September 2007
“My whole pitch on marketing and communications is for companies to stop creating...”
– WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Doug Rushkoff on the Technologies of Persuasion
britt: @warrenellis You’re right. This whole internet thing was a mistake. We should’ve stuck with AOL and Prodigy. Drink your whiskey and be quiet (via Twitter / britt)
Innovation: Prizes as Incentives for Innovation →
Considered in this paper , mentioned by Tyler Cowen at
marginal revolution .
The author evidently accepts the idea of a natural right in ideas.
Does he consider that the market can provide an appropriation mechanism which is sufficient to stimulate the innovations that would be elicited by prizes?
Of course, prizes are part of the market insofar as they are privately funded.
Here is...
Another Example Of How Patents Skew Medical... →
When it comes to patents, the argument for pharmaceutical patents is a lot more compelling than for many other areas. However, as you start to dig into the details, the argument for pharma patents becomes a lot more troublesome in that it creates incentives that have little to do with improving healthcare, and quite a lot to do with what can be patented. The monopoly power granted by patents...
Great Minds Think Alike: the Bicycle Lawnmower! →
Over at Treehugger, Warren McLaren has rounded up all the examples of this ingenious, indigenous, “labor-saving” invention that he could find.
It is apparent that thousands of people who have to mow the lawn decided there must be an easier way and had exactly the same idea: Why not hook the mower to a bike? And so the bikemower is born in a thousand of garages around the...
britt: @entropyblues Oh wait that’s not the same one. (via Twitter / britt)
britt: @entropyblues http://tinyurl.com/267pwp They list one at $329 from Circuit City (via Twitter / britt)
britt: @entropyblues I would pass on the HD audio stuff. Studies show that people can’t actually tell the difference. (via Twitter / britt)
britt: @entropyblues Higher numbers are better. *not to be taken as real advice* (via Twitter / britt)
Websites Still Designed For People Who Don't Use... →
When the executives at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia redesigned their site this year, they replaced a clean site design with new snazzy one filled with images, flash, and video. Unfortunately, while the redesign looked really pretty, regular users found it impossible to actually find any of the content that they were actually looking for. The web has already been around for more than a decade...
'Re-plumbing' the liver helps beat cancer - New... →
Temporarily diverting blood leaving the liver during chemotherapy could prolong the lives of people with primary or secondary liver tumours. The hour-long procedure allows massive doses of chemotherapy drugs to reach the liver and kill the cancer cells without poisoning the rest of the body.
The regime involves injecting the drug straight into the liver, while using catheters and balloons to...
exhaust →
normaltoilet posted a photo:
Sprint Realizes That People Hate Forced Contracts,... →
It’s become quite clear that people absolutely hate the forced two year contracts and early termination fees from mobile operators. It appears that some of the operators are finally getting the message. In discussing how it’s going to offer its eventual WiMax offering, Sprint is now saying that there will be no mandatory contracts with early termination fees — instead, it will...
Navy PowerPoint on how to recruit the MySpace... →
The MySpace generation is a “somewhat alien life force,” a Navy recruiting presentation contends — with a language and lifestyle that’s almost unrecognizable to adults. And because the kids are such “coddled,” “narcissistic praise junkies,” they’ll be beyond tough to bring into the military. Propensity to join the armed forces among these...
Texas legislators explains her fraudulent voting... →
Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle (R) says she is concerned about the same person voting twice at the polls, so she is trying to pass a law requiring that anyone who wants to vote must have a photo ID. Another Texas lawmaker has introduced a bill that would “criminalize anyone who delivers a ballot for someone unable to drive to the polls.”
Here’s a video showing Rep....
John Cusack interviews Naomi Klein →
I sat down with Naomi Klein to talk about her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This revelatory work belongs in that rarefied air with A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn and Witness to a Century by George Seldes
“[N]ovels require substantial cultural training of the reader in order to be...”
– William Gibson
The Devil’s Bible →
I’d never heard of this before:
Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil’s Bible ? a medieval manuscript said to have been written 800 years ago with the devil’s help ? has returned to Prague after an absence of 359 years.
The priceless piece, considered the biggest medieval book, was taken from the Prague Castle by Swedish troops at the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. It is in...
Can Smuggling in the U.S. →
The U.S. has a patchwork of deposit laws on soft drink bottles and cans. Most states have no deposit, but some states — Michigan, for example — have deposits. The cans are the same, so you can make ten cents by buying a can in one state and then returning it for the deposit in Michigan.
Ten people have been arrested for making more than $500,000 doing this:
They ran grocery stores...
Seinfeld Scripts →
Texas legislator explains her fraudulent voting on... →
Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle (R) says she is concerned about the same person voting twice at the polls, so she is trying to pass a law requiring that anyone who wants to vote must have a photo ID. Another Texas lawmaker has introduced a bill that would “criminalize anyone who delivers a ballot for someone unable to drive to the polls.”
Here’s a video showing Rep....
'Green roofs' could cool warming cities →
Covering buildings with vegetation could slash air-con use, as well as countering the “urban heat island” effect, suggests a study of international cities
Los Angeles Times: Top of the Ticket: Politics,... →
Plagued by a lack of money, supporters of a statewide initiative drive to change the way California’s 55 electoral votes are apportioned, first revealed here by Top of the Ticket in July, are pulling the plug on that effort.
Aptera Three-Wheeled Electric Car May Reach... →
The design of the upcoming Aptera car will provoke binary reactions—I for one think it’s lovely. And unlike a lot of crazy electric cars, chances are decent that the Aptera will be produced. You can reserve one now for a fully-refundable $500 that goes towards the purchase price, which varies depending on your choice of all-electric or gas/electric hybrid, but still remains under...
First RIAA Lawsuit To Face A Jury →
The RIAA didn’t want it to come to this, but one of its lawsuits accusing someone of sharing unauthorized content is about to go to a jury trial. As Ray Beckerman notes, it’s not a particularly good trial for the RIAA (which partly explains their desire to avoid the whole jury thing). There’s no evidence that the defendant infringed copyrights, and the supposed expert witness...
1-Click Rejection Rejected →
theodp writes “On Wednesday, a three-judge USPTO panel convened at Amazon’s request rejected a USPTO Examiner’s rejection of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s 1-Click patent, ruling that it wasn’t obvious to them what the Examiner found obvious. The application has been remanded to the Examiner with instructions to make the obviousness more obvious.” Read more of this...
74-Minute Album Released on Floppy Disk →
Music Thing has the goods on the latest album from Batch Totem, released exclusively on 3.5-inch floppy disk:The audio is encoded in the GSM 6.10 WAV format [used to compress speech in GSM mobile phones] at various bitrates the disk holds 74 minutes of audio, that can be played on a computer with standard audio-players like Winamp, Windows Media Player and Itunes without any external codec...
Controversial drug DCA to get first human trials →
The promising anti-cancer treatment, which some sufferers use illegally in hope of a cure, will be tested on 50 people with brain tumours in Canada
'Re-plumbing' the liver helps beat cancer →
Liver tumours can be zapped with huge doses of toxic chemotherapy drugs if blood flow is diverted away from the rest of the body
Spiral-cut fried whole potato: Korean junk-food →
Tornado Potatoes — new street-food from South Korea. It’s a spiral-cut potato, deep fried and dusted with tangy cheezy powder. Yes, it’s unhealthy, but the Koreans have a long way to go if they’re going to bridge the US-Korean junk-food gap — hello, deep-fried Coca-Cola! Get that potato some whipped mayo and maybe some rat-poison (or plutonium) and we’ll be...
Spiral-cut fried whole potato: Korean junk-food →
Tornado Potatoes — new street-food from South Korea. It’s a spiral-cut potato, deep fried and dusted with tangy cheezy powder. Yes, it’s unhealthy, but the Koreans have a long way to go if they’re going to bridge the US-Korean junk-food gap — hello, deep-fried Coca-Cola! Get that potato some whipped mayo and maybe some rat-poison (or plutonium) and we’ll be...
britt: On one of my biannual trips to the mall. It takes 6 months to forget how horrifying they are. (via Twitter / britt)
riotclitshave @ 2007-09-28T18:50:00 →
Never too young →
I see here that Mitt Romney is needling Democratic presidential candidates over a moment in last night’s debate where they refused to condemn a Massachusetts schoolteacher for reading a children’s book about a prince who marries another prince. Romney is complaining that Dems didn’t pretend to be shocked at the thought of “young children learning about same-sex marriage in the second grade.”
...
Social Networking is a feature, not a destination →
Interesting insight on social networking, by Chris Anderson:
Right now the world is focused on stand-alone social networking sites, especially Facebook and MySpace, and the fad of the moment is to take brands and services there, as companies build Facebook apps and MySpace pages in a bid to follow the audience wherever they happen to be. But at the same time there’s a growing sense that elements...
Navy covering up swastika barracks →
Seen here is a Google Earth image of US Navy barracks in Coronado, California. The US Navy has now budgeted $600,000 to cover up the swastika shape through the installation of solar panels and various landscape modifications. They were encouraged to do the modifications by several parties, including US Rep Susan Davis, Anti-Defamation League regional director Morris Casuto, and radio talk show...
Security through Ubiquity →
Another idea I want to get out and into at least my working lexicon.
Security through Ubiquity refers to the reduced vulnerability to attack that can manifest due to being part of a transcendently common multitude; in this context “attack” includes social approbation and the deleterious effects of a loss of privacy.
This apparent security comes from several sources:
An...
britt: @s4xton The iPhone firmware update does wipe out your 3rd party apps. So, I guess I won’t run it until Installer.app updates as well. (via Twitter / britt)
Internet Uses 9.4% of Electricity In the US →
ribuck writes “Equipment powering the internet accounts for 9.4% of electricity demand in the U.S., and 5.3% of global demand, according to research by David Sarokin at online pay-for-answers service Uclue. Worldwide, that’s 868 billion kilowatt-hours per year. The total includes the energy used by desktop computers and monitors (which makes up two-thirds of the total), plus other...
Viva Creatividad "demonstrators", Picnic... →
gruntzooki posted a photo:
britt: @s4xton Hacked as in installed 3rd party apps or unlocked? (via Twitter / britt)
Do Walled Gardens Promote Innovation? →
A former chief economist for the FCC, Thomas Hazlett, has written an article claiming that walled gardens promote innovation — which seems like an extraordinary claim. Unfortunately, he completely fails to back it up in the article itself. Instead, he mostly focuses on why regulating open access in the wireless space doesn’t make sense — a statement we tend to agree with. ...
Because you asked for it! →
Posted by Paul DiFi.
britt: @KarinaLongworth Cool, I’m looking for to it (the review). I just got the short from iTunes but I’ll have to wait to watch it, at work. (via Twitter / britt)
Would A $100 Billion Fine Get The US To Pay... →
We’ve covered the long and detailed saga of Antigua fighting the US via the WTO, but the short summary is this: Antigua claims that the US is violating a free trade agreement in banning online gambling (many online gambling firms are in Antigua). The WTO agreed with Antigua and the US proceeded to ignore the ruling. The WTO again sided with Antigua… and the US pretended the WTO had...
“It’s the same as trying to do a monster movie. You know, Alien is a C film...”
– Ridley Scott talking about Blade Runner: The Final Cut
The price of copyright →
John Palfrey, Wendy Seltzer and Angela Kang have an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson about the Harvard bookstore’s kicking a student out for recording the price of six books. The bookstore claimed that that information is protected by copyright, a wrong and frivolous attempt to extend copyright to cover, well, everything.