It turns out that making thumbnails of an artist's work is not illegal, though offering "full-sized" versions is.

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Wired has an article on John Carmack, creator of many game engines (notably Quake III Arena's), but most importantly at this point, the Doom III engine.

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We are getting closer to cloaking... How cool is this?

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While attempting to clean off my LINKS in sH, I checked techTV to see if there was any reason to keep it, and I came across this case mod.

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more bob x predictions

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Bob X. has made a prediction that Intel will be bowing to AMD in the 64/32 bit chip compatibility market. Worth the read.

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GM's search for the H Fuel Cell powered car is really starting to flesh out. I've read several articles, this being the latest. The gist is: everything is drive by wire and all the components are stored on a 11 inch thick chassis that everyone is calling a "skateboard." Perhaps they think they are being clever, but I've read the analogy several times and I don't like it.

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I used to hate Verizon for their ant-criticism tactics (i.e. registering every domain with the combination of "verizon" and "sucks"). Now I don't mind them so much because they are fighting against the RIAA's overwhelmingly greedy desire to bit the hand that fees them. Other ISPs are joining in on the fight.

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i'm thinking about flaws in web pages i use all the time. everyone tried to limit what tags you can use when you post: that's fine, but everyone has to do it by hand every time. also, you have to check to make sure all the tags are closed, so someone's [b] tag doesn't make your entire gd page bold. do you think we could talk the w3c into a standard for marking untrusted HTML blocks? a way of saying "only allow these tags, disable scripts, and make sure nothing leaks onto the rest of the page" it would save a lot of headaches for CGI programmers

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Finally, a hopeful for a complete open source media solution. Real Media is releasing HELIX, an open source media player that can play everything RealPlayer can PLUS Windows Media...

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As most people that read this section have heard, Micro$oft is working on a new "security"/DMCA initiative called Palladium that spans hardware and software. Wonderful and all, but there are two problems. 1) Micro$oft is exceeding their bounds, telling the user what they will or will not be able to do. 2) Micro$oft is renowned for security holes.

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Charter Communications. I'm not sure how to describe them. Their Cable Internet service is awful. It goes out randomly throughout the day and I never know when it will be on. I'm not the only one that suffers. There is a Charter Comm. support group in my town that helps people deal with the stress that Charter's service brings. Not only am I a member, I'm also the club President. Anyway, a few days ago I emailed Charter Comm. in a sarcastic manner. Here it is:

Hi. I currently have Charter Communications Cable Internet service, but am wondering if you offer/will offer an "always on" Internet connection. Please let me know if the service is, or becomes available.

The response I got today from Sherry Clark ( SClark2@chartercom.com ):

I am not sure what an always on is please call our local office at 887-8525

I don't even get punctuation from them! Is anyone else's ISP run as well as Charters?

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Monkeys move computer balls with their minds by attaching wires to neurons and connecting the wires to a computer. The monkeys were taught a game in real life, then put in front of a computer with a computer version of the game. The scientists wire the monkey into the computer, and strap their arms down. Slowly the monkeys realized they could move the balls with their mind.

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well... I've heard of both of these technologies in the past, but haven't heard much recently. This morning Stephen sent me a link and so I began reading.

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A new scheme of CD protections the evil music co.s are pushing on consumers in the guise of a REGULAR BLUE BOOK (i think it's blue...) CDs will apparently not only not play on a PC or Mac, but will cause the Mac to not be able to eject the disk, AND screw something up in the firmware. Celine Dion's A New Day Has Come has such copy protection (which here after will be called "attack"). Fortunately, no one really gives two "shakes" about Celine (that I know of), so this copy attack shouldn't be wide spread.

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The guy who wrote Melissa got sentenced to 20 months. He shaved it down from 5 years by giving info to thwart other viruses. He admits that it was an immoral act because it clogged servers (but it didn't do any damage to files).

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This is what the internet is all about Tycho, Gabe, Batjew, and Safety Monkey (two internet Gods and their associates) just randomly bitching and thousands of people reading it. If you told someone about this in 1993, they would not have believed you.

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Bertelsmann is now looking to purchase Napster and create a for pay service that they believe would own (as in be better than) all the other systems.

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on the topic of the future of PCs...

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Save the few that actually ENJOY building a system from scratch, companies are starting to move to a more mobile desktop. It started, for me, with Apple's G4 Cube and some other companies Cappuccino. Now, there is OQO (CNN Story, Slashdot, and home page).

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well... cray supercomputers has announced a brand spanking new piece of hardware they're making available... it's super-big / super-fast solid state storage...

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ok all... i know this is a bit old, but i figured i'd mention it anyhow...

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AOL has finally decided to use the Gecko engine as of 8.0. They are also moving all their servers from proprietary Unix to Linux. It's wild.

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slashdot says zdnet has an article stating that Micro$oft (M$) says HTTP is almost dead because it isn't peer-to-peer!

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Adobe is finishing up Photoshop 7. The biggest news is that it will run on Mac OS X. Wired has news on it. The final opinion from them is there aren't enough features to warrant upgrading unless you are running OS X. That is, of course, assuming you were going to pay the over $500 price tag.

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Daniel sent me a link to a wired story about IBM making a chip capable of running at 110+ GHz. The chip runs at 80 now, and is planned to be used for communications devices.

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New York Times has a very in depth article about how record labels are screwing artists almost as bad as Napster was. The new file sharing services are giving artists about $0.0023 per song.

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British Telecommunications believes that hyperlinks violate a patent it applied for in 1979, and received in 1989, called Hidden Page. Now they are going after old ISPs from the Prodigy up, demanding retribution for violating their patent.

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CNN is running an article about the "Green Book" guide to cars. It basically states which cars are more environmentally friendly (the Civic GX and Insight to name a few), and which ones aren't (like the Ram 2500 and Yukon XL K2500).

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ok... so, while I know we have several slashdot readers among us, I decided to post this anyhow...

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