Recent Blogads survey. Nothing too surprising. The audience in the blog world is educated, mostly students and teachers. Lots of managers, computer professionals, and people in the legal field.

Blogads: reader survey for blog advertising.

Funny shirt, for all your commies out there.

This reminds me of a very amusing experience I had in a t-shirt store in Hong Kong, somewhere in the Wan Chai area. I was poking around with cyantist looking for good engrish shirts. I came across the stereotypical Mao shirt, which I promptly decided was going to have to join the rattle "spring ironic fashion collection". What made it so amusing, is that they refused sell it to me. Conversation went something like this: "Mao shirt." "No, Mao shirt." "Mao shirt here, 10 Hong Kong Dollar?" "No, Mao shirt." "20 Hong Kong Dollar?" "No Mao shirt." "Why not?" "Mao shirt." "100 Hong Kong Dollar!" (double the price of anything in the store, waving bill) "No Mao shirt!" (waving hands motioning me out of store.) As I was walking out of the store, with a confused cyantist, I think I said something along the lines of "so much for free trade".

Lafraise.com : vente en ligne de Tee-shirts - RTFM

] News agency Agence France Presse has sued Google Inc.,
] alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos,
] news headlines and stories on its news site without
] permission.

robots.txt, anyone? AFP is making a legal problem out of a technical issue. If they don't want their content to be included in search engines and aggregators, there is a time tested technical solution to this problem. You say "no", only you do not say "no" with a lawsuit, you say "no" in a text file the machines can understand.

This is bullshit that can only result in bad law.

CNN.com - News agency suing Google - Mar 19, 2005

] A trio of independent programmers has released new
] software that allows people to tap into Apple Computer's
] iTunes music store and purchase songs free of any
] anticopying protections.
]
] Joined by Jon Johansen, the Norwegian programmer
] responsible for distributing DVD-cracking code in late
] 1999, the programmers say their "PyMusique" software is a
] "fair" interface for iTunes, primarily aimed at allowing
] people who use the Linux operating system to purchase
] music from Apple's store.

DVD Jon strikes again.

Hackers build back door into iTunes | CNET News.com

] As already reported on quite a few blogs, Jeremy was
] detained and interrogated by US Immigration when he
] arrived in New York last week for a meeting with
] McGraw-Hill to discuss a great business opportunity for
] Jeremy in the area of blogging. It appears that the
] immigration people simply did not believe that Jeremy
] could make a living as a blogger. And they gave him the
] third degree - including an humiliating strip search - as
] a result for some hours. And banned him from entering the
] US.

Protecting our borders does not involve creating an opportunity for people who have chips on their shoulders to harrass random travellers. We need a bill of rights for travellers.

[Politech] Don't say blogger to customs!

Please grant me the ability to punch people in the face over standard TCP/IP.

Dear Lord,

] I'm Stratton, the CEO. This is a picture of me on the
] left. Nice tie eh?

IDN spoofing Verisign parody example

] The "suicide bomber" clips a shrapnel-filled belt around
] his waist and buttons up his jacket to conceal it.
]
] As he turns back and forth in front of a semicircular
] white panel about the size of a shower cubicle, a
] computer monitor shows the metal-packed cylinders
] standing out clearly in white against his body.
]
] This is no real security alarm: It's a demonstration at
] the British technology group Qinetiq of a scanning device
] that sees under people's clothes to spot not just metal
] but other potential threats, like ceramic knives or
] hidden drugs.

Sounds like what was called Millimeter Wave in the novel Snowcrash, right? Well, guess what the technology is called.. Millimeter Wave. Yep, life continues to imitate fiction.

I just left a message on George Orwell's VMB telling him to screw himself.

Airport scanners keep it anonymous | CNET News.com

The FCC under Martin is likely to be more active on indecency than under Powell.

Coming soon: More bullshit enforcement of a specific set of cultural values on what should be a free environment for all culture.

American puritan values, new and improved. Next time a culture decides to escape westward to a new land, to practice their own values, it will require building an artificial continent in the Pacific. No fear, there is still space.

Washington needs to concern itself with managing the allocation and usage of the spectrum, not the content passed therein. The engineer should be limited to approved application of craft within the spectrum, but the purveyors of art and culture should not be limited in their ability to use the spectrum to share the products of their craft.

A grey line was already passed in regard to the broadcast flag. Now we are approaching the fine black lines. There is no level of momentum that can pierce the brick wall on the other side of those lines.

FCC's New Standards-Bearer

] Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco are among former and
] present players scheduled to appear Thursday before a
] congressional panel investigating steroid use in
] professional baseball.

As you may remember, Bush urged a crackdown on steroid use in baseball in his 2004 State of the Union address. America is on the march!

Also noted, in the year he mentioned baseball, not a word was said about Palestine or Israel.

CNN.com - Baseball players to testify before Congress - Mar 17, 2005