The developers of Joost, formerly known as the Venice Project, have just released the beta for Intel Macs. Link.
Previously on BB:
Now in beta: Intel Mac beta of "post-television" video app Joost
The developers of Joost, formerly known as the Venice Project, have just released the beta for Intel Macs.
Social sf publishing: Oort Cloud
Oort Cloud is a new "social publishing" experiment for science fiction. Authors put their work online for critique, improve their work, participate in discussions, etc. The site uses RSS feeds, tag clouds and other Web 2.0 nift to keep it all together.
For writers, Oort-Cloud offers....LinkA place to share experiences in writing, publishing and help one another in dealing with the challenging decisions associated with copyright.
A place to reach out to readers, develop stronger ties to them, find new ones, and keep them up-to-date about new and coming works.
A place to learn what ideas and issues readers are interested in.
A place to help readers understand the issues concerning writers, especially in light of intellectual property issues.
A place to share opinions about trends in science-fiction and encounter new ideas that might inspire new creativity.
MPAA rips off freeware author
The author of ForestBlog, a blogging tool, has discovered that the MPAA was using his code in violation of his license. He gives the code away for free, but requires that users link back to his site and keep his name on the software. The MPAA deleted all credits and copyright notices from his work, and used it without permission. They ripped him off:
Way back in October last year whilst going through the website referals list for another of my sites I stumbled across this link. That's right, my blogging software is being used by the MPAA (Motion picture Association of America); probably one of the most hated organisations known to the internet. Cool, I thought, until I had a look around and saw that all of the back links to my main site had been removed with nary a mention in the source code!Now, as Patrick Robin (the software author) notes, this probably wasn't the outcome of a high-level board meeting wherein the executive committee decided to rip him off. It was more likely the work of a lazy Web person at the MPAA who was cutting corners at work.
But the MPAA believes that employers should be held responsible for employees' copyright infringements. They want you to know that if you download movies at work, your employer will also be named in the suit. Infringe as we say, not as we do.
This reminds me of Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr's admission that his kids downloaded infringing music. He shrugged it off, saying that he'd dealt with the matter privately. Other parents are not so lucky: when their kids get caught downloading music, the RIAA sues them for every penny, through a thuggish boiler-room operation.
Copyright law is hard. It used to only govern relations between giant industrial players. Copyright didn't regulate reading an interesting tidbit from the newspaper for a friend. It didn't regulate watching movies. But now, sharing a newspaper article with a friend (by blogging it) involves copying, and so triggers copyright. Now watching a movie (by downloading it) involves copying, so it triggers copyright. The rules that are supposed to be interpreted by lawyers at Fortune 100 companies now apply to every single kid working on a project for her class's website.
This is like having to file with the SEC every time you loan a buddy $5 for lunch.
Even the MPAA and its member companies can't avoid violating copyright. The MPAA's own CEO personally ripped off Kirby Dick, pirating his film "This Film is Not Yet Rated" using the MPAA's duplicating facilities. The studios regularly hose writers, painters, composers and performers, nicking their creative labor without compensation, and sneeringly invite them to sue if they don't like it. Even the web-development departments get in on the act.
Is it any wonder that everyone with a computer is practically guaranteed to be a copyright criminal? Link (Thanks, Mike!)
Union Square subway - like playing the Star Wars arcade game
David recently had an epiphany: navigating the NY Union Square subway station is like playing the Death Star level of the Star Wars arcade game. He's even made a video to demonstrate the point.
Link (via Kottke)Whenever I walk through the Union Square subway station, I have to navigate through all these vertical I-Beams that are all over the place. It always reminds me of something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Finally it dawned on me. It’s the first stage of the Death Star level in the Star Wars arcade game.
Taiwan's rotting Jetsons houses
Flickr user CanikFotos has sets of photos (1, 2) of the haunting, dead-future "Desolation Row" housing development in Taiwan. The development -- which resembles a rotting, zombified version of the Monsanto House of the Future from Disneyland -- was never finished, and has sat empty for all these years, going to wrack and ruin. Link
Virtual drug gets you and your Second Life avatar high
Warren Ellis ventured into the "Seclimine Drug Shack" in Second Life and discovered a virtual drug that is reputed to get both you and your avatar high. Snow Crash arrives in the metaverse.
While your avatar is staggering and lurching under an animation replicating the outer effects of necking a handful of foul pills that some nerve-damage case mixed up in a bathtub and probably cut with talcum powder and rat poison, motion graphics and audio launch to commence a hypnotic induction. The inductive system is intended to, from what I can gather, get you good and dopey, disoriented, and wondering why the walls are melting and the floor is made of meat.Link (via Warren Ellis)The whole experience apparently takes half an hour. That, sadly, was half an hour I didn’t have this week. So go down to Seclimine Drug Shack and get good and messed up for me.
Unboundedly long songs
Wikipedia's list of unboundedly long songs ("songs...that continue until the singer decides (or is forced) to stop) has some real gems that appeal to my inner repetitious repeater.
Repeating songsLink (via Kottke)
* "10 Green Bottles"
* "99 Bottles of Beer"
* "Bingo"
* "Brother for Sale" by the Olsen Twins
* "Here We Go"
* "Ivan's in the Garden"
* "Michael Finnigan"
* "I Know A Song That'll Get On Your Nerves"
* "The Song That Never Ends"
* "There's a Hole in My Bucket"
* "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"
* "Found a Peanut"
* "Rabbit Ain't Got No Tail At All"
* "We're Going to Bonnie Doon"
* "I Know A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves
* "We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do"
* "The Diarrhea Song"
* "Stay on the Happy Side"
* "Yon yonson"
* "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls
Tech support for books in the middle ages
In this hilarious youtube clipped from the Norwegian show "Øystein & Meg" a monk and a "help-desk" rep from a high-tech book company go back and forth on the proper use of a book, going through a series of misunderstandings as the monk grapples with the way that the book is different from his beloved scrolls.
Link
(via Lawgeek)
Fine art/toon mashup photoshopping contest
Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: fine art mashed up with cartoons. Mona Jessica -- heaven!
Link
Hijacker beaten and burned by passengers
A guy who tried to hijack a plane going from Africa to the Canary Islands was ambushed by flight attendants and passengers (with help from the pilots), had scalding water dashed in his face, and was then pounced on and beaten.
Speaking to the gunman during the hijacking, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane’s public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump on him, the Spanish official said.Link (Thanks, John!)The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.
It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.
the latest
latest episodes
