I'm sure that a bunch of you saw Lord of the Rings last night. A whole group of us went to the Alamo Drafthouse North here in Austin and checked it out. To me, this was obviously a movie made for people who read the books. Since I can't read, I've never read the books and almost feel cheated as a result. It may actually inspire me to learn to read again :-) Also, we had a good laugh at our friend Raf actually say "El Oh Tee Are." Oh, and it's a REALLY long movie at 3 hours. We didn't make it out until around 2, which is why Steve's still sleeping while Maarten has to be up in the wee hours of the morning on dialup in a country where he has to shit in a hole in the ground.

So anyway, this story is for people who saw the movie to talk about it, or for people who don't care. So there are SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS. This is the only thread you're really allowed to post spoilers in.

So they got this new thing that can be implanted to help identify people for security purposes. The privacy advocates however want to be able to "turn off" all forms of identification. This I imagine will lead to acid manufacturers cranking up their production as the privacy advocates realize that they must now burn off all of their fingerprints and they still need to find some way to scramble their DNA.

While Palm Beach, Florida-based Applied Digital touts the device as an advance in medical monitoring and personal security, it is raising the eyebrows of civil libertarians and others wary of identification that cannot be turned off. "What's to stop other people from using it?" Electronic Privacy Information Center legislative counsel Chris Hoofnagle asked in an interview with NewsFactor Network. "There's a reason we keep our identities to ourselves. We don't walk around wearing name tags."

Seriously, it's just a matter of time before the technology is available to quickly identify anyone who walks through the door, nametag or not. What then? Make sure to post anonymously!

Oh that headline! I kill me! Here's one I have a hard time imagining being much of a success. Real Networks has just launched a pay service where you can download music and videos from the web. Apparently they arent alone in the venture as Listen.com has launched a similar service yesterday.

"I think it's the only way that music service providers can bridge the gap for consumers between their existing experience and services they'll pay for in future," said Aram Sinnreich, an analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix. "There is no way to get consumers interested in paid music unless it's smoothly integrated with music that consumers have access to in other channels."

Seems a little fruity, but then again RealNetworks has a RealOne service with over 400,000 subscribers paying $9.95 a month, so they must be doing something right.

Everyone remember all the fuss about IT (aka Ginger) which is a new invention that is supposed to revolutionize how we design cities and all that fun? Well Dean Kamen the inventor of IT is scheduled to appear on Good Morning America this coming Monday where he is expected to reveal more details on the invention. Thanks o0JediBeavis0o

Details about Ginger have been scarce ever since rumors about the device began grabbing public attention nearly a year ago. A patent application filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) international bureau on Dec. 14, 2000, has fueled speculation that Ginger is a motorized, scooter-like device. Other details revealed by Kamen have been that the device takes just 10 minutes to assemble, has a price tag of less than $2,000, and will debut in 2002. In the latest twist, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office posted on Oct. 25 one of Kamen's patent applications for "personalized mobility vehicles" that would carry a person in a standing position, as well as cargo, over uneven surfaces.

So no Survivor Friday until -real- new episodes air.

This story is amazingly good news for us, according to a recent court in CA, the contents of messageboards are considered opinion and not fact unless presented as such, and therefore the website owners and posters cant be held liable. Of course a lower court ruled the other way though so things are still a bit shaky. Luckily over all these years I've only gotten a couple letters from lawyers, both non-threatening. Thanks for the reminder Mark

Here's the amusing story of the day. A lot of you probably remember a while back British Telecommunications "discovered" that they hold the patent on the invention of the hyperlink. Which of course we infringe upon here every day. Well BT decided they wanna score some cash on this and they have sued the US Prodigy ISP based here in Austin Texas (Thanks Sean) and it's actually making it to court.

LONDON - A court date was set Monday in the lawsuit brought by British Telecommunications PLC (BT) against U.S.-based Prodigy Communications Corp. for patent infringement through the ISP's (Internet service provider) unauthorized use of the hyperlink. [...] BT owns what it calls the Hidden Page patent, which was filed in the U.S. in 1976, granted in 1989 and isn't due to expire until 2006, giving the company the intellectual property rights to hyperlink technology. Hyperlinks connect text, images, and other data on the Internet in such a way as to allow a user to click on a highlighted object on a Web page in order to bring up an associated item contained elsewhere on the Web.

So why did they choose to attack Prodigy of all the companies out there? I'm guessing they spotted a company that has a fairly big bank account but is still fighting to hang around and cant really afford a big court case. BT = trying to cash in on easy prey.

Here it is, the first publically announced successful clone made of a human embryo. I would think this has probably happened in private a little while back (and will continue to) but some scientists have gone public with their work. Here ya go:

Scientists have successfully cloned a human embryo for the first time, and the doctor whose company led the effort said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press that the breakthrough holds the promise of allowing the creation of virtually unlimited organs for transplantation. But two lawmakers said Congress will ultimately outlaw the cloning of human embryos because of moral and ethical questions about the practice and to prevent human cloning.

I still cant decide what I think about this stuff. It's like we already have people doing artificial insemination and apparently that's ok in the eyes of the law. I just imagine a couple heartbroken over them about to lose a child, and then knowing the technology is available to help that child, but have it denied by the government for "moral and ethical" reasons. My vote: I vote for I have no idea and dont feel like I'm even close to informed enough to make any type of judgement.

So apparently people surf the net from work a bit more than they should. Obviously if they werent goofing off on the net they would be doing work for 100% of that time though right? Lets attach some numbers to that!

Been hearing about the development on this for a little while, but looks like it is approaching prime time. A company in Hong Kong is getting ready to start selling cell phone signal jammers for use in places like hospitals and restaurants. They should get the things installed in theatres too.

"Legally, this is a gray area," Kan said. "As long as the device is used in a private place and the signal is not spilling out to unintended areas, I don't think there's a law that says you can't use it." [...] France is also poised to pass a law that would allow the installation of signal blocking devices in public places such as museums and libraries.

In the news today, China has shut down 17,000+ internet bars (Thanks Cherry) around the nation (!) for their failure to block particular websites from being viewed. The government did a sweep of the nation checking out over 90,000 of the bars to make sure they were compliant with government standards.

In addition to the 17,488 Internet bars shut down, another 28,000 were ordered to install monitoring software soon, it said. The software was required as part of regulations issued by Beijing last year aimed at controlling the Internet's use. The government wants to encourage the Internet's growth as a commercial medium. But Beijing fears its other use as a forum for political dissent.

So at what point will they start coming in to people's homes to make sure they are "compliant". I've read a couple of times that they actually work with ISPs to make sure particular content is not made available to the public. Also, given the recent surge of laws we've had here in the US surrounding terrorism, is anyone concerned that we might see some similar laws attempted stateside? I seriously doubt stuff like that would go through, but wouldnt be surprised that they get some support.

Because people keep sending it in and commenting on it, here's a link to the latest StarWars Episode II trailer. Looks like it's gonna feature lots of love stuff, still no sign of Jar Jar playing a major part. Sorry guys :(. Btw, if you have troubles, try to drag and drop the url to your browser address bar.

Sony has unveiled their new Aibo robotic dog recently. I've been really curious about this things ever since the first release. Has anyone ever seen one of these in person or own one? Are they cool at all or just some kind of novelty rich people throw money away on for a couple of days of entertainment? Does Sony have any plans for robotic frogs?

Able to recognize 75 commands -- up from 50 -- AIBO has other increased software capabilities that include JPEG photo-taking, changeable sounds and a boost mode "that shifts the robot into becoming excited, curious and alert when communication with its owners goes well," Sony says.

Big news for webmasters and admins etc around the world. Covalent is planning on the release of Apache v2.0 this coming Monday, ahead of schedule. Serving websites faster or something.

Well everyone I know seems to have mentioned this at least once. The Tick, generally revered as a "comic/cartoon icon" among geeks and regular people alike makes his TV debut this evening on FOX (following the season opener of Family Guy). Tick is played by Patrick Warburton from Seinfeld. The show is coming in a nasty time slot having to face up with Survivor and WWF Smackdown.

Sadly, I was only a casual fan of the cartoon catching it once in a while... that traces back to me only watching Conan and Buffy mostly though. Think it'll be good?

It seems the "broad economic slump" that we hear so often is impacting the broadband market a bit. Maybe we'll be seeing a few less LPBs on the servers? According to this report on ZDNet more people are still subscribing than are cancelling their connections, but the cancellation rates have grown.

To be sure, broadband providers insist that cancellation rates are extremely low. New subscriber growth has slowed in recent months, but ISPs, telecom and cable companies say demand is still strong. EarthLink spokesman Kurt Rahn says that high-speed subscribers would "rather sell their grandmothers" than go back to a pokey dial-up connection. With 14 percent of its revenue now coming from broadband, EarthLink is increasingly relying on high-speed Net subscriptions.
[snip]
Jupiter Research predicts that 10 million households in the United States will have a high-speed Net connection by the end of this year, up from 5.2 million in 2000. That figure will rise to 35.1 million households by 2006, the company predicts.

I like broadband. It's faster than a modem.

An article on Salon analyzes the supposed intertwining of the druggie culture and the computer gaming culture (Thanks Aaron). It's a little amusing at appears to be based on visiting a single (or very few) lan parties.

Tom steps outside to swap Counter-Strike strategies with a few prospective teammates and light up the weed. Now it's time for stoner mayhem.
[snip]
Counter-Strike and pot are a popular combination. Other games require different drugs. The venerable Atari 2600 console is still popular for many reasons, not the least of which are pot and LSD.

There is certainly no denying that the most popular demographic for computer gamers is the well-off urban guys and college crowd. Both of which are also of course known to be at the top of the bell curve for drug use. Having probably attended 100 or so LAN events in my time all over the US and even in Canada. I can see how attending a couple of those events may skew a view. LAN parties vary absolutely wild amounts though. Of all the LAN events I've been to I can only recall 6-7 of them a involving a significant amount of drug use. The others had what you'd expect from a regular sampling of that demographic. (A few guys per 100). Had I not been to all kinds of other LAN events though those few LANs with heavier than usual drug use would have probably seriously impacted my overall view of LAN parties.

But then again, it's not like my LAN experience is really a fair sampling either. Also it does sound like things are quite a bit different in places like Thailand.

Euh ... I think they're all dead Jim! Let's get the hell out of here!

Movie: Hasta la vista, baby.

Havent gotten one of these myself but have been hearing a lot of complaints. Cell phone spam. Yes that beautiful thing called spam we see in our email boxes has made its way on to cell phones. What is funny to see is people bitching about the costs involved with receiving spam as if it's a new thing. There are people on dial-up internet connections everywhere who pay for the amount of time they can stay connected. What happens when they get spam email? It costs them time to download that email, which equates to costing them money.

"It's absolutely unacceptable to be involved in advertising where you pass the cost onto the consumer," said Rodney Joffe, head of the anti-spam group Whitehat. "When it comes to cell phones, it costs them nothing to send it but costs anyone with a cell phone money. The recipient ends up paying."

Spam sucks. I dont mind advertisements... when I'm getting something like watching a TV show or viewing a website that I enjoy, but unsolicited crap showing up in the inbox... that blows.

We saw all kinds of stuff about this a while ago claiming "the end of the free ride" etc saying that all websites were going subscription and nothing on the net would be free anymore. Here's some interesting quotes and predictions from the top net monkeys saying most of the top sites are still evaluating pay subscription stuff in some form. (Not surprising)

"You are hard-pressed to find a media company that's not absolutely ogling subscriptions or some type of paid content, and trying to move there," says Mark Mooradian, vice president and senior analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix. Jupiter forecasts the market for paid content will grow to nearly $5.7 billion by 2005 from $1.1 billion in 2001. Those projections, however, include a broad swath of media, including not just news but also adult entertainment, online gaming, education and music.
[snip]
Microsoft Corp.'s Slate magazine tried to make readers pay for its news and political commentary back in 1997, but dropped those plans. Editor Michael Kinsley told Slate readers at the time that the publication had "chickened out" on plans to charge for access. Slate resurrected the subscription model in 1998 -- but scrapped it again in February 1999 amid a sharp downturn in the site's traffic.

When you download websites for free, you're downloading communism! Note: There are absolutely no plans to make Shacknews a pay site. Sorry. :(