02 Jul 2009
Disco tune saves man's life

If the first thing I heard after a near death experience was my wife belting out a disco tune, I'd think I'd die for sure ...(all kidding aside, this is a useful tidbit).

Debra Bader was taking a walk in the woods with her 53-year-old husband one morning when suddenly he collapsed. At first she thought the situation was hopeless.

(link) [CNN.com]

12:06 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Software firm goes after Google for internet invisibility cloak

I wonder what else we're not finding in Google?

A software company has sued Google not only for trade mark infringement in Google's AdWords advertising system but for making its website invisible to the Google search engine.

(link) [The Register]

06:34 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

01 Jul 2009
Song wars

Hope you like talk radio, 'cause if this goes into effect, that's all we'll have in the US.

US musicians battle to get radio royalties

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

06:10 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link

Ranchers Have Beef With USDA Program To ID Cattle

Geeks discover NAIS, and the results are, well, read through the comments for a look at the levels of ignorance out there about ranching (and farming in general). It's just amazing.

Ponca City, We Love You writes "The NY Times reports that farmers and ranchers oppose a government program to identify livestock with microchip tags that would allow the computerized recording of livestock movements from birth to the slaughterhouse. Proponents of the USDA's National Animal Identification System say that computer records of cattle movements mean that when a cow is discovered with bovine tuberculosis or mad cow disease, its prior contacts can be swiftly traced. Ranchers say the extra cost of the electronic tags places an onerous burden on a teetering industry. Small groups of cattle are often rounded up in distant spots and herded into a truck by a single person who could not simultaneously wield the hand-held scanner needed to record individual animal identities. The ranchers also note that there is no Internet connection on many ranches for filing to a regional database. 'Lobbyists from corporate mega-agribusiness designed this program to destroy traditional small sustainable agriculture,' says Genell Pridgen, an owner of Rainbow Meadow Farms. The notion of centralized data banks, even for animals, has also set off alarms among libertarians who oppose NAIS. One group has issued a bumper sticker that reads, 'Tracking cattle now, tracking you soon.' 'They can't comprehend the vastness of a ranch like this,' says Jay Platt, the third-generation owner of a 22,000 acre New Mexico ranch. 'This plan is expensive, it's intrusive, and there's no need for it.'"

(link) [Slashdot]

06:05 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Jun 2009
Judge Thinks Linking To Copyrighted Material Should Be Illegal

All material is implicitly copyrighted: if this rule were put into effect, it would essentially destroy the Internet as we know it, by banning all hyperlinks without the linked sites prior permission.

Such a measure would actually create and perpetuate the monopolies Posner says he wants to avoid.

This is beyond moronic. From what little of I know of Judge Posner, he'd always seemed like a judge who kind of "gets it". Now, I'm not so sure he could find his ass with both hands in a brightly lit room.

An article at TechCrunch discusses a blog post from Richard Posner, a US Court of Appeals judge, about the struggling newspaper industry. Posner explains why he thinks the newspapers will continue to struggle, and then comes to a rather unusual conclusion: "Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion."

(link) [Slashdot]

21:54 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Jun 2009
Copyfraud: Poisoning the public domain

Sigh. What else can one say ...???

The public domain is the greatest resource in human history: eventually all knowledge will become part of it. Its riches serve all mankind, but it faces a new threat. Vast libraries of public domain works are being plundered by claims of "copyright". It's called copyfraud - and we'll discover how large corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon have structured their businesses to assist it and profit from it.

(link) [The Register]

15:32 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Jun 2009
Bill puts tobacco products under FDA oversight

Oh, yeah. Save the children. No doubt.

But why was this bill backed by the biggest players in the industry?

Maybe because it will put smaller competitors at a disadvantage in compliance with the new FDA regulations? Or maybe because when the FDA lowers nicotine levels in individual cigarettes, smokers will need to buy more to satisfy their addiction?

Which not only will boost the tobacco companies bottom lines, but will increase tax revenues for governments at all levels, too. How nice.

President Obama signed landmark legislation Monday giving the Food and Drug Administration new power to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco.

(link) [CNN.com]

07:27 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

18 Jun 2009
Couple in Ensign scandal question his motives

I've already blogged about this boneheads incredible hypocrisy, and I have no interest whatsoever in the sordid details of who he was bonking ... but this article caught my eye for an entirely different reason.

Records also show Doug Hampton, 47, received a monthly salary of $13,555 as an administrative assistant in Ensign's Senate office. He received a payment of $19,679 for his final month of employment and was off the payroll on May 1, 2008, according to Senate records.

That works out to a little over $162,000 per year, for an "administrative assistant", a common title for what used to be called a secretary. His wife, of course, was also on the payroll of the good senators PAC and campaign staff. As was, apparently, their son.

Remember that number the next time you see a general or admiral testifying before a Senate committee. The base pay for a Lieutenant General with 26 years of service is $13,766 per month - roughly the same as the guy handing the thirsty politician a glass of water...

In fact, the current base pay for rank and file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year.

If you still wonder why no political party can seem to get government spending under control, I suggest you re-read this post.

AP - Sen. John Ensign has been quick to describe his dalliance with an aide in brief and simple terms. The affair is over. The apologies made and accepted. No questions will be answered, the married Nevada Republican said in his brief admission of infidelity.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

08:06 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

16 Jun 2009
Nevada Sen. John Ensign admits affair with staffer

Left out of the CNN article is the philandering senator's affiliation with the secretive group of would-be theocrats known as The Family. Scary stuff, but apparently even the anointed ultimately have feet of clay...

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada admitted Tuesday an extramarital affair with a woman who had worked for him. "I violated the vows of marriage. It's absolutely the worst thing I've done in my life," the Republican senator said outside his office in Las Vegas. A member of the party's Senate leadership, Ensign last year took over as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

(link) [CNN.com]

20:38 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Airline asks staff to work unpaid for month

Unbelievable. Chutzpah, gall, cojones ... words fail me.

British Airways is asking thousands of its staff to work for free for up to four weeks, spokeswoman Kirsten Millard said Tuesday.

(link) [CNN.com]

20:26 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

15 Jun 2009
Ex-Borland's Delphi owner re-ignites cross-platform dream

It's about time somebody did this as native code. And as a long time Delphi/C++ Builder fan, I'm glad it's Embarcadero.

Embarcadero is now betting on cross-platform for Delphi and its partner C++ Builder, which shares many of the same libraries. "The most important thing is native cross-platform, Mac and Linux. Some of our biggest customers have moved completely to Mac. Internationally we don't hear as much Mac interest, but Linux is really strong," Williams said.

(link) [The Register]

07:01 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Jun 2009
Drug suspect turns tables on NYPD with videotape

Just another training day in the War on Some Drugs™.

AP - When undercover detectives busted Jose and Maximo Colon last year for selling cocaine at a seedy club in Queens, there was a glaring problem: The brothers hadn't done anything wrong.


(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

22:11 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

12 Jun 2009
Buggy 'smart meters' open door to power-grid botnet

Joy. We got one of those installed here a few weeks ago - it has cut our bill substantially, but I suspect that's only because we were being grossly overbilled in the first place.

New electricity meters being rolled out to millions of homes and businesses are riddled with security bugs that could bring down the power grid, according to a security researcher who plans to demonstrate several attacks at a security conference next month.

(link) [The Register]

15:34 /Technology | 1 comment | permanent link

Moles, not magic, make worm 'grunting' work

Worm grunting! Who'd have thunk it?

AP - Gary Revell gets up every morning before sunrise, heads into the woods and grunts. Not because it's so early. It's the term for coaxing worms from the ground by the hundreds to be scooped up and plopped in a tin can until he can sell them for fishing bait.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

15:33 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

11 Jun 2009
Hours left 'till TV's switch to digital

Ya know, I'm completely unprepared. And I'm neither too poor to afford a converter box or too ignorant to know what one does. I simply don't care: we don't ever watch TV. The last time we had the TV tuned to a broadcast station was during the blizzard last February to check traffic conditions. I could've gotten the exact same info off the Net had I been so inclined. And I'm so pissed off over the Colts and the stadium tax they've imposed that I can no longer in good conscience watch football and support thieves.

So go digital, broadcast TV. I don't give a rat's ass.

In less than 24 hours all full-power broadcast TV stations in the U.S. will flip a switch to stop broadcasting their analog TV signals and will only broadcast TV signals in digital. And for millions who are unprepared, it could mean lights out on their favorite TV shows.

(link) [CNN.com]

21:49 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

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