Month: April 2006

Don’t like it? Get out!

That’s the message from the Australian government to Muslims who might prefer Sharia law to the democratic law Australia currently lives under.  It is my opinion that we Americans should take the same stance with people who live her that don’t like our style of government or our national language.  But I’m sure that’s just crazy talk on my part.

CANBERRA AUSTRALIA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

[tags]Australia, Muslims, Good leadership[/tags]

Comcast can’t tell what day it is?

If you love to complain about bad service, you really should visit The Consumerist.  I’ve posted enough stories from the site, though, that if you were going to visit, you would have by now.  So maybe I’m wasting bits suggesting a visit now.

Regardless, there is a new story up at The Consumerist that I particularly like, and felt the need to highlight.  In this tale, Jenna has a problem with her cable box from Comcast.  This should be easy.  One just needs a visit from a tech to replace the box (assuming, as is the case in this story, one can’t or doesn’t want to take the box to the Comcast office).  Being unavailable for an earlier visit, Jenna and her husband schedule a Saturday tech visit.  Only things don’t work out that well.  The techs show up Thursday night when no one is home.  Jenna reschedules for Saturday again…

I hung around all morning on Saturday waiting for a tech, and at 2 I called the Comcast helpline. The guy who answered looked up our record and said that we’d instead been scheduled for Friday and the tech had reported that…drum roll…no one was home. I explained that this was the second time in a row their helpdesk had been unable to determine what day “Saturday” is, and I was less than pleased at having wasted a morning waiting for a repairman. He said that he would put me down for a “VIP” call, which meant that I would be put at the top of the repairman’s work list, and he would get to me some time that day. So I waited the rest of the day.

No call back, of course, but another visit is scheduled.  Only it doesn’t seem to get better.  Poor Jenna.

[tags]Comcast, customer service[/tags]

Smithsonian signs away your past

(via boingboing)

Well, maybe not quite “signs away your past” really, but certainly the Smithsonian is certainly making a choice to restrict a lot of content paid for by your (and my) tax dollars. The Smithsonian has signed a first-refusal deal with Showtime networks which gives Showtime the power to decide who can and cannot use video in the Smithsonian’s archives. Oh, it might be worth mentioning that some of that content is public domain. But Showtime still gets to decide who can use it. Hmmmmm.

On March 9, Showtime and the Smithsonian announced the creation of Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture to develop television programming. Under the agreement, the joint venture has the right of first refusal to commercial documentaries that rely heavily on Smithsonian collections or staff. Those works would first have to be offered to Smithsonian on Demand, the cable channel that is expected to be the venture’s first programming service.

. . .

One well-known filmmaker, Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, said she had been told recently by a Smithsonian staff member that her last film, “Tupperware!,” a history of the creation and marketing of the venerable food-storage containers, would have fallen under the arrangement, because much of the history of Tupperware is housed at the Smithsonian. The documentary, which won a Peabody Award in 2004, was broadcast on “American Experience,” the PBS show produced by WGBH, the Boston public television station.

“This is a public archive,” Ms. Kahn-Leavitt said. “This should not be offered on an exclusive basis to anyone, and it’s not good enough that they can decide on a case-by-case basis what they will and won’t approve.”

[tags]Smithsonian[/tags]

Netflix sues Blockbuster over idiotic patent

One of the requirements for patents is supposed to be a non-obviousness clause.  Basically, a company is not supposed to be able to get a patent for something that is an obvious business practice.  Now to me, letting people prioritize movies they’d like to rent and not charging late fees on movie rentals and allowing customers to instead keep those rentals as long as they want seems obvious.  I said this 10+ years ago (the no late fee part).  It’s not hard to figure out that people would rather rent a movie and not have a strict timeline for when they have to return it.

Apparently, though, the US Patent Office lacks people capable of thinking.  I say this because that’s the only way I can figure that patents on prioritizing movie preferences and not charing late fees on rental movies could be granted.  Unfortunately, the patent is there, and NetFlix is using it as the basis of a lawsuit which could either close down Blockbuster’s online rental service or require Blockbuster to pay for using this incredibly obvious idea.  On the other hand, we can always hope this somehow leads to the patent getting invalidated.  But given Amazon’s success with the mind-numbingly obvious one-click ordering idea, I don’t think that will happen.

SAN FRANCISCO – Online DVD rental service Netflix Inc. on Tuesday accused Blockbuster Inc. of illegally copying its ideas in a patent infringement lawsuit challenging the video store chain’s recent Internet expansion.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, focuses largely on the online wish lists that prioritize the DVD desires of about 5.4 million people who subscribe to either Netflix or Blockbuster’s Internet service.

Netflix also believes its patents cover perhaps its most popular feature — the option of renting a DVD for an unlimited time without incurring late fees.

[tags]Netflix, Blockbuster, Patents[/tags]

Another reason to not consume at Starbucks

My wife tries to avoid Starbucks, but she doesn’t outright boycott the chain like she does Wal-Mart.  Her reasons for both companies is the same – too big, squashes the locals.  In case that’s not enough reason for you (and honestly, I know for most that doesn’t matter), how about stupid lawsuits?  The latest I’ve heard about is in this article at The Consumerist (titled Starbucks Sues Doubleshot Espresso):

The latest in Starbucks exciting oeuvre of frivolous lawsuits against companies too small to defend themselves is a Tulsa, Oklahoma coffee shop called “DoubleShot Coffee.” Starbucks threatened to sue because the name of the shop was similar to their own Double Shot Espressos. Or anyone else’s Double Shot Espressos for that matter… that’s why the name was picked to begin with. As the owner of the shop says, “It’s a common thing you’d find in any coffee shop… It would be like Starbucks suing over the name ‘coffee’ in our name. It’s ridiculous.”

[tags]Starbucks, Stupid lawsuits[/tags]

Origins of “l33t-sp34k”

(via boingboing)

If you can read that subject, thank a geek.  If you can’t read it, learn how to read “leet” from Wikipedia.

Leet (or 1337) is a linguistic phenomenon associated with the underground culture centered around telecommunications, manifested primarily on the Internet. Leet is characterized by the corruption or modification of written text. For example, the term “leet” itself is often written “l33t”, “1337” or less commonly, ieet. Such corruptions are frequently referred to as “Leetspeak” or “L33t5p34k,” etc

[tags]Leet, l33t, hax0r[/tags]

Another step closer to the $6 million man

(via Engadget)

We may not actually be to the point of super-vision via bionic eyes, but work continues to advance the field.  The subject of this article, Cheri Robertson, calls herself robo-chick.

More than a million people in the United States are legally blind. Many of them once had vision but tragically lost it. Now a breakthrough device could give them back some of their sight.

. . .

Robertson is blind, but this device allows her to see, not with her eyes but with her brain! Fifteen years ago, she lost both of her eyes in a car accident. She was just 19 years old.

. . .

A camera on the tip of Robertson’s glasses sends signals to a computer that’s strapped around her waist. The computer then stimulates electrodes in the brain through a cord that attaches to the head. Patients see flashes of light and outlines of objects.

As computers get more powerful, patients are expected to see less light flashes and more views of the world.  The surgery is currently done in Portugal, but hopefully will be available in the US in the next few years.  Be sure to read the full article for more information – it really sounds pretty cool.

[tags]Restoring vision[/tags]

Loneliness kills?

I find the results of this study hard to believe:

It’s true—you might die of loneliness, but not until you’re older.

In a new University of Chicago study of men and women 50 to 68 years old, those who scored highest on measures of loneliness also had higher blood pressure. And high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, the number one killer in many industrialized nations and number two the United States.

Lonely people have blood pressure readings as much as 30 points higher than non-lonely people, said the study leaders Louise Hawkley and Christopher Masi. Blood pressure differences between lonely and non-lonely people were smallest at age 50 and greatest among the oldest people tested.

Loneliness raises blood pressure? Personally, I find myself far less stressed when I am alone than when I am with other people. But then, I typically find other people very annoying. If you ever spend time with me, you’ll get to hear me gripe about it.

[tags]Loneliness[/tags]

Scientists lose some neutrinos, delight in right

Livescience has an article on a recent test shot of a beam of neutrinos from Fermi-lab (in Batavia, IL) to a particle detector in Soudan, MN. As a result of some of the neutrinos not making it, the scientists have apparently verified a theory which indicates neutrinos have mass. This sets up further studies into the nature of neutrinos.

There are three types of neutrinos, each associated with a different charged particle: the electron neutrino, the muon and the tau. The Fermi scientists think the vanishing act they witnessed was a result of the neutrinos changing from one form to another, a phenomenon called “neutrino oscillation.”

The test results provide further evidence that neutrinos must have mass, the scientists say. If the masses of all three types were zero, neutrino oscillation would not occur.

[tags]Fermi-lab, neutrinos[/tags]

Good freeware firewall

(via Freewarewiki)

I have not personally used this, but it comes recommended from the folks at Freewarewiki and Fran Bott, webmistress of GammawGeek.  The firewall is free for personal use, from Fileseclab.  You can also buy source code and 6 months support for personal use $480 or commercial use for $3800.  From what little I’ve read about this, it appears to be a decent alternative to ZoneAlarm.

[tags]PC security, Free firewall[/tags]

Engadget looks back on 30 years of Apple

Covering, in their own words, the good, the bad, and the ugly, Engadget gives a look back at 30 years of Apple history. Pictures included. It’s a lengthy write-up, and it highlights some of the best and worst things Apple has done, plus just a touch on the beginnings of Apple.

Has it really been 30 years since two buddies named Steve sold off their prized possessions (Woz’s HP calculator and Jobs’ VW van) to raise money and launch a company? Has it really been 30 years since the two Steves, tired of selling blue boxes, built the Apple I and began selling it for $666.66? Yes, it has, and if you don’t believe it, just compare Jobs’ hairlines from ’76 and today. And while the company has become known for many things, from its groundbreaking GUI to the iTunes Music Store, we know Apple has always been a hardware company at heart. So here’s to you, Apple: the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly from the past 30 years. Happy Birthday.

apple_displays.jpg Yes, these pretty LCDs fall under the good category. On the other side, you have things in the bad like the Lisa and the Newton. And I wasn’t even aware of a couple of the items to make the ugly list. Good reading, though.

[tags]Apple, computing history[/tags]