...more recent posts
Here's the camera for Alex if anybody feels like funding the Arboretum to the tune of $1300. Check out the zoom.
This could be the worst hole yet. Java security hole makes Netscape into a web server. This is not good. If you run Netscape (on any platform) your entire filesystem (that's every file on your computer) may be viewable/downloadable to others on the net. Seems like a problem with java (not javascript, but java,) as well as a problem with Netscape's (poorly written) code. TURN JAVA OFF. (I always keep it off, but that was just paranoid; now it's mandatory.) Turn javascript off too, although nothing this big has ever been found in javascript (plus lots of sites use it so it's more of a pain - although I have it off.) You can do this in the preferences in Netscape (under 'advanced'.) Perhaps this will turn out to be a hoax and/or not so bad as it seems, but I seriously doubt it. I think this is real, and it pretty much spells the end for Netscape. I'm switching to icab.
Wow. I just found out that you can create and control Flash movies from inside PHP. It's cool not to like Flash, and indeed I don't like the proprietary nature of the technology, but for some things there is just no other tool. Sure Flash is abused, but also there is cool stuff done with it. Like any tool, much rests on the good judgement of the operator. But dynamic flash? Web front ends for flash creation? Almost anything would be possible. Interesting. Too bad you need PHP 4 installed. Eventually I'll upgrade, and then we'll see what we can do. Maybe there will be more than text and the occasional picture on the site.
Is it just me, or is there something unsettling about this BBC headline: Bush meat destroying African species?
You guys know when you see this at the bottom of spam email that you should not (under any circumstances) believe them?
To be removed from any future mailings, send email to "anything@percode.com" and type "Remove" in the subject line. We appologize for any inconvenience.If you reply they will not remove you. In fact they will put your email address in another pile marked "confirmed address" (i.e., confirmed that the address does exist and is read by a human.) Now it is worth even more money and will be sold to more and more spammers. Nice, huh?
And since I can't go one day without talking about Napster (which I really don't care that much about - really - it just leads to an interesting discussion) here is todays piece: a Salon interview with Talal Shamoon, described as a "key technologist" behind (at?) the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI.) I read this closely, but couldn't really find anything being said. At least he's not claiming they can really protect the music. He keeps falling back to the rather nebulous position that the music industry will make the secure music experience so pleasant that everyone will adopt it. Sounds good, but then when he describes the value-added part that the industry hopes will lure consumers from the already available free product, it starts to sound not so good.
"You can do things like super-distribution, for example, where you can e-mail the song and say, 'If you get 10 of your best friends to buy it, I'll give you free tickets to the Britney Spears concert next month.' So you get on AOL and you e-mail the thing to 50 of your best friends and so on."How is that good for consumers? Sounds more like his line to sell this to the industry. Anyway, the real meat of the interview comes in the final reply, where he is talking about how the industry is working with the media-player software companies (real, winamp, ect...) and the consumer electronics industry (who build portable mp3 players, ect...) This is key because for any protection scheme to work, it has to be built into the data that is the music, as well as the player that is playing the music (in other words, the data is marked to say 'hey, I'm protected' but it is the player (either software on your computer, or stand alone devices like home stereos) that have to read and respect that message.) The reason why everyone keeps maintaining that you can't protect digital information (including music) is that the industry no longer controls the creation of the playback devices. As much as the music industry would like to get us all to listen to their secure music only on their sanctioned secure music players, the fact is that most people will be listening to this music on their general purpose computing devices. And that means they can choose what ever play back software they want. Some will pay attention to the security protocols, others will not. The ones that don't will probably be free (made by people who just want to play the music) while the ones that do will probably cost money (made by companies in agreement with the recording industry in the hopes of making big profits.) Shamoon as much as admits this after laying out the secure player pipe dream by saying "...[n]ow, there's a lot of twiddles there because computers allow you to do a lot more stuff than consumer electronics devices, but that's basically where we'll stand." Where is that again?
Here's an article detailing the results of last weeks experiment which sent some bacteria from extreme earth environments into space. The bacteria survived.
"The experiment lends credence to the theory that primitive life might hitchhike between Earth and other worlds aboard debris from meteorite impacts."
I love to watch as bloggers go through the required ritual of second guessing and self doubt which seems to crop up every 6 months or so. Why am I doing this? I'm a loser. Stuff like that. Here's an exceptionally good one."<snip>...You're supposed to write about sex and drugs and things. Jenni from Jennicam slept with her best friends' boyfriend ON CAMERA. What have you done lately?...</snip>"
The plot thickens. Looks like Napster won't be shut down. I sense deal making time.
Great article from Joel about Microsoft Passport. This is a really understandable description of how cookies work, why they are usually no threat to privacy, and how Microsoft is routing around this "problem" to build the worlds biggest database about... you. They are trying to sell this "service" as a help to the consumer because using Passport, you only have to remember one password, and it will remember all the rest for you (as it collects info on what you are doing on each of those sites you are accessing by a password stored in Passport.) Why no one listened to my plea for the password watch, which would solve this problem much better, I do not know. I submitted it to shouldexist but nobody seemed to understand the genius of my idea :-)