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Wednesday, 30 June 2004
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Bob Bemer, inventor of the escape key and co-inventor of ASCII has died of cancer at 84.
[More importantly for me is the ASCII connection]
Link
(Thanks, Jeremy!) [Boing Boing]
11:36:16 PM 
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With Orrin Hatch's nation-destroying Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act headed for law, EFF has decided to create a real example of just what kind of "piracy" Hatch is targetting. Here's EFF's hypothetical complaint against Apple (for making the iPod) C|Net (for reviewing the iPod), and Toshiba (for supplying hard drives for iPods). All three of these activities fall within the scope of activity that Hatch's bill seeks to end:
As detailed further in Professor Expert’s report, the iPod would have been much less attractive to consumers had it been incompatible with the music files downloaded from P2P networks and had it not allowed consumer-to-consumer transfers. Professor Expert’s report also makes it clear that the iPod, in turn, enhanced the attractiveness of P2P networks by offering iPod owners expansive storage capability and lightning-fast data transfer, allowing them to listen to any number of infringing music files when away from the computer.
Surveys conducted by Professor Expert establish that a majority of iPod owners have used at least some significant portion of their iPods to store and play infringing music files, whether derived from P2P networks or promiscuous hand-to-hand copying. Upon information and belief, Apple was certainly aware of this fact from its own internal marketing research.
Link
(Thanks, Jason (and good work!)) [Boing Boing]
11:24:35 PM
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This is not a reason to cheer. Years ago they bought out a very friendly, Mac/PC outfit called CPM&S (I think) and immediately turned into donkeys.
[Australian IT: Business]
11:09:31 PM
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BoingBoing reader Cliff Van Eaton of New Zealand says:
The New Zealand postal service just introduced a scratch n' sniff postage stamp (although they call it a scratch and "smell" stamp, since I guess they've decided us Kiwis don't "sniff"). It's a 45 cent stamp (the normal rate for sending a letter) that gives off the scent of New Zealand-bred magnolia when it's scratched.
The only draw back is that it's only available as part of a presentation pack of all 5 flower stamps. I've had a good go at a normal over-the-counter book of ten 45 cents stamps, and I'll I get is the faint aroma of offset lithography.
Link,
scroll halfway down the page to find the special "smellies" gift pack.
[Boing Boing]
12:51:45 AM
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 Super-cool Space Invader stickers with which to plaster your walls. Link (Thanks, Damon) [Boing Boing]
12:29:01 AM
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Here's a great printable one-pager that describes what you're legally allowed to take pictures of, and what to do if someone tries to bust you for it.
148K PDF Link
(Thanks, Tom!)
[Boing Boing]
12:17:41 AM
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An interesting story at PhysicsWeb
describes how it seems dark energy has been constant throughout time,
consistent with Einstein's idea of a cosmological constant.
Cosmologists in the US have made the most accurate measurements ever
of how dark energy varies with time -- and found that it remains
perfectly constant. Yun Wang at the University of Oklahoma and Max
Tegmark at the University of Pennsylvania performed numerical
simulations on observational data from supernovae, the cosmic microwave
background and galaxy clusters. The results, which agree with
Einstein's predictions for a non-varying cosmological constant, lend
further support to the existence of dark energy (Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 241302).
| Full paper |
[David Harris: Science news]
12:12:03 AM
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This piece is a great example of how to concisely explain the difference between correlation and causation.
[David Harris: Science news]
12:05:10 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Peter Nixon.
Last update: 27/9/05; 9:32:19 PM.
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