Internet Warning Labels (Slashdot Repost)
"News.com.com is reporting that personals company True.com is behind a push in several state legislatures to require everyone but them to include scary looking warnings above personals ads. I'm sure they're not the first, but this looks like a particularly slimy way to corner a market. And the unintended consequences look big, too: by my read of the proposed law, even Slashdot would need to include the warnings above user profile pages."
Learned about it on Slashdot.
Killing Wireless Freedom
"Broadband Reports says that 14 and possibly more states that have or will pass(ed) bills banning community-run broadband. Free Pass shows a map breakdown of the states while Tallahassee.com takes a look at a newly proposed bill in Florida, backed by Sprint, BellSouth, Verizon, and Comcast, designed to bog down the muni-development process."
The above is a repost from Slashdot.
Jon Stewart To Replace Dan Rather (I Wish)
Jon Stewart is a man I love - and I mean that in very manly pro-football hetero kind of way.
Repost from Slashdot...
"Jon Stewart, who recently celebrated his sixth anniversary with "The Daily Show" and was a rumored possible replacement to Dan Rathers, has signed a deal which allows his production team, Busboy Productions, to develop televison projects on their own. The deal also allows Busboy Productions to flirt with other networks when looking for a home for the projects. Comedy Central still gets the right of first refusal for any projects created."
Free as in Freedom: "New Linux"
I came across an article from
Dissidentvoice.org on freedom and Linux worthy of review.
“Linux is inextricably political -- and deliberately so, from its very inception. The OS itself is a tool, as sharp, bright, and beautiful as it may be; creating a better world, in which human beings cooperate rather than fight each other ‘to achieve the same exact ends’ which is, from my perspective, the goal.”
Part I here
and...
Part II here.
And Comrads, don't forget this article as well...
If you are reading this it is very likely that you are a liberal, maybe even an outright screaming burn down the goddam country commie --in which case I say, “Come sit by me comrade! (Especially if you are a blonde.) Like most lefties you probably live in an urban area, or someplace with reasonable cultural diversity. More than likely you are educated and can read this without moving your lips. Maybe you even live in the freethinking People’s Republic of Berkeley, or bustle along under the fabled lights of Manhattan where you can see independent films and buy such things as leeks and soy milk at your grocery store.
Interview With Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: A Comparison
One old interview. One new interview. One with Steve Jobs and another with Bill Gates.
Here is a 1996 interview with Steve Jobs. I remember reading this standing in a computer store in Phoenix Arizona and thinking "WOW! This guy has GOT IT. He has the vision thing down pat!"
Remember - this interview was before the peak boom of dot-coms."The Web is an incredible democratizer. A small company can look as large as a big company and be as accessible as a big company on the Web. Big companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars building their distribution channels. And the Web is going to completely neutralize that advantage.
What will the economic landscape look like after that democratic process has gone through another cycle?
The Web is not going to change the world, certainly not in the next 10 years. It's going to augment the world. And once you're in this Web-augmented space, you're going to see that democratization takes place. The Web's not going to capture everybody. If the Web got up to 10 percent of the goods and services in this country, it would be phenomenal. I think it'll go much higher than that. Eventually, it will become a huge part of the economy."
Remember - the above interview is nearly 10 years old.
Now, read an interview with Bill Gates with Peter Jennings. Think Gates is a visionary? I don't. A businessman - definitely. Politician - absolutely. Vision?
Firefox, Mozilla and The Free World vs Microsoft Internet Explorer
I was looking over the hit logs recently and noticed that the number of people engaging in what I often argue as an
abnormally dangerous activity,
using Microsoft Internet Explorer to browse the Internet, has dropped to roughly 55% of my blog visitors. Wahoo!
I'd like to see that trend continue and ideally have Internet Explorer drop to something close to zero, although that is probably unrealistic. I still (once in a blue moon) use Internet Explorer myself, even on Linux, as certain sites demand its usage and refuse to work with anything else.
Alternatives to Internet Explorer exist:
Mozilla and FireFox Opera - an amazingly fast and capable web browser.If you've never experienced "tabbed" browsing, you will wonder how you ever got around the Internet without it.
To Think Like God
This is a wonderful book. Makes a great gift for people who enjoying thinking.
Hermann, Arnold
The Illustrated To Think Like God:
Pythagoras and Parmenides, The Origins of Philosophy. Distributed for the Parmenides Publishing. 336 p., 210 illustrations. 7-1/2 x 9-3/4 2004
YOU WILL ATTEND CLASSES if you enroll at Cooley. I took this picture during a school day - in the midst of a winter storm warning last January - and sadly I missed class. I tried to leave the complex, but alas my rental car just wouldn't budge.
Posted by Hello
Apple's OS X on Windows OR Aquify Your PC.
Panther on Gentoo LinuxWhile suffering from the flu along with envy of my pilot friend's iMac (and being in zero mood for cleaning up my outline on Anticipatory Repudiation), I decided to pass along some of my links on making a Windows or Linux based PC a bit more interesting.
PearPC is a heck of a creature to get installed, but if you are willing to take the time and follow some instructions you can run Macintosh OS X on Windows or Linux.
PearPC Screen Shots Here.
And Here are screen shots of the install process from the Sourceforge site.A Nice Section of Faq's on running Apple's OS X under Windows and Linux, and what PearPC can and cannot do (it's actually a PowerPC emulator).
Here's the section of Links on getting various editions of OS X running under Windows / Linux.
If you aren't up for the full geek experience of running OS X on your PC, here's an amazingly complete theme and heavily tweaked out package to "Aquify" your Windows System.FlyakiteOSX - I've installed this on my laptop and I've found it to be surprisingly stable and pretty darn impressive.
Screen Shots of what FlyakiteOSX can do for you. Not Bad Eh?
FlykiteOSX won't last long, so I suggest if you like it you download it while it's still available.
If FlyaKiteOSX is a bit too much, check out CrystalXP.net and give crappy Windows a make-over with a nicer set of Linux and OS X style icons.
Check out CrystalXP.NETPosted by Hello
The Communist Bill Gates
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose." - Bill Gates
Mr. Gates' secret is out now--he too was a "communist;" he, too, recognized that software patents were harmful--until Microsoft became one of these giants. Now Microsoft aims to use software patents to impose whatever price it chooses on you and me. And if we object, Mr. Gates will call us "communists."
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Resnick's DUI
IndyLaw Net is an excellent blog, and it's where this piece originates...
Surely all of ILN's readers have heard of Ohio Supreme Court justice, Alice Resnick's, DUI last week, but have you seen the videos? Didn't think so. See all three video segments taken from the police trooper's vehicle: video1, video2, video3
Ms. Resnick's emotions ranged from indignance to embarrassment, but the highlight lowlight of the incident was when she said to the policeman: "I've always said a Supreme Court justice should have a highway patrolman driving them."
Me And My Monkey
Repost from
Slashdot..."Greg Miller appears to have built a Night Vision Scope out of an image intensifier tube, and parts he found mostly in dumpsters. Also on Greg's site: Flyback transformers, coil guns, plasma globes and Tesla coils made from dumpster materials." You get the feeling he's not also writing product safety manuals on the side.
Microsoft's Bill Gates Tried To Blackmail Danish Government
Learned about this from Groklaw:If you have ever wondered what Bill Gates says when he flies to Europe to meet with heads of state, we now have clarity, as business dudes might put it. Here's an
article in Danish on precisely what Bill told Denmark he'd do if they opposed the software patents directive, followed by a rough translation by an alert Groklaw reader there, one of several to send this item to us: "Stifteren af verdens største softwarevirksomhed Bill Gates er nu parat til at lukke Navision i Danmark og flytte de knap 800 udviklere bag Danmarks største softwaresucces til USA."
The founder of the world's largest software company, Bill Gates, is now ready to shut down Navision in Denmark and move around 800 developers behind Denmarks biggest software success to the US.
"Det slog Microsoft-chefen fast, da han i november mødtes med statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V), samt økonomi- og erhvervsminister Bendt Bendtsen (K), og videnskabsminister Helge Sander (V). "
The Microsoft leader made that clear, when he meet with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Economic and Business Minister Bendt Bendtsen and Science Minister Helge Sander in November.
"Truslen risikerer at blive ført ud i livet, hvis det lykkes dele af IT-branchen at få blokeret et omstridt EU-direktiv om patenter på software, som Microsoft for alt i verden gerne vil have vedtaget, men som gang på gang er blevet forhalet takket være modstandernes effektive lobbyarbejde. "
The threat risks being executet, if part of the IT business manages to block the disputed EU directive on patenting software, that Microsoft wants so dearly, but time and time again has been postponed thanks to efficient lobbying by anti-patent opposition.
"»Hvis jeg skal beholde mit udviklingscenter i Danmark, kræver det, at der kommer en afklaring på rettighedsspørgsmålet. Ellers flytter jeg det til USA, hvor jeg kan beskytte mine rettigheder,« sagde Bill Gates ifølge Microsofts chefjurist Marianne Wier, der også deltog på mødet med Anders Fogh Rasmussen."
"If I am to keep my development center in Denmark, I must have clearity on the rights issue. Otherwise I will move to the US, where I can protect my rights," said Gates according to to Microsoft chief attorney Marianne Wier, who also attended the meeting with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
So, how do you like it? Still want to use this nice man's software? Here's FFII's statement. "Børsen", I'm told, is the largest financial daily in Denmark, sort of like our Wall St. Journal.
Speaking of rights, you all have the right to stop using Microsoft software, you know. Thanks to Richard Stallman and his GNU Project, Linus Torvalds, and thousands and thousands of good-hearted and skilled programmers who cared enough to give the world some very fine software, you actually do have a choice. If enough companies, individuals, and governments make that choice, this kind of bullying would be so over.
Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2005 Pamela Jones.
Flu Visions
No Need to Barf On Me Anon Poster...Because I'm already sick with the flu and am barfing on myself just fine, and you would be likewise pleased to know that it is an especially "Alien II" acid-like puke fest. Thanks to Cooley's disgusting "two missed classes and you're out" policy, lots of people come to class who have NO BUSINESS coming to class. The net result seems to be lots of sick students and professors during flu season.
I've been fighting this thing all week, but now it seems futile to keep fighting. The Dark Side has me now. My head is filled with visions of evil - the typical stuff I get with the flu. I'd love to sit and pretend to be a visionary psychic (it seems Cannon Fire's ex-girl friend and yours truly have been having same dreams and visions), but alas I am just too sick to pontificate.
Speaking of visions, I will leave this posting with a link to this story about a little black box that seems strangely capable of predicting the future.
iTube on OS X
iTube is easy to install and has a user friendly interface that allows users to access Internet television stations, as well as many mainstream television stations. These channels are divided by categories, which include uncensored news, music videos, science & education, religion, and entertainment channels from all over the world.It's the "uncensored news" element that caught my eye. Since I still don't own a TV I get most of my news from left-wing sources like CSPAN, The Washingtonpost (rather than GOP / Rev. Moon's Washington Times), and other similar moronic, false, idiotic sources. With iTube, it looks like I could expand my intake of false, moronic, blathering left-wing lies to an entirely new level. Maybe during summer break I'll test it out on my new Macintosh Mini...
Cannon Fire Regrets
Cannon Fire has a little too much reality for me today. I really should know better than to visit that blog, but I was sick of Torts and Contracts and "Due Process" and assorted gems found in the old, now dead Republic, and figured I'd see how the Empire was coming along...
Evidently - it's coming along just fine complete with the usual healthy doses of Dark Irony.
Although the FBI is supposed to vet everyone who gets White House press credentials, "Gannon" seems to have slipped past them on a daily basis. His name, it turns out, isn't Jeff Gannon -- it appears to be James D. Guckert. And the "Gannon" web page is owned by the same person who owns a number of sites Republicans might consider unsavory -- sites such as HotMilitaryStud.com, MilitaryEscorts.com and MilitaryEscortsM4M.com.
Could a gay prostitute have whored himself out to the Bushites?
Guckert recently claimed that he merely put those web sites together for others. Perhaps -- but why would he be listed as the owner? And why would his only known clients have gay links?
CANNON FIRE HAS ... (Paul Harvey voice) .... The rest of the story...
Microsoft RIP?
A wonderful story about a company I love to hate...
Great, healthy companies not only dominate the market, but share of mind. Look at Apple these days. But when was the last time you thought about Microsoft, except in frustration or anger? The company just announced a powerful new search engine, designed to take on Google — but did anybody notice? Meanwhile, open systems world — created largely in response to Microsoft's heavy-handed hegemony — is slowly carving away market share from Gates & Co.: Linux and Firefox hold the world's imagination these days, not Windows and Explorer. The only thing Microsoft seems busy at these days is patching and plugging holes.
Speaking of Gates: if you remember, he was supposed to be going back into the lab to recreate the old MS alchemy. But lately it seems — statesmanship being the final refuge of the successful entrepreneur — that he's been devoting more time to philanthropy than capitalism. And though Steve Ballmer is legendary for his sound and fury, these days his leadership seems to be signifying nothing.
READ THE WHOLE STORY - CLICK HERE.
1938 Time Man of The Year
Here is a reprint of the 1938 piece in Time Magazine.
It is interesting to see what the writers of this 1938 article were envisioning just a year or two down the road. They did a halfway decent job reading the tea leaves - except the part about the French Army being beyond compare...
100 Suns
From the Bhagavad Gita, the classic Vedic text,
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
This was Oppenheimer's attempt to describe the otherwise indescribable.
- From Michael Light's 100 Suns.
A Bit More About Cooley Law School (repost from Nontradlaw)
The curve is no longer a C minus, but a regular C. Also, the chance to void-grade options has been reduced from a total of four (4) classes down to two (2) classes. Void-grades are those things which one can use to remove a bad grade and "retake" the class.
If it were possible for you to see the posted grades for all the classes... the number of people who flunk would horrify you.
Let's suppose a 3L is about to graduate with a 2.0 GPA. That person then fails a class during his final year and drops a tad below a 2.0. Let's also say that person has no void-grade options left as they were used up during 1L. That person CAN re-take the failed class, but lets also suppose that person only gets a C in the re-take class. Although it is a passing score, that C won't be enough to bring that person up to a 2.0 total GPA, because the F and the C are averaged together (remember - the void-grade options were used up). Hence, a 3L with a bad semester can find themselves in a world of hurt.
In truth it's pretty rare to find a 3L doing poorly at Cooley. If you've lasted that long at Cooley, odds are you're going to take it all the way and not do poorly during 3L.
Cooley NOW has a "no visiting other schools" policy. You can't take a term and "visit" another school. It's in our policy book. You can't do two terms at Cooley and try to do a term at your state law school over summer (for example, in my case that would be Arizona) and then come back to Cooley to finish up. Absent an outright transfer, you are either Cooley all the way or not at all.
You will have far more "required" courses at Cooley. Your electives won't come until well into your 2L or 3L career. You'll get a taste of electives in 2L, but only a taste.
If you miss 2 classes you will be dismissed, but I should note you will be dismissed from the class rather than the school itself. Sort of. I have to qualify that a bit, because your one dismissal can cascade into being dismissed from other classes and, well, let me just say that missing classes is not a good idea at Cooley as it will shorten your stay at the school.
We had a winter storm. The airports were shut down. The state/city was imploring people to "please do not drive on the roads." We still had a class and missing it counted against you.
I was not pleased.
Some classes do not permit one to "pass", but all of the classes I've had will give a student a chance to pass ONCE for the entire term. Passing twice or being unprepared when called on (same thing) is subject to cause one to be dismissed from the class, or depending on the situation, from the school itself.
The upside to Cooley is that you CAN get a good, solid, hardcore legal education. The volume of students mixed with the curving issues creates roughly a 48% attrition rate (give or take, but generally about half of all the original students are gone after 1L).
Transferring out is not as hard as people claim. Lots of people do it and a surprising number seem to make it into Michigan State. However, if you are a C student at Cooley your ability to transfer out will be much more difficult.
I could go on and on about Cooley. It is a mixed bag of tricks. Go in with open eyes and under the right set of circumstances and it can give you one hell of a legal education. It can also just seem like Hell and little else.
Why Does Windows Still Suck? [Repost from Slashdot]
I have been less than happy with my Windows laptop lately, but not for reasons that relate to trojans, viri, worms, etc (I've never had that problem, but I have had plenty of things go haywire after applying services packs and patches).
With me, it's more of an ethical / philosophical thing than anything else. Plus, I resent having to use something I believe is a pile of steaming overpriced [insert choice of words here]. It's like being forced to drive a Pinto and told "It's what everyone drives, therefore it must be good. " OR WORSE - "Look at how wonderful President Bush is! Isn't he great! Thank GOD for President Bush after those horrible years of Bill Clinton! Embrace Beloved Leader / Windows and be happy!"
Makes me ill.
Below is a repost of a story appearing on Slashdot. I thought I would share the rant as well as the question - Why DOES Windows Still Suck?
"SF Gate's Mark Morford asks: Why Does Windows Still Suck? After wtaching his significant other's Windows PC drown in a sea of viruses and worms after only 4 minutes on her new DSL connection, Mark Morford wonders why the masses have not stormed Redmond waving torches and scythes in anger over the never-ending security flaws in Windows. Why haven't they jetisoned the foul beast from Redmond and migrated en mass to the Macintosh or even Linux?"
The Creative Class
I have been wanting to write about this topic for months, but keep forgetting to post something entertaining and thought provoking on my blog that relates to the subject. Well... my own creative energies lately are at a low ebb, but I still wanted to get this link hoisted up here if for no other reason than to have it to explore later.
The website starts out with a bit of a cheesy-feel to it, but believe me - some great articles can be found on this site, plus if you deep link in the right places you'll end up reading some awesome articles on the Harvard Business Review about creativity,
the impact of Bush on the creative class, the "flight" of creative people out of the country, etc.
The Creative Class. Lots of cool stuff here.
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
I learned about this from Hategun...
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3– United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.
A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson’s policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.
The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.
Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.
Significance Not Diminished
The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the Administration’s view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.
The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or by the Vietcong’s disruption of the balloting.
American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.
Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 per cent.
Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.
NYT. 9/4/1967: p. 2.
I Love The New iMac's
I stepped out for a breather to get away from the law books. It’s just not healthy to be so consumed by all things law, so I headed over to an Apple center to check out the Macintosh product lineup in a more in-depth way.
We still have an old Macintosh Quadra 650 that STILL boots up and works just as well, if not better, than much of my modern-era Windows XP crap of today. The remarkable thing about this old Macintosh is that can load Photoshop, Word, Netscape and VectorWorks (a CAD application) and they all run just fine – within 64mb of RAM. It seems even old-Apple is in some ways ahead of current-day Microsoft.
Playing with the new Mac’s re-invigorated my burning disgust with all things Microsoft. I spent an hour playing with and exploring the new iMac. Wow. Breathtaking. I could get a lot of work done on one of these machines plus feel like a creative artist while churning out legal briefs, soul wrenching outlines and other law related mind sucking materials.
I am DONE with all things Windows. My next machine is going to be a Macintosh. I’m not sure which one yet, but the wife just got a promotion and it turns out she is going to need to buy a computer. Because I have a 98 out of a 100 Geek Score, odds are I’ll be able to talk her into one of these new Mac’s, and given the level of virus outbreaks that take place in her office on a weekly basis… I don’t think I’ll have much trouble convincing her.
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You Know You Are a Law Student When...
... The high point of your day is scrubbing the toilet and bathtub and you actually enjoy doing it.
I am starting to think that going to school over the summer might be a bad idea afterall.
