] Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is turning over its online DVD
] rental business to Netflix Inc., signaling that the
] world's largest retailer couldn't beat the Internet
] upstart at its own game.

Not terribly surprising EXCEPT that it is Wal-Mart, who doesn't *need* to back down. Contrast with Blockbuster, who can't *afford* to back down in its competition with NetFlix.

I want to believe Wal-Mart went to NetFlix over Blockbuster, in restructuring its service, because NetFlix is both the leader and the better company. But I suspect it is because NetFlix doesn't visibly sell its discs, and is willing to agree to point its users at Wal-Mart as a DVD purchasing site. A deal that NetFlix would have been happier doing with Amazon, probably.

This deal probably isn't valid if Amazon buys them, but what could Wal-Mart do at that point, having turned away all of its customers. All of its customers, which, suspected at being around 100K, is about as many as NetFlix is signing up about every two weeks (back of the envelope calculation).

Netflix Takes Over Wal-Mart DVD Rentals

] This software is a GameBoy emulator for the Texas
] Instruments TI-92/89 graphic calculator. It is alpha
] software and is not to be considered stable. It will only
] work with very few games, and at very ugly speeds. Hence,
] downloading is only recommended to developpers willing to
] contribute to the project.
]
] The TI-92/89 has a Motorola M68k CPU running at 10-12MHz
] (depending of the model) and the GameBoy has a variation
] of the Zilog Z80 running at 4MHz. So, the TI-92/89 is
] only ~3 times faster than the GameBoy, and we also have
] to emulate its graphic chip, wich works in a tile based
] way (as opposed to the TI-92/89 in wich each LCD pixel is
] mapped to a bit in the RAM).
]
] Currently, the project is focusing into recompilation
] techinques since the parser approach is clearly
] insufficient to address the speed problem.

BoogerSoft TIGB

] How-to: Phreaking your iPod (DTMF)

Long ago, the easy way to make a red box was with a micro tape recorder and a fist full of quarters. Put in the quarters, record the tones generated, retrieve quarters, replay tones as needed.

Long ago, it was someone anomalous to find someone with a sound generator near a payphone. Now, find someone without the resources to get a tiny little MP3 player. And find someone who would surprised to see someone carrying one about.

They are probably standing next to the person desperate to make free payphone calls.

.: UNEASYsilence :. � Blog Archive � How-to: Phreaking your iPod (DTMF)

] How the United States are connected to each other

Simple, elegant diagram. Great site.

connections - usa.gif (GIF Image, 905x674 pixels)

] As the Rolling Stones get ready to head out again on the
] road, Ron Wood can laugh about it - the night he and the
] lads thought they were all going to be busted.
]
] "We were doing drugs in the dressing room," says Wood,
] remembering a concert in the early '80s. "Suddenly the
] tour manager stuck his head around the door and said,
] 'The police are here!' We all panicked and threw our
] drugs in the toilet.
]
] "Then Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland walked
] in."

New York Daily News - Home - Rush & Molloy: Rockers pour out 'Spinal Tap' stories

] In 1989, speaking at the Cannes film festival, Who lead
] singer Roger Daltrey said he wanted to become a doctor of
] Chinese medicine. He said that he never felt that singing
] and acting were proper careers, and that he wanted to
] study herbal medicine and acupuncture.

KKTV | This Week in Entertainment History - 5/16/05 - 5/22/05

] With Elp Corporation's new laser turntable, it has
] blasted vinyl record technology into the 21st century by
] beaming a laser onto the record grooves so that there is
] no physical contract whatsoever with the record. It is
] the only analog record player that does not wear records.
] Musical information is processed in analog, and all
] circuitry is analog as well for completely analog sound
] reproduction. It connects to any phono pre-amplifier
] producing audiophile quality sound in either mono or
] stereo.
]
]
]
] The laser turntable can play 7-, 8.5-, 10-, 11-, and
] 12-in. diameter records. It can playback 33-1/3, 45, and
] 78 rpm records. There%u2019s also a variable speed
] control in 30-50 rpm in 0.1 rpm steps, and 60-90 rpm in
] 0.2 rpm steps. There are a total of five lasers: two
] for the left and right groove walls, two for tracking
] groove pitch, and one for tracking groove warp. No
] adjustment is required for anti-skate, and it uses linear
] tracking to zero tracking error distortion. Since the
] optical pickup is controlled by microprocessors, the
] laser turntable operates much like a CD player with
] cueing to individual cuts, random access, and repeat
] play, and it offers numerous programming possibilities.
] The laser turntable displays elapsed/remaining or total
] time just like a CD player.

2005 Home Entertainment Show Page 6 - Featured Article - Designtechnica

] Big news, dodgeball fans! On May 11th dodgeball.com was
] acquired by Google!

dodgeball.com :: mobile social software

With dmv and my departures from Pittsburgh in the no-longer-so-distant future, we've come to the last installment of Total Information Awareness in its current incarnation.

Listen at www.wrct.org -- 6:00pm edt. Call us: 412-621-WRCT.

TIA -- Last Show for now

] The sauce is named after its score on the chilli heat
] measure, the Scoville Unit.
]
] Reserve scores 16 million units, while a Red Savina, the
] world's spiciest pepper, measures just 570,000.

Chilli sauce is real killer