Live from a Music Video Beach Party 34
Sure, it might be the beginning of winter, but that didn't stop us from having our fun veejay style in this week's show. We talk about DVD encryption, robotic snakes, and more.
"Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!" - Ben Jonson
Is it live or is it Hemos? (Score:2)
Length of Shows (Score:2)
Commentary on the past articles is right on the spot, though I've got to admit I missed the "Mattress King" reference.
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The video? (Score:1)
Re:The video? (Score:2)
Nah, they're just so amused by the 20+ min show that they're listening to it over and over again, so by the time they start posting again, ...
(Standard disclaimer: my sense of humor doesn't match yours. Moderators keep that in mind. :-D )
Geeks in SPAAAAAAACE... (Score:2)
CmdrTaco, Hemos, CowboyNeal, and Nate...
Talking about stuff posted on slashdot? What nerds!
Oh well, at least they're warez dudes at heart, eh? Burn your DVD's onto CD-R's, d00d...
Remote control robotic snakes? That's out there too... So they're cheap, but no one will want them, eh? Good improv fake snake charming music and sound effects there...
"The Internet as an Ecosystem"... Ooo, animated internet traffic stuff. Of *course* it has "organic" properties. You're looking at a lot of humans doing stuff. Surprise.
The stupid Amazon patent. Umm... go to technocrat.net, d00d. I'm waiting for no-click shopping. Make them press "Enter".
I guess this would be pretty cool if we were all listening to it earlier, eh? It *is* nice to hear the posters yammering about this, for the novelty of it, I guess, but... well, that's about it.
Hmm. I got cut off somewhere around wireless modem/ghosting. And that was actually sounding interesting. Oh well. A waste of 15 minutes, but all in all better than television. (What, I was missing Pokemon? Ahhh!)
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pb Reply or e-mail rather than vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Re:Length of Shows (Score:2)
That was a segment on John Stewart. It was pretty funny. You had to see it, though.
I still like the archivist who spends his free time archiving porn and lives with his mother. I had to laugh at that, especially the puppet porn they showed clips of.
I also enjoyed watching Tori Amos not talking very much, then pouring a glass of water on the floor for no apparent reason.
Why didn`t I know about this earlier? (Score:1)
I think you should make more of an effort to promote this craziness.
Re:Mars Polar Lander (Score:2)
They are waiting until they have more information before they post an article. This seems like a good idea to me, since a thread about it now would invariably involve flamewars and everyone bashing everyone else, when in actuality nobody knows anything about what happened yet and nobody has enough information to speculate as to what happened.
Greeks in Space!!! (Score:1)
Me
Re:Geeks in SPAAAAAAACE... (Score:1)
But I figured the only way I could intelligently comment on the content would be by listening to it, and commenting on it, since there isn't a transcript.
But, some of my comments weren't just rehashes of the article, and some of their comments were somewhat funny (but not for long
I also hadn't listened to one of these before, so I figured I'd give it a try.
Frankly, if I wanted to hear a bunch of nerds talking about slashdot, I could go to the lab. But of course this is a special bunch.
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pb Reply or e-mail rather than vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Al Greenwood (Score:1)
You should see the new guy there: "Crazy Gideons" You see this dufis chuck his microwave oven through his big screen TV. ("Because I'm CRAZY!")
Icon for Patents (Score:2)
Know what image I'm talking about? Good for an icon? Unfortunately, old clip art depicting these sellers of modern science escaped several search pages of google [google.com] and lycos [lycos.com] turned up dry. Oh well...
Matress KING rocks!!!! (Score:1)
Geeks in space licence? (Score:1)
Re:MP3 vs. Real Audio... (Score:1)
Re:MP3 vs. Real Audio... (Score:2)
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Re: Icon for Patents (Score:2)
Daily Show Appearance. (Score:2)
You guys need to get your PR people to get you a shot on the Daily Show as two young geek entreprenurs, or whatever. You can doo it!
Good show.
"Beep!" (Score:2)
if you read the patent [164.195.100.11], it also covers buying something "by making a sound".
I liked the show. It's one of the better small time radio shows out there. I say go for the full 30 minutes, or 32 mb to be specific!! C'mon think aboout it, my rio has 32mb of memory, get the pic?
Re:Why didn`t I know about this earlier? (Score:1)
Brain as Firewire or USB (or legacy ISA like mine) (Score:1)
I read somewhere that nerve signals travel at around 200 mph through the body. Obviously, nerves are more an interrupted electric current; I forget the actual terms, but the signal must travel to one node, be interpreted and carried on, correct?
Well, how fast do electrical signals travel on an ISA bus? Or along IDE ribbon cable, or SCSI, or...well, whatever? How comparable are we to our buses?
Sorry about the offtopicness...Moderate away. I'm just really interested in this stuff.
Re: Icon for Patents (Score:2)
a large stone wheel with a patent number inscribed in it
That's probably the best idea in terms of the symbolism, since the wheel is the canonical simple, universally-known invention, as in the phrase "re-invent the wheel", though I don't know how well it could be rendered in a small icon-sized image.
Another idea might be someone representing the US Patent and Trademark Office wearing a dunce cap, or just a dunce cap labelled with the letters "USPTO".
I guess there are really two somewhat separate issues that we tend to have with patents in general: one is the patenting of truly simple, obvious techniques that really don't deserve to be called "technology" so as to extort licensing fees from everyone else, e.g., the "one-click shopping" patent that they discussed. The other is people being tyrannical or otherwise butt-headed about licensing for patents on things that really were innovative but are now in such widespread use that the restrictions are harmful, e.g., the LZW algorithm for GIFs (which Slashdot still seems to be using -- even though they skipped "Burn All GIFs Day", the patent icon when they add it should really not be a GIF) and Fraunhoffer's (sp?) MP3 algorithm.
The "patenting the wheel" icon would ideally symbolize the first issue, but not so much the second. My "USPTO dunce cap" idea would be symbolic more of the problems with the whole IP system, and specifically the incompetence of the USPTO to handle the issues properly. That's sort of a third issue, but it relates to both of the ones above.
Someone (Taco, if I've figured out the voices correctly) asked which patent is dumber: one-click shopping or human DNA, and Hemos (?) said it was DNA. I'm not sure I agree: the idea of DNA patents is worse morally (i.e., the second issue), but at least genetic engineering is truly high-tech stuff, so it makes some sense to talk about its products as scientific accomplishments. One-click shopping is such a simple idea that I find it offensive to even call it "technology", let alone think it worthy of a patent (i.e., the first issue), so it's the "dumber" one.
David Gould
Re: Icon for Patents (Score:2)
Re:Matress KING rocks!!!! (Score:1)
Re:show idea (Score:1)
hemos - royalty free?? (Score:1)
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Re:Geeks in space licence? (Score:2)
Yeah! (Score:2)
I just noticed the new patent icon [slashdot.org], on the Bleem Sues Sony [slashdot.org] story. Cool! It seems to cover both the stupidity and the malice angles: not only is it absurd to consider silverware a technological breakthrough, but the "Patent Pending" label seems to connote dire consequences for infringement on this "nutrition delivery system".
David Gould