Microsoft unleashes Palladium,
an intrusive doozy of a feature involving specially secure AMD/Intel computer chips and cryptology provided by Microsoft. Newsweek's head-bobbing Steven Levy, the first to get the story,
remains taciturn, failing to call into question Microsoft's
security sins of the past.
Geeks run scared while
digital rights and GPL concerns are wholly ignored by the mainstream media. Is this yet another example of a malcontent media that will never possess the balls to actually question a new feature put out by Microsoft? Even
Wired can't seem to read between the lines of a technology that "stemmed from early work by engineers to deliver digital movies that couldn't be pirated."
posted by ed
on Jun 25, 2002 -
16 comments
Stephen Wolfram has finished his book, "
A New Kind of Science," which purpotedly is being espoused as a paradigm shift in many fields. But, I'm starting to see a very reductionistic attitude in many of the main theorists of complextity theory and emergent phenomena. Is the idea that the Universe is in lines of code a phallus-extension/masculine overdriven idea? Isn't math a man made mapping and can the Universe be reduced to an equation by a man? Still this book is going to be groundbreaking. Read the following exceperpt from the
wired.com article:
q: "I've got to ask you," I say. "How long do you envision this rule of the universe to be?"
w: "I'm guessing it's really very short."
q: "Like how long?"
w: "I don't know. In Mathematica, for example, perhaps three, four lines of code."
link via
protofunk.org, old similar
thread
posted by nakedjon
on May 20, 2002 -
31 comments
Victim of Sloppy Journalism? Wired News Intern Danit Lidor wrote
a
sensational, one-sided story about one of Rod Montgomery's
employer's
customers. Rod was quoted
accurately, but he is
not WordRecords.com's webmaster, was not
responsible for the less-than-swift marketing campaign, and didn't know
the context of Lidor's question at the time.
Lidor's sloppy journalism implies that Rod and his employer are
spam-generators, when this is very far from the truth.
What would you do if you were misquoted or misrepresented in an article
printed in a large Internet news site? Should Lidor post a formal
retraction?
Rod's full letter to Wired can be found
here.
posted by quonsar
on May 12, 2002 -
18 comments
The Ancient Library Of Alexandria: Its long-awaited re-opening has been
postponed, supposedly because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So it seems the age-old dream of historians and poets everywhere(
Jorge Luís Borges comes to mind)will have to wait a bit longer... I wonder, though, if Egypt's ever-stricter censorship laws and practices will ever be compatible with a true, universal library such as, by most accounts, the original Alexandria Library was.[
Via Nutcote]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Apr 30, 2002 -
9 comments
Literary lynching, the practice of attacking authors who make statements against the U.S. government or engage in dissent, gets a comprehensive overview with
a book in progress. As 72 year old author Dorothy Bryant
puts it, "More than ever, we need free exchange of facts and opinions. I hope that looking back on a few cases that have had time to cool off will help us to understand the psychology of literary lynching, and to resist it — not only in others but in ourselves." But in today's world, is there any distinction between a thoughtful response and a downright ugly rejoinder anymore? (via
Moby Lives)
posted by ed
on Apr 2, 2002 -
7 comments
Smoke Different An old Mac gets overhauled as an iBong, and sparks some interesting hypothesis about where does Apple's creativity spirit really comes from.
posted by betobeto
on Mar 17, 2002 -
15 comments
More from the "Watch What You Say Online" Department This Wired story mentions a fellow who badmouthed a thin-skinned company on an online forum and found himself hit with a $450,000 default judgment against him because he didn't show up in court to defend himself (he claims he had no idea he had been sued). Even those among us who might not be guilty of stealing have probably said something bad about various companies here and elsewhere. Should we all go hire a lawyer
RIGHT NOW?
posted by briank
on Mar 1, 2002 -
17 comments
Ethnic Cleansing: Wired Chimes In "We want people to recognize we're average people," Hale said. "If we can influence video games and entertainment, it will make people understand we are their friends and neighbors.... As long as it doesn't denigrate white people or have pornography in it, it's OK with us."
posted by tpoh.org
on Feb 21, 2002 -
21 comments
Somebody is going to link to this Wired
article about blogging, so lets get it over and done with.
posted by jedro
on Feb 18, 2002 -
28 comments
The serious business of selling all-American fun "There could hardly be a better summation of the opportunity that American pop culture companies like Disney are enjoying overseas. With the end of the Cold War, the opening of China, and the worldwide triumph of American-style capitalism, the brand-name purveyors of American food, fashion, and entertainment have never had it so good."
posted by owillis
on Feb 15, 2002 -
10 comments
Sprawl is Good Defense "It's a pretty good rule of military thumb that the greater the concentration of value, the more attractive the target... To keep things safe, you need to spread things out." The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian should begin moving their collections out of NYC and Washington,D.C. Now. Talented, intelligent people and people with irreplaceable skills should go next. Re-locate to the Great Plains.
posted by Faze
on Dec 14, 2001 -
11 comments
AirSnort. The dangerous app with the unlikely name allows users to snatch data being passed over wireless networks, eventually capturing passwords to the network.
posted by o2b
on Nov 29, 2001 -
7 comments
B61-11 tactical micro-nuke headed for Afghanistan? Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices -- doomsday bombs -- don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism, smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current mindset of the Defense Department. Rumsfield avoided answering the question of whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons could be ruled out. What kind of nuclear fallout would a weapon like this cause?
posted by suprfli
on Oct 8, 2001 -
16 comments
Stile has hit the fan. His "Kitten - It's what's for dinner" video has finally attracted the attention of PETA, et al. Oddly enough, they seem non-plussed. Unlike much of MeFi's
response, PETA is seeking to censor and prosecute.
posted by NortonDC
on Aug 29, 2001 -
80 comments
Free Anime! Manga Entertainment will stream their new release
Blood: The Last Vampire on the Web for 24 hours Tuesday, while simultaneously showing the film at theaters in Los Angeles and New York. They will then sell DVDs of the movie online and in retail stores. [More inside.]
posted by Dirjy
on Aug 27, 2001 -
28 comments
One of these things is just a bit unlike the others: The Wired Rave Awards (whatever they are) category list includes a "Cultural Innovator" category to select a person who is "changing our creative landscape. A talent whose work has a profound effect on our culture." The names:
- Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- David Chase and James Gandolfini, The Sopranos
- Evan Williams, Blogger
- Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy
- Thomas Krens, Director of Guggenheim Museums Worldwide
I don't know where to start.
posted by werty
on Aug 22, 2001 -
45 comments
Aunt Flo has left the building! "A new drug being developed would eliminate menstruation altogether, while still allowing women to get pregnant. Another drug would eliminate both periods and pregnancy."
Stock in companies that sell white jeans set to skyrocket, while sales of red and white patterned bedsheets plummet! On a more serious note, how much easier will this make it to plan adventurous vacations, honeymoons, and doctor's appointments? How much easier would life be if you never, ever had to think about having a period again?
posted by kristin
on Aug 3, 2001 -
66 comments
Another blog-tracking tool... Although I am braced for mefi attack for posting this one ("non-story - there are other web log trackers" etc, etc), I'm interested to hear what me-fier's think about the ultimate viability of such a product. Is a comprehensive weblog crawler a viable product? Would google-like algorithms work? What would this mean for said "memes" and their proliferation on the net? Further, is there a potential for a "commodification of the meme?" Would the corporates, in the style of
viral marketing gimmicks
("I Kiss you!"), use such a "meme tracker" to identify and exploit net culture
"hot spots?"
posted by preguicoso
on Jul 30, 2001 -
23 comments
When last we heard, president of Netscape Jim Bankoff was saying that "six months from now, you won't consider Netscape to be a browser company." Many took that statement, coupled with the lack of acceptance of Netscape 6, to mean that the Netscape browser was dead. But
Wired.com is reporting today that
rumours of Navigator's death have been exaggerated.
posted by tranquileye
on Jun 19, 2001 -
39 comments
John Ashcroft on web porn: "I am concerned about obscenity and I'm concerned about obscenity as it relates to our children". I'm curious what those of you who are more on the conservative/libertarian side of things think about this. Are there special exemptions to the concept of free speech when it comes to this type of content? [more]
posted by owillis
on Jun 11, 2001 -
40 comments
US drug patients vs. the world in AIDS crisis. Brazil is making generic AIDS medicine based upon existing drugs created (and of course patented) by US drug companies. the catch? they are giving the drugs away FOR FREE. US Drug companies want their money. the UN agreed ,52 in favor and 1 not in favor, for brazil's strategy for dealing with the AIDS crisis.
guess who opposed.
posted by Qambient
on May 31, 2001 -
38 comments
When the commercial sectors of our suburbs and cities fall, and our entire way of life changes, will we live in stores like
Fred Meyers? It's a question posed by not only singer Glen Phillips, but an oldish
Wired article as well. [more...]
posted by hijinx
on May 15, 2001 -
12 comments
Germany Plans Infowar Against Websites? So, Wired News reports that German Interior Minister Otto Schily has said publicly that Germany should stage denial-of-service attacks on right-wing websites housed in other countries. AOL versus Germany as WWWIII/InfoWar I?
posted by bclark
on Apr 9, 2001 -
6 comments
Feds post indecent material. In a move sure to be challenged, the FCC released a report which offfers examples of what they consider to be indecent, and not indecent.
In typical government style, anything that is referred to "sexual" is deemed indecent. But use of the word such as "motherF****r" isn't. This just makes things even more confusing... at least to me.
Examples:
Indecent: "Well, it was a nice big fart. I'm feeling very gaseous at this point."
Not indecent: "The hell I did, I drove motherF****r, oh. Oh."
Indecent: "Sit on my face and tell me that you love me. I'll sit on your face and tell you I love you too." - Montey Python
posted by da5id
on Apr 7, 2001 -
10 comments
