Ben's Phaster Online Web Utilities (Hacking Tools), is a set of gateways to just about every utility i have ever needed. Pretty damn cool!!! : )

Mega Hurts, Clear Channel DIE DIE DIE!!! DIE DIE DIE!!! DIE DIE DIE!!! DIE DIE DIE!!!

Web Revival for Old Mac Interface, theres this new thing going on called "lowercase music". Very odd, but really quite interesting given the new '80s penchant via "electroclash". Looks like its effecting design as well!!! This ones for Mike!!!

Free Love and Selling Macs, During the late 1980s, the biggest dealer of Apple computers in Northern California wasn't a computer megastore. It was a free-love commune in San Francisco's hippie Haight-Ashbury district.

Eminem #2 on Gracenote... Before Release, According to this article on news.com last week, Eminem's "The Eminem Show," which was yet to be released, cracked the chart at No. 2. This is the first time an unreleased CD has been number 2 on this list of CD's played in computers." I've pre-ordered my copy and am looking forward to hearing it. But its pretty amazing that Gracenote registers a pirated CD #2 without the benefit of it being for sale yet. Thank god they shut down napster and stopped piracy.

'Solid Water' Invented for Planting Trees in Deserts, what do you get when you add water and plastic? Solid bricks of water, its like water balloons only different... Chinese scientists have developed this kind of "solid water" that can be used for planting trees in deserts. Ninety-seven percent of the "solid water" is actual water, while the rest 3 percent is a kind of macromolecular polymer extracted from animals and plants.

Alex Cox, the writer/director of cult classic Repo Man and punk movie Sid And Nancy, writes today in The Guardian's media section that the movie industry's real pirates are the Hollywood studios and the MPAA - for squeezing out independents. He rejects the widespread claim that Spider-Man suffered from widespread net piracy, and asks: "Are [the MPAA's] claims of lost billions even credible?" (In a strange coincidence, Cox has another article in the same newspaper today, where he defends using 35mm film rather than digital cameras a la George Lucas, saying digital cinema gives too much power to the distributors and studios because the technology is less portable than 35mm.)

Koji Hase, the father of DVD technology speaks! Wow man i owe this guy big time!!!

1936 TV, E. B. White describes the fledgling technology as it looked three years before RCA showcased television at the 1939 World's Fair. Pretty cool and right out of The New Yorker archives!!!

RIAA Sues Audiogalaxy, here we go again. The RIAA has filed another one, this time filing suit against Audiogalaxy's "Satellite" file sharing program. i personally don't use it because of its affiliation with gator, but thats no excuse to sue them!!!

Forbes.com New Article On Apples Latest, best part is predictions of a Mira like tablet using airport. Heres a question, why invent a new machine, why not just a sivle for the screen of all shipping laptops so the screen folds over the keyboard face up, and make the screen touch sensitive. Now all shipping portable mac will also be tablets, a more adaptable machine without the need to do major redesign and support for another line of machines. Seems especially a good idea now that OSX will be comming with InkWell out of the box!!!

Opensource vs Microsource, Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch its growing use of freely distributed computer software and switch to proprietary systems such as those sold by the software giant, according to officials familiar with the campaign. The best part of the article is, "Microsoft has said using free software with commercial software might violate companies' intellectual-property rights." Not sure how this is not blatent anti-trust kinds of behavior (wow thats alot of negatives for a single sentence). All this on the heels of a "senior Microsoft Corp. executive telling a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan because Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed." Amazing!!!

Digital Video Recorders Give Advertisers Pause, More on the Replay saga at NYtimes...reg req and all that.

Architect for Echelon II speaks. Echelon now has a big brother. Meet Bruce McIndoe, lead architect for Echelon II, the 'most productive intelligence program' in history. He also reveals Echelon works by using word and voice recognition, as well as automatic translation. Pretty neat read, but best part is now you can hier the guy to spy for you!!!

Music Swapping Firm To Fold Under Weight Of Lawsuits, again in as many weeks! First Napster now, Kazaa, the company behind a popular file-swapping Web site, said it will fold because it cannot afford to defend itself against copyright infringement charges brought by the major studios and labels. Someone really needs to put this crap to an end. Its one thing if these people are actually breaking the law. But even that is in question. Some like myself think they are not, but the point is the courts have given no final answer and are unlikely too if everone just gets sued out of existance before the case is finshed!!!

Court Holds Internet FAQ Pages Not Subject to Copyright Protection, but i seem to remember instructions or at least contest rules could be, couldn't they? Anyone one look that one up.... Seems to me that this is a very good direction for the courts to be going. A FAQ is not much different from a set of FACTs and facts can not and should not be copyrightable!!!

E3 Roundup...Well first off everyone has slahed prices, PS2 = $199, Xbox = $199, Game Cube=$149, GTA3: Vice City Announced, Sims come to the PS2, and everyone talks online plans, Sony&Nintendo=open system, BigBrother=closed and proprietary, as a result of the latter EA seems uninterested in an Xbox online venture. Oh one more thing, seems The Matrix is going to get an online universe!!! Make that two more things, the US Army is no longer sponsoring little green army men and GI Joe action figures. They are making games!!!

Megarad Technologies, is Slashdots little distant cousin, with areally big ego. He calls, or she, or maybe it calls itself the "Ultimate in underground tech-news". i think not but at least worth a look from time to time!!!

Wearable Computer Laboratory, has pretty much built the coolest video game the world has ever know. i for one am not a first person shooter fan, but this could turn me. Augmented Reality Quake oh yeah!!!

Imagine A World With No Scarcity Of Spectrum, no FCC, no limits on what you could say, what you couldn't...at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference David P. Reed suggested just this idea. Dan Gillmor runs it down. Most of his commentary i agree with except for one major point. And for some reason it seems to be a recurring misconcepton. Gillmor in speaking of entrenched companies says "Their business model is based on economics that Reed's notions, should they become reality in the marketplace, would shred." This is very similar to the notion all record lables will go out of business if Napster, Gnutella, and Fast-track opperate. The truth is inovation is required to stay in business in a capitalist system. If spectrum becomes more available, then thoes who had it when it was scarce should inovate and keep there customers by being better than the new guy. The same is true for the music industry. Neither's buisness model should "shred" unless it was faulted to begin with. Anyway good reading. This one thanks to Dee!!!

Google Labs, Google's technology playground. Google labs showcases a few of their new favorite ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time. Your feedback can help to improve them. Please play with these prototypes and send your comments directly to the Googlers who developed them. More toys from my favorite engine!!!

A Lesson In Consul Economnics, Scott Corley at Red Mercury, explains in detail exactly what is happening in the three way race to own your living room. He breaks down software subsidies, Mores Law, and the advantages/disadvantages of using off the shelf parts in a clear and concise way that brings light to a very strage and age old question...Which box do i buy?!?!!!

Researcher Analyzes the Meaning of Meows, for years i have been saying cats only meow because their people talk. Cats rarely meow at each other, now researchers at Cornell seem to have confirmed this. "While domestic cats may not know language, a study suggests the animals, which have lived alongside people for thousands of years, have adapted their "meows" to better communicate with humans." Crazy stuff!!!

RadioMark is a new thing i am trying out. So let me know if it works for you both technically and in terms of the music. Its basically just my latest stash of mp3s. Right now there are about 9 hours or so on there. If it seems to work, i will make this a permenant addition to the site that you can access on the right. Also if anyones interested in how to do it with no server, just ask. Enjoy!!!

The LawMeme Guide to Spider-Man and Star Wars Bootlegs is an amazing article that point by point dismantles arguments from Jack, Hillary, Hollings and company. Very good read and explinations of what the author calls the "analog fallacy".

The FuzzyBlog! has a great bit on killing .doc! Years ago i heard Scott McNealy of Sun outlawed the use of all proprietary file formats after doing a study of Sun's productivity. He found that the files were chewing up massive amounts of bandwidth and disk space compared to their open standard counterparts. i for one cant stand getting files in .doc formats 'cause i don't use Word or Office. You can accomplish anything they do much more efficiently in html, txt, rtf, and xml. No to mention the dangers of embeded viruses and the like that can come in the form of .doc macros. Anyway enough soap box. Look for yourself at .doc and then save as txt and compare. Multiply time the size of then net, and bandwidth scarcity is solved, not to mention all that extra space for mp3s!!! : )

A Bad, Sad Hollywood Ending? Hollywood studios and record labels want to encrypt their products with an algorithm of some sort, for which every piece of hardware or software that plays or displays their material must have a corresponding electronic key. (If the algorithm or the key is missing, the content won't play -- thus thwarting pirates.) For added protection, the established entertainment companies want Congress to pass a law requiring technology companies to build the key into their products. Thus, no DVD players, PCs, CD players, or operating systems would be legal without Hollywood-designed copyright protection!!!

Goodbye Old Friends... This is a departure from my usuall type of post. But i wold like to take a minute to say goodbye to the passing of some old friends. The X-files is over. Tonight is the final chapter in a show that should have died a long, long time ago, but in its day was truely great! Also i mourn the recient passing of Cafe Luna, i spent many a great evening there with great friend and great food. LA and i will miss her!!! : (

Verizon's Wireless Road Warriors, Verizon Wireless uses technicians who drive around the country in station wagons filled with wireless gear to look for holes in the company's cell phone network and analyze the service of its competitors. This program isn't cheap either the cars cost $270,000 and $15/mile to operate. As much as i'd like to give the 1 2 to the big v, its pretty cool!!!

Wana Go To Space, ebay is listing a space training program designed to set you up for a trip to ISS. The training takes place in Moscow and Star City. If you do the training suposedly you are then qualified and if you can afford the ticket the Russian Space Agency will send you up on a Soyuz!!!

Senator Prevents Action on Online Privacy Bill, Senator Trent Lott forced the Senate Commerce Committee to adjourn this morning as it was on the verge of adopting an online privacy bill requiring ISPs and commercial Web sites to get customers' permission before they could disclose important personal information including financial, medical, ethnic, religious and political information along with Social Security data and sexual orientation. Wow banner day for consitutional protections!!!

2600 Appeal Rejected, what else is there to say accept, fuk you Jack, fuk you Hillary, bye bye first amendment!!!

Alphanumeric Phone Keypad Fastap, is a new thingy that may be an acceptable replacement to my beloved T9 software, which for some reason, one i do not yet fully understand, still freeks people out. So this maybe a happy compromise. Slashdot has the story!!!

Creative Commons just opened to the public. From the initial statement: "We are building a Web-based application for dedicating copyrighted works to the "public domain," and for generating flexible, generous licenses that permit copying and creative reuses of copyrighted works." Big ups to Larry Lessig and company!!!

Microsoft Loses Appeal To Shut Down LindowsOS, announced yesterday, a Seattle Judge has denied Microsoft's appeal to shut them down, citing that Microsoft's own use of evidence helped determined "Windows" is a generic word. Lindows.com has posted the judge's seven page ruling on their website. Yeah, sorry Bill!!!

ThinkCycle: Open Collaborative Design The Internet allows us to link millions of people worldwide and solve computationally intensive problems by using thousands of computers (e.g., distributed.net or SETI@home). ThinkCycle is an academic, non-profit initiative engaged in supporting distributed collaboration towards design challenges among underserved communities and the environment. ThinkCycle seeks to create a culture of open-source design innovation, with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and organizations around the world. Its like SETI@home for your brain instead of yer machine!!!

Bertelsmann To Buy Napster For A Song, well its finally over. And all it took was 8 million!!! Now once again the big five own it all. Good luck to Kazza, Gnutella and all others who are still in the fight. Sorry Shawn!!!

MP3Machine, your complete MP3 source on the net, has tons of howto articles, software, ect...Very useful joint!!!

HotWired Archive 1994 - Present, HotWired flipped the switch and debuted on the Web in October 1994. Netscape had released the public beta of Navigator the previous week. This palce ahs some really cool stuff to check!!!

The Article You Need Not Read, this is a weird one! The article i am sure is interesting but not half as much as the mentioning of the app EtherPeg and the images associated. Just go look!!!

EA Cites MS Bullying, Says No Xbox Online Games, mess with the bull you get the horns. MS tried to force EA to serve online games through MS controlled machines. EA told em to er, fuk off! Good for EA!!!

Cingular Phones Steered Away From Porn, customers of Cingular Wireless are being prevented from viewing Web pages containing "objectionable material," such as pornography, on their cell phones, according to two sources inside the company. Wow big bro in yer pocket too!!!

Sony To Send Songs Via Scour Sony Music Entertainment, one of the companies that sued Scour Exchange to the brink of extinction, will now use the service to promote some of its artists. Gee who didn't see this comming...for further reading for thoes interested i wrote a paper that basically predicted this about two years ago for law school. It can be found in my Briefcase (but it is likely in .doc form and not a final draft). But despite the unfair practice at least consumers will start to reap the benefits of these technologies, even if scours system is a scary privacy threat!!!

Sonicblue Granted Stay In "Spying" Order, judge Florence-Marie Cooper granted the stay on Wednesday, deferring the decision on the need for the monitoring software until at least June 3, when Cooper will hear Sonicblue's request for a reversal. Hope that teaches you a lesson JV!!!

A Technological Triumph For Few, Roger Ebert discusses the choice of Lucas to use 24sp to shoot Attack of the Clones in digital. It is an interesting commentary on the choices made by filmmakers whith respect to new technology, cgi, digital cammeras, digital projectors, ect...This is a must read for anyone going to see the film. It will aid you in decissions where to see it. There are only a few theaters in the US, well world actually, that have digital projection systems and this article explains why that matters!!!

Updated For digital theater near you see In a Theater Far, Far Away ..., LA viewers hers the quick list: AMC Media Center 6 Burbank or Loews Century Plaza Los Angeles.

Atari 2600 Back In Joystick Form Factor. If you love dead tech, then you'll love this. Atari has licenced 10 games and the system specs to a new company that plans to put all of it into a joystick that plugs into the tv! And thats not all its only $20! But even better and this is the part that did it for me, as if the rest was not enough, it includes ADVENTURE!!! See you in the secret room, and don't forget to bring you invisible dot!!!

Kazaa, Verizon propose to pay artists directly, funny a friend of mine wrote a paper suggesting this option a few years ago. Wow these people move slow, and the big V (who gets the 1, 2) with Kazaa, thats just plain wierd. But it makes a perverse sence, wireless providers will be huge distributors...but the real reason this is posted is for Sunshine who will get a kick out of the first paragraph!!!

Last Rites for Napster, today, CEO Konrad Hilbers announced his resignation. Shortly there after, Napster's approximately 70 remaining employees were offered two unappealing options: Quit now and receive severance pay, or take one week of unpaid leave, hoping somebody will revive the once powerful file-trading company. And so closes one of the most significant chapters in Internet history!!!

Armed and Dangerous is Eric S. Raymond open source guru extrodinare has a new blog!!!

This Sound Is For The Undergound: UK Pirate Radio. Looks like Simon Reynolds has been holding out. Energy Flash the UK version of Generation Ecstacy comes with this pirate radio chapter that doesn't appear in the U.S. version of the book (although chunks of it are incorporated in the chapter on jungle), so this is something that most North American readers will never see otherwise. Moreover it comes with a CD!!

fufurasu.org a really cool new blog i happened by!!!

Sony Ericsson P800, This is the one! 208 x 320, MMS, email, Bluetooth, GSM 900, 1800 and 1900, GPRS and HSCSD, the P800 works across the five continents, pen-based UI, multimode browser featuring WAP 2.0, HTML, xHTML and i-mode, development options include J2ME MIDP, PersonalJava and C++, plus look at it!!!

Yahoo Says No police presence in searches, this raises a fascinating leagl question. Since the 4th amendment protects against government searches and seizures shouldn't gov't officials be the ones conducting the searches? The 4th does NOT protect against private searches by individuals so concievably a search might go outside the scope of a warrant where police are not present and recourse could be limited unless agency is established....Very grey area!!!

The Dance Music Resource Pages are pages that are updated weekly to contain a complete listing of new UK dance releases and imports, along with sound clips and track listings. Also on this excursion i found Freaky Trigger a website about pop music and the people who listen to it. It's free and independent, has no advertising, no set areas of coverage and it doesn't even review records that often, but its pretty damn cool!!!

Latest privacy threat: Monitor glow, looks like Tempest has competition. This new technology takes the glow of the room and can reconstruct the monitors images!!!

Warner Bros. Live Concert Series, Warner has live shows streaming in the player of your chice from the Charlantans, Sting, Starsailor, Daniel Lanois, Amee Mann, Janes, Missy and more!!! Pretty cool.

Freaky Flash 6 Fishy Features, Slashdot reports Macromedia is watching and listening. Beware!!!

ABCNEWS.com : Are There Legal Limits To Web Linking? Great question!!! This one submitted by Dad. Yeah there may be limits and this article does a nice job giving a cursory over view of the early cases surrounding the question. The best part however is the closing quote. "We don't know how copyright law applies to the Web...nearly eight years after the Web [became commercial], we still don't have a good legal analysis of that." Crazy. Moreover the article raises the question i have always pondered, everytime you visit a web page you machine makes a copy locally. Is this fair use? What about the fact that you browser may force it to be displayed in a different font or color than the author intended, is this a derivative work?

Roll Your Own LCD Video Projector, build a pretty cool divx projection box on the cheap!

Albert Einstein, an investigation was conducted by the FBI regarding the famous physicist because of his affiliation with the Communist Party. Einstein was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four communist fronts between 1937-1954. He also served as honorary chairman for three communist organizations. Steal this page!

HotWired Archive
1994 - Present, HotWired flipped the switch and debuted on the Web in October 1994. Netscape had released the public beta of Navigator the previous week. More need be said?

Hey, Who's That Face in My Song?, Richard James is at it again. This time no tank, just hiding his face in songs on Windowlicker! WOW subliminal msgs Aphex style!!!

Viruses Are Good for You is a Wired article from the way back when days that all who have ever been effected by a computer virus need to read. They are not as evil as one might think.. For years i have been making the case that cracking, hacking and virus writing are part of the Darwinian nature of technology and are an essential part of its evolution. This article makes a similar case and throws in a social disenfranchisement? argument as well. Reminds me of one my friend Paul made to me once many moons ago about tagging. : )

Security Focus on Cable Modem Uncapping, ever wanted to go faster than you cable modem will allow. First there was overclocking now there is uncapping!!!

ShouldExist publishes good ideas from the public. It's a place to exchange ideas and dreams about our future. It's a prototype review. It's a platform for electing ideas instead of people. It's a community of original thinkers and implementors talking about how to make the world a better place.

Epitonic.com has free mp3s galore. And to boot it has a really nice writing staff that gives background on all the bands, their influences, and others you might like if you like them.

Base58, not sure how to explain this one. There was an article in the New York Times that used the words "mash-up" and "boot-leg", so my dad said i better have a look. This is where it lead me! To what looks like a whole scene of whitelable producers. Whats better is that they use the net for distribution and don't much care about that copyright thing!

Kowz.co.uk, great little web musiczine. Music reviews, interviews and features "from a distinctly bovine perspective". What ever that means. ANyway quite worth the look, the writting is spot on.

Human Interface Technology Laboratory, a research and development lab at the University of Washington, the HIT Lab focuses on human computer interfaces and virtual interface technology.

University of Maryland, Human-Computer Interaction Lab...from the Internet to robotics, technology is changing the way people live and learn. As new technologies become ever more critical to people's lives, it is important to design them to support people in their roles as learners, explorers, and workers.

John Perry Barlow, whlie on the subject of thoes who impacted me greatly and thoes i wish other knew. Barlow is the man. Read him. Know him. Thank him.

Blissout, The Man Simon Reynolds and his page full'o'thoughts and stuffs. If you don't know who he is you should, 'cuz he knows more about you than you do!

NewGround, Chris Douridas brings guests and new tunes via spinner. Excellent archives!

Solar-powered chip fuels bionic retina , it all about being the 6 million dollar man!

Rheingold's Brainstorms, a collection of books and writtings that certainly had a profound impact on me and the way i think. Howard Rheingold was an og member of the WELL (for thoes who don't know what that is, you'd benefit greatly form reading up on it) which lead to his writings and working with virtual communities.

The 70's Are So 90's. The 80's Are the Thing Now. 80's-influenced groups like Fischerspooner, Adult, the Anniversary, the Rentals, the Get Up Kids, Koufax, Reggie & the Full Effect, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Faint and Miss Kittin and the Hacker are leading the charge, or so says the man, Simon Reynolds. Time to recycle again. Better dig deep in thoes closets and deep in the crates here come the creepers and its construction time yet again. Btw for thoes who do not yet know Mr. Reynolds, please check one of the best books i have read in years, Generation Ecstasy!

Privacy Violations by court order. A court orders Sonic Blue to watch the watchers and report behavior to film studios. Oh hi there big bro.

Save Internet Radio! Read, learn, help. I have been messing around with streaming music since its infancy, it is a wonderful step forward for artists and music lovers, not to mention FREE SPEECH!!! Please go get informed.

Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog and The Blogging Revolution, may explain the answer to a question posed to me a few days ago. A friend asked me what the hell my page was all about.

Book upgrades. A new book is being released on iPhoto, but delays in printing the book have placed it in the hands of buyers around the time the new version of iPhoto is due. The solution upgrades!

Hollywood vs. the Internet, Why entertainment companies want to hack your computer.

NSF surveys the public on its views of technology and science. Heres the highlights.

Digital theatres, where they at? Wired has you list for Attack of the Clones.

PetitionOnline, just what it sounds like. Democracy at work!