Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Monday, February 24, 2003

Apple is Going Out of Business ... Again -- Comment()
t e c h n o c u l t u r e points to Slashdot: '... the world almost seemed empty without the constant drumbeat of how Apple is on the verge of going out of business. If you're a fan like i am, then you're in luck, because this Canadian tech journalist didn't get the memo that Apple's been going out of business longer than most tech journalists have been in business. And besides, someone needs to let Robert Thomson know: when writing a story on how Apple is about to die, you have to call them "beleaguered". Come on, that's Tech Journalism 101, people.'

Blogs vs. journalism is a moot question -- Comment()
Jake's Radio 'Blog points to Scoble: 'I think the whole "are blogs journalism" question is silly. I'm not trying to replace the professionals here (although occassionally I'll scoop the professionals because I hang around interesting people doing interesting things). [...] For me, blogs are more about conversation than about "reporting." Newspapers are almost never about conversation (except in the letters-to-the-editors page, or maybe Ann Landers kind of things)."'

Updated experiences of Keynote -- Comment()
I have included additional hints and a new screen shot to my notes about Apple Keynote 1.0. Thanks for the help on typesetting equations! I hope someone can answer the question of using Mac OS X fonts in LaTeX, though.

An electric toothbrush with an USB connector -- Comment()
Here is something for that second USB connection on your computer: an electric toothbrush with an USB connector. And I was wondering why the PowerBook has more than one USB connection...

-- Comment()
The Shifted Librarian writes about mobile phones with cameras: "I need to purchase a cell phone with an embedded camera, not one that comes as an accessory like the T68i. Then I could have sent the picture directly to my blog. [...] Of course, that brings up a host of new issues. Does the driver in front of me have a reasonable expectation of privacy so I shouldn't post a picture of his vehicle? (One of the issues I note in next month's Product Pipeline column in Library Journal's netConnect is that librarians need to think about how to handle the use of cell phone/camera hybrids by patrons in the library.) "

-- Comment()
Pentax Optio 550 and 450: "Pentax has today announced the five megapixel Optio 550 and four megapixel Optio 450. Both cameras are based on the same modern and stylish aluminium alloy case and both feature an impressive five times optical zoom... " [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

-- Comment()
The Case Against Intellectual Property is a Slashdot discussion on IP laws: "David Levine and Michele Boldrin argue that current IP laws encourage an inefficient rent model and stifle the potential for innovation without intellectual monopoly. Levine teaches at UCLA and maintains an Economic and Game Theory page."

-- Comment()
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is a novel by Roger Williams, available online: "Lawrence had ordained that Prime Intellect could not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. But he had not realized how much harm his super-intelligent creation could perceive, or what kind of action might be necessary to prevent it. Caroline has been pulled from her deathbed into a brave new immortal Paradise where she can have anything she wants, except the sense that her life has meaning. Now these two souls are headed for a confrontation which will force them to weigh matters of life and death before a machine that can remake -- or destroy -- the entire Universe."

Let us control the users -- Comment()
Microsoft details new rights management tech: "The Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) will be able to enforce protection policies by controlling which users can access specific content and what access rights they are granted. Companies will, for example, be able to restrict content copying, forwarding, and printing in applications such as portal, e-mail,and word-processing software." [InfoWorld: Top News]

Human ants creating democracy -- Comment()
Dan Gillmor points to Joi Ito on Emergent Democracy: "The monolithic media and their increasingly simplistic representation of the world can not provide the competition of ideas necessary to reach consensus. Emergent democracy has the potential to solve many of the problems we face in the exceedingly complex world at both the national and global scale. The community of toolmakers will build the tools necessary for an emergent democracy if the people support the effort and resist those who try to stifle this effort and destroy the commons. "

Google remembers -- Comment()
Sam Ruby quotes Dorothea Salo (These are not memoirs; they are sand castles, waiting for high tide.) and writes: "The reality is that google has a long memory. Here are some recent queries that ended up at my site."

Typesetting equations for Keynote -- Comment()
I asked for help on typesetting equations for Keynote in my notes about Keynote. I got a suggestion to try Equation Service from the developer, Doug Rowland. He writes: "... you can type snippets of LaTeX, press a button, and then just drag a bit of PDF into the presentation. It saves having to make a new file for each equation." The current version available for download is 0.1, and the development version is 0.5B. However, if you have used the 0.1 version, you have to remove certain files before starting up the 0.5B version. Doug sent me version 0.7B of the application, and I'll check it up. Equation Service seems to be a nice tool. I hope Keynote will support a wide range of such tools in the future.

-- Comment()
At the Digital Rights Summit: 'Lawrence Lessig argued that broadband streaming of music and multimedia will decrease downloading and file sharing, and therefore that it would be a mistake to change copyright law to reflect today's levels of downloading. Faster connections will make many of today's debates irrelevant, including those about encryption and copyright. Quoting Lessig: "In the future, it will be easier to pay for subscription services than to be an amateur database administrator who moves content from device to device. We're legislating against a background of the Internet's current architecture of content distribution, and this is a fundamental mistake."' [FOS News]