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18. desember 2002
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AOL patents instant messaging
 In a move likely to make Yahoo and Microsoft uneasy, not to mention their millions of users, AOL has obtained a patent on instant messaging for its subsiduary ICQ. ICQ, aquired by AOL in 1998, is generally considered the first real IM application.
The AOL patent covers seeing who is online and communicating in real time.
The speculation is on about whether this is a defensive move by AOL, or if they really intend to test the legal strength of this patent.
Another example where patenting is being misused. Besides, seeing who is online and sending instant messages have existed for decades, both in the form of basic Unix functionality and of course IRC.
9:27:26 PM 
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Telemarketers
The Raven discusses telemarketers in depth. I hope they have a particularly hot place in hell set aside for them, but on this side of death, look to Raven for suggestions.
7:33:33 PM
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Penis a la carte
This bizarre case of the German cannibal Armin M. has made the mass media take off for real. The case is sick enough as it is; with details that will make any male reader cross his legs, and surely make it shrink instantly, but when you add Satanism, an obsession with the Grimm Brother's Hansel and Gretel, and a real witch as the next door neighbour, we have obviously dropped into a parallel universe.
If you haven't already read about the case: the cannibal Armin met a man on the Internet, Bernd Juergen B, they agreed to meet so that Armin could eat him after sex. They cut off the victim's penis, boiled it an ate it together. The victim was left to bleed to death in the bath tub, and subsequently Armin ate the rest, or whatever he had stomach for anyway.
Now, this is sick enough.
Apparently, next door and a close friend of the cannibal son and his late mother lived self-avowed Satanist called Ulla von Bernus, who died in 1998. She apparently made a living bewitching unfaithful men for avengeful wives, and had her day in court in the early 80s when one disgruntled wife took her to court for failing to kill her husband with magic (!). The court, somewhat more sober than the media, had noted this was an "illusory crime exempt from punishment" and that the enterprise "had been objectively impossible from the start." The journalists, apparently, know better.
Now, the rumours fly that the departed witch had left a curse on the cannibal. You can probably make up the rest yourself, but don't worry, if you can't, German journalists can do the speculation for you.
We've already seen wild rumours about cannibal rings on the Internet, some wildly inflated figures that indicate you and I are very lucky not to be eaten already. Now we see the cannibal hysteria merge with a rebound satanism hysteria, a blast from the 80s. Add black magic, interview some prists who still long back to the old ages and warn us against the snares of the devil, and the tragic case of two nutcases can entertain the public for weeks to come.
7:17:21 PM
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Equal time for "Moon is Green Cheese" theory!
In the feedback section of Talk.Origins Danian Carroll has written a hilarious debate between a scientist (proponent of the "Moon Is Made Of Rock” Theory) and a person arguing that, well, the moon is made of green cheese. It looks suspiciously like a debate between evolutionists and creationists, and that is not coincidental.
A sampler of the cheesy arguments:
For hundreds of years, humans have known intuitively that the Moon is made of cheese. It’s really quite obvious if you don’t hide behind a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo. Let me give you a little thought experiment. If you opened up your refrigerator at home, and saw something greenish white, with little holes in it, you would assume it was cheese. Any rational person would do the same. Why then, should the case of an object in the sky be any different? Logically, we should assume the same thing – the Moon is white, the Moon has holes, and therefore it is cheese. But don’t take my word for it -- I have statistical facts to back up that statement.
Visit this page, and search and scroll down to "The Moon is Made of Cheese! A Creation/Evolution allegory."
8:19:06 AM
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White Christmas, bah!
 It's been something slightly resembling snowfall today, and the weather forecasts half-way promise more. Long-term forecasts say it will rain away, but those are about as reliable as throwing dice.
I just hate walking around in slushy snow, and the only consolation is I don't drive a car in this!
7:12:24 AM
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Admin
Today's lesson: Don't complain to the admin of a message board about some technical problem. What happens next is that you are made an admin and asked to fix it yourself. Thus slow blogging today 
5:17:34 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.01.03; 04:00:22.
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