How long will it be before the full contents of the Jihad Encyclopedia are published openly on the Internet? Why didn’t Osama bin Laden just publish it on the Internet in the first place? How hysterical will people become when it does appear on the Internet? These are the questions that came to mind when I read the stories about the CIA’s capture of the famed terror manual.
Salon has a lenghty article today about the environmental hazards associated with throwing PCs and other computer equipment into landfills. My three word synopsis: don’t do it. There are all sorts of nasty compounds used to make computer equipment, and burying them where they can leach into the soil and contaminate the groundwater is a really bad idea. Perhaps instead of buying a new PC next year, I’ll just upgrade my existing PC … ...
Despite the fact that the reputation of the Olympics has been ruined by doping scandals, crass commercialism, and rampant corruption, there are still a few moments that make them worthwhile. One example is the North and South Korean contingents marching under one flag in the opening ceremony. According to Timothy Noah at Slate, the New York Times shares a big part of the blame for the Wen Ho Lee debacle. The Times certainly didn’t mention that in their news story yesterday that piled on the other responsible parties. ...
Salon gave Karenna Gore Schiff, Al Gore’s 27 year old daughter, a Gen X quiz. She scored a D-minus. I would have done a bit better than she did, but wouldn’t have scored 100%. Amazon.com just can’t get past the bad publicity stemming from the changes to their privacy policy. USA Today ran a story on Junkbusters and EPIC dropping out of their affiliate program today. Every time Micrsoft upgrades Office or Windows, there’s a big uproar about crappy license terms. Microsoft is always changing their licensing, and they always make things worse for customers. Do you ever read about businesses just throwing all of their Microsoft software out the window? It would almost lead you to believe that Microsoft has a monopoly in those markets … ...
You know that any story that quotes both Janet Reno and a spokesman for a software industry trade group can’t contain good news. Indeed, a Wired News article yesterday quoted Reno comparing software piracy to drug trafficking and money laundering in severity. The comments were made at a luncheon sponsored by the trade group that represents video game manufacturers. Spare me the hyperbole, please. I didn’t renew my subscription to Wired, and now I’m punished by not getting this bizarre gadget in the mail. Now someone else got the opportunity to ridicule it instead of me! Oh, well, that’s what happens when you fall off the cutting edge. ...
Larry Ellison is foregoing his salary at Oracle in exchange for more stock options. Who gives a crap? The man is worth 60 billion dollars. Interested in keeping up with the progress being made on Perl 6? Perl.com has a rundown of all of the mailing lists associated with the project. They’ve also created an RFC system for capturing ideas for changes to Perl for version 6. All this Java programming is bringing me down. This morning I hacked out a Perl script that imports a big text data file into MySQL, and then I hacked out another script that provides a Web interface to that database. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to do in Java, but it would have been longer than some small segment of my morning schedule. ...
LinuxPlanet has a screen shot of Nautilus (the forthcoming file manager from Eazel). It looks like a file manager – not very impressive, really. The fact that Nautilus is currently eliciting such excitement in the Linux community is a good indicator of how far Linux on the desktop has to go to even achieve parity with Windows or the Mac OS. A Connecticut judge has upped the damages in Bristol Technology’s suit against Microsoft from the $1 awarded by the jury to [1 million dollars](http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic FTContentServer?pagename=law/View&c=Article&cid=ZZZGSA0EWCC&live=true&cst=1&pc=0&pa=0&s=News&ExpIgnore=true&showsummary=0) (in punitive damages). Still a drop in the bucket to Microsoft, unfortunately. The only reason I even care about the case is that it’s a great example of how Microsoft stomps on its “partners” whenever it ceases to find them useful. ...
The Motley Fool has a column on how the MPAA and RIAA are manipulating the legal system to thwart capitalism. When I stop and think about the degree to which corporations and other monied interests control the legislative agenda in this country, I can’t help but shudder. Of course, things aren’t any better in other countries, either. Salon has a great article about Patrick Ball, a database programmer who uses data mining to catalog human rights violations so that the information can be used to hold the appropriate parties accountable. It sounds like incredibly fascinating and worthy work, and it’s cool that a technology that’s normally used to send us better targetted junk mail can also be used to make the world a better place. He’s written a book about his work called Making the Case that looks like a fascinating read. ...
The O’Reilly Network has a convenient list of controversial patents that relate to the Web. Most of them are serious howlers. Amazon is catching a lot of flack for charging different amounts for the same product. This is standard operating procedure in the world of business, but on the Internet things are a bit different. Most people don’t know or care whether people in Seattle pay more for lawnmowers than people in Atlanta, but on the Internet, comparing notes on things like this is trivial. Between their patent abuse, increasingly user-unfriendly privacy policy, and consumer-agitating pricing strategy, Amazon.com has really been striking out lately. ...
The Top 10 Tips for Linux Users is a pretty useful set of tips that might make your life as a shell user a bit easier. I already knew six of them, but the other four look pretty helpful. Tip #4 is particularly useful, once you master it. A group of hardcore Mac users are planning on protesting during Steve Jobs’ keynote at the upcoming Mac Expo in Paris by standing and interrupting his speech. Isn’t it easier to just not buy Apple’s products? ...