MetaFilter posts by mathowie.
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Today's lesson: Write a letter to a congressman, get fired for it. Was this abuse of a work email account, or a miffed congressman's office overstepping its bounds? Ah, dissent in the 21st century, what a time we live in.
posted on Aug-14-02 at 9:17 AM
The 50 richest members of US Congress, each with a net worth ranging from $3.3 mil to $675 mil. Looks like a mostly even mix among the parties, with a heavy California contingent.
posted on Aug-13-02 at 4:26 PM
Log onto an unsecured wireless LAN, go to jail. This frightening story involves a computer security expert doing a bit of war driving. The fact that he didn't access any of their files, and that they shut down the network instead of simply reading the manual on basic WEP security didn't stop them from claiming $5,000 in damages and bringing charges, with possible fines up to $250k and up to 5 years jail time.
posted on Aug-1-02 at 9:07 AM
The EFF is throwing a party, and it's gonna be a good one. Being thrown at jwz's DNA Lounge, the featured event is some celebrity boxing. The combatants? Wil Wheaton vs. Barney and his lawyers.
posted on Jul-31-02 at 6:17 PM
Electric cars not good for the environment after all (well, not the immediate environment surrounding them)? Thanks to a glitch in the electrical system of a charging Chrysler Gem, supermodel Veronica Webb's home burnt down, taking her dog and almost her husband with it.
posted on Jul-31-02 at 3:38 PM
Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for illicit file trading. "The measure would permit copyright holders to perform nearly unchecked electronic hacking if they have a "reasonable basis" to believe that piracy is taking place."
posted on Jul-23-02 at 7:00 PM
Adcritic is back! Although, "better than ever" to them means $69.95 a year.
posted on Jul-17-02 at 6:41 PM
Amazon Light is project powered by amazon's SOAP API, with a design and interaction reminiscent of Google's clean no-frills approach. Pretty cool and clean way to use the site (without annoying popups or gold box offers).
posted on Jul-17-02 at 1:56 PM
Ellen Feiss Apple ad pulled reportedly because she seems "too stoned." You decide. I don't know about you, but it seems very "duuude, you're gettin' an apple!"
posted on Jul-17-02 at 1:29 PM
Today's brain teaser: a pro-life activist buys up a bunch of domains (full list at the bottom of this page) similar to organizations (and their directors), newspapers, and products.
Free speech or deceptive domain squatting?
posted on Jul-16-02 at 1:16 PM
This is some scary stuff. Life in prison for malicious hacking? We can't keep rapists and murderers away from society for very long but now hackers & crackers could be jailed for life? And on top of that the FBI can monitor internet packets without a warrant? If you enjoy your freedom from gov't surveillance, it looks like it's time to start using PGP.
posted on Jul-16-02 at 12:22 AM
Even though Anne cannot possibly know on her birthday that only a month later she will have to go into hiding, she begins her new diary with the following extremely significant sentence:
posted on Jul-12-02 at 4:33 PM
Using Internet Explorer, Outlook, or Outlook Express on a PC? There's a new hack in town, ready to exploit cross site scripts like nobody's business. Do yourself a favor and disarm ActiveX on your settings.
posted on Jul-12-02 at 1:16 AM
Ever downloaded an episode of a tv show through gnutella or other P2P means? The MPAA may be on the lookout for you.
posted on Jul-10-02 at 2:37 PM
Calling all techie designers: TiVo is throwing a wallpaper design contest, the winners to get a new second series tivo.
posted on Jul-9-02 at 3:43 PM
Bom is some sort of project management company, but I'm more impressed by their whiz-bang cool design on their site. Kinda like the HabboHotel, Eboy (their town), and k10k aesthetic taken corporate.
posted on Jul-9-02 at 3:15 PM
Berman's P2P Hacking bill (mentioned last week) has caught the notice of a few people, and it's worth noting their suspicions. Cory from boingboing wonders why there needs to be a law for something that is on the surface, not illegal. Declan McCullagh's request for comments about the bill netted a handful of scary responses. Berman's clearly in Hollywood's pocket, but how far will he go to get his legislation passed? And what will happen once P2P hacking is legally permitted for big studios?
posted on Jul-2-02 at 1:39 PM
The bad news: SmarterChild, one of the first instant message bot applications, is dead. The good news: ActiveBuddy, the folks that created SmarterChild, will be releasing a toolset to create new bots.
posted on Jun-30-02 at 8:01 PM
Verisign (aka Satan) is set to relinquish the management of the .org domain pool this week, after agreeing to drop both the .org and .net registries to keep the .com one until 2007. ICANN is meeting on it this week (webcast). The list of all interested parties with competing applications is here, but personally I'm pulling for Carl from media.org's proposal for a public trust. For anyone that owns a .org domain, this is one to watch.
posted on Jun-26-02 at 4:06 PM
The audiogalaxy/RIAA suit has been settled, with the result being that all content on the audiogalaxy system is now "opt-in" by the original artist/copyright holders only with the rest filtered out (earlier story of the initial filing).
posted on Jun-17-02 at 4:25 PM
Proof that someone, somewhere will make an action figure out of anything: Porn star action figures (complete with dancer pole!), eminem action figures (complete with chainsaw?), and Jeffrey Dahmer. eek.
posted on Jun-16-02 at 9:59 PM
Harry Potter released unprotected. In a move that makes me say both "Wha?" and "Kickass!", Warner Bros chose to release the Harry Potter DVD and VHS home versions sans the Macrovision copy protection. It could stand to be quite an experiment, or quite a blunder on their part.
posted on Jun-15-02 at 8:32 PM
When stupid laws attack: this article points out that the widely syndicated article about thwarting the copy protection of sony's CDs is a direct violation of the DMCA. Will news directors at Reuters, Yahoo, and CNN be seeing fines and jail time soon? How many times does it have to be pointed out that the DMCA restricts free speech as it attempts to thwart piracy at any cost? (via k5)
posted on May-24-02 at 10:19 AM
And the top 200 prescriptions for 2001 are... I see Claritin near the top of the charts, with zoloft and paxil not too far behind. Prozac is down, with viagra shooting up the charts like a... hmm. In total 3.1 billion prescriptions were filled in the US, which would be about an average of a dozen per citizen. Also interesting are the previous six years of data, allowing anyone to build a "Rx Zeitgeist" of the american hypochondriac.
posted on May-21-02 at 4:52 PM
The Recording Artists Safety Guide to the beach is a great critque on the RIAA debacle, in the vein of get your war on [via geriatric punks].
posted on May-17-02 at 10:46 AM
MillerTime.com is a site run by the Miller family of San Carlos, CA since 1995. The site serves as a place for projects and code built and maintained by the family. They run their own non-profit group to help schools use technology, but their domain name, which they aren't interesting in selling has run afoul of Phillip J. Morris aka Miller Brewing Company, and is being shut down. They've filed suit against being labelled cybersquatters, but the domain is getting taken offline as we speak.
posted on May-10-02 at 10:06 AM
Freeze sperm, leave the men behind. In this article, a NASA researcher explains how a flight to the nearest star would take place within our lifetimes, but require at least a couple generations. The generation that leaves (which could be entirely female to save on weight and maximize potential for offspring) would die, and giving birth to the next crew. Taking a trip like this would increase our knowledge of space many-fold, but would you be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for mankind? Is a trip like this a bad idea?
posted on May-2-02 at 9:18 AM
Alexa, the internet depository that lead to things like the wayback machine was acquired by Amazon some time ago. A new service, Alexa Web Search joins the power of Alexa's archive with Amazon's proven interface and feature set with Google's killer-app level searching power. The results are fairly impressive, adding a related sites layer that may actually help folks browsing the web (as opposed to direct searching). [via anil]
posted on Apr-29-02 at 11:10 AM
THESE PAGES ARE EMBARGOED UNTIL REAGAN'S DEATH. Like looking into the future, Scripps Howard News Service has produced a 12 page newspaper insert that serves as a touching tribute to Ronald Reagan. Promise not to read any of it until he's really dead, okay?
posted on Apr-20-02 at 5:07 PM
How Time Warner screwed someone over and how they got away with it. An interesting story of a case from hell. In the course of a just a few weeks, inter-racial dating (and eventual marriage) at Time Warner ruin a good employee's career, but Time Warner gets away with it for several reasons. Written by the jury foreman.
posted on Apr-16-02 at 6:39 PM
This orthopaedic surgery site seems more like a design exercise than an actual attempt at an informative site. Imagine that someone told you to make the site using poor technology choices, couple it with non-professional content not conducive to trusting the doctors, and add a map to the office that does more to enable chuckles than get people to into the business. It's so bad, it's good, and most definitely do not skip intro on this one.
posted on Apr-13-02 at 2:34 PM
David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right" chronicles the laundry list of illegality he took part in as a part of the conservative machine, smearing both Anita Hill and Bill Clinton during the 1990's. He claims all the ridiculous things you've heard about "vast right-wing conspiracies" were true, and that it's time the truth come out. Is this guy for real, or blowing smoke up our collective asses?
posted on Apr-8-02 at 10:17 PM
The company that brought full screen flash ads that overtake the browser is cooking up something new, which could quite possibly be worse: reskinning your browser and replacing toolbar buttons with advertisements. Although they don't state the limitations, I would assume it works in windows IE and possibly Netscape/Mozilla (through XUL). Perhaps it's time to switch to Opera once and for all.
posted on Apr-2-02 at 11:22 AM
The story behind the "Work From Home" signs found all over major cities is a great bit of sleuthing facilitated by the internet. Armed with google and a phone, one guy slowly uncovered the latest MLM scam from Herbalife, and gets to the bottom of how they both shield themselves from wrongdoing, and how nearly impossible it is to make any money. This is personal site content at its very best. [via Cam]
posted on Apr-1-02 at 6:43 PM
The Philadelphia Daily News has recently covered a series of articles on "Malternatives," those hard liquor laced beverages like hard lemonades and vodka based alterna-beers that have sprung up in the last year. Even though they contain 100% distilled alcohol, they are taxed as beer, saving Smirnoff over $80 million in taxes last year alone. Among their other advantages for manufacturers, they get to advertise on TV and be placed for sale next to milder forms of alcohol, dodging laws against hard liquor. Is this a boon for the industry or deceptive practices?
posted on Mar-29-02 at 12:29 PM
Tonight the lead council from Live365 will be taking calls and answering questions live online here in just a few hours, about the recent CARP proposed rulings for internet streaming radio. If you're interested in seeing internet radio live on, give it a listen, if you prefer the RIAA's stranglehold on distribution and prefer hearing Creed streamed over any one of the thousands of identically programmed ClearChannel outlets, feel free to ignore.
posted on Mar-26-02 at 3:18 PM
Photoshopers, start your engines. The excitement machine is launching a contest. Photoshop a funny picture of a 1980 JC Penny catalog photo (previously noted here that it looks like GW Bush), and win the entire series six simpsons set.
posted on Mar-26-02 at 10:29 AM
After a few good natured google bombs surfaced on weblogs in the past month or so, a recent meme to get an anti-scientology site higher in the rankings for "scientology" searches at Google has reportedly resulted in the removal of all links to Operation Clambake from Google. Has Google overstepped its bounds or did participating weblogs go too far?
posted on Mar-20-02 at 4:55 PM
The Tech Museums Awards have announced a call for entries for their 2002 event. $50,000 will be awarded to five winners in a competition "designed to recognize people, companies or organizations which develop or use technology in creative ways to solve global challenges and have a high potential of yielding lasting, beneficial impact. The awards honor innovators from around the world in the categories of health, education, environment, economic development and equality." Just imagine: technology benefitting humanity, and getting financial support for it. 2001 winners here.
posted on Feb-26-02 at 12:26 PM
It's official, streaming music is now 14 cents per song and retroactive to 1998. An update to an earlier thread, this new ruling would add $150,000 in monthly royalty fees to live365, and probably kill whatever streaming radio sites are currently out there. Of course broadcasting via AM/FM is half price, so maybe pirate radio stations will grow more popular.
posted on Feb-22-02 at 5:55 PM
Cheney's company did millions of dollars of business with the axis of evil under his watch as late as August of 2000, according to this Financial Times article. Are there any holes in this story from November 2000 they missed? Why would someone opposed to terrorism run a company that dealt financially with them (or is this article complete bunk)?
posted on Feb-20-02 at 11:08 AM
Finally, no more Miss Cleo commercials as the Federal Trade Commission steps into to prosecute late-night TV's most popular psychic peddler. At first I thought if you dumb enough to call a psychic line, the gov't shouldn't be stepping in to block the charges, as the article notes the average call was $60, but they also note misleading "free reading" claims and crooked billing procedures. If you're making that kind of money, why resort to underhanded business practices? Even more obvious: why didn't she see this coming and change their ways?
posted on Feb-19-02 at 10:41 AM
Though the president has claimed Ken Lay is merely an acquaintance that he hasn't seen in months, the smoking gun uncovered documents pointing out historically there has been a fairly regular correspondence and perhaps a close friendship between the two. They're all from 2000 and earlier, but will things like this dog the president or raise any suspicions?
posted on Feb-15-02 at 2:38 PM
First the Family Guy gets the ax, and now this: according to gotfuturama.com and aint it cool, Futurama will be cancelled. For me, there's officially no reason to watch the Fox network now, as they've cancelled the only things I recorded each week.
posted on Feb-12-02 at 11:13 AM
Bob Mould on wrestling, the internet, and mp3s. With his first new album in years coming out, Bob's got a new outlook that's different than the old open taping/bootleg philosophy. Since he's distributing his own work, and paying for it all, you're taking money out of his hands, so he's going with the honor system. Is the value of music really going down, or will Bob have no problem finding people to pay for it?
posted on Feb-10-02 at 5:56 PM
Remember the 15 year old that crashed a cessna into a Florida building? His suicide note is up at the smoking gun, and apparently "Al Qaeda and other organizations have met with me several times to discuss the option of me joining" and he thought "Osama bin Laden is absolutely justified" in a screed that blasts US involvement with Israel. Kids today.
posted on Feb-7-02 at 9:32 AM
The Guardian's story on Blogger Pro covers everything you've heard about in the past week, but gets interesting at the end. "We have a tremendous amount of content flowing through our system, all in these little chunks that are separate from their sites. It should be easy to index and aggregate and present to people in all kinds of different ways." Blogger as the Associated Press of weblog syndication services?
posted on Jan-31-02 at 12:49 AM
Lego isn't just for geeks anymore. The latest video directed by Michel Gondry for the White Stripes melds lego with rock in a wonderful way that just has to be seen.
posted on Jan-27-02 at 11:04 PM
Alterslash takes all the hard work out of reading Slashdot. On a single page, it compiles the day's headlines, along with the top five rated comments on each, and graphs the signal % over time for each thread. Think of it as an automatic digest, showing just the best of Slashdot, each day.
posted on Jan-25-02 at 10:38 PM
George Bush: Union buster. 500 federal employees (including US Attorneys' offices, Interpol's U.S. branch, the Criminal Division, the National Drug Intelligence Center, and the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review) fired because the presence of unionized workers would not be "consistent with national security requirements and considerations." [via bb]
posted on Jan-24-02 at 10:06 PM
posted on Aug-14-02 at 9:17 AM
The 50 richest members of US Congress, each with a net worth ranging from $3.3 mil to $675 mil. Looks like a mostly even mix among the parties, with a heavy California contingent.
posted on Aug-13-02 at 4:26 PM
Log onto an unsecured wireless LAN, go to jail. This frightening story involves a computer security expert doing a bit of war driving. The fact that he didn't access any of their files, and that they shut down the network instead of simply reading the manual on basic WEP security didn't stop them from claiming $5,000 in damages and bringing charges, with possible fines up to $250k and up to 5 years jail time.
posted on Aug-1-02 at 9:07 AM
The EFF is throwing a party, and it's gonna be a good one. Being thrown at jwz's DNA Lounge, the featured event is some celebrity boxing. The combatants? Wil Wheaton vs. Barney and his lawyers.
posted on Jul-31-02 at 6:17 PM
Electric cars not good for the environment after all (well, not the immediate environment surrounding them)? Thanks to a glitch in the electrical system of a charging Chrysler Gem, supermodel Veronica Webb's home burnt down, taking her dog and almost her husband with it.
posted on Jul-31-02 at 3:38 PM
Congress is about to consider an entertainment industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable PCs used for illicit file trading. "The measure would permit copyright holders to perform nearly unchecked electronic hacking if they have a "reasonable basis" to believe that piracy is taking place."
posted on Jul-23-02 at 7:00 PM
Adcritic is back! Although, "better than ever" to them means $69.95 a year.
posted on Jul-17-02 at 6:41 PM
Amazon Light is project powered by amazon's SOAP API, with a design and interaction reminiscent of Google's clean no-frills approach. Pretty cool and clean way to use the site (without annoying popups or gold box offers).
posted on Jul-17-02 at 1:56 PM
Ellen Feiss Apple ad pulled reportedly because she seems "too stoned." You decide. I don't know about you, but it seems very "duuude, you're gettin' an apple!"
posted on Jul-17-02 at 1:29 PM
Today's brain teaser: a pro-life activist buys up a bunch of domains (full list at the bottom of this page) similar to organizations (and their directors), newspapers, and products.
Free speech or deceptive domain squatting?
posted on Jul-16-02 at 1:16 PM
This is some scary stuff. Life in prison for malicious hacking? We can't keep rapists and murderers away from society for very long but now hackers & crackers could be jailed for life? And on top of that the FBI can monitor internet packets without a warrant? If you enjoy your freedom from gov't surveillance, it looks like it's time to start using PGP.
posted on Jul-16-02 at 12:22 AM
Even though Anne cannot possibly know on her birthday that only a month later she will have to go into hiding, she begins her new diary with the following extremely significant sentence:
"I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support."60 years ago today, Anne Frank started her diary while in hiding.
posted on Jul-12-02 at 4:33 PM
Using Internet Explorer, Outlook, or Outlook Express on a PC? There's a new hack in town, ready to exploit cross site scripts like nobody's business. Do yourself a favor and disarm ActiveX on your settings.
posted on Jul-12-02 at 1:16 AM
Ever downloaded an episode of a tv show through gnutella or other P2P means? The MPAA may be on the lookout for you.
posted on Jul-10-02 at 2:37 PM
Calling all techie designers: TiVo is throwing a wallpaper design contest, the winners to get a new second series tivo.
posted on Jul-9-02 at 3:43 PM
Bom is some sort of project management company, but I'm more impressed by their whiz-bang cool design on their site. Kinda like the HabboHotel, Eboy (their town), and k10k aesthetic taken corporate.
posted on Jul-9-02 at 3:15 PM
Berman's P2P Hacking bill (mentioned last week) has caught the notice of a few people, and it's worth noting their suspicions. Cory from boingboing wonders why there needs to be a law for something that is on the surface, not illegal. Declan McCullagh's request for comments about the bill netted a handful of scary responses. Berman's clearly in Hollywood's pocket, but how far will he go to get his legislation passed? And what will happen once P2P hacking is legally permitted for big studios?
posted on Jul-2-02 at 1:39 PM
The bad news: SmarterChild, one of the first instant message bot applications, is dead. The good news: ActiveBuddy, the folks that created SmarterChild, will be releasing a toolset to create new bots.
posted on Jun-30-02 at 8:01 PM
Verisign (aka Satan) is set to relinquish the management of the .org domain pool this week, after agreeing to drop both the .org and .net registries to keep the .com one until 2007. ICANN is meeting on it this week (webcast). The list of all interested parties with competing applications is here, but personally I'm pulling for Carl from media.org's proposal for a public trust. For anyone that owns a .org domain, this is one to watch.
posted on Jun-26-02 at 4:06 PM
The audiogalaxy/RIAA suit has been settled, with the result being that all content on the audiogalaxy system is now "opt-in" by the original artist/copyright holders only with the rest filtered out (earlier story of the initial filing).
posted on Jun-17-02 at 4:25 PM
Proof that someone, somewhere will make an action figure out of anything: Porn star action figures (complete with dancer pole!), eminem action figures (complete with chainsaw?), and Jeffrey Dahmer. eek.
posted on Jun-16-02 at 9:59 PM
Harry Potter released unprotected. In a move that makes me say both "Wha?" and "Kickass!", Warner Bros chose to release the Harry Potter DVD and VHS home versions sans the Macrovision copy protection. It could stand to be quite an experiment, or quite a blunder on their part.
posted on Jun-15-02 at 8:32 PM
When stupid laws attack: this article points out that the widely syndicated article about thwarting the copy protection of sony's CDs is a direct violation of the DMCA. Will news directors at Reuters, Yahoo, and CNN be seeing fines and jail time soon? How many times does it have to be pointed out that the DMCA restricts free speech as it attempts to thwart piracy at any cost? (via k5)
posted on May-24-02 at 10:19 AM
And the top 200 prescriptions for 2001 are... I see Claritin near the top of the charts, with zoloft and paxil not too far behind. Prozac is down, with viagra shooting up the charts like a... hmm. In total 3.1 billion prescriptions were filled in the US, which would be about an average of a dozen per citizen. Also interesting are the previous six years of data, allowing anyone to build a "Rx Zeitgeist" of the american hypochondriac.
posted on May-21-02 at 4:52 PM
The Recording Artists Safety Guide to the beach is a great critque on the RIAA debacle, in the vein of get your war on [via geriatric punks].
posted on May-17-02 at 10:46 AM
MillerTime.com is a site run by the Miller family of San Carlos, CA since 1995. The site serves as a place for projects and code built and maintained by the family. They run their own non-profit group to help schools use technology, but their domain name, which they aren't interesting in selling has run afoul of Phillip J. Morris aka Miller Brewing Company, and is being shut down. They've filed suit against being labelled cybersquatters, but the domain is getting taken offline as we speak.
posted on May-10-02 at 10:06 AM
Freeze sperm, leave the men behind. In this article, a NASA researcher explains how a flight to the nearest star would take place within our lifetimes, but require at least a couple generations. The generation that leaves (which could be entirely female to save on weight and maximize potential for offspring) would die, and giving birth to the next crew. Taking a trip like this would increase our knowledge of space many-fold, but would you be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for mankind? Is a trip like this a bad idea?
posted on May-2-02 at 9:18 AM
Alexa, the internet depository that lead to things like the wayback machine was acquired by Amazon some time ago. A new service, Alexa Web Search joins the power of Alexa's archive with Amazon's proven interface and feature set with Google's killer-app level searching power. The results are fairly impressive, adding a related sites layer that may actually help folks browsing the web (as opposed to direct searching). [via anil]
posted on Apr-29-02 at 11:10 AM
THESE PAGES ARE EMBARGOED UNTIL REAGAN'S DEATH. Like looking into the future, Scripps Howard News Service has produced a 12 page newspaper insert that serves as a touching tribute to Ronald Reagan. Promise not to read any of it until he's really dead, okay?
posted on Apr-20-02 at 5:07 PM
How Time Warner screwed someone over and how they got away with it. An interesting story of a case from hell. In the course of a just a few weeks, inter-racial dating (and eventual marriage) at Time Warner ruin a good employee's career, but Time Warner gets away with it for several reasons. Written by the jury foreman.
posted on Apr-16-02 at 6:39 PM
This orthopaedic surgery site seems more like a design exercise than an actual attempt at an informative site. Imagine that someone told you to make the site using poor technology choices, couple it with non-professional content not conducive to trusting the doctors, and add a map to the office that does more to enable chuckles than get people to into the business. It's so bad, it's good, and most definitely do not skip intro on this one.
posted on Apr-13-02 at 2:34 PM
David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right" chronicles the laundry list of illegality he took part in as a part of the conservative machine, smearing both Anita Hill and Bill Clinton during the 1990's. He claims all the ridiculous things you've heard about "vast right-wing conspiracies" were true, and that it's time the truth come out. Is this guy for real, or blowing smoke up our collective asses?
posted on Apr-8-02 at 10:17 PM
The company that brought full screen flash ads that overtake the browser is cooking up something new, which could quite possibly be worse: reskinning your browser and replacing toolbar buttons with advertisements. Although they don't state the limitations, I would assume it works in windows IE and possibly Netscape/Mozilla (through XUL). Perhaps it's time to switch to Opera once and for all.
posted on Apr-2-02 at 11:22 AM
The story behind the "Work From Home" signs found all over major cities is a great bit of sleuthing facilitated by the internet. Armed with google and a phone, one guy slowly uncovered the latest MLM scam from Herbalife, and gets to the bottom of how they both shield themselves from wrongdoing, and how nearly impossible it is to make any money. This is personal site content at its very best. [via Cam]
posted on Apr-1-02 at 6:43 PM
The Philadelphia Daily News has recently covered a series of articles on "Malternatives," those hard liquor laced beverages like hard lemonades and vodka based alterna-beers that have sprung up in the last year. Even though they contain 100% distilled alcohol, they are taxed as beer, saving Smirnoff over $80 million in taxes last year alone. Among their other advantages for manufacturers, they get to advertise on TV and be placed for sale next to milder forms of alcohol, dodging laws against hard liquor. Is this a boon for the industry or deceptive practices?
posted on Mar-29-02 at 12:29 PM
Tonight the lead council from Live365 will be taking calls and answering questions live online here in just a few hours, about the recent CARP proposed rulings for internet streaming radio. If you're interested in seeing internet radio live on, give it a listen, if you prefer the RIAA's stranglehold on distribution and prefer hearing Creed streamed over any one of the thousands of identically programmed ClearChannel outlets, feel free to ignore.
posted on Mar-26-02 at 3:18 PM
Photoshopers, start your engines. The excitement machine is launching a contest. Photoshop a funny picture of a 1980 JC Penny catalog photo (previously noted here that it looks like GW Bush), and win the entire series six simpsons set.
posted on Mar-26-02 at 10:29 AM
After a few good natured google bombs surfaced on weblogs in the past month or so, a recent meme to get an anti-scientology site higher in the rankings for "scientology" searches at Google has reportedly resulted in the removal of all links to Operation Clambake from Google. Has Google overstepped its bounds or did participating weblogs go too far?
posted on Mar-20-02 at 4:55 PM
The Tech Museums Awards have announced a call for entries for their 2002 event. $50,000 will be awarded to five winners in a competition "designed to recognize people, companies or organizations which develop or use technology in creative ways to solve global challenges and have a high potential of yielding lasting, beneficial impact. The awards honor innovators from around the world in the categories of health, education, environment, economic development and equality." Just imagine: technology benefitting humanity, and getting financial support for it. 2001 winners here.
posted on Feb-26-02 at 12:26 PM
It's official, streaming music is now 14 cents per song and retroactive to 1998. An update to an earlier thread, this new ruling would add $150,000 in monthly royalty fees to live365, and probably kill whatever streaming radio sites are currently out there. Of course broadcasting via AM/FM is half price, so maybe pirate radio stations will grow more popular.
posted on Feb-22-02 at 5:55 PM
Cheney's company did millions of dollars of business with the axis of evil under his watch as late as August of 2000, according to this Financial Times article. Are there any holes in this story from November 2000 they missed? Why would someone opposed to terrorism run a company that dealt financially with them (or is this article complete bunk)?
posted on Feb-20-02 at 11:08 AM
Finally, no more Miss Cleo commercials as the Federal Trade Commission steps into to prosecute late-night TV's most popular psychic peddler. At first I thought if you dumb enough to call a psychic line, the gov't shouldn't be stepping in to block the charges, as the article notes the average call was $60, but they also note misleading "free reading" claims and crooked billing procedures. If you're making that kind of money, why resort to underhanded business practices? Even more obvious: why didn't she see this coming and change their ways?
posted on Feb-19-02 at 10:41 AM
Though the president has claimed Ken Lay is merely an acquaintance that he hasn't seen in months, the smoking gun uncovered documents pointing out historically there has been a fairly regular correspondence and perhaps a close friendship between the two. They're all from 2000 and earlier, but will things like this dog the president or raise any suspicions?
posted on Feb-15-02 at 2:38 PM
First the Family Guy gets the ax, and now this: according to gotfuturama.com and aint it cool, Futurama will be cancelled. For me, there's officially no reason to watch the Fox network now, as they've cancelled the only things I recorded each week.
posted on Feb-12-02 at 11:13 AM
Bob Mould on wrestling, the internet, and mp3s. With his first new album in years coming out, Bob's got a new outlook that's different than the old open taping/bootleg philosophy. Since he's distributing his own work, and paying for it all, you're taking money out of his hands, so he's going with the honor system. Is the value of music really going down, or will Bob have no problem finding people to pay for it?
posted on Feb-10-02 at 5:56 PM
Remember the 15 year old that crashed a cessna into a Florida building? His suicide note is up at the smoking gun, and apparently "Al Qaeda and other organizations have met with me several times to discuss the option of me joining" and he thought "Osama bin Laden is absolutely justified" in a screed that blasts US involvement with Israel. Kids today.
posted on Feb-7-02 at 9:32 AM
The Guardian's story on Blogger Pro covers everything you've heard about in the past week, but gets interesting at the end. "We have a tremendous amount of content flowing through our system, all in these little chunks that are separate from their sites. It should be easy to index and aggregate and present to people in all kinds of different ways." Blogger as the Associated Press of weblog syndication services?
posted on Jan-31-02 at 12:49 AM
Lego isn't just for geeks anymore. The latest video directed by Michel Gondry for the White Stripes melds lego with rock in a wonderful way that just has to be seen.
posted on Jan-27-02 at 11:04 PM
Alterslash takes all the hard work out of reading Slashdot. On a single page, it compiles the day's headlines, along with the top five rated comments on each, and graphs the signal % over time for each thread. Think of it as an automatic digest, showing just the best of Slashdot, each day.
posted on Jan-25-02 at 10:38 PM
George Bush: Union buster. 500 federal employees (including US Attorneys' offices, Interpol's U.S. branch, the Criminal Division, the National Drug Intelligence Center, and the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review) fired because the presence of unionized workers would not be "consistent with national security requirements and considerations." [via bb]
posted on Jan-24-02 at 10:06 PM
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