Thursday, June 16, 2005

From BNA News: YAHOO LAUNCHES SEARCH OF "DEEP WEB" Yahoo began testing a service yesterday that allows people to perform simultaneous searches for information contained within subscription-based Web sites. While most search engines crawl the Web and troll freely accessible sites, they cannot get into much of the so-called deep Web, vast amounts of data stored within paid and password-protected sites. Yahoo Search Subscriptions will allow search access to seven different subscription Web sites simultaneously, including the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal Online. CNET News.com story 11:45:24 AM    comment []

Reading Blogs In Tehran. A decade ago, Azar Nafisi quit the ideological rigidity of university life in Iran and started an independent womens reading group. Today, as Iranians prepare to vote for a new president, they are exchanging their ideas over the internet. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 7:41:52 AM    comment []

What am I missing MacroVision ?. So Im catching up on my tech news and I come across this headline… Macrovision Files Lawsuit Against Sima and Interburn’s DVD Copying Products Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq: MVSN - News) announced today that it has filed suit against Sima Products Corporation (”Sima”) and Interburn Enterprises Inc. (”Interburn”). The lawsuit charges that Sima’s “Video Enhancers,” which are principally used to allow consumers to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted DVDs, infringe Macrovision’s patented copy protection technology and also violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”). Which got me completely confused on several fronts. According to MacroVision CEO Bill Krepick, “Sima and Interburn infringe Macrovision’s intellectual property by offering products that enable users to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted content by illegally removing our copy protection system,”  Now maybe Im reading this wrong, but the way I understand it , the CEO of MacroVision, a company that sells copy protection software to DVD publishers is sending out a press release saying ”Our software doesnt work. It sucks. We cant stop  a bunch of little companies from writing software that completely busts our copy protection that we are selling for millions of dollars to publishers.” If thats the case, why in the world are DVD publishers paying Macrovision any money at all ?  . . . <blog discussions> [Blog Maverick] 7:41:49 AM    comment []

One Possible Cure for the Common Criminal. Increases in the terrorism alert level gave economists an idea for how to examine a tough social science question: Do more police officers in fact reduce crime? By VIRGINIA POSTREL. [NYT > Business] 7:41:14 AM    comment []

Lawmaker Revs Up Fair-Use Crusade. Rep. Rick Boucher is the rare legislator who defends file-sharing technology and thinks Congress is way too chummy with the entertainment industry. Boucher chats about content, law and technology in the digital age. Wired News interview by Katie Dean and Evan Hansen. [Wired News] 7:38:55 AM    comment []

Unreliable polls. Driving around Tehran, you'll see Rafsanjani 'supporters' are everywhere. But don't make a mistake. Many of these young boys and girls on the streets are not going to vote Rafsanjani. He is just an excuse for them to gather and have fun. The same way they gather during religious Shia festivals for Imam Hossein. They look like they are genuinely interested in what they do, but if you start talking to them, you'd see they are probably checking out hot girls and boys behind you. Along the same lines, polls are usually not reliable when it comes to Rafsanjani. Best example was sixth parliamentary elections in which he was at worst among the top five, but ended up in 30th place. I believe one third of survey respondents lie about who they are going to vote for. Rafsanjani's name is enough to scare many ordinary Iranians. They think they'd be in trouble if their answers are not what they guess the interviewee wants. They are such smart actors in this game. So the race is closer than anybody thinks. Don't be surprized if Moin becomes the front-runner. [Editor: Myself (English)] 7:38:31 AM    comment []

Beating Sony's New PSP Firmware. More on the community besting of the new Sony PSP firmware mentioned yesterday: Both Engadget and Slashdot are pounding this link with traffic, which details how you can use two memory sticks to get around the new PSP firmware and use the device as you see fit (SNES emulation, homebrew apps, etc.) (Mirrors) [unmediated] 7:37:29 AM    comment []

Beauty students beat stick-up man with curling irons [bOing bOing] 7:36:32 AM    comment []

Stem-Cell Finesse Too Grotesque. A bioethics professor prepares a new bid to defuse ethical objections to embryo research after his controversial proposal fails to mollify critics. A genetic blob is not a baby, most agree. It's just gross. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News] 7:36:28 AM    comment []

It's doc-writing day. Today's my day to write documentation for the new users who will be joining our test group later today or early tomorrow. I'm working on the docs that explain The World Outline. I'm finally writing it at a user-level. No hand-waving. I think people are going to get it this time. Yahoo! [Scripting News] 7:34:03 AM    comment []

ABC's "Lost" Leaves Clues to be Found. Fans of the television show "Lost" don't sleep when the season does. The show, which moves within a fog of mystery, has been leaving clues that fans have hunted long and hard for. One clue was discovered that surrounds a poster depicted in the background for the fictional airline, Oceanic-Air. And where there is one, there are more. The clue-leaving game is not new to the relationship between the internet and film/tv, but it's not often used successfully. This new batch of clues will certainly leave "Lost" fans in a frenzy as they scour the internet to discover more about this mystery. But what will really keep the momentum of this show is not the clues themselves. Instead, it's the communication that is created as fans post their discoveries and theories to the message boards. The mystery of how to retain fans in an off season may be temporarily solved when people discover they have a lot of fictional information to share with one another, which leaves a lot to talk about before the show returns in the fall. Full Story from the Houston Chronicle [unmediated] 7:33:42 AM    comment []

job. Here’s a job advertisement for a PhD fellowship looking at the convergence between information systems and new media in a democracy perspective - four years, 25% teaching, pay is around about $40,000 I think, and you need an MA in a relevant subject to apply. I don’t think you have to be a Norwegian resident to apply. [jill/txt] 7:33:32 AM    comment []

Tribute: A Rockumentary. If watching a bunch of middle-aged rock star wannabe's struggle for 80 minutes sounds darkly hilarious to you, you'll love this documentary.  Apparently the movie was released in 2001 or so but I just caught it on Sundance a few days ago.  It's going to be on again soon so program that Tivo, or VCR, or whatever.  Brilliant and hilarious.  The site is here but it really doesn't do it justice.  From the Sundance website: "These are dedicated middle-aged rockers, who tease their hair and put on make-up to recreate every riff, strut and kick originally created by their idols... [Stay Free! Daily] 7:31:22 AM    comment []

"She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli". Bill Frist's "diagnosis" of Terri Schiavo's condition was all wrong. [Salon.com] Terri Schiavo's Autopsy. Bill has the link. An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused. But what caused her collapse 15 years earlier remained a mystery. The autopsy and post-mortem investigation found no proof that she had an eating... [The Politburo Diktat] 7:31:09 AM    comment []