June 2004 Archives

only 3hours on Thief today...got caught so had to escape from the
Prison...hehehe...Hi Ho Hi Ho its off to taff we go...
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its sad but I've just spent 3+ playing Thief: Deadly Shadows...and I'm
liking it....Yes I know the first couple of levels shouldn't have taken
that long but i was trying to be thorough. That said I almost gave up
and was gonna take it back as the (apparent) copy protection wasn't
working properly and was asking me to use the Original and not a backup
(which I was)
Anyway now 0323 and time to sleep...last night of the show
tommorrow...err, today.
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while the US congress is busy introducing laws that would make
(effectively) P2P networks (Kazaa, IM etc) illegal we have this
story in which in the UK student residences are being wired up to
broadband....now I went to uni, lived in halls, and still work at uni,
and the number of unsecured PCs/P2P wired PCs/public shares is
astounding so looks like that will cause a little balloon in the number
of users. Still at £5 its not too bad...
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Episode #20 of the Bastard Operator From Hell is now out!
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well not quite, but the EFF has put together a hypothetical complaint against Apple, Toshiba and C-Net for "Inducing Infringements of Copyright".
I've not read the whole complaint as yet, but its a pretty good
illustration of the repercussions of the INDUCE Act.
And on another couple DRM related notes, one pro DRM and the other an
anti: you can download from Amazon.com a DRM'ed version of the American
Constitution in MS Reader format, which you can print off....twice a
year.
and a project to translate Cory's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in to spanish (aka Tocando fondo en el Magic Kingdom)
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As i'm picking through my feeds i read this posting by (i'm assuming) Steve Page of the BareNaked Ladies about the upcoming Canadian Elections[BNL Blog]
Also on a connected note, I've noticed that the two Canadians that I
tend to keep track of (Steve Page & Cory Doctorow) are both NDP
supporters....turning into a much smaller world!
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I actually noticed this a couple of days ago on boingBoing
and other sites & feeds and meant to reproduce it here, but it
would have been Alan Turing's 92nd birthday on the 23rd of June 2004.
For those who don't know who Alan Turing was, he was one of the
pioneers of computing, and worked at Bletchyley Park during WW2
cracking enigma codes etc. He's also the guy who developed the Turing Test which is designed to test how human a machine is.

Also WIlliam Gibson uses his name for the organisation that controls & monitors computers & AI in his cult book Neuromancer
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Bob Bemer, inventor of the escape key and co-inventor of ASCII has died of cancer at 84. Link

Its hard work to get to the end of this article by Ernest Miller, but its definately worth it for the disection that he does of Senator Orrin Hatch's
(R-UT) introduction to the INDUCE Act. I normally find it quite amusing
when you see things that holes you can drive buses through, but if all
of the ones that Ernest has picked up were missed when Sen. Hatch put
it together...well it makes me really nervous about the competency of
some of the people in charge of running the US.
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I've installed Linux (Red Hat9) on my laptop...and this is my first
Linux based post!
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Throwing Cards
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A copy of a talk that Cory Doctorow gave to Microsoft about DRM and why its bad for MSFT. Definately worth a read.
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This is the result of a drunken night out taken shape and form! I'll
eventually tie it upto a proper DB back end or something like that!
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The Apple iTunes Music store (iTMS) went live in the UK (and parts of
Europe) today, with songs for download for £0.79, which means I can get
the brand new (well October 2003) BNL Album Everything To Everyone
for the grand total of about £11...which i can then stick on my Ipod.
It was interesting to see the top 100 downloads & popular songs
only had 1 item in it, but I guess that just shows how many people have
(had) bought stuff when I looked at it. (that said at 2300, the lists
are full!)
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Wired News: Dogs Understand Human Language
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Sir Tony Hoare lays down the gauntlet [The Register]

The British Library is to make part of its archive of 19th Century newspapers available online. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

its been a while since the last update. Still playing with IRC, and I
am currently in the process of writing an IRC client based on the
device that Cory Doctorow describes in his latest novel "Eastern Standard Tribe"
(which I'm glad to say I have now ordered, and should be arriving
tomorrow). Hope that this isn't going to contravene any of the "Some
Rights Reserved" that its published under (See CreativeCommons).
I'll put up the code somewhere once I locate somewhere to host it
(probably Sourceforge or something like that), but at the minute it's
currently getting humped around on my Ipod!
That said whilst I have been playing with IRC I'm also still wallowing
through the database system that I need to implement for work (sorry
that should read systems as there's at least 2, if not3 to do!)
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Just for you guys who are leaving I thought I'd update the links to include the band!(aka The Mock Turtlenecks)
just so you only have to visit here to see all of the latest news from
Glasgow!
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I'd almost totally forgotten in the mad rush of shows etc, but there
are number of people that are leaving my life (at least for the
moment), so just a quick au revoir and hope to see you soon to: Ute,
Kiri, Laura, Claudia & Kim(well you'll be back next year). You've
made the whole Thursdays & Sundays at Waxy's so much fun, and it
won't be the same without you guys (expect recordings of the band for
Christmas and birthdays etc).
Of course feel free to drop in a comment here if you happen to be
passing through whilst online, or email me and you can come and talk to
us (well myself & McLaren on my IRC server...you guys didn't know I
was *that* much of a geek did you!)
But seriously, I will definately miss you guys! And if you don't come
to see me/us when you're next in Glasgow there will be harsh words ;-p
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its been a couple of days again since the last post, all of which have
been busy (please forgive any typos, as I'm writing this at 0120 on 3rd
June, having got back from rehearsals (yes and the pub) at
1am....ieurgh...
Today has not been a bad day, I'm now reconnected to the rest of the
world on the phone system, had a fairly constructive day at work, and
even managed to get some head way made on the various shows i'm work on
(see border-guard for more!)
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