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| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| Tilting Toward Windmills |
| 12:36:20 am mst / 20 March 2001 found by diana / filed in science / source ABC News 46 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The AnswerGeek explains how windmill-generated power works -- a particularly relevant topic given CA's energy crisis. |
| I didn't even know of the rolling blackouts in San Diego until I turned on Fox News this evening! |
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| Where are your namesakes located? |
| 2:26:33 am mst / 20 March 2001 found by paul / filed in fun / source Memepool 378 hits / 2 comments / 0 e-mails |
| This cool program from Hamrick software take your last name (or any surname) and displays the geographic distribution of people with the same last name. (Link via Memepool.) |
| I can understand why "Hsieh" would be especially common in California. I have no idea why the name "Brickell" is disproportionately popular in Arkansas... |
| read 2 comments |
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| A Thorn in the MPAA's Side |
| 6:48:16 am mst / 20 March 2001 found by paul / filed in digital media / source Wired 82 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| A great profile of David Touretsky, the Carnegie-Mellon brain researcher who also maintains the controversial Gallery of CSS descramblers. |
| Best quote from Touretsky: "I'm a libertarian with a small L. The big-L Libertarians are anarchist loons. But the little-L libertarians -- it strikes me that most computer people fit in that category." |
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| Free tacos if Mir hits "Taco Bell" target |
| 8:48:31 am mst / 20 March 2001 found by paul / filed in space / source Business Wire 138 hits / 0 comments / 1 e-mail |
| Fark pointed us towards this story in Business Wire: "Taco Bell is offering a free taco to everyone in the United States if the core of the Mir space station hits a floating Taco Bell target placed in the South Pacific... Taco Bell has created a 40 by 40-foot target, painted with a Bell bull's-eye and bold purple letters stating: 'Free Taco Here.' The floating target will be placed in the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of Australia in advance of Mir's descent." |
| Check out the picture! |
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| Setting Up Grandma's PC |
| 9:47:32 am mst / 20 March 2001 found by diana / filed in education / source ZDNet 164 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Bill Machrone passes on some excellent advice about making a computer palatable to an inexperienced senior. |
| Go grandma go! |
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| Massacre at Tripod |
| 11:19:09 am mst / 20 March 2001 found by diana / filed in internet / source Salon 64 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| Tripod axed a bunch of user sites without warning, including various fan sites and anti-Malaysian government groups. Tripod says that the removed sites violated their terms of service, although wouldn't specify how. |
| What bugs me the most about this case is the failure of Lycos (the parent company) to explain their actions in the slightest. |
| read 1 comment |
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| Watch out for the busboy! |
| 1:13:24 pm mst / 20 March 2001 found by paul / filed in legal / source NY Post 88 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Fascinating story about the NYC restaurant busboy who stole millions of dollars over the internet from the bank accounts of celebrities such as "Steven Spielberg, Martha Stewart, George Lucas, Sumner Redstone, Oprah Winfrey, Ross Perot, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, Ronald Perelman, Carl Icahn, Larry Ellison, Michael Bloomberg, David Geffen, Barry Diller and Michael Eisner". (Techdirt has links to a related story from Reuters News as well as an earlier article on the crime.) |
| Make sure you tip your busboys enough! |
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| Micromachines will be huge |
| 5:45:26 pm mst / 20 March 2001 found by paul / filed in nanotechnology / source Forbes 76 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The author argues that MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) will create a revolution as dramatic as the microprocessor. |
| If only I knew which MEMS company would become the next Intel... |
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| The Next Napster? |
| 6:55:55 pm mst / 20 March 2001 found by paul / filed in digital media / source Salon 50 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| Although a lot of people are hyping their software as the "next Napster", the newly released "BitBop Tuner" from AudioMill may be one of the best candidates. AudioMill is trying to market it as the TiVo of internet radio. In theory, the user can tell it which song he or she wants to record. Then the program continuously scans the broadcasts from thousands of internet radio stations, and when it finds the desired song, it records a copy and saves it to the user's hard drive. |
| Interesting idea. I might use the service even if the audio quality is nowhere near as good as with MP3's. Unfortunately, if it becomes popular, it will almost certainly be challenged in court by the same dark anti-Napser forces. |
| read 1 comment |
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