Got a call at work, did the standard “X company, this is Kaz” and got some confused old lady mumbling something, apparently hung up (didn’t do a good job of it however, and didn’t say it was a wrong number.) I said “hello?” then she yelled at me “This is long distance, GET OFF THE PHONE!” Uh. You called me. You can just hang up and leave it there for a few seconds to cut the connection, right?

(Link dead) Hopefully they won’t succeed, else we may find ourselves falling to the lowest common denominator in freedom, where people like Mugabe and the chinese ruling party dictate worldwide internet laws.

Being a former BBS operator and Fidonet node, I’m often simultaneously awed and bewildered at how Internet technology lags behind and skips right past many of the innovations that we used in Fido. It’s always 0 or light speed on the net. Take Mbox and Maildir formats for instance. I came across this article today and it nudged me into thinking about the subject again.Both of these can sort of be seen as similar to technologies used in BBSes and Fido.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=15046 What is interesting to me is the following line.The ROM Mark is a unique and undetectable identifier embedded in pre-recorded ROM media such as movies, music and games. While invisible to consumers, the ROM Mark can be mastered only with equipment available to licensed BD-ROM manufacturers. The Blu-ray Disc Association intends to ensure that only disks that contain the ROM Mark will be playable on Blu-ray systems, rendering piracy meaningless.

How do you know a forecaster really knows Hurricanes and what they can do? When they live in Colorado, where such things are unlikely to hit. ;) (Link dead)

In gas usage, that is. The trend I mentioned awhile back has gotten some attention in the press now. Seattle TimesThe thing I found most amusing about it is this line.The Dodge Neon, which Chrysler stopped making two weeks ago, saw a 69 percent increase.Dodge dropped the Neon in favor of the Calibur, which has an engine roughly the same size but newer and cheaper design, optional AWD, and is a station wagon styled like a gaudy SUV.

Which is really nice for us future PS3 owners, but the point I wanted to make was at the end of the article… Although it would be a little more expensive to release movies authored and inventoried in two different formats, it’s something the studios have done before with Betamax and VHS and laserdisc and 8mm, in some cases.How about Fullscreen and Widescreen? That’s another case of two separate copies of the same movie being stocked, and it happens all the time even now.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/22/news/economy/rita_threat/ They’re once again talking about $5 per gallon gasoline. There’s more to the whole story though that isn’t getting told about why there are so few refineries that are stretched so thin that taking one or two of them out causes such a price spike. Right now, the majority of the time all of the active refineries in the country are running near full production just to keep up with the country’s gasoline needs.

Now read the following two excerpts from the article. Last December, Google struck a deal with libraries at three American universities - Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan, as well as Oxford University and the New York Public Library for Google to make copies of all of the works in those institutions that are no longer protected by copyright .and“By reproducing for itself a copy of those works that are not in the public domain, Google is engaging in massive copyright infringement.

More absurdity over Beef. From the Washington post, Link withheld due to mandatory subscription silliness.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted twice on Tuesday to keep shipments of Japan’s Kobe beef out of the United States until Tokyo ends its ban on American beef, imposed 19 months ago as a precaution against mad cow disease.Senators said the votes were a signal of frustration with Japan, traditionally the No. 1 customer for U.