June 8, 2002
CHINA BELIEVES EVERYTHING IT READS
In case you missed this in the paper a couple of days ago, here’s a story that’s absolutely priceless. The Beijing Evening News (circulation: 1.25 million) printed a word-for-word translation of an American news item in its June 3 edition. The article concerned the threat by Congress to leave Washington D.C. unless they get a new Capitol building with a retractable dome. “Don’t get us wrong: We love the drafty old building,” House Speaker Dennis Hastert was quoted as saying. “But the hard reality is, it’s no longer suitable for a world-class legislative branch. The sight lines are bad, […] continued
May 10, 2002
STAR WARS REVIEWS
Pick your flavor of early reviews of Attack of the Clones. On one side: a very favorable review from BBC News. Sample: “This is quite possibly the best Star Wars of the series. It looks lavish and Lucas pushes all the right buttons. He also lets us see that ancient Jedi Master Yoda knows how to handle a lightsabre!”
On the other side: the New York Times was unimpressed. Sample: “While “Attack of the Clones” is many things — a two-hour-and-12-minute action-figure commercial, a demo reel heralding the latest advances in digital filmmaking, a chance for gifted actors […] continued
May 6, 2002
HIGH-TECH HOAX
I love stories about gullible people duped by magic tricks. It makes me feel proud to be a skeptic.
A Florida newspaper is running a series about Madison Priest, a good ol’ boy who got millions of dollars from people who should have known better. He promised he was developing a box that could convert plain copper phone lines into high-speed pipelines for data and video, four times faster than the most advanced fiber-optic cables. “It was a magic box that would shock communications like the television had, transform technology like personal computers had, redefine entertainment like Nintendo had. It […] continued
April 29, 2002
HOW ORACLE SCREWED CALIFORNIA
It’s either sad or amusing to read how Oracle suckered the state of California into buying millions of dollars of software and licenses that the state didn’t need, covering more people than the state actually employs. The papers have caught the highlights, but The Register adds a couple of extra juicy details. (For example, the state relied on data compiled by a consulting company about the need for the licenses and the benefit to the state; the consulting company apparently has a side deal with Oracle worth $28 million that wasn’t disclosed to the state.)
April 29, 2002
CITIZENS FOR A MURDER-FREE AMERICA
Any Philip Dick fans out there? Take a look at Precrime, the web headquarters of Citizens for a Murder-Free America. Precrime proposes using a revolutionary new technology called previsualization that allows police detectives to witness, verify, and halt murders before they occur.
It’s just for fun, of course. It’s part of the marketing for Minority Report, the summer movie by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Cruise, based on a Philip Dick story. Almost every movie has an elaborate web site now, and some have used the same trick – setting up web sites to extend the world of the […] continued
April 22, 2002
SEGWAY
I feel like I missed something obvious. Maybe you already knew this.
Remember the Segway scooter created by Dean Kamen and announced in December? Battery-powered, using computers and gyroscopes to make it almost impossible to tip over. Kamen has a wheelchair going through final FDA tests that uses some of the same technology to make it impossibly stable.
Did you realize the Segway scooter only has two wheels – next to each other? I pictured a traditional scooter, with a platform behind the handle. Nope, two wheels on either side of the handle, with just enough space for your feet. […] continued
April 19, 2002
PRIVACY INVASIONS AND THE PATRIOT ACT
According to this story, the Patriot Act (passed last October) has produced results that might take you by surprise. The Patriot Act gave law enforcement officials expanded authority to subpoena information without a court order. The result is that the telecommunications industry and Internet service providers face an escalating barrage of subpoenas for subscriber lists, personal credit reports, financial information, routing patterns that reveal individual computer use, even customer photographs. There are literally hundreds of thousands of subpoenas out there, and the number is roughly doubling every month. It’s become a financial burden to the companies trying to respond – […] continued
April 14, 2002
COSTCO DEALS
Some good deals at Costco right now.
A stack of 100 blank TDK CDRs is $29.99 at the register, and there’s a $20 rebate from Costco. (Unlike other rebates, Costco processes rebate forms quickly and actually mails the checks.) Ten bucks for a hundred blank CDRs! Incidentally, don’t be confused – these are labeled “Data CDRs,” but they are perfectly good for music CDs as well. To the best of my knowledge, the blanks labeled “Music CDRs” are physically identical, but they’re more expensive because a royalty has been paid to someone or other.
Costco has long had Sylvania monitors. […] continued
April 9, 2002
TIME WARNER HELL
Two announcements from Time Warner today that should strike fear into your heart, as we move into a future controlled by corporations and inundated by advertising.
America Online plans to increase the intensity of advertising on AOL and Time Warner web sites. (You thought it was bad already? Chuckle. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.) Later this year, it will increase its reliance on “rich media advertisements” – video, audio, animation and 3D effects that can cause little race cars to break free from their pop-up windows and race around the screen or whatever else the marketing geniuses come up with. […] continued
April 8, 2002
GENDER GRAMMAR
I don’t know if this is correct, but it’s interesting. The Register quotes from a Microsoft technical note that uses “she” to refer to actions by a potential hacker, and adds this comment:
All right, I’m only going to say this once: ‘He’ is the singular indefinite pronoun in English (“if a person drinks too much, he will likely experience a hangover”). ‘He’ also happens to be the masculine personal pronoun.
‘She’ is the singular pronoun of personification in English (“if England fails to advance America’s foreign-policy ambitions, she will suffer terrible consequences”). ‘She’ also happens to be the
[…] continued