 Saturday, December 28, 2002
Anyone Get a CD for Christmas?
"If you did you might want to check the box. Apparently a company called Bandlink is selling a technology to CD manufacturers which causes CDs to 'phone-home' when played in a personal computer. Unfortunately the story on Slashdot.org isn't specific about which manufacturers are doing this. Even worse is the fact that, other than a small logo on the CD cover, there is no notification to the consumer. I have heard of click-thru agreements allowing this kind of thing, but no notification at all? This just screams 'Class-Action' suit." [Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes]
I wonder what the company will make of one of these CDs being circulated by a library and the resulting "phone-homes?"
- "In an effort to keep [The Roots'] Phrenology off the Net before its release, MCA sealed each press copy in a portable player. A prying L2T staffer bypassed this Fort Knox of copyright protection with no trouble, only to find the word 'Stolen' scrawled on the disc. Oh, the shame." (p.7 of the Listen 2 This supplement)
- "Thirteen years after 3rd Bass scored big-league sales with 1989's Cactus Album and paved the way for whitey-come-latelys like Eminem, Prime Minister Pete Nice has slid into a different realm, moving from 3rd Bass to third base. Nice (a.k.a Peter Nash), who formed the seminal hip-hop group in 1988 with MC Serch, has given up rap and now lives in Cooperstown, N.Y., where he's become something of a baseball scholar. He curates the Chadwick Collection, a traveling exhibition of 19th-century baseball memorabilia. He's also working on two books: a bio of early diamond scribe (and inventor of the batting average) Henry Chadwick, who gave Nash's collection its name; and a history of the baseball - like, ya know, the actual ball. 'I've been interested in 19th-century baseball since I was a kid,' says Nash, 35, probably the only member of the Society for American Baseball Research to have given somebody the gas face....' " (p.30 of the L2T supplement)
This is why I read Entertainment Weekly. Although, I don't think they've done nearly enough to cover the battle between consumers' fair use rights and corporate desire to lock down content. Of course, I'm sure the fact that they are owned by Time-Warner has nothing to do with this....
Hey Ernie, there's an article on pages 23-27 about Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp. :-)
50 Million Text Messages Per Day in UK
"According to the Mobile Data Association, over 50 million text messages per day were sent in the UK in November, 2002.
(Thanks, Jim!)
The total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages sent across the four UK GSM network operators during November was 1.5 billion. This figure takes the daily average to over 50 million compared to 40 million in November 2001 and 22 million in November 2000." [Smart Mobs]
From the Village of La Grange Park
"Public Comments Sought for Municipal Code Changes
Following more than two years of work, the Village Code Committee has completed a re-draft of the La Grange Park Municipal Code, La Grange Park Building Code and La Grange Park Fire Prevention Code. The effort was undertaken to modernize the documents to reflect the current needs and standards of our community.
The Village has posted the three documents here on the Village web site...
...for review or download. In addition, residents may view the documents at the La Grange Park Public Library or Village Hall.
In order to provide sufficient time for public review and comment, the Village has established a public comment period that will extend until February 28, 2003. A presentation of the proposal will be made at the Village Board Work Session Meeting of January 28, with final action to be scheduled after the expiration of the public comment period." [Off the Shelves]
As noted to you by the La Grange Park Public Library.
I'm getting in a little blogging during halftime of the Kansas-California game. It's one of the few games I've been able to watch on TV this season. I hate being in Big 10 country. ;-)
If you're trying to follow your own favorite team, check out Calendar Updates, a site that provides downloads of schedules for baseball, football, basketball, hockey, racing, and golf teams, both professional and collegiate, in Outlook format. They even let you download a file for your specific time zone. If you're not into sports, you can grab a download of American and Canadian holidays, too. You can then synchronize them onto your PDA.
Go, Hawks!
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"Step-by-step instructions for folding a wide range of Star Wars vehicles -- and R2D2! -- from simple paper. Use the folds, Luke." [via 
