Archive for January, 2006
Tough call, Google
from the get-off-of-our-lawn dept…
Hitokiri writes “Now that Google News is out of beta the newspaper publishers are starting to take notice. It’s important to note that no legal action has taken place yet, but still, there seems to be a battle on the horizon.” From the article: “‘They’re building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content,’ Ali Rahnema, managing director of the association, told Reuters in an interview. ‘The news aggregators are taking headlines, photos, sometimes the first three lines of an article — it’s for the courts to decide whether that’s a copyright violation or not.’”
read the rest on slashdot
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Stanley
Few filmmakers’ work is so instantly recognizable as that of Stanley Kubrick. Beautiful, precise composition. Elaborate tracking shots. Powerful acting. Deep, thought-provoking themes. Kubrick put his unique stamp and vision on every film he made.
Despite his relatively small output, probably no other director made great films in so many different genres, from science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey) to war films (Full Metal Jacket), historical drama (Barry Lyndon) to comedy (Dr. Strangelove), horror (The Shining) to psychosexual drama (Eyes Wide Shut).
Kubrick’s influence on the art of filmmaking is matched by only a precious few fellow giants, and his body of work will certainly continue to thrill and intrigue audiences, critics and future filmmakers for years to come.
Read more on Kubrick and the Documentary, Stanley Kubrick: Life in Pictures
The son of a physician, Kubrick was born in New York City on July 26, 1928.
When he was just 16 and in high school, Kubrick shot a photograph of a news vendor the day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and submitted it to Look magazine. Look printed the photo and soon hired him as a freelance photographer.
After creating a photo essay on boxing for Look, Kubrick used his savings to make a 16-minute documentary film, Day of the Fight, in 1950.
Later, and after making two further documentaries, Flying Padre and The Seafarers, Kubrick persuaded family members to invest money in a short feature film about a fictitious war called Fear and Desire. He managed to get the film shown in a few art-house theaters in New York, and quickly began making a name for himself.
Probably one of the first true independent filmmakers, Kubrick followed up with two low-budget crime thrillers, Killer’s Kiss and The Killing, then made his first major studio film, the powerful antiwar movie Paths of Glory, starring Kirk Douglas, in 1957.
He went on to receive Best Director Academy Award® nominations for Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. Each of those films also earned Kubrick Best Screenplay nominations, as did Full Metal Jacket.
In addition, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon received Best Picture nominations.
Kubrick’s only Oscar® came for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In 1997, he received the D.W. Griffith Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Directors Guild of America.
taken from his official site: http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com
Images of Alaska
The University of Washington has a great collection of images up that portray the early days in Alaska.
Check them out here if you likey!
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PC virus celebrates 20th birthday
Today is the 20th anniversary of the appearance of the first PC virus. Brain, a boot sector virus, was let loose in January 1986. Brain spread via infected floppy disks and was a relatively innocuous nuisance in contrast with modern Trojan, rootkits and other malware. The appearance of the first Windows malware nonetheless set in train a chain of events that led up to today’s computer virus landscape.
Boot sector viruses ceased to appear when floppy discs went out of fashion but they continued to be a nuisance between 1986 to 1995, when Internet technology started to penetrate the consumer market. These types of viruses relied on people to exchange infected discs and virus outbreaks often took months to spread.
The creation of macro viruses, which exploited security weaknesses in Microsoft Word and other applications, meant that malware outbreaks peaked after days instead of weeks and months. Macro viruses ruled the roost for around four years between 1995 and 1999 before email became the main vector for viral distribution.
Harnessing the Internet meant that the time it took the first email worms, such as the Love Bug, to spread dropped from days to hours. Email worms such as the Love Bug and Melissa caused widespread disruption and confusion in 1999 before they were brought to heel.
By 2001, network worms such as Blaster were created that automatically and indiscriminately infected Windows PCs without adequate protection. Email and network worms remain a problem today but the greatest problem these days is posed by key-logging Trojans designed to snoop on a user’s private information, such as online account details, and the many strains of malware that turn infected PCs into zombie drones under the control of hackers.
The biggest change over the last 20 years has been in the motives of virus writers rather than in the types of malware they’ve cooked up, according to anti-virus firm F-Secure.
“The most significant change has been the evolution of virus writing hobbyists into criminally operated gangs bent on financial gain,” said F-Secure’s chief research officer Mikko Hypponen. “This trend is showing no signs of stopping.”
“There are already indications that malware authors will target laptop WLANs as the next vector for automatically spreading worms,” he added.
via the Register but edited by chaddo (you’d think they’d do a better job than I!)
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Ordained? Me?
that’s right, folks! silly me is ordained enough to marry some of our dear pals in Seattle this summer! what the gods must think…
check it out here — you heathens, too, can reach a higher religious order in just 5 minutes flat!
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Do you stumble?
The other day my friend, David, asked me this. I went on and on about how i did and what i liked to use to do it, and oh how i used to spend more time doing it but…on and on.
what would you think it means, i ask you?
Turns out, what David meant is even cooler:
“StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool for sharing and discovering great websites. As you click Stumble!, you’ll get high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended (rated I like it) by friends and other SU members with similar interests. Rating these sites shares them with your friends and peers – you will automatically ‘stumble upon’ each others favorites sites.”
The human-edited version of Google?
Whatever it is, it’s rad. Check it out but be careful…you might get hooked!
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Happy 100th Birthday, Albert!!!
Today in the NYT is a fascinating interview with the father of LSD: Albert Hoffman, who turned 100 this week. Albert’s work on ergot produced several important drugs, including a compound still in use to prevent hemorrhaging after childbirth. However, it was the 25th compound that he synthesized, lysergic acid diethylamide, that was to have the greatest impact on our culture. When he first created it in 1938, the drug yielded no significant pharmacological results but when his work on ergot was completed, he decided to go back to LSD-25, hoping that improved tests could detect the stimulating effect on the body’s circulatory system that he had expected from it. It was as he was synthesizing the drug on a Friday afternoon in April 1943 that he first experienced the altered state of consciousness for which it became famous. “Immediately, I recognized it as the same experience I had had as a child,” he said. “I didn’t know what caused it, but I knew that it was important.”
When he returned to his lab the next Monday, he tried to identify the source of his experience, believing first that it had come from the fumes of a chloroform-like solvent he had been using. Inhaling the fumes produced no effect, though, and he realized he must have somehow ingested a trace of LSD. “LSD spoke to me,” Mr. Hofmann said with an amused, animated smile. “He came to me and said, ‘You must find me.’ He told me, ‘Don’t give me to the pharmacologist, he won’t find anything.’ “
Google Video
What’s great about it? BANDWIDTH, baby, lots of it.
What sucks? All the vids are encoded using Google’s own .gvp codec, which requires users to download and install the “Google Video Player.”
What happened to standards-based computing?
Must’ve been buried under a Detroit expressway next to Jimmy Hoffa?
Still, video is coming! Exciting! Hurry I2!!!
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They was just misunderstood…
Them boys in “Deliverance“, yep, they was just misunderstood is all…
These folks here understood ‘em, tho!
YeeeeeeHAAAAAA!!!
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Greatest Band in the WORLD
from the City Pages: “it sucks to be you if you’re in a band and that band is not called the White Stripes.”
he may want to call himself by new names and write jingles for Coca-Cola but the White Stripes still kick fucking ass.
want proof? watch this. (be patient, tho, it’s a rather large file but WELL worth the wait)
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Aurora Forecast for Saturday, January 7, 2006
Auroral activity will be active today. Weather permitting, active displays will be visible directly overhead from Barrow to as far south as Talkeetna and visible low on the horizon as far south as Bethel, Soldotna and southeast Alaska.
welcome to the neighborhood
some stills from around and about in our new neighborhood.
click on the image or click here,
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