January, 2001

  1. Trust the Government to Protect Your Privacy

    The other day a news story hit the media that a Drug Enforcement Agency agent had taken confidential DEA records and was peddling them to a private investigation firm. The DEA agent now faces prosecution. But according to ZDNet’s David Coursey, nobody ever really gets hurt by government misuse of information and so those of…

  2. The Future of Copyright Laws

    Today ZDNET writes about Bruce Lehman forming a group to defend the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Lehman ran the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a number of years and was one of the folks who helped write the copyright laws. Now he says the anti-copyright forces are winning the battle over the DMCA. Unfortunately…

  3. SmallBall: America’s Pastime Meets Virtual Pets

    Real.Com has a games division apparently, and has announced beta testing of a baseball strategy game it calls SmallBall. The kicker is the game combines baseball with virtual pet-like technology. According to a brief FAQ about the game, The concept behind SmallBall games is to combine sports with Artificial Life (A-life) technology. When you sign…

  4. Pornography for the Palm

    When I first heard the announcement of the Palm IIIc and then the Visor with the color screen, I told my wife that this would make the Palm platform a viable, lucrative conduit for pornography. Turns out some 20 year old college student had similar thoughts.

  5. Self-Serving Wired Story

    I always have to laugh when I see stories like today’s Wired article, Microsoft: Silence of the Flaks. Hmmm. A news organization running a story berating a company for not being more willing to talk to news organizations. No, that’s not a self-serving story at all. The irony, of course, is that news organizations such…

  6. What’s Up with RSS 0.92?

    Like Steve Ivy I’m wondering exactly what Dave Winer is thinking with RSS 0.92. Okay I remember him complaining about how efforts to move forward with a new RSS implementation (or an extension of RSS 0.91) were getting bogged down and so he was striking out on his own. Fine — sometimes that’s the best…

  7. Speaking of the Coen Brothers

    Speaking of “O Brother,” that was my reaction after watching “Fargo.” For years people I knew with pretty good taste in movies kept telling me I had to see “Fargo.” It was hilarious, cutting edge they said, and certainly there is a pretty rabid set of fans on the Internet and elsewhere. So I finally…

  8. Country Stations Won’t Play “O Brother” Soundtrack

    The Washington Post reports that country music stations won’t play anything from the soundtrack of the Coen brothers’ new film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” This despite the fact that the soundtrack is the number 2 country album in the country at the moment. Why won’t they play it? Because almost all country radio stations…