Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Radio disk free 74% -- Comment()
I wrote earlier about my problems with Radio disk space. After modifying the weblog template and removing most of the categories I cut the disk use down to 71% free of the available 40 MB. Now, some days later, the disk use is still going down, to 74% free of the 40 MB. I wonder why that happened?

Using the iPod -- Comment()
I have now been using the 20 GB iPod I ordered from AppleStore for five days. And today is exactly one year from the day Apple introduced the iPod.

I'm still very pleased with the iPod, and also with the way it is integrated to the iTunes program on my iBook. When I organize or edit my collection of music on the iBook, the changes are mirrored to the iPod when I plug it in.

I have also been using the iPod for moving files between work and home. Mostly writing I am currently doing. Sometimes the inspiration strikes at odd moments, and it is nice to have the current texts available for editing.

Orwell's DRM World -- Comment()
Boing Boing Blog writes about DRM newspeak and observes that Seth Finkelstein has noted an eerie similarity between DRM and Orwell's Newspeak:

That is, for Newspeak, we have:
Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods.
Don't we have, exactly, for Digital-Rights-Management:
Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every business model that a content industry member could properly wish to sell access, while excluding all other access and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods.

-- Comment()
Security Experts Pinpoint Problems in IE: "Flaws could allow hackers to access files or run code on systems running certain versions of Microsoft's Web browser." [Google Technology News]

-- Comment()
Dilbert creator pushes his new book about odd morals in the workplace: "What better way to market a new book about corporate weasels than to act, well, a bit weasely." [Google Technology News]

-- Comment()
John Robb writes: "Dave is demonstrating his outline-based weblog editing environment. Here is something cool a lot of people don't understand about this type of editor: all Dave needs to do to reorder or reformat (based on simple rules) his posts is to drag and drop them into a different place."

-- Comment()
Scripting News writes: "One year ago today Apple introduced the iPod. Yesterday I discovered a new feature in my iPod. It's so small I don't have to choose between a Walkman and the iPod. I can take both. Then when they do their annoying pledge drive on KQED-FM, I can switch over to Bach. I did that yesterday on my afternoon walk. What a nice feature."

-- Comment()
Scripting News writes: "I called both of the creators of the RSS Validator yesterday, Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby, to congratulate them on a very nicely done piece of software and to thank them for making a very positive contribution to the success of RSS."

-- Comment()
Tomalak's Realm refers to Washington Post: "Attack On Internet Called Largest Ever . Around 5:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, a "distributed denial of service" attack struck the 13 "root servers" that provide the primary roadmap for almost all Internet communications. Despite the scale of the attack, which lasted about an hour, Internet users worldwide were largely unaffected, experts said."

The new Net column -- Comment()
My Net column (in Finnish) appeared today. The column is about two very different subjects: the Myyrmanni explosion and the Apple iPod.