Monday, August 11, 2003

Jury Rules Against Microsoft in Patent Case. A federal jury awarded a former University of California researcher $521 million in a lawsuit against Microsoft. By John Markoff. [New York Times: Technology] 10:53:44 PM    comment []

Dave: Greenspun: Think about all the poor people currently being housed in cities, occupying housing that could be sold to rich yuppies who would pay huge property tax. 10:52:29 PM    comment []

xian: The secret of blogging. While waxing prolix over on my personal journal friends and family deep thoughts and vacation schedules blog about hearing people singing words I wrote just a week or two ago (it's freaky), I stumbled across the secret of blogging: By the way, you know what the secret of blogging is? You just put a stake in the sand and the next thing you know you've got a tent there. People come by. Few return but some keep coming back. By now you have created a coherent place in the swirl of life. Even the people who don't read you daily find it reassuring to check in with you again the way you might watch the occasional soap opera and quickly get swept up in the quickly paced plotting. It almost doesn't matter what accumulated around that first planting. It's all you, baby, and you're beautiful! Oh, plus the endorphins. 10:46:36 PM    comment []

Degrees of Separation Are Likely More Than 6, Especially in E-Mail Age. Researchers at Columbia University report the first large-scale experiment that supports the notion of "six degrees of separation." By Kenneth Chang. [New York Times: Technology] But it doesn't show that! See my comments Friday. 10:40:48 PM    comment []

N.Y. Post review of Rocco's, the restaurant in the television show. 11:30:40 AM    comment []

Flashmob Weekend Update. Just a couple news reports on Flashmobbing comes our way this weekend. (I'll grab the local-to-me one.) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports on a flocking at a local record store, and also editorializes that it is all in good fun. Looked at another way, mobbing is nothing new in St. Louis. We mob Busch Stadium 81 times a year. We eat hot dogs, yell, clap, do the wave and watch a bunch of grown men knock a little ball around. A visitor from Mars would think we are all pretty silly. We're silly and happy. Mobbing follows a tradition of random absurdity, stretching back to phone booth stuffing in the 1940s and the street "happenings" of the 1960s. Every generation needs to throw a little wackiness into the humdrum. A good laugh and a good cheer make the knocks of life go by easily. As long as it's harmless and good-humored, mob away. Thanks, Heidi! [Smart Mobs] 7:40:46 AM    comment []

Acquitted Man Says Virus Put Pornography on Computer. Unknowing Web surfers could find themselves charged with possessing illegal material that a lurking software program has acquired. By John Schwartz. [New York Times: Business] 7:37:51 AM    comment []

Fine post from Wm Gibson on FICTION. INHALING VS. THE POWERS OF OBSERVATION AND IMAGINATION. Including but not limited to the following: You are paying, it seems to me, for me to do a number of things on the page, and one of them is the excercise of a disciplined mimetic imagination on an acquired body of (often anecdotal) experience. . . . . . . the poster who wonders if my account of systema, the Russian martial art, means that I practice it, is underestimating both the reach of Google and the power of *both* our imaginations. Aspiring writers who might one day need to describe the subjective effects of amphetamines are referred to the autobiographical SPEED, by the late William S. Burroughs Jr. (WSB's son, a very talented writer in his own right, whose brief and extremely uncomfortable life brought new meaning to the word "hapless"). I do, however, practice the Pilates system of excercises. Twice a week. [Gibson Blog] 7:36:43 AM    comment []

Morgan, at explodedlibraryinfo, picked up ads with air guitarists and the idea / expression of the idea dichotomy, on the Ads Ape Apple's Air Guitarists, BuyMusic.com / iTunes story. Sez Morgan: I haven't seen these ads, but I admit that they would really annoy me. It would seem that BuyMusic is stealing numerous ideas of Apple. But this happens all the time - in business, in art and science. Stealing an idea (unless it's patented) is different from violating intellectual property rights. This is a really good thing - even if it is infuriating to see BuyMusic use this legal point to peddle its lame Windows knock-off of the iTunes Music Store. It's corny, but the law is meant to be blind, (if people stay within its bounds) it protects the good and the bad, the creative and the exploiters. To change the law to stop the "bad" BuyMusic would be opening the possibility of flooding more of the "good" public domain under a torrent of copyright claims. It could shut down or severely damage the blogosphere. The idea / expression of idea dichtomy is being undermined enough already by contract law, without this happening. So what can be done? Protest this protected form of idea theft in non-legal ways. Try to shame BuyMusic into changing its behaviour. Music (legally downloaded from iTunes): Moby, 18, I'm not worried at all [explodedlibrary.info] I'll tell you, friends, that the first two times I bumped into the buymusic.com ads, I thought they were from Apple. So, this could be interesting. (Does "trade dress" extend to the "look and feel" of a marketing campaign?) 7:33:03 AM    comment []

Streaming Video, Cheap and Easy. For the price of a pair of dongles, you'll soon be streaming high-quality video from your PC to your TV. Many will be pleased, others probably won't be. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News] 7:27:31 AM    comment []

Our Dubya, Right Or Wrong - Bush Betrays GOP, Makes Them Like It. Plastic::Politics::Politics:Dubya: "To many on the left, George Bush represents everything they dislike or distrust about Republicans...What may be less obvious is that the GOP's leadership has an equally long list of grievances." [Plastic: Most Recent] 7:26:14 AM    comment []