Saturday, August 09, 2003

Roger Ailes, ex-media consultant to Nixon and Reagan, and CEO of Fox News, has a weblog, and it's a nasty and bitter one, as you might expect. Kind of like our own Mark Pilgrim. His email address is eatme@idontgiveashit.com. Hehe. ";->" [Scripting News] 8:22:53 PM    comment []

Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad, via Daypop Top 40. 10:52:49 AM    comment []

Smart Mobs on Developing Distributed Trust Metrics. Will reputation systems evolve? A higher-quality-than-usual discussion on Slashdot delves into some of the issues. The excerpt below is from a post by Fen LaBalme, who has been working on the problem for many years. [Smart Mobs] 8:23:12 AM    comment []

Orrin Hatch and Arnold Schwarzenneger united in song [bOing bOing] 8:17:51 AM    comment []

Tracking RIAA Subpoenas /M August 8, 2003. RIAA Map [Cryptome] 8:16:01 AM    comment []

Engineered Drugs Open New Issue of Regulation as Patents Expire. As the first patents on biologic medicines are beginning to expire, pressure for updated laws is coming from generic drug makers. By Alison Langley. [New York Times: Business] 8:15:06 AM    comment []

Court blocks some file-trading subpoenas. A Massachusetts court blocks recording industry subpoenas that are aimed at college song swappers, saying two universities are not immediately required to give student identities. [CNET News.com] 8:12:06 AM    comment []

The Mash-ups that make you want to move -- discussion on Salon's Table Talk. You're able to post if you join -- and see yesterday's post on how to lock in a low rate for Salon Premium by becoming a Well and Table Talk member. You can: Join with TableTalk-Only Membership plan (Alon Premium and Table-Talk), Join with Essential Membership plan (Table Talk, Salon Premium, and Web-only access to The Well), or Join with the Complete Membership plan (Web and UNIX shell access to The WELL, extra tools, 10 MB of storage, a WELL email address and Web page, in addition to Table Talk and Salon Premium). 8:00:56 AM    comment []

A Cool Vehicle Draws Stares, but Buyers Are Hanging Back. The Segway Human Transporter still has to prove that it can last as a real business, and not just as a cool idea. By Eric A. Taub. [New York Times: Business] 7:49:20 AM    comment []

The mash-up revolution: Destiny's Child vs. Nirvana! Britney vs. Chic! The Ramones vs. ABBA! How pop's hottest DJs are creating those wild bootleg remixes -- and why they're so hard to find. By Roberta Cruger, in Salon. A love song to bastard pop: In the bizarre and wonderful world of mash-ups, bootlegs and remixes, racial and musical boundaries disappear -- and the joy that's missing from so much of today's pop is back. By Charles Taylor, also Salon Headlines. 7:43:36 AM    comment []

Ads Ape Apple's Air Guitarists. Upstart BuyMusic.com is doing more than just offering a music service that mimics iTunes. Its commercials are strikingly similar to Apple's ads, too. Flattery? Perhaps, but it also could be a lawsuit in the making. By Danit Lidor. [Wired News] 7:37:20 AM    comment []

Do Domain Names Matter? By Francis Hwang. At the beginning of the boom, the vast quantity of people and organizations online outstripped our ability to find them, and we pressed the DNS into service to help fill that gap. But this usage of the centralized, permanent DNS conflicted with the common-sense methods that people use to name things in their everyday lives, and as the internet continues to decentralize this dissonance only grows stronger. The conflict is being alleviated not by technical or political reform at the center of the network, but by innovation at its edges. As end-user applications mature, they increasingly allow individuals to develop and share their own naming systems—not to destroy the DNS, but to render it irrelevant. Just another pyramid scheme? The reasons that the DNS started to crumble under the pressure of commercialization have already been well documented. Writing in 1998, Ted Byfield noted that the DNS was never designed for that pressure in the first place: . . . . See, also, Replacing the Domain Name System, by Lenny Foner, from the CFP2000 Workshop on Freedom and Privacy by Design. 12:23:33 AM    comment []