Wired Magazine has this article on their site that talks about how we project our values onto these two men and arbitrarily choose Steve Jobs as the saintly figure, when in fact it's Bill Gates that has done more to make this world a better place, both through his philanthropic endeavors and his stance on political legislation.

From the article:

Until recently, Bill Gates has been viewed as the villain of the tech world, while his archrival, Steve Jobs, enjoys an almost saintly reputation.

But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed. It's Gates who's making a dent in the universe, and Jobs who's taking on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the broader needs of society.

A friend just sent me to Steep and Cheap which is a Woot style site that sells ski gear for super cheap. The deal is they only sell one thing at a time, then once it's gone it's gone. So you really have to be in a spending mood, or be a really bad impulse buyer to make this work for you. I usually check these sites once in a while for awesome deals. Today for instance I bought a Roomba (from woot) for $150, which is a little more than half price.

Labels: deals, links, shopping

I have found a new obsession, and it goes by the name of Lejo, and it lives on youtube (like all great things). It’s pretty tough to explain, so I must just ask that you take my word for it and go watch at least one video, they’re short and I promise that you’ll think it’s amazing. Whoever this is has amazing dexterity

Lejo: Magic Trick
Lejo: Accordion
Lejo vs. Kypski
Lejo: Sopdroe
Lejo: Robot

Katherine started blogging for her work on a blog called Citizen Rain. It's an aggregate of a bunch of the local Seattle blogs. Kind of a one stop shop for what's going on around this great rainy city. It's really well put together and since the contributors are all journalists the writing's great too. It's part cool content from around the City and part new content of what the contributors think is cool.

Check it out at:
http://www.citizenrain.com/

Labels: blogs, diversion, interesting, links

This is a very interesting set of rules for healthy, intuitive eating. The author talks about principles that can be used to help stop overeating, or the guilty feeling after eating something "bad." Some of these principles are as simple as "eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full" but when the author explains them they really make sense.
http://www.intuitiveeating.org/What_is_Intuitive_Eating_.php

If you want to be just like the MPAA, and I know you all do, you can now “own” your own 128 bit integer. Or at least you can own it in the same way that the MPAA claims they own it. This site will generate a random 128 bit integer, encrypt a copyrighted Haiku with it, and then deed the number back to you. You don’t actually get a copyright on either the number or the haiku, but the process makes your number an illegal circumvention device under the DMCA.

I’ve created my own number, which is 9B-9E-E7-B6-51-C5-68-4B-DA-16-2A-8A-FC-3D-92-65. I will be doing regular Google searches and be sending out Cease and Desist letters if I find it used anywhere else!

When I grow up I want to be a Draconian copyright association.

Oh by the way, if you’re curious "the number" has surpassed 1,730,000 hits on google. My number still has no hits. :->

Labels: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63, 9B-9E-E7-B6-51-C5-68-4B-DA-16-2A-8A-FC-3D-92-65, DMCA, Hackers, interesting, MPAA, the number

Update 10:20 AM 5/4/07: BBC News has just posted an article on the AACS vowing to wage war on the bloggers the site says they are looking at "legal and technical tools to confront those who have published the key." This is becomming a very interesting storyline I wonder how they are going to stop the 800,000 hits on google? I've seen the number on T-shirts, videos, IM conversations, blog titles, and more

Update 10:07 AM 5/3/07: 683,000 hits on google :)

Update 7:21 PM 5.2.07: Last night when I posted this blog entry I did a search for "the number" and there was a measly 40 hits on google, I did a search this afternoon and was amazed the googlebot had found an additional 60,000 hits, I just did a search now and "the number has found its way onto more than 360,000 pages that Google knows about. I find this very interesting and inspiring. It reminds me of the hacker manifesto. At the end he says "Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike."

Update:
Ars Technica has this about it.
DVD Jon, the cracker that discovered the encryption keys for DVDs has this to say about cracking HD-DVDs (AACS);
AACS, like CSS, will be a success. Not at preventing piracy. That’s not the primary objective of any DRM system. Anyone who has read the CSS license agreement knows that the primary objective is to control the market for players. Don’t you just love when your DVD player tells you "This operation is prohibited" when you try to skip the intro?"

Original Post:
It's one in the morning, but I need to post something very important. This is the the number that the MPAA is trying to copyright. I'm happy to write more tomorrow but I just wanted to take a stand right now. If you want more information why this is important, check out the following links.

For more information

• http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/05/02/0235228.shtml
• http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/05/01/1935250.shtml
• http://blog.digg.com/?p=74?

Labels: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63, DMCA, Hackers, MPAA

My boss, Jason, has finally started a blog, it's called "The Good Life" and can be found at http://jtaylorgoodlife.blogspot.com/. His writing is well thought out, in depth, and very intersting to read. He even throws in a bit of humor here and there. I highly suggest you put it on your reading list or add it to your RSS feed.

Labels: blogs, interesting, links