Archive: October, 2005
Waiting takes forever.
Here I sit, at my computer, just waiting for a knock. The outside light is on, the candy by the door. I’m wearing my new black velvet trousers and a black T with a small, sparkly jack-o-lantern. I am ready.
I have been ready for an hour. No knock yet.
It’s not like I don’t have anything to do – I’m obviously online. I am also eating a healthy dinner (pasta and vegetables) after my lunch of salad, candy, and cupcake. Breakfast consisted of cake.
Man, I love Halloween.
Everything turns upside down. Kids walk around the streets in the dark, knocking on doors, taking candy from strangers. It’s okay, though, because they’re pretending to be someone else.
Despite the free-for-all that is Halloween, I have rules about the holiday. Okay, so, I have rules about everything, some more faithfully followed than others, but I always adhere to rule number one about Halloween. Don’t date a guy you meet on Halloween.
Think about it. Is he in costume or a really bad dresser? Even if he’s in a great costume, you will forever look at him and think “Huh. Ed Grimley.” Great costume but who wants to walk down the aisle thinking, “I should have bought him a triangle.” Besides, you don’t know how he dresses in real life. I dated a kickballer named Tex. I only saw him in uniform until our first date. I figured out real fast why he was named Tex. Huh.
This year, no parties for me, though, and no fear of mistakenly falling for Mr. Clean instead of Mr. Right. I was invited to a party Friday, but my friends are hot and I didn’t want to feel bad about myself. On Saturday, I hit a bar, but didn’t dress up. I am a purist. I only dress up for bars on Halloween. None of this October 29 in costume crap for me.
A friend of mine recently asked if we could hit some of the DC “hotspots” looking for fodder – bars for me, boys for her. I agreed with one basic question, “Can I dress up as a superhero?”
I figured it would be okay. Everybody else dresses up and pretends to be something that they’re not. I’d just be a little more obvious. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I am not so sure that people would notice.
As I type, I am losing my train of thought. I swear that I can hear people on the steps outside, going upstairs. They are hitting my neighbors in the “grown up” part of the house, but my semi-subterranean door remains unknocked. I surf the channels looking for a good Halloween hit – the Great Pumpkin, Halloween, Scary movie, but see only SpongeBob, Phil of the Future, Scary Godmother – not even a special 7th Heaven.
I think I need to don the superhero costume and hit a bar. Anybody want some candy?
Los Angeles architects and builders Marmol Radziner have just launched a new line of modular prefabs built in their own factory (these guys do everything!) with this shot that will be heard round the world- possibly the most beautiful prefabricated building this side of the Pacific. We will get the green stuff out of the way by pointing out that it is solar powered and uses the thermal mass of its concrete floors to retain heat; the architects say “we make our prefab modules in our own factory, with renewable and environmentally friendly materials. Our steel frame is made of recyclable material and is a more sustainable building material than wood. We like not having to cut down trees. We use eco friendly materials; solar panels, structural insulated panels (SIPs), and other energy efficient and “green” equipment and options also are available.”
Marmol Radziner is not a typical architecture firm- they believe in controlling the process from start to finish and build their own furniture, millwork and operate a design-build construction firm. They built this in their own plant and furnished it with their own furniture.
The architects say: “The Desert House was designed for principal Leo Marmol, and his wife Alisa Becket. It was completed in Spring 2005 and is the prototype for Marmol Radziner Prefab. The Desert House employs four house modules and six deck modules, a quantity chosen to suit the wide desert landscape. The climate inspired us to create covered outdoor living areas, and we developed sunshade modules to provide solar protection. Sheltered living spaces blend indoors with outdoors, simultaneously extending and connecting the house to the north wing, which holds a guest house and studio space. By forming an “L,” the home also establishes a protected, exterior environment that includes a pool and fire pit.”
An anonymous read writes “SysInternals.com guru Mark Russinovich has a detailed investigation of a rootkit from Sony Music. It’s installed with a DRM-encumbered music CD, Van Zant’s “Get Right with the Man”. (Mmmm, delicious irony!) The rootkit introduces several security holes into the system that could be exploited by others, such as hiding any executable file that starts with ‘$sys$’. Russinovich also identifies several programming bugs in the method it uses to hook system calls, and chronicles the painful steps he had to take to ‘exorcise the daemon’ from his system.” This house is clear.
Looks like great management, a healthy shopping experience, and a good working environment can pay off.
Today, Creative Commons launches a trio of fundraising badges for your blog or site — choose from “$5 for the Commons,” “Become a Commoner” and “Support the Commons.” CC needs to raise small donations from a large number of donors to maintain its charitable status with the IRS.
Over the past couple of days, there have been quite a few interesting postings about the Google Print controversy over on Dave Farber’s IP List. There’s a lot of the usual back and forth, but a couple of postings that give some background on possible legal precedent. Sid Karin argues that the mp3.com case is the guiding precedent, while Cindy Cohn of the EFF believes that Kelly v. ArribaSoft will be the more relevant. Seth Finkelstein points to a series of legal articles over on the Scrivener’s Error blog, which focuses on procedural aspects of the various legal complaints. Doug Masson points to his 1995 article on the difficulties inherent in adapting copyright law to new technologies.
Meanwhile, there are lots of us engaged in less substantial attempts at persuasion, including an opinion piece by Cindy Cohn, with a response from Lauren Weinstein; another post in favor from Julian Dibell, again rebutted by Lauren Weinstein. There are also pro-Google opinions from John Levine and David Reed, and an argument against from David Pakman, to which I replied.
Clearly this subject is generating a lot of heat. Probably time to give it a rest, since the parties are really just negotiating through lawyers and press releases, and eventually, this will get sorted out without the help of all us keyboard quarterbacks. I’ll try to post on the subject in future only if there are more facts to discuss, not just more opinions. (However, radar-wise, I will say that this is one of the most important cases in copyright today, one that will have enormous implications for the future of publishing, one way or another. So it’s definitely worth following.)
Apple announced today that the iTunes video sales have exceeded 1 million videos since October 12th.
“Selling 1 million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal video downloads,” Steve Jobs, chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods.”
Apple presently offers over 2000 music videos, 5 Disney/ABC television shows, and 6 Pixar shorts. It’s unclear what the breakdown of video sales are.
According to Reuters, Apple is actively requiting more content: “Sources have said Apple is in discussions to lure more U.S. television networks to provide programming”
This site offers a very thorough list of the coolest, most useful website that help you to do everything from:
- Share my photographs with other people
- Send large files to friends
- Share an online calendar
- Share and discuss webpages
- Collaborate on/share documents via the web
- Create an online, sharable spreadsheet
- Share research with colleagues
“I want to…” or “I need to” or “How do I?” These are all questions we all ask all the time. This is a small collection of resources that will help to answer those questions. It is not complete, nor will it ever be. I will be adding to this on a regular basis, so feel free to bookmark it and come back and visit.