Monthly Archives: May 2005

Brainwagon Radio: World Wind, and Pick My Next Car

Where your host records a brief blurb about World Wind, and then asks his thoughtful, knowledgeable audience which car he should purchase to replace his aging, gas-guzzling SUV. I’m interested in hybrids, notably the Toyota Prius, the Civic, and more conventional cars like the Toyota Matrix, VW Jetta or Passat, Mazda 3, and maybe even the Scion xA to replace my son’s car which seems to be spending too much time in the shop these days.

Links:

NASA World Wind

I ran across a cool Windows program the other day: NASA World Wind. It’s an application that allows you to view landsat and shuttle radar topography data from any view on earth. What’s doubly cool is that it has high resolution photography of urban centers throughout the US, at considerably beter resolution than the imagery available via Google Maps. For instance, check out this image of Pixar via WorldWind and compare it to this Google Maps view of Pixar. Quite a big difference.

It’s a fairly big download (180 megabytes) but very cool. Try it out.

Aximsite – Dell to offer Windows Mobile 5 to X50 owners

Looks like I won’t be left out in the cold when Microsoft releases their Windows Mobile upgrade later this year:

Aximsite – Dell to offer Windows Mobile 5 to X50 owners

Dell will offer a Windows Mobile version 5.0 software upgrade for the Dell Aximâ„¢ X50 handheld family later this year.

The new software is expected to enable users to take advantage of several new productivity and multimedia enhancements, like updated Microsoft Office programs and Direct3D Mobile support. It also supports persistent storage capability, helping to protect against the loss of personal data and applications when batteries discharge completely.

Dell Axim X50 customers will be able to purchase the upgrade, expected to ship during the third quarter, on compact disc. Microsoft Corp. previewed the next-generation mobile software today at its annual Mobile & Embedded DevCon (MEDC) 2005 in Las Vegas.

Thought Thieves

Microsoft is sponsoring a short film competition in the UK entitled Thought Thieves on the subject of intellectual property theft.

Thought Thieves is about people stealing and profiting from your creation or innovation. Think about it: how would you feel if you saw your hard work being passed off as the property of someone else? What would you do?

There are two categories: 14-17 year olds, and 18+.

Submissions are limited to 45 seconds or less, presumably because intellectual property law is straightforward and uncontroversial.

I wonder if any of the entries will touch on any of the following topics:

  • The difference between copyright infringement and theft.
  • The founder’s idea that the grant of copyright and patent monopolies exist to promote the useful arts and sciences, and that they be limited in duration.
  • That technological innovation has always lead to periods of extended discussion and compromise.
  • That the doctrine of fair use exists to protect individuals who use works in a limited way.

Somehow, I suspect the films will be considerably less subtle in their treatment of this topic.

Brainwagon Radio: Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday To Me!Where your host wishes himself a happy birthday, queries about the percieved quality of his commute-time podcasts, and reviews a number of cool papers in computer graphics.

Paper links:

My birthday present was a new heart rate monitor from Polar USA. Expect a review soon.

Have an opinion on my audio quality? Try using the poll in the sidebar to express your opinion.

So Long and Thanks for the Fish…

Upon returning from my SIGGRAPH sketch jury duty, I decided that Carmen deserved a lunch out and a movie. We chose The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, and trundled off.

I’m a huge fan of Douglas Adams and this work in particular. Often when you really love a book, it is difficult to take derivative works and evaluate them fairly on their own merits. But even taking this into account, I thought this movie was a bit flat. I don’t think it was the actors: I really liked all the choices, particularly Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent and Mos Def as Ford Prefect. I didn’t much like Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox though, he played it just a bit too smarmy and irritating.

But the real problem is that the original book is clever and funny, and almost continuously so, and the movie is funny only in short spurts. It also tends to overplay the romance between Trillian and Arthur, and that makes it feel like it is pandering to simple sentimentalism.

Carmen was tired, and kept falling asleep during the movie. Not entirely the movies fault, but never a good sign.

I rank it a C. Not really eager to go dash out and buy the DVD.

Grump!

Know how to get grumpy? Spend consecutive weekends in Reno and San Franscisco in the company of lots of people and food, and then go to your Sunday Weight Watchers and discover that you’ve put on nine f*cking pounds.

Nine pounds.

I f*cking hate this crappy pudgy body. You work and work and work and work to lose one pound, and then you just relax for a week, don’t even go too crazy, and you lose three months of hard effort.

Addendum: A new morning dawns. My weight is now reading 6.5 pounds less than yesterday. I walked from the Bart to Pixar. My Toy Story 2 coat that I chose to wear this morning looks like a tent on me.

I’ve got nothing to fret over, so I should stop fretting.

PhotoPermit.Org

I had dinner tonight with fellow SIGGRAPH sketch jury member Kevin Bjorke, whom I found out is the brains behind PhotoPermit.Org, a website that tries to shine the light of justice onto inappropriate police actions taken against photographers. Many police officers seem to be unaware of the rights of individuals to photograph public spaces. From their site:

Have you been hassled while trying to make what you thought was an innocuous photograph or video? Have you been threatened? Have security guards demanded that you hand over your film, memory cards, and/or camera? Perhaps snatched them from you? Then PhotoPermit.Org is intended for you.

Have you been successful in convincing irate parents, confused rent-a-cops, and troublesome self-appointed “authorities” to let you go on with your own perfectly legal work in peace? Then this site is especially intended for you, to share your methods and success in making the world a more free one. No one has ever demonstrated that an ignorant society is a safer one.

Have you been one of millions of honest, non-threatening photographers who are anxious about visiting the streets of their own cities, national parks, or public landmarks for fear they will be targeted by overzealous authorities? Then PhotoPermit is here to help you be you sure and comfortable in your rights and responsibilities.

Awesome. I’ve bitched about this issue before, it’s good to see someone has provided this useful resource to help inform and protect the legal actions of people against abuses of authority.

Victory in Broadcast Flag Case! FCC Has No Authority Says Court: Corante > The Importance of… >

In a two-fer that illustrates that all is right with the world, the A’s managed to beat the Yankees 6-3 in the 10th by mashing on Mariano Rivera, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously struck down laws which enabled the FCC to mandate the Broadcast Flag. They found that the reasoning of the FCC (that they had broad powers in areas previously unregulated) was extraordinary and unconstitutional. The court found that any powers granted to the FCC had to be explicitly conferred by Congress.

Good one.

To reinforce the idea that the not everything is right with the world, it seems like national ID cards are going to happen because the Real ID Act legislation was attached to an appropriations bill for operations in Iraq. Sigh.