2004 August

We’re barely four years into the 21st Century, and already we’ve seen some interesting developments in the world of politics. Technology has been great for helping like-minded groups of people organize and spread their
messages, and more information is available to the electorate than ever before.
In an ideal world, this would be a wonderful thing; the […]

“CleverKeys is free software that provides instant access to definitions at Dictionary.com, synonyms at Thesaurus.com, and more — from almost all Windows or Mac OS programs, including word processors, Web browsers and most e-mail programs. With CleverKeys, the answers are just a click away.
Learn more, or download CleverKeys for free now!“
Here is a little gem […]

Ever since “JR” whined to me about my post on his/her Yahoo! Search Blog, I’ve felt guilty. Here’s an attempt to redeem myself and say something nice about Yahoo! You can use it as an aggregator for RSS feeds. If you need to know what that is, check out Lockergnome’s RSS Resource or […]

Should that be “nite lite”? Yet another DIY project complete with color photos is availble from the OTHERPOWER website. The impetus for this experiment came from a student asking a science question of an expert at the Science for Kids forum at AllExperts. An incremental part of getting the hamster to […]

When the radio was first developed, it promised to become a great new tool for worldwide communication. These days radio is mostly used for entertainment.
Television was promoted as a revolutionary method to communicate news and information around the globe. Now it is routinely condemned for its mindless entertainment content. Now it would […]

Over in my writing blog, I was musing about writing a cookbook. There are so many already, what would I possibly write about — unless scientists invent a new food through genetic modification. Amusing notion until I found Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed piece in the online NY Times. He discussed the potential misuse of such […]

As if TV executives didn’t have enough problems already. I’ve given up on network TV myself other than a couple of shows. Now a new study shows that the video game generation is tuning out the tv also.

Phillip Torrone, over at Engadget, must have spent part of his summer vacation at geek camp. He went wild in the Arts & Crafts & Technology session to produce: the Search Engine Belt Buckle! Ta daaa! It’s “a PDA which shows 24 hours of all the bizarre and banal things people […]

In today’s “Online” from the British Guardian, Bobbie Johnson muses on the potential effect of a recent decision by a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge that overturns a lower court’s ruling that Yahoo! is exempt from fines a French court imposed in 2000 for displaying Nazi items. The ruling questions the free […]

Over at the new Yahoo! Search Blog, initiated on August 18, a semi-anonymous (initials only) entry finally appeared yesterday. The title is “Search Tricks #1″. They weren’t kidding about the 1. After the obligatory Google-bashing and self-aggrandizing prose, all of one search tip appeared. “Another semi-hidden treasure we offer is the inurl: […]

This is a big issue. The trust of the American people
in the “democratic” process fundamentally depends on the transparency
of that process. We have to believe that our vote counts, because
without that belief, the system will grind to a halt. After the 2000
Presidential Election, the public is rightfully concerned about the
validity of its vote. There are […]

Unbelievable! The Economic Times (India) reported today about Microsoft faux pas, including this gem: “A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between “not specified,” “male” or “bitch,” because of an unfortunate error in translation.” The Times gave no source for the information. […]

I was watching Terminator 3 last night and it got me to reflect on just how much the military relies on computers. I’ve been in 20 years now and remember using punch cards to track cargo. Now we use bar codes and web browsers. Everything we do is tracked in a database or becoming “virtual. […]

First read: If Content Wants To Be Free, How Can I Be Sustainable Robin?
This is a dilemma that has been perpetuated by patents and associated heavy commercialization of society,
While we can’t change things overnight the slow penetration of alternate methods to sustain ourselves are beginning to take root. The problem is the transition.
‘Share the wealth’, […]

Wi-Fi may soon indicate “wifely fidelity” if the current trend of online affairs among married people continues. At least two dating websites even cater to admittedly married members. (URLs withheld to discourage cyber cheating.) Major dating websites like Match.com ban this activity, but if you believe everyone’s online profile, I have an inexpensive oceanside […]

“Twisted rebar, concrete, and splintered furniture lay scattered across the floor of this room. Our view through a jagged hole in the wall looks out on the city, showing steady civilian traffic crossing a bridge over a river below. Sparrows flap through the gray haze, and Arabic music and the voices of merchants filter up […]

I remember the first time my wife used the Internet when we first got broadband. I was already used to it as we had high speed access at work. But my wife was used to dial up. She had misgivings about the cost but that all went out the window when she went on line […]

We all know them. Heck, some of us are them. Those older geeks caught between old-school and high-tech. While surfing the Internet, we see an interesting Web page and immediately grab our notepad and pencil and write down the URL. We take notes on a legal pad during teleconferences. We […]

The Miami Herald reports “In a caper eerily similar to the the theft of $200,000 worth of AT&T Broadband equipment in 2000, high-tech thieves raided 26 outdoor amplifier sites in Cooper City, causing as many as 14,000 Comcast customers to lose cable service for up to two hours.”

Back on Thursday (Aug 19th) of this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation scored a landmark win for the manufacturers of peer-to-peer software. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that distributors cannot be held liable for the copyright infringement activities of their users.