You read these two sentences on Slashdot and laugh out loud:
“A study commisioned by Congress in 1998 to report on internet traffic has finally been published — 7 years, two presidents, and one internet boom/bust later. Some of their findings include “DNS is good” and “We should probably have some more TLDs”
Damn. Glad that I got to see him in Berkeley and in Providence.
My good friend David Boyk has started a new music/MP3 blog :
This is a much better version of a column that I used to write on my rarely-read website circa 2000 called “International Musician of the Week.”
Rock on, dude.
AP:
SAN FRANCISCO, March 28 (AP) – A thief has stolen a laptop computer containing personal information about nearly 100,000 alumni, graduate students and past applicants at the University of California, Berkeley, university officials said Monday.
The incident is the latest in a string of security breakdowns that have illustrated society’s growing vulnerability to identity theft.
University officials announced the theft under a state law requiring that consumers be notified whenever the confidentiality of their Social Security numbers or other private information has been breached. The computer was taken on March 11.
Notifying all of the 98,369 people affected by the Berkeley theft could prove difficult because some of the people received their degrees nearly 30 years ago, the officials said.
The university police suspect that the thief was more interested in swiping a computer than people’s identities, a Berkeley spokeswoman, Maria Felde, said.
My Slate piece was killed and I killed my own radio doc piece (not enough good sound and/or characters), but Tom Randall and I are currently on the steps of the Supreme Court waiting to get into the MGM v. Grokster oral arguments.
We’re Nos. 29 and 30 in line. We’re supposed to be let in around 9 am Eastern.
So one of my stories that I thought was running for Macworld, is already available today on the Playlist website, here.
Imagine recording studio-quality audio using your iPod and a regular-old microphone. Or sitting on the commuter train, playing Othello, Pong, Tetris or Asteroids. All this and more is possible when you install Linux on your 3rd generation or earlier iPod. Best of all, one soft-reset and youÕre back in AppleÕs iPod operating system, listening to your tunes.
I’ve currently got two long-ish pieces in upcoming issues of Macworld, some online stuff for the Macworld spinoff iPod-centric magazine Playlist, an approval for a small piece for Wired . . . but the better news is that I’m working on a piece for Slate!
Thanks to Paul Boutin‘s encouragement and kind recommendation, I’m doing a piece on some stuff happening in Estonia. No word on when it will run yet — I filed it late last week.
In more minor news, my radio piece on the Brooklyn Cyclones Groundskeepers was licensed on PRX. So as far as I can tell I’ll be making $2, but it was bought by Public Interactive, which buys public radio content in Boston. So no word on exactly when or how this will be broadcast, which I’m hoping for.
Off to DC in a few hours. Think good thoughts so that the rain stops by the time I get there.
Well, a Happy Easter to all, and to all a good night. Or something like that.
Sarmad and I hit up the H-town (read: Hartford) scene for a tasty weekend full of roast duck on Saturday and roast leg of lamb in stereo (read: two of them) today.
Made some progress on the book front, but I had to wake up today at 6:45 am to do a phone interview. Missed the train connection in New Haven by mere minutes and had to wait about 50 minutes for the next one. Boo.
DC action tomorrow for the MGM v. Grokster case. Will be down there until Wednesday morning. Should be interesting so long as it doesn’t rain too much. Doing a radio documentary on all the folks that are camping out there overnight.
Engadget pointed me to this new blog about technology in Africa, Timbuktu Chronicles, which also pointed me to this neat Economist article talking about the Digital Divide in terms of cell phones. And as I delved back into my missed blog reading this weekend, I found that Ethan Zuckerman was also talking about African ICT stuff.
Best part?
The numbers of people using the kiosks for e-government services look small, at first glance – a few users per month. Mike points out that most of these certificates are someone one applies for once – there’s not a lot of repeat usage. And, when Mike compares the number of certificates applied for from wired villages to unwired ones of similar size, in the same region, the results are dramatic: citizens in wired villages apply for birth certificates five times more often and for old age pensions three times as often.
The reason for the increased usage is pretty simple. It costs lots less for citizens to apply for these essential documents online than it does to get them in person. To get papers in person, villagers need to spend one or more days in transit, which entails expenses, and often need to pay bribes to get the essential forms. The total expense for getting a birth certificate, including travel and bribes, is often more than a person’s daily income. That becomes a powerful incentive to learn how to use the Internet kiosks.
And Daniel Frysinger points to the site offering obscenely long email addresses for free. You know you want one.
Courtesy Boing Boing, courtesy of the dude’s LJ :
The way this all got started was that my friend and i were sitting around at dinner chatting about what to do for the upcoming room-to-room party. We went through a whole bunch of ideas for room themes. And then Ñ you know how, sometimes when you’re bored, you look up and imagine what it would be like if gravity turned upside down and you got to walk around on the ceiling? (Does everyone have this daydream?) Anyway, we both mentioned it at the same time, and then it dawned on us that we could make it happen. Or a variant, anyway. I think sideways actually works better than upside-down, because then you can integrate real people into the scene in strange ways.
Here’s a nice shot of the ceiling. (Note the sock hanging off the table Ñ a stroke of genius due to my co-conspirator.)
Goddamn — the fourth movement of Tchaikovksy’s fifth symphony is totally punk rock.
Also, good news to announce on the freelancing front pretty soon.
NYT :
Beginning next Thursday, as part of a reorganization of technology news coverage, the weekly Circuits pages will appear in Business Day, with David Pogue’s column on the front page of that section.
The Game Theory column will move to the Weekend section, beginning on April 8. The Online Shopper column will return on April 14 in a section to be introduced that day.
Circuits will also appear several times a year as a special section, beginning with a May 4 issue on wireless living.
Inquiries and comments about the changes may be sent by e-mail to circuits@nytimes.com.
A New York-to-Boston bus burst into flames on the Massachusetts Turnpike early yesterday, sending spectacular flames into the sky and capping what two passengers said was a harrowing trip after the driver ignored problems with the vehicle and continued to Boston.
Shitong Ou — the driver of the Travel Pack bus, based in Chinatown — pulled over before the toll booths in Allston-Brighton and ordered all passengers off. Seconds later, the vehicle burst into flames, shortly after 2 a.m., according to passengers and state officials.
The bus was destroyed by the fire, which closed the eastbound Mass. Pike before the Allston-Brighton tolls for about an hour. Neither Ou nor his passengers, estimated at 10, were injured. Records show Ou had five moving violations last year.
It’s supposed to be spring and it’s snowing outside. Boo.
Via Brad DeLong, via Think Progress, via Associated Press :
George W. Bush, 10/29/04: Unfortunately Ð unfortunately, my opponent, tonight, continued to say things he knows are not true Ð accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. As the Commander in charge of that operation, Tommy Franks had said, itÕs simply not the case. ItÕs the worst kind of Monday morning quarterbacking. It is especially shameful in the light of a new tape from AmericaÕs enemy.
Associated Press, 3/23/05: A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document. The document, provided in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee Ôassisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora.Õ
Intro: Last fall, after the last pitch was thrown, after the last ball was caught, after the lights shut off, Keyspan Park went silent for the winter. The home of the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team, the stadium looks from the edge of Coney Island in South Brooklyn, beyond right field to the Atlantic. The ballclub’s namesake, the Cyclone roller coaster, is visible on the other side of the left field wall. The players packed up and the fans went home at the end of the post-season in September. But a couple of guys still come out during the lonely and empty months, even when the field has patches of snow across it. These are the groundskeepers. Cyrus Farivar has this story from Keyspan Park.
