...more recent posts
The controversy is heating up over Apples new "Superdrive" (DVD-R/CD-RW.) John Gilmore is saying that Apple is not disclosing the content protection mechanisms built into the drive. He, and others, contend that Apple's drive (OEM'd by Pioneer) will not record industry recorded digital content (i.e., other DVD's, HDTV signals, streaming webcasts, ect...) A lot of people are mad about Apple not mentioning this little "feature", but others aren't so sure this is a real problem. I quote from HTP:
"BTW, I'm not so sure that Gilmore is correct. You can already use software from RipDifferent to extract MPEG-2 bitstreams from DVDs. AFAIK there is no way to tell whether an MPEG-2 bitstream came from a DVD or whether you encoded it yourself. So then all you'd have to do is use DVD Studio Pro to burn the bitstreams to a blank DVD. If you can't find DVD Studio Pro on Hotline, maybe someone will use the drive documentation (if it exists) to write a freeware burning tool."I guess we'll get this sorted when Apple finally ships the drive.
Here's a Joel on Software review of the Richocet wireless modem.
For no apparent reason I decided to download the latest Mozilla browser build (0.7.) Wow. Much better than the last one I tried (M14.) Perhaps I'll find stability problems over several days, but right off the bat it feels better than 4.7.6. I had no idea I would think that. If you've got a fast line, or some to kill, give it a try.
Can't believe I never found this one before: the internet encyclopedia of philosophy.
Here's a weekly tech-news sort of site (think TBTF crossed with /.) Looks good.
Here's a new Samsung flat panel display I'm keeping my eye on for MB.
Here's a massive XML-RPC howto.
Not counting vacations (and even counting some of those) this past week seems like I've been away from the web more than ever before. I guess I was ready for a little break, and then my monitor situation gave me the excuse. I read Bruce Schneier's new book "Secrets and Lies" which isn't really meant for me, but was fairly interesting nonetheless. Mostly though I've been thinking about what I'm always trying to think about: the next version of the mythic "perfect web publishing system." Of course this beast doesn't really exist because "publishing" means so many different things. Anyway, it's been a productive week. At least in my head. This slashdot article about this project aiming to make mySQL into file system really got me started. I'd always wondered about this possibility, but since I'd never heard it mentioned I figured there was some basic problem that I wasn't seeing. Maybe not. Now I'm thinking about my project under the name FFS (for Fluid File System - I stole this from someone posting in the slashdot thread,) or alternately as VSFS (for Very Slow File System) just so I remember the main problem I am facing. One quick (although slightly misleading) way to describe what I'm thinking about is to ask this question: What if every Get request to your web site (no matter what the URL requested) 404'd, except instead of serving a static page informing the surfer that the page couldn't be found, the 404 page is a script that parses the path info (of the requested URL) and uses the directory structure of the request to form an SQL query on the database and return a page with posts that seem to fit the request? Hmmm.
Still broken.
Sick of IT yet? Today the speculation turns toward sterling engines. And oh yeah, now there's a whole site dedicated to monitoring the event.