i think the kid's probly screwed, but who knows anymore.

it *is* insulting that the Great Beast of Seattle only offered him 10 bucks for the domain... it probably cost more than that to buy, even before it had any arguable business value to him. if they'd offered 5,000, he'd probably have taken it, and the thing could've ended there. i guess they'd rather not set the precedent though, so they'll litigate him out of existence. he should've expected it.

CNN.com - Teen fights to keep MikeRoweSoft.com - Jan. 20, 2004

ryan is the supernicety wrote:
] ] "I want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the
] ] courageous spacial entrepreneurs who set such a wonderful
] ] example for the young of our country."—Washington,
] ] D.C., Jan. 14, 2004

jesus. i've stopped caring who the next president is, as long as he or she or IT has an I.Q. above retardation level. Spacial entrepreneurs? What the fuck does he even *think* that means? I sit in constant awe of our president, and that's not meant as a compliment.

RE: Bushism of the Day By Jacob Weisberg

] Here is the Declaration of Ryan E. Tibbitts, which was
] attached to SCO's Notice of Compliance.

in which he says, essentially, that they can't provide specific examples, because the versions of source they have for AIX, Dynix, etc are all old. What!?! Did I fucking miss something? Because i thought the whole case was levelled on the assertion that they had already found *MILLIONS OF LINES* of infringing code in Linux. WHERE THE FUCK DID ALL THAT CODE GO? WHERE?!?

Of course, the answer is, that no such infringement ever existed, nor does now, and SCO was, as we all thought, making completely unfounded accusations, hoping to fleece IBM or, at worst, boost their stock and enrich the execs.

The filthy motherfuckers.

GROKLAW | SCO Notice of 'Compliance'

] Computerised lamp posts look like being the basis of the
] biggest data network ever, as the world's traffic
] monitors set about controlling cars with wireless.

This is a longer article than most on the register, and there's a fair bit of info in it. This is the kind of network we've been wanting for years, allowing wireless internet damn near everywhere. And the concept of integrating wireless into cars, allowing inter-vehicle communication is something i've been dreaming of for at least 5 years. Coupled with a GPS, this makes automatic accident and traffic avoidance pretty trivial, allowing us to use for cars the same kinds of anti-congestion algorithms we use for packets on a network, re-routing around trouble spots.

Some negatives to go with those blue sky positives, and we'll probly see these first -- real time, all the time, monitoring of your vehicle parameters... no more speeding, no more creeping through stop signs, or squeezing on the yellow. Boring, monotonous, transporation, utilitarian only. One could biew this as a boon to public transporation, since cars will be less fun to drive.

As the article says, eventually we'll get to cars that drive themselves, automatically finding the fastest and safest route from point-to-point, but there's a lot of technical and social hurdles there.

thoughts?

The Register

] [Britain]'s worst mass murderer Harold Shipman has
] hanged himself with a noose of bed sheets in his prison
] cell, never having said what drove him to kill at least
] 215 of his patients.

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Damn that's hot.

I'm not a BMW loony at all (not that i don't want an M3 or M5, mind you), but this car is very, very dope looking. I'm looking forward to hearing some more detailed performance info...

World Premiere of BMW 6-Series Convertible

] No one expects to lose much sleep over it but, for the
] record, NASA has been sued by three men from Yemen for
] invading Mars.

i wonder how their ancestors originally gained rights over the red planet... guess he flew there and staked a claim. i didn't realize africans were kicking interplanetary travel back in B.C. that's fucking impressive.

i like the part at the end about the guy selling deeds to plots on the moon. can't wait til we get a base up there and some fucktard tries to claim it's built on his land and demands millions. And how the owners of the base will be all, "Say, that's a pretty good deal, but we've got a better one. We're gonna give you the finger... and you're going to fuck off."

Caveat emptor indeed.

CNN - 3 Yemenis sue NASA for trespassing on Mars - July 24, 1997

Decius wrote:
] ] If King remains a one-dimensional grainy black-and-white
] ] figure who utters the same sunny sound bite year after
] ] year until it's a cliche, it's because news networks
] ] won't pay for more, and researchers have been kept from
] ] delving deep into his papers to tell us something new
] ] about the Martin Luther King the man, not the statuette.
] ]
] ] And his family wants it that way.
]
] And once again we are promoting science and the useful arts by
] creating economic incentives for people to engage in
] historical events by preventing people from talking about
] them.

Ryan: This timeI am going to have to drop some science on you. Once again, my Copyright prof represented the Estate of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior versus CBS, a landmark copyright case. There are two quick points to remember on this:

1) The estate only charges *normal* royalty rates to commercial entities who, after the MLK v. CBS, have a vendetta against paying for Dr. King's speechs. For any educational purpose, the King estate has *drastically* reduced rates for licensing the speeches, I believe down to $0. That's versus the hundreds of dollars CBS was charging educational institutions for the use of its video clips of the same speeches.

2) Dr. King copyrighted every one of his speeches. He was very much a supporter of copyright because he wanted to be able to control how his words would be used in the future. They could be reported on then, due to fair use (newsworthiness), but he knew there would come a time in the future where people would try to use it in a commercial manner for their own gain.

Now, as much as I have problems with the current IP restraints, this is a circumstance where someone acted to protect their rights for good reasons, and that should be enforced.

RE: You need a license to quote Martin Luther King Jr. (phillyBurbs.com)

] Democrats who live in the nation's capital - and want to
] vote for Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, John Kerry, Richard
] Gephardt, or Wesley Clark - are out of luck.
]
]
] All five asked to be removed from the ballot for the
] January 13th non-binding D.C. primary, citing concern
] about whether the District should vote before New
] Hampshire and Iowa.

hah! i wonder how many will vote for "Vermin Supreme"?

DC primary ballot lacking candidates

] Delegates said that Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil
] exporter, wanted promises of aid if Kyoto spurs a shift
] to renewable energies like tidal, solar or wind energy at
] the expense of fossil fuels.

Let them eat cake, I say.

CNN.com - OPEC wants aid if world shifts to renewable energies - Dec. 12, 2003