Neurotypical brains have better things to do. Larry Welkowitz on neurotypical brains: ... [Jon's Radio]

While I'm not a high level geek, I agree with Larry's sentiment. Get it to work, don't mystify me with buzzwords, and for gosh sakes, keep it simple. All that matters is that the majority of the time, the tool works. Forget dial tone reliability, people want the reliability of hammer.

6:35:47 PM    

Big Blimp That Apparently Couldn't. Sixty-five years after the Hindenburg exploded and effectively ended the era of the zeppelin, Carl von Gablenz's dream of lighter-than-air transportation is crashing and burning as well. By Edmund L. Andrews. [New York Times: Business]

I remember reading about this company in Wired a while ago. Sorry to see that their vision will not likely come to fruition. The only solution that I can think of to keep the blimp form shooting skyward after dropping it's cargo is to teather it to the loading dock, and run some massive pelitier coolers to compress the helium, negating some of it's lifting ability until it is time to lift off again. I Am Not An Engineer.

10:02:55 AM    

Digital video starts small, thinks big. Technology companies, struggling to convince big film studios to switch to digital video, are trying their services out on cash-strapped independent moviemakers. [CNET News.com]

Bootstrapping, by bringing in the next generation. Great way to insure long term adoption, as long as your tech grows with the user base needs. I grew up using Apple machines in school, and only moved over to the PC once I had to buy my own (in the mid 90's) because of the cost factor. If Macs had been as cheap as PCs were then, I'd likely be running one right now. As it stands, I'll probably be buying either a laptop or an iMac before long, if only to start learning Unix stuff in portable environment.

9:51:28 AM    

CARP Rejected!.

Yay Librarian of Congress!

"On February 20, 2002, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) reported its determination to the Librarian of Congress in the above-captioned proceeding. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 802(f), the Librarian is given 90 days from date of delivery of a CARP report to review the determination and issue a decision setting forth the final royalty fee and terms of payment. However, if the Librarian rejects the CARP's determination, section 802(f) provides an additional 30 days for the Librarian to render his final determination.

The Register of Copyrights recommends, and the Librarian agrees, that the CARP's determination must be rejected. A final decision will be issued no later than June 20, 2002."

[The Shifted Librarian]

This is fantastic news, as CARP would have unfairly hampered online broadcasts of music. What is interesting is that the RIAA appears to have used precident to negotiate fees at what is described as as a "sweet spot." [p 58] Siad sweet spot is not a legal precident, but the rate that others are willing to pay.

RIAA meticulously crafted confidentiality clauses for each and every license agreement. These clauses prohibit any licensee from discussing the terms and conditions of the agreement with other parties. See RIAA Exs. 60 DR- 84 DR. But it simultaneously reserved its own right to use each agreement however it wished at the CARP proceeding. See id. These clauses belie the notion that RIAA’s primary29 concern was to establish precedents for other potential licensees.

As we have noted, in the statutory marketplace, one would expect to find some buyers - for various reasons – that are willing to pay higher rates for a product than most other buyers pay. But, if a seller is in a position to temporarily sacrifice volume, it can afford to negotiate deals only with those buyers willing to pay above-market rates. By engaging in this conduct, the Panel finds, RIAA created a virtually uniform precedent
with rates above those that most buyers would be willing to pay. 30

Wow. Way to be a bunch of low down knobs, RIAA. Congrats, I'm buying nothing but used cds from now on, and T shirts for the bands I like as well as going to their concerts.

9:28:38 AM