random($foo)

Related to previous post, a tidbit on the whole Disney vs Apple thing. You have to remember that Michael Eisner speaking on this topic doesn’t mean much because he is a technological moron. His commencement speech at USC a fear years ago revolved around BCC’s in email and why you shouldn’t use them. I shit you not.

[sidenote: Preston Padden, head of government relations for Disney comes out and says it: “There is no right to fair use.” And you know what? Sadly, he’s right. With the ever-increasing extensions, and especially the paradigm-shifting DMCA (and soon to be strengthened with the SSCA), there effectively is no fair use. At least, not any that you can legally access.]

Sure Microsoft sucks, but I have to say, MSNBC has had a couple of redeeming editorials recently:

• Looking Grim at the Grammys – Is it really new or is it just part of the wax and wane of caribou populations? See samsara in action @ mefi
• The Customer Is Always Wrong – Steven Levy (who wrote Hackers) writes about the the BS that is SSCA. It’s currently the #1 article on the Viewers Top 10 with 1620 votes averaging a 6.17/7.00 rating. Undoubtedly helped by the /. effect.

OK, time to close tabs and get some work done now.

If some people are in the dark concerning my recent Scratch posts, I just remembered that I’d posted up a Q-bert freestyle mpeg that I’d gotten from a friend a while back.

A succint definition of turntablism from a Youth Radio article:

Coined in 1995 by world champion DJ Babu, “turntablism” is the use of a phonograph turntable as a tool to create music, not just to play it. In essence, turntablism is music based on sound manipulation. It centers on sounds called “scratches” that can be produced through the manipulation of sounds recorded onto records.

Random flushings as I close my Mozilla tabs:

• What will future people find of us in 10,000 years
• Frying eggs on Athlons @ the Tekhead Forums
• THE.MAN.PROJECT – a neat little Flash toy by Aaron Clinger, and 18yo whose favorite sites include Ultrashock, Infourm, and Miniml
• Who Lost China’s Internet? – for that matter, Who Lost America’s Internet? (Bruce’s ranting aside)

Also, good stuff in the new issue of New Architect (formerly WebTechniques):

• John Perry Barlow of the EFF writes on The Crime of Sharing.
• Legal and Binding – Mark Baugher writes about DMCA as a threat to Open Standards development
• Adobe backpedals about Dmitry. Still no apology from Adobe on that. Funny, how companies are able to so easily bulldoze over people’s lives so easily and with such impunity. Oh, what was that? CORPORATIONS GOOD. HACKERS BAD. Glad that’s all cleared up. Now, how about some more of that SLAPP…
• Several other DRM (read: content control, the stands ‘R’ for restriction) articles from an implementation perspective and a few other interesting tidbits

Too good not to link. I don’t know what this song is either, but I’m sure that this video is much better than the actual band’s music video.

VisIT is very very cool.

VisIT is:

• A graphical search engine interface that allows for faster location of desired search results.
• Instead of the lengthy lists of hits that we are all accustomed to, VisIT displays search results in an interactive, graphical user interface.
• Powerful analytical tool.
• Internet based learning environment.
• Better than Bookmarks.
• And More!

Heh, see, what happens when you don’t click refresh on /. compulsively? 1086 Domesday Book Outlives 1986 Electronic Rival. There’s also a link to a new Austin Chronicle article by Bruce Sterling (who apparently has a blog now) on SXSWi 2002 entitled Information Wants to Be Worthless. It’s a great article, with the type of flare and hucksterism and homeyness that that makes listening to Sterling so enthralling.

More links on mouldering media:

• Mefi on the Digital Domesday Book
• Saved, an article from Wired 6.09 (Sept 98)
• Digital preservation: a time bomb for Digital Libraries
• Bruce Sterling’s Dead Media Manifesto and the Dead Media Project
• EFF “Publications – Dead Media Project” Archive
• random search result: Free File Transfers from Obsolete Media and File Types (9-track tape or 5-1/4″ DOS Diskettes, some old system files, etc.) Offered by ISD through Spring 2003

The LA Marathon is today. It passes my apartment right around Pt 23 on the course map at the interesection on Western and Olympic. I’d take a picture, but my camera has been out of commission, however I got my Amex Gold approved, so I’ll probably be making some purchases soon.

Fun grids:

• Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability)
• Examining User Expectations for the Location of Common E-Commerce Web Objects

Heh, this post got overwritten, but luckily was in Jesse‘s cache. Saves me some typing. Remember, versioning is your friend… Also, as of now, casino is up to $15.15/click.

I was talking with a friend about searches at Overture (formerly

GoTo). Using their bid tool, you can

find out how much keywords are going for. Jesse found casino at $14.93/click and challenged me to beat him. Sex, pharmaceuticals, products all were pretty low. Even viagra was only $4.00. Looks like online gambling is the most lucrative for keywords. Hell, even casion is registered for $0.43/click. But I met the challenge: poker goes for $15.00/click. Yowza, these companies really are into the gambling. Of course, I’d have to go out of my way to get usage out of Overture. Their pay-for-placement results appear on: AOL, Altavista, Lycos, Netscape, Infospace, and Yahoo. I’m a Google man, Dottie.