comment []

RSS and XML If it had not been for Doc Searls suggesting that I start a Radio UserLand weblog, I may not have yet stumbled onto RSS. Below are a few links that explain XML newsfeeds. 9:13:40 AM    comment []

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources NewsIsFree newsfeed info. 9:09:30 AM    comment []

http://www.syndic8.com/feedinfo.php?FeedID=8317&;PHPSESSID=59b03269d6cb9161fbce7d82818e6da9 Syndic8 notes on the Blog RSS. 9:08:20 AM    comment []

http://www.syndic8.com/ Syndic8 RSS newsfeed list. 9:04:30 AM    comment []

http://www.netclectic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=858 Netclectic RSS XML newsfeed list. 9:02:43 AM    comment []

http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/finding_more.html More about RSS and XML news feeds from Ampheta Desk. 8:58:43 AM    comment []

http://www.technologyreview.com/newsfeed/advanced.asp MIT Technology Review article about XML newsfeeds. 8:55:13 AM    comment []

http://digitalcolony.com/01/newsfeed/ Digital Colony explains how to add an XML  newsfeed. 8:52:47 AM    comment []

http://w.moreover.com/categories/category_list_xml.html A list of XML news feeds from Moreover.   8:45:27 AM    comment []

http://www.codetoad.com/xml/beginners_guides/newsfeed.asp Creating an XML news feed from Code Toad. 8:44:19 AM    comment []

SAP offers new ERP suite. The new product, mySAP ERP, will bundle previously separate applications, including the SAP portal and exchange products as part of the core offering. [Computerworld News] 8:36:08 AM    comment []

Computerworld wins Neal award for wireless LAN security coverage. The publication took a first-place Neal award today for its coverage in 2002 of wireless LAN security issues. [Computerworld News] 8:35:24 AM    comment []

IBM upgrades content management software, plans to add more capabilities. The company announced new versions of its DB2 Content Manager and Records Manager tools, which are aimed at corporate IT managers who need to store and track documents and other types of information that don't fit in relational databases. [Computerworld News] 8:34:31 AM    comment []

comments server cool runnings again mon. Yowsa, finally fixed my comments server. Marcus has jury duty all this week, so I've been monitoring the stuff he usually looks after. Turns out there's just too much traffic coming through thanks to the publicity surrounding "Adam's Family" :-) Also, euro.weblogs.com is now tracking blognewsnetwork weblogs. remedy was pretty simple, just turned off excessive logging and database saves everyMinute. [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 8:33:36 AM    comment []

Free Press of Press Free? Pentagon threatens to target journalists in Iraq.. Pentagon threatens to target journalists in Iraq. (RealAudio, 49 minutes into the broadcast.) In an interview with Radio One Ireland, Kate Adie, former chief news correspondent for the BBC, drops a bombshell. If satellite uplinks from the press are detected in Baghdad, they would be "targeted down", said a senior US military official. "They know this. They've been warned." Ms. Adie also revealed that the US military are openly asking journalists what their feelings are on the war, and are using this information to block reporters from access to reporting on the conflict. These actions are "shameless" and "entirely hostile to the free spread of information," says Ms. Adie. "What actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should be able to report as they witness." [MetaFilter] 8:32:16 AM    comment []

Order Out Of Chaos Blowback: The Cost And Consequences of American Empire plus War And Conflict In The Post-Cold War, Post-9/11 Era. Chalmers Johnson is an provocative proponent of the American Empire theory, indeed. Here are excerpts from his Blow Back: The Cost And Consequences of American Empire I heard Johnson interviewed on Episode II, War And Conflict In The Post-Cold War, Post-9/11 Era of The Whole Wide World The Cold War and its central conflict - the physical and ideological battles between the United States, the Soviet Union and their proxy states - imposed a certain logic and consistency on the world. Take that away and add the bloody wars in the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East in the ‘90s as well as the terror attacks and warnings of more recent times and you get a very confused picture of a world at war. Is this breaking storm in Iraq about oil, democracy, freedom, empire, culture, water, diamonds, modernizing Islam or nation building in the Middle East? Some, [MetaFilter] 8:30:23 AM    comment []

Free Software Has Hidden Costs Software Vendors Say to Public: "You Have No Rights.". Spyware. Adware. Back doors. We all know about them. We most likely all hate them. Many popular 'free' programs come with spyware and/or adware that must be installed for the programs to work. These extra programs report back to the parent company users' web surfing preferences, what music/movie/other entertainment files might be on their hard drive, as well as any other information they are programmed to retrieve (email addresses, messenger clients, etc). A bigger problem, however, might come in the form of back doors to popular programs, which may give software vendors complete access, and in some cases complete control, to an end user's system. [kuro5hin.org] 8:28:53 AM    comment []

Ultra-Cool Wireless Wearables [Slashdot] 8:26:50 AM    comment []

Wi-Fi Alliance says WPA certification coming in May, a/b/g labels dropped in favor of speed, frequency: Wi-Fi Protected Access, the subset of IEEE 802.11i security revisions still in progress, will be certified by May, resulting in massive firmware upgrades for tons and tons of devices. The Wi-Fi Zone program will identify the local service as 2.4 GHz and/or 5 GHz, and 11 Mbps or 54 Mbps. A little bit of a matrix to sort out. [80211b News] 8:11:09 AM    comment []

Microsoft targets the living room. The US software giant is bringing its home entertainment version of Windows to Europe. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] 8:08:56 AM    comment []

Yaha Virus Uses Netizens as Pawns. A group of virus writers from India unleashes a new variant of the Yaha computer virus, apparently in retaliation against Pakistani hackers who they say are defacing Indian websites. Pity the poor Internet users caught in the crossfire. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News] 8:06:46 AM    comment []

This is Even Cheaper Than a Duct Tape Armband Copyright free antiwar posters. Kimberly sez: "Graphic designers nationwide are organizing to offer provocative, high-impact anti-war posters that are copyright-free and downloadable online. Participants so far include (among others) Michael Mabry, Michael Cronan, Peter Kuper, whose work appears regularly in Time and Mad, and design legend Milton Glaser, whose 'I (Heart) NY' is arguably the most referenced design in American popular culture." "Copyright-free" means you can use this art for anything, including adding your own information to it and even printing it commercially. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 8:04:42 AM    comment []

Follow The Money Trail Palestinian Families Get Saddam Money [AP World News] 8:02:11 AM    comment []

Technology Briefing: E-Commerce. GOOGLE CHOOSES DUBLIN FOR HEADQUARTERS;. [New York Times: Technology] 8:01:26 AM    comment []

Is Godzilla Now Under the Control of North Korea? "Pulgasari". Watch a 45-second clip of the "Godzilla" rip-off that made Kim Jong Il proud. [Salon.com] 7:59:29 AM    comment []

The dictator who snagged me. When North Korea's film-loving despot Kim Jong Il kidnapped South Korea's leading director and his movie-star wife, the screen couple was plunged into a saga even stranger and more dreadful than the "Godzilla" knockoff they were forced to make. [Salon.com] 7:58:33 AM    comment []

Vendors push ultrawideband as wireless alternative.. InfoWorld: Vendors push ultrawideband as wireless alternative. [Hack the Planet] 7:56:32 AM    comment []