Daily Archives: April 20, 2005

Tuesday Congress passed a law citing up to 3 y ears of prison and up to $250,000.00 in fines for those movie pirates who make prerelease movies available for download.

Is it April first still? 3 years in prison?
After 10 seconds with our internet search crutch, Google, (searching: “three years in prison”), I found many cases a bit more worthy of three years in the big house. A football coach who molested his 10 year old player, a custodian who attached a teacher, and a hacker who accessed top secret documents from Swedish Telcom Co. Ericson.

The punishment must suit the crime. I fear that soon I’ll be reading about P2P sharers getting there left click finger chopped off for stripping the DMR off their audio files.

Navtech has a new technology. Well, it’s not exactly new. The mapmakers for search engines have incorporated property listings with their maps. Associated with Google and Craigslist, you can search all over America for housing in your hood. With colored tear drops that locate where current listings are available, it gives the user an easy view of properties in relation to where they are located within their cities.

Posting both for rent and for sale, it is a useful tool to see where your future home could be. Data can be sorted by location, price, rent / buy and listing date. When you click the link, it gives a little more info in the dialogue box that pops up and previews any pictures that are related to the property as well as links you with the current Craigslist listing.

One problem upon first experience was some of the listings were out of date. I clicked on multiple listings with one search and I ended up with a pretty poor ratio of actual listings that were still valid and or not canceled in Craigslist.
It’s a great start, and when it comes to property searching, pictures definitely paint a thousand words.

In a strange move Bush wants to let you edit DVD’s. Congress passed a law that will allow you to edit sex scenes in a DVD in case you are offended by such material (aka: don’t want your kids to see it), and Bush is expected to give it the green light. Seems like a bit of a double standard, since I’m not allowed to make copies of said DVD, but I can erase scenes if I’m afraid a guest I invite over might be offended by the uncut version of Debbie Does Dallas.

The news comes right on the heels of a Pew survey that says, shockingly enough, a majority of Republicans are concerned with elicit entertainment, while a majority of Democrats are worried about government censorship. Go figure.

Hollywood will probably try and fight back. Good luck to them. I’d hate the inconvenience of babysitting for a friend and having the racy scenes of a Disney movie I’m watching with them taken out.

Cell phones can do more than just call people. Soon, you might be able to do smart shopping by using your phone to price check your groceries. Lavasphere is a mobile ticketing and barcode reader system, which essentially turns a camera phone into a bar code reader.

I know some people who like to know where their food is coming from. Take a picture of the barcode, check it on the web and find out for sure.
As for me, I ain’t no hippie vegan, so I could care less. But, price checking through the barcode system, now that’s something I can dig.

Peace and Love