It’s that time of year again — TLC is accepting applications for warriors for the 2003 season of Junkyard Wars! This year, though, they want individual applicants instead of teams. I’ve always enjoyed the teams, personally, because it’s like watching a bunch of rowdy friends on the weekend in their own back yards and garages. Here’s hoping that throwing teams of strangers together doesn’t degenerate our beloved Junkyard Wars into The Real World with blowtorches. Now go apply!
Audio-what?
Check out Audioscrobbler, a Winamp (and XMMS) plugin that keeps track of what you’re listening to, compares it with what other people are listening to, and then recommends new music that you might like. This is just begging to be hooked up to a P2P system.
Mini-ITX mods
Tivoli Radio
The Tivoli Radio has a cool retro look but is packed with cutting edge electronics. They are $100, and I want one. Or at least want one to review.
Gibson’s Pattern Recognition
William Gibson has a new website with blog in conjunction with his latest book, Pattern Recognition. It includes a discussion area that is getting some serious traffic.
Coolest google hack ever.
Touchgraph has created an ubercool Googlebrowser that fires up a Java app and shows the links to and from the website of your choice
Darpa wants YOU to race a robot!
Darpa is sponsoring a race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The catch is that the race car has to have no human involvement. It has to be completely autonomous. This includes refueling, guidance, and collision avoidance. The race will include both on and off road segments, but there will be only race-related traffic on the roads during the race.
The race will be in February 2004, so get working on those robotic vehicles!
Senate Puts Brakes on Big Brother
[from bOINGbOING:]
The Senate has voted to put the brakes on Total Information Awareness and the Dread Real Admiral Poindexter’s plan to spy on every American just in case someone does something suspicious. This is great news, and now we just need to make sure that the objections raised by the Senate stick.
By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.
Wow, actually stopping for a moment to consider American’s civil liberties? I’m shocked. How very non-post-911.
The Vultures are circling, waiting.
From Doc Searls weblog: Doc Searls
From: cbp-owner@lists.studiob.com
[mailto:cbp-owner@lists.studiob.com]On Behalf Of Ivan Hoffman Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:42 AM
To: cbp@lists.studiob.com
Subject: [cbp] ELDRED DECISION
Dear All:
As many of you by now no doubt have heard, the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act. Read “When Do Copyrights Expire?” on my site. Click on “Articles for Writers and Publishers.”
If you create or own copyright rights in intellectual property, then this decision is very much in your interest. Intellectual property is today’s means of production and the source of wealth in the world today. You just have to look at the top 10 richest people in the world to see that. A hundred years ago, the source of wealth might have been steel mills etc. Later, the source of wealth might have been real estate and the like. Today, the source of wealth is IP. Ownership of IP rights is essential if your goal is to be successful and wealthy. That is the reason I constantly stress the need to “own everything.”
All your dealings, all your contracts etc. should be with the view toward owning everything. You should also spend some time on my site on the link “Articles About Being an Entrepreneur.” And on that latter link, read “The Do It Yourself Publishing Lawyer,” “What Business Are You In?”, “Set To Fail” and “The Need for Vision” on my site. Click on “Articles About Being an Entrepreneur.”
IVAN HOFFMAN, B.A., J.D.
Attorney at Law
Lawyering With Integrity
Internet Law, Publishing Law, Copyrights,
Trademarks, Fine Art Law,
Corporate Training and Online Education Law,
Web Design Law, Music Law.
*A 7 Times Award Winning Site.*
http://www.ivanhoffman.com
Smartphone hack
DIY hack for Orange SPV smartphone revealed
A bunch of keen users of Orange’s SPV smartphone were hacked off that they couldn’t load third party applications onto their mobile phones. So they discovered a way of manually editing two configuration files using a PC and sending those changes down to the SPV via synchronisation software. Delighted with their achievement, these hackers promptly published the necessary instructions on the Internet. This has led to a bizarre situation whereby SPV owners can go onto Orange’s Update web site and download a patch that will prevent the ‘hack’ from working – even though the only person that could install the hack would be themselves. Eh? To give these enthusiasts some incentive to stop finding ways to make the SPV more useful, Orange has announced that in about 45 days time it will probably launch a Web site aimed at helping those who want to develop applications which it will officially approve of.