Archives: News
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June 2003
- Patent on GIFs Expiring?
- According to this kuro5hin article, the patent on the LZW compression used in the GIF image format expires today here in the United States. A lot of people probably don’t know, but there were big scares back in ‘94 and ‘99 when Unisys—the company that... full entry
- Sen. Hatch, Software Pirate?
- If you haven’t heard about it yet, Senator Orrin Hatch recently suggested that people who illegally download copyrighted material should have their computers destroyed after being given two warnings. A little drastic, much less illegal, don’t you think? As José suggested, imagine if you came... full entry
- Beckham Goes Real
- It looks like the word is in: David Beckham appears to be headed to Real Madrid. His transfer for €35 million ($41 million) isn’t the biggest in history by far, but that’s still a ridiculous amount of money. To me, at least.
- I Want my Two Towers
- It appears that, like last year’s Fellowship of the Ring DVD release, this year’s The Two Towers will have both a regular release in August and a Collector’s Edition release in November. I got both of them last time, but I think I may just... full entry
- Designer Drugs
- The pharmaceutical industry has obviously been getting better and better in recent years with creating special-purpose drugs (and with charging outrageous prices for them!). It seems, though, that things may progress even beyond that when they start delving into things such as a substance that... full entry
- The ‘Visitors’ Return
- Well, it seems that one of my favorite miniseries events of the 80s may be getting new life. V: The Second Generation will take place 20 years after the original (which, not coincidentally, came out 20 years ago in 1983) and may even include some... full entry
- Beckham… leaving Man U?
- I must really be out of it, because I had no clue that there’s been ongoing speculation that David Beckham—certainly one of soccer’s finest midfielders and also one of the most recognizable sports figures in the world—might leave Manchester United. Apparently Barcelona is trying to... full entry
- Anatomy of a Worm: Slammer
- Wired has a fantastic new article out that details how the SQL Slammer worm was able to shut down the internet back at the end of January. No need to be a techie here—the article is quite accessible to pretty much anyone and it illustrates... full entry
- Free Sex for Troops
- It appears that the Moonlight Bunnyranch, a brothel located outside Las Vegas, is offering free sex sessions to soldiers who participated in “Gulf War II”. Or, at least, the first 50 soldiers who show up. Man, that almost makes you want to join the military,... full entry
- Look Out Doogie!
- Greg Smith is a genius. His IQ is so high that it apparently can’t be measured. He gets up to $10,000 for speaking at events and just graduated from Randolph-Macon College. Oh, and he just happens to be 13 years old. Wow…
May 2003
- How Much is a Kilogram, Again?
- It appears as though the platinum-iridium cylinder which has been the standard against which a kilogram is measured since 1889 has been losing “weight”. So, now they’re searching for a new standard against which to define the kilogram. I’ll now demostrate my true geekiness (it... full entry
- Apple Cripples iTunes
- Well, I don’t suppose this should really come as a surprise to anyone. It seems that Apple’s newest update to iTunes makes it so you can only share music locally. No more listening to your home collection at work, I guess. I’m not a Mac... full entry
- Supercomputing PS2s
- It seems that the NCSA (the same people, I might add, who gave us Mosaic) is dabbling in using PS2s as supercomputers. They’ve placed 70 of the consoles together in a system that’s capable of performing more than half a trillion calculations per second. That’s... full entry
- Wired News: Getting Inside Einstein’s Head
- Albert Einstein is inarguably an interesting character. The recently launched Einstein Online Archives site now allows anyone to easily access all kinds of information about Einstein—from travel diaries to published papers. Wired.com has a great article up about the release of this website. Find out... full entry
- I Want to be Spider-Man…
- Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working on recreating the gecko’s incredible sticking ability. They’re making polymer-based setae that have the same kind of adhesive ability as those found on real geckos. A gecko’s incredible ability is due to their setae and what is known... full entry
- Verisign Patented What??
- In yet another in a long list of examples why the US Patent Office is run by a pack of blathering morons, they’ve now granted hated Verisign a DNS Lookup Patent. They already control what seems like half the internet and don’t give a damn... full entry
- iTunes and Apple Music
- There’s been a lot of hoopla recently about the new online music store feature of iTunes 4 for the Mac. It’s easy to understand, too, since it’s basically the only music download service that actually works (in the sense of people actively using it, of... full entry
- “Stop the FCC”
- ...from letting the media cartel own everything, that is. On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission intends to lift restrictions on media ownership that could allow your local newspaper, cable provider, radio stations, and TV channels all to be owned by one company. The result... full entry
- Wanted: Interpreter Fluent in Klingon
- My roommate mentioned this to me on the way out the door for work this morning. “Surely, that can’t be right,” I thought. Well, looks like I was wrong. The Department of Human Services for Oregon is in need of people fluent in Klingon for... full entry
April 2003
- The Matrix on… IMAX??
- Yep, that’s what it looks like. Apparently the next two Matrix movies—Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions—will both be shown in IMAX theaters. Imax and Warner Bros… announced that the second and third chapters of “The Matrix” trilogy… will be digitally-remastered using Imax DMR—a technology that... full entry
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