Intuitive Stories

A very interesting legal case continues between Chamberlain Corporation (manufacturers of garage door systems) and Skylink (a third party company that sells ‘compatible’ openers), wherein Chamberlain sued Skylink for violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, claiming that its “rolling code” security system was patented, and therefore Skylink reverse-engineering it for the Skylink remote was […]

I’ve thought about this for a while: mingled in with the stupid and lame spam I receive are the occasional ironic messages, messages with misspelled entreaties to get a graduate degree, etc. In general, receiving over 100 spam messages a day, I can either view it as highly annoying or a potential source of amusement. […]

I was perusing dumblaws.com this evening and came across this odd one: “The dog catcher must notify dogs of impounding by posting, for three consecutive days, a notice on a tree in the city park and along a public road running through said park.” Whaddya think? Is it legitimate?

We purchased some bedding from The Company Store a few days ago and this evening received some junk mail from them advertising an upcoming sale. No biggie, except for the small print on the bottom of the messsage: To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Optout@thecompanystore.com with “UNSUBSCRIBE The Company Store” in the subject field. All […]

As every parent surely knows, one of the first things that fly out the window when your little bundle of joy arrives is sleep. The first year is probably the worst, but between bad dreams, nighttime fears, yechy-feeling bodies and similar, sleep continues to be but a distant memory for us. And this week has […]

I’m not entirely sure why, I must have heard it used in the last few days, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about agitprop, propaganda used to agitate and generate dissent. It’s from Russian: otdel agitatsii i propagandy. The more I watch the situation in Iraq and North Korea, though, the more I […]

Apparently there’s a new TV show called Bachelorette on ABC TV (the Disney channel, remember) that “pairs the bachelorette with 25 men to find her one true love.” Not only is it unabashedly ripped off from The Bachelor, but what I find even more interesting is that the woman who is the ostensible star of […]

This afternoon, after a somewhat disorienting morning, I went to the local Starbucks on Pearl Street for a cup of coffee and a chance to do some homework for my Economics Class, and noticed that my TiBook had found a computer-to-computer network. I connected, knowing it was from another laptop in the café. I was […]

My son and I took the bus today to the library (a favorite jaunt) and, as I’ve observed before, the bus is a curiously popular place to have cellphone conversations. In about a two mile distance, we listened to one guy talking to his buddy about a football game, and watched with amazement as a […]

Sony introduced a new “television strategy” yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show, one that frankly fills me with horror. Well, maybe a more accurate emotion would be depressed resignment. Anyway, Sony COO Kunitake Ando outlined his vision of the future of television, as reported by BBC News World Edition…

I can’t take credit for this one, but Matt Olsen has written a quite entertaining screed about modern online writing, called How to Write Like A Wanker. There’s lots of strong language, but it’s worth reading anyway. He’s rather spot on the mark, in my opinion.

A News.com story reports that Microsoft has a new initiative based on its .NET system allowing different devices in your house to sync up and work together. The example used in Bill Gate’s keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show was an alarm clock that got its alarm data from your PC…

I may fancy myself reasonably literate, but I still greatly enjoy the daily comics page in the local newspaper. The problem is, of course, the local paper only has the comics in print, not online, and I’m not willing to throw away thirty pounds of wasted newsprint each year to get my comic fix. So, […]

Apple’s new Safari Web browser for OSX is way cool, but …

I know, I know, Randy Cassingham has the delightful This Is True,Cecil Adams has the always-entertaining The Straight Dope, and even Chuck Shepherd has News of the Weird, but, darn it, I have a humble but interesting list worth mentioning too: Pearls of the Net.