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This is important - and good - a federal judge has ruled that two universities do not have to comply with subpoenas requesting that they hand over the identities of students who could be illegally sharing music online. Emphasis on "could be". In the RIAA's zeal to prosecute, they are neglecting due process in a shameful way. AOL Time Warner is apparently considering dropping the "AOL" from their name. Wow. And to think only three years ago, it seemed perhaps they would drop the "Time Warner" part... This is just terrible. CNET: Online gamblers sue their creditors. Anyone doubt that the civil tort system in the U.S. is a shambles? These people incur a debt, and then blame their creditors for causing it. This totally raises my blood pressure. It is so ridiculous but so possible, and fueled by greedy lawyers who only want a percentage of the take. The sad thing is that from a financial standpoint many targets of such lawsuits are better off settling, even if the suits have no intrinsic merit. Google is a great search engine. One thing about it; everyone gets the same results. So if I'm a pilot and I enter "wing" as part of a search, I'm going to get chicken recipes. If I'm a chef and I enter "wing", I'm going to get airplane engineering results. And this will happen every time; Google learns, but it doesn't learn about me. A new startup called Kaltix wants to out-Google Google by personalizing search results. Who knows, it might work!
New Scientist: Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne has taken a crucial step towards becoming the first privately funded mission to carry a crew into space by completing its first solo test flight. His company Scaled Composites is competing for the $10M X-Prize...
A few days ago Philip Greenspun posted about Bay Area traffic: "Hell is Other People". I added a comment about my caravan idea, and there's been a lively discussion in the comment thread, including a fascinating analysis of traffic waves. Excellent! Adam Curry: To collect and to serve. He thinks RSS aggregators should be used to time-shift big payloads like movies. A very interesting idea. Adam is definitely a thought leader in uses of technology for media... I need to think about this.
Wired: Luxury Loo, the Seat also Rises. "Steve Marshall vividly remembers the night he was terrorized by a toilet." Yeah, I guess I would, too. |
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