Robot Loves Kitten

just something I thought Bush might like to review in his religious studies as he prepares this latest offensive in the puported defense of ‘marriage’: Matthew 7:12 – read it, live it, love it (you bastards).

It always amazes me how much hatred is loosed upon the world in the name of God.

so, like many people, i have allergies and i’ve had some success taking Claritin. Now, I was very excited when Claritin shifted to non-prescription status, and I immediately go out and pick it up at my local supermarket. I think the initial Claritin brand was going for something like $1/tablet. Then a few months later my supermarket starts selling generic brand Claritin (Loratadine) for about half that: 24 tablets for $12. Then a few months later, they’re selling a 90-count bottle for like $17. Today, my caring mother informs me that Sam’s Club is selling a 180-count bottle of Loratadine for $15.

So my question is, When do I stop feeling like a chump?

1. MPAA wins its stupid suit against 321 Studios, makers of DVD X Copy (specifically tailored for making movie-only DVD backups). This is another reasons the DMCA must be struck down. Regardless, software development is easy these days. The only reason that 321 was taken to court is that they circumvent the CSS copy protection on DVDs — other DVD-backup software doesn’t touch the copy protection, leaving that dirty job to small, simple ripper programs like DVD Decrypter. It makes DVD backups an extra step, but with a huge hard drive, who cares?

The lesson here is: as long as there’s kids in the world, and those kids have computers, Hollywood is screwed.

2. iTunes removed their switch to mini player button from the window interface – those three buttons in the top right corner. It used to be that clicking on the sized/maxmize button (or whatever it’s called) switched between big and mini player views, but now it just switches between a sized large view and a maximized view. This is really freaking stupid. Now, I have to use a key command, Ctl + M, when iTunes is clearly designed for mouse clicks.

I have heard argued that making that button switch to miniplayer breaks with Windows conventions. Well, buddy, screw Windows conventions. Apps never used to have miniplayer views, first of all. And our screens are much bigger these days, obviating the need to maximize anything. If Apple is such a leader and innovator and their shit smells so sweet, then please, please pray that they put that miniplayer view back into the window controls.

That’s all for today. I’m going to APE in SF today and gonna pick up some cool comics and zines.

Google has a location service that you can use to search for things, like wifi hotspots, in your area. It’s cool, but fairly inaccurate when using data from Web pages that aren’t specifically listing wifi hotspots. This is a natural result of the malformedness of Google’s database (the Internet). You simply can’t get great results when your dataset is not consistent.

For example, I see hotspots in Berkeley that don’t exist. When examining the Web pages behind these supposed locations, I see Peninsula area codes (650 area code shares street names with Berkeley) and Buck’s restaurant (in Woodside, also a street in Berkeley).

Obviously, the accuracy, or “quality of service,” sucks. But, maybe that’s OK.

Google has built its reputation on good search results and innovation, and I wonder how much it can rely on the old 80:20 rule for software, in which the last 20% of development takes 80% of your time and resources. Buttoning up a project is very difficult. Google doesn’t worry too much about that. It puts out cool products in “Beta”, and the geek community, which influences the analyst community, eats it all up.

But I wonder how the public, my mom for example, would react to a product that works only this well. If your yellowpages was as accurate as Google location, you’d be pissed.

If the potential for the Internet is as a mass media, and Google is its current 800-pound gorilla, I have to wonder how well Google is going to be at creating products for the general public that work really well.

And that’s exactly when I’m reminded again of that old stalwart Yahoo. The game is far from over, my friend.

“Lay it on a flat surface like a Polaroid picture.”

Update to the list of reasons that HDTV won’t make the promised big splash.

1) FCC mandate says TV signals must be digital, not that they must be HD.
2) Copy protection schemes are already creating unusable products.

And today, number 3: the actors and producers are freaking out about their high-definition “warts”. Yes, dear Benjamin, the future is plastic – plastic surgery. From talk show hosts like Katie Couric to porn stars like Jenna Jameson, everyone’s scrambling to deal with wrinkles, pimples and scars. Oh my!

I predict that this will help push Jessica Simpson into a top news anchor position at ABC, finally shattering the glass ceiling so that TV and American culture can finally realize it ultimate dream: put no one on the air over the age of 25.

(We’re already well on our way toward the mandate that every show give up a little fan service, if you know what I mean. Janet? Beyonce?)

This will also have the side effect of forcing the Department of Education to revise its list of programs approved for closed captioning. Given the revised TV landscape, all approved shows will either have to take place in an arena or contain at least 12.5% horrific automobile crashes. So, NASCAR, arena football, and Judge Wapner’s Animal Court? You’re back on the list.

From WWD.COM
Tuesday February 17, 2004

Memo Pad: Ready For Her Close-Up

READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP: Hemlines, rather than hairlines, are usually the fashion world’s focus, but Katie Couric’s current ’do may be worthy of special scrutiny. The new bangs she’s been sporting on the “Today” show lately aren’t just part of a trend — sources said they’re about to double as camouflage. America’s Pixie is on the verge of going under the knife for a major brow-lift courtesy of Dr. Craig Foster, the plastic surgeon best known for reconstructing the face of the Central Park jogger, according to sources familiar with the situation.

While such a procedure might seem a bit drastic in the age of drive-through Botoxing, Couric and her TV personality peers have a new reason to be afraid about losing their looks — high-definition television. The super-sharp imagery of HDTV is infamously pitiless about its subjects’ looks. “In the last few months, I’ve had three major TV people come in expressing specific high-definition television concerns,” said plastic surgeon Dr. Cap Lesesne.

“HDTV is a nightmare,” said one beauty editor. “I would be surprised if she wasn’t considering surgery.” The “Today” show isn’t currently broadcast in HDTV, but NBC was an early adopter and it will likely happen sooner rather than later.

A spokeswoman for Foster said, “We do not know anything about it,” and a “Today” spokeswoman declined comment.

Last fall, New York magazine named Foster one of “beauty’s best” doctors in the city, and noted that he had started using the Endotine brow-lift treatment that sources said Couric will likely undergo. Endotine patients have small incisions made in the forehead where tiny hooks are inserted that pull the skin of the brow taut. Six to eight weeks after insertion, the skin resettles at the higher elevation, while the hooks — which are biodegradable —gradually melt away six months later. Initially, the change in appearance can be jarring, and during those six weeks the patient’s skin gradually crawls up her face — something “Today” show obsessives might chart if Couric’s new bangs (a common camouflage technique) weren’t in place.

“In her business, and I know her very well,” said Lesesne, “there’s a life span, and there are hundreds of people behind her who want her job. And this is her image she’s protecting.” — Greg Lindsay

dj dangermouse’s the grey album, a remix of the beatles’ white album and jay-z’s the black album is pretty great. i don’t really listen to hiphop much either. you should be able to find it online somewhere – illegal-art.org had it.

i find it humorous that EMI’s cease and desist served little more than PR, creating even more demand for the album. this, you can argue, creates demand for all of jay-z’s albums in turn, since PR is PR. that demand feeds the coffers of the record companies, who pay out the majority of it to their copyright-crazy execs and legions of lawyers (who created the PR firestorm and directly benefit from it through billable hours).

so in a really sick and twisted way, everybody wins.

So, Internet TV is going to be almost-on-demand. And it’s going to be niche programs, almost an exact mirror of the kind of voices we get to see today, thanks to the Internet. This is very good news. It points to an entirely new channel-space: the indie films, public access shows, amateur porn, etc., that never got wide distribution by the big networks or cable operators. And that channel-space is going to need a lot of new navigation and search tools.

I looked at the Akimbo Internet TV press release today, and my first thought was, ‘Wow, the programming on this kinda sucks.’ If you’re expecting Internet TV to be the same as regular TV, you’re going to be disappointed. But why would you? Regular TV sucks, so why not do something different?

Regular TV will go on-demand. The big nets huge investments in their archives, bandwidth and CPU power keep increasing. HDTV’s a beast to transmit and process, but a better encoding format should minimize that. (Besides, for all the hype, there’s going to be very few true HDTV shows in your immediate future.) Once they go on-demand, they can put their entire archives online and create some pretty interesting programming packages or highlights shows (NBC did something like this awhile back on MSNBC).

While that’s a good move, the big nets’ reliance on traditional revenue models and traditional copyright law to protect those revenues, will probably leave little room for real innovation, despite the zero marginal cost involved in distributing programming once it’s digitized. So don’t expect much.

However, we see glimpses today of the mass of content that doesn’t fall under the big nets’ purview. Oscar-nominated short films, foreign animation, foreign TV shows, video clips if every shape and size downloaded off the net. IFilm has built a business off this, as has CinemaNow and others — and let’s face it, the Internet video industry is clearly in its infancy.

The recipe for Internet TV is pretty simple: digital video production and bandwidth are getting easier and cheaper, p2p/swarming download technologies are gaining popularity, RSS/ATOM/XML will allow you to subscribe to feeds that deliver video content, and aggregators/search engines will help you map and navigate these feeds.

I think Internet TV will work best as an extension of regular TV, not a replacement. I hope these companies see that.

Combine Internet/on-demand TV with an integrated broadband wireless network, a big digital TV with HD storage and multiple touchpad LCD screens used for remote control/web surfing/personal video/etc.and you’ve really got something.

Items:
Akimbo Internet TV Set-top Box
Tivo and Strangeberry

Wired Issue 3.12 – Dec 1995

Never get lost again, as geographic information systems usher in the era of intelligent transportation technology – smart cars.

By Tim Barkow

I am holding a two-page fax of directions, complete with street names and distances down to one-tenth of a mile, and I miss my turn. Drive right past it. Just keep on rolling through the suburban sprawl of business parks as I peer through the windshield for a sign. Each block offers another array of anonymous facades sprouting from landscaped hedges and manicured lawns. Everything in Sunnyvale, California, looks the same. After six blocks of backtracking, I find my destination, lock the car, and try to suppress my visible embarrassment at having lost my way using the most detailed directions I’ve ever had.
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Wired Issue 4.10 – Oct 1996

They had a kick-ass product, cash in the bank, and eager customers. In the scrappy world of Silicon Valley start-ups, they were about to be eaten alive.

By Tim Barkow

It’s a little after 8:30 p.m., Thursday, the fourth day of Comdex, when I step over the threshold of a beige hotel suite a block off the Vegas strip. Inside, two of four load-bearing walls are shored up with reams of scattered papers and brochures, boxes heaped with CD-ROM drives and metal cases, travel bags, day planners. A PC and monitor sit idle on a tiny desk; a laser printer dwarfs a TV gleaming with the flickering images of CNN. Amid it all, the three principals of Intaglio lounge about shoeless, shirttails out, smoking cigars.
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