Category: Computers, Internet & Technology

States Ban Hunting of Live Animals over the Internet

Louisiana has joined 21 other states in banning Internet hunting, the practice of using a mouse click to kill animals on a distant game farm.

The cyber-shooting idea was the brainchild of Texan John Lockwood, who started the web site Live-Shot.com.

The idea was this: Hunters sign up on the web site and pay some $1,500 or more. They schedule a session, then log on at their appointed time to watch a feeding station on the computer screen. The animal that was ordered–from wild hogs to antelope–is in the area, and when it approaches the food, the hunter moves on-screen crosshairs into place. A click of the mouse fires a rifle to kill the animal.

The armchair hunter’s trophy animal would then be mounted and shipped for display.

LiveScience.com

You know what it means, of course, that 22 states have banned internet hunting? It means 28 have not. Click/Bang!

Digital music — quick and dirty guide

The Mossberg Solution has a good primer on digital music.

Over 50 million Apple iPods, and lots of competing digital music players, have been sold by now — as well as over a billion songs and tens of millions of videos, since legal media sales took off a few years ago.

But many folks — even some who own iPods and other players — are still confused over how legal digital music works. So here’s a quick-and-dirty guide to the digital music world, in question-and-answer form. We’ve included the questions we are asked most frequently, plus a few other topics.

Continue reading.

Stupidest line of the day (or any day) about the internet

But this service isn’t going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.
…

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Senator Ted Stevens (third in line to the presidency by the way) trying to talk about internet neutrality legislation the other day.

But then again NewMexiKen has never liked Ted Stevens since he almost ran me over in a crosswalk in 1973.

Transcript via 27B Stroke 6.

The YouTube Hall of Fame

After a decade of watching the Internet change everyone’s lives (including mine), it never ceases to amaze me. The Internet gave me a job and a career. I pay my bills online, follow stocks, buy DVDs and books, argue about the Celtics with complete strangers on a message board, send streaming video of my kid back home to my parents, get almost all my sports information, keep in touch with dozens and dozens of family members, friends, acquaintances and co-workers every week. There’s always some new way to kill time. But YouTube ranks among the greatest Internet developments ever, right up there with iTunes, Napster, free porn and e-mails with “Vegas?” in the subject heading.

With that as part of the introduction, Bill Simmons describes and links to dozens of his favorite videos on YouTube.

Go waste enjoy a couple of hours.

This is a test

NewMexiKen, every day more a confirmed Mac user, has installed a widget on my desktop that permits me to blog without even opening the blog software. No big deal; just kind of cool.

I’ve also installed a desktop widget that searches for album cover art when I add music to iTunes. I just type in a word or two, the artist’s name for example, and voila, album covers.

This is all in addition to the usual desktop widgets — calendar, weather for me and The Sweeties, stocks, time, sunset, moon phases, a calculator, a dictionary, World Cup schedule, whatever.

All a keystroke away.

Kentucky state government blocking sites critical of Kentucky state government

According to reports at BluegrassReport.org, which has been critical of the administration of Governor Ernie Fletcher, the Kentucky Commonwealth Office of Technology has blocked access on Kentucky state computers. As other sites have reported on this during the day, they too have been blocked.

Talk about putting your head in the sand and making your ass a target.

Never have your photo taken then become famous

Bill Gates Strikes a Pose for Teen Beat Photospread (ca. 1984).

Or take a look at this mug shot from NewMexiKen’s very own Albuquerque Police Department. Surely you will recognize Albuquerque’s most famous short-term resident. The arrest in 1977 was related to a traffic violation.

From the Santa Fe New Mexican, the original Microsoft team in Albuquerque (1978). Story here.

And here is the official current Microsoft photo and bio.

Something to think about while the music plays on

Apple’s iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 per month, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday yesterday.

The report, ‘iPod City’, isn’t available online. …

The Mail visited some of these factories and spoke with staff there. It reports that Foxconn’s Longhua plant houses 200,000 workers, remarking: “This iPod City has a population bigger than Newcastle’s.”

The report claims Longhua’s workers live in dormitories that house 100 people, and that visitors from the outside world are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hours a day to make the iconic music player, the report claims. They earn £27 per month. The report reveals that the iPod nano is made in a five-storey factory (E3) that is secured by police officers.

Another factory in Suzhou, Shanghai, makes iPod shuffles. The workers are housed outside the plant, and earn £54 per month – but they must pay for their accommodation and food, “which takes up half their salaries”, the report observes. …

Macworld UK

A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears

From an article in Monday’s New York Times:

In that old battle of the wills between young people and their keepers, the young have found a new weapon that could change the balance of power on the cellphone front: a ring tone that many adults cannot hear.

In settings where cellphone use is forbidden — in class, for example — it is perfect for signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an elder of the species.

“When I heard about it I didn’t believe it at first,” said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. “But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could.”

The Times has the sound file. Can you hear it?

Practicing safe computing

Walt Mossberg —

As of today, there have been exactly two documented, successful pieces of malicious software — viruses, trojan horses, worms — that affected users of the Mac OS X operating system, since it was released in 2001. And these two failed to spread much, affecting probably a few dozen people, and doing no harm. I expect there to be a small number of additional Mac viruses this year.

By contrast, there are over 100,000 reported viruses for Windows, some of which have affected millions of people and have done significant economic damage. As for spyware, I know of no documented cases on Mac OS X, while there are certainly thousands on Windows. These Windows viruses and spyware can’t run on the Mac operating system, even on Macs powered by the same Intel processors used by Windows PCs.

Congresswoman Wilson on Net Neutrality

NewMexiKen recently wrote to my congressional representative, Heather Wilson, to thank her for her vote in committee in support of an amendment to the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Efficiency Act of 2006. The amendment would have strengthened the measure to keep the net neutral. Congresswoman Wilson was the only Republican to vote for the amendment.

Communications conglomerates AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and others want to control the flow of digital communications and charge websites a “toll” to expedite delivery to the end-user. Such a toll would, of course, destroy much of the democratic nature of the web.

At the behest of the phone and cable lobby, the Federal Communications Commission recently overturned longstanding safeguards. And, according to some reports, that lobby has spent tens of millions of dollars to dissuade Congress from restoring the non-discrimination principle.

Representative Wilson replied to me today. Some of what she said:

I supported an amendment during the full committee mark up that would have strengthened the network neutrality provisions in the bill. The amendment, offered by Congressman Markey, would have imposed non-discriminatory requirements on broadband network providers with respect to the delivery of content, applications, and services over the internet. …

I believe that the internet should remain open to search and visit websites without any restrictions or additional fees charged by providers. The proposed legislation has language that addresses network neutrality, although I think it needs to be even stronger than it is.

NewMexiKen applauds Representative Wilson’s stand — again, she was the sole Republican in committee to support net neutrality. Let’s hope she, and others, like Representative Markey, continue the fight.

Perhaps you should see how your representative stands and encourage his or her support for net neutrality. They’re all up for reelection this year.

An important issue

“Net neutrality” is a concept that is still unfamiliar to most Americans, but it keeps the Internet democratic. Cable and telephone companies that provide Internet service are talking about creating a two-tiered Internet, in which Web sites that pay them large fees would get priority over everything else. Opponents of these plans are supporting Net-neutrality legislation, which would require all Web sites to be treated equally. Net neutrality recently suffered a setback in the House, but there is growing hope that the Senate will take up the cause.

One of the Internet’s great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft’s home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.

Continue reading this New York Times editorial, Keeping a Democratic Web.

Yep, I sure do want Comcast deciding what web sites I see.