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The Devil’s Dictionary (2.0): Semantic Web An attempt to apply the Dewey Decimal system to an orgy
Newspapers around the world are itching to print a story that Prince Charles is gay and was caught giving a blow job to a butler (so what, leave the poor man alone). According to Drudge: “New York times editors panicked and ordered a detailed story on the allegations to be killed. The result of all this is that all the print press have to reluctantly point people to weblogs and online discussion groups to find out the details. From alt.gossip.royalty: “What is it that Prince Charles didn’t do? He was caught either giving oral sex or receiving oral sex with his favorite “manservant” by Michael Fawcett. In a seperate allegation, Michael Fawcett is being accused of homosexual rape. It is being speculated that the Fawcett rape was covered up because of Charles’ relationship with the man.”
Niall McKay: “the philosophy and theology in the first movie that prompted books like The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real and Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix are replaced by a series of platitudes such as “believe,” it’s just about “choices” and “that’s karma,” baby.” From Aristotle to Russell philosophers have always been good at asking questions but bad at explanations or conclusions. No surprise then that the conclusion of the Matrix trilogy wasn’t exactly profound. The audience for the Matrix at the IMAX theatre in downtown San Francisco was more entertaining than the film. 1:30pm on the opening day and every seat taken by under employed engineers. The guy next to me was wearing a combat kilt and started talking about mac clusters and OS X. Apple seem to have taken their ubiquitous movie product placement to a new…
Things to love about the US: seeing Hammond B3 legend Jimmy Smith play ‘back at the chicken shack’ at Bimbos last night. Smith, Jimmy Sermon at CD Universe
“We named the company Netflix and not “DVD By Mail” for a reason, which is we plan to lead the downloading market and over time we will offer both DVDs by mail and downloading.” At this point the music and film industry diverge. Because watching a film is a significant investment of time, the issue of ‘all you can eat ‘ downloads is not such a problem if people rip DVDs. As a result the DVD sales market is less than the rental market. You pay to see movies or they can be supported by commercials both within the movie (product placement) or as interruptions during it. With music it is the other way around – you can listen to music for free (without commercial interruption during the song) but the sales of CD’s are a big market. So in this way it is hard to imagine the RIAA putting…
“There are fears that the growing demands of the construction industry could lead to a shortage in the desert kingdom.” Saudis ‘fear sand shortage’
Andrei Tarkovsky: The Mirror My favorite Tarkovsky film. An autobiographical portrait of his childhood
Many companies use the Google Trademark Complaint Procedure to stop competitors bidding on a company name or product. As this becomes more common practice it may hurt Google’s revenue potential and therefore, valuation. I wonder whether this leads to the possibility of people trademarking terms and expressions specifically so that they can use them within Google ads? This seems to raise a general issue. Given that a trademark is awarded within a specific industry, but a search term is not aware of the context e.g. a search for ‘Windows’ could be for building materials or for software. What is to stop people registering trademarks outside of their common use in order to block keyword searches? In other words, given that ‘Windows’ is trademarked, why couldn’t you trademark ‘blog’ as a type of candy and block anyone advertising against it regardless of the context.
Decisions in Texas next week over school textbooks could change the way the that science is taught in many US states. “Holt, Rinehart & Winston has submitted a change that directs students to “study hypotheses for the origin of life that are alternatives” to the others in the book. Students also are encouraged to research alternative theories on the Internet.” Seattle think tank behind Texas textbook challenge / Northwest -The Olympian
With the holiday season coming up, I know what my friends’ kids are getting this year: Alternative T-shirts for Infants and Toddlers
Microsoft owns the desktop. At one time it owned the command line, the C:\ prompt, and now it must own the command line that connects away from the desktop to the Internet. This is the core of what Microsoft is about, its unstated mission statement, and this was why Microsoft had to react quickly to the threat posed by Netscape. Google owns the command line to the Internet and Microsoft cannot afford to concede that to them. That is why they may indeed have explored buying Google. Even if the reports of this are not true, as is probably the case, the rumor itself signals a warning shot that Google are on Microsoft’s turf and so perhaps lowers the price that they could buy them for post IPO. Google is set to battle two giants, Microsoft and Yahoo. Google have the brand, Microsoft the ability to put search directly into…