June 29, 2004
yellow[alien]probed I am in the process of tweaking some of the CSS for yellow[alien] so if you visit it and it looks fux0red then I apologize in advance.
The idea is to make the fonts more legible and slightly larger rather than the small sizes that they used to be. I am thinking of moving to a fixed width size as well, rather than the existing full-width. That is still up for debate but it is a thought running through my head nonetheless.
If you have any ideas on how to improve the overall look then let me know. Those that offer up some new and improved ideas might find themselves with subscription updates or a gmail invite. Maybe even a print, depending on the level of involvement!
This newfangled CSS2 shiznit is confuzzling![s]…
June 28, 2004
yellow[alien]probed The following has been reproduced, in full, from here. If you are an American citizen then it should scare you; if you are not then expect your country to be next on the list to try and get similar laws enacted.
If this truly scares you, which it should, then help fight this ignorant legislation by contacting your Congressman!
Enjoy the read as it is quite enlightening!
Senator Orrin Hatch and his colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee have introduced the Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act (”The Induce Act” [PDF, 25k]) this week. They want us to think the Act is no big deal, and that it targets only the bad guys while leaving the good guys alone. They say that it doesn’t change the law; it just clarifies it. But they’re wrong. And this legal complaint is the proof.
Fake Complaint against Apple, Toshiba, and C-Net for Inducing Infringement of Copyrights
PDF, 290ktext, 19kor just keep reading…
Take a look. Scared yet? You should be. When the lawyers at EFF first sat down and asked “Whom could we sue under the Induce Act if we were an abusive copyright holder?”; the answer was clear: pretty much everybody. Playing the devil’s advocates, we knew we could draft a legal complaint against any number of the major computer or electronics manufacturers for selling everyday devices we all know and love& mdash;CD burners, MP3 players, cell phones—and that with that complaint, we could file a lawsuit that would survive any attempt to dismiss it before trial, costing the targeted company up to $1,000,000 per month in legal fees alone. The Induce Act is a nasty, brutish stick in the hands of the wrong plaintiff.
Apple’s iPod music player seemed particularly vulnerable to attack. Any major record label could bring a strong lawsuit against Apple for & quot;intentionally inducing" infringement under this new law with the iPod, both because it’s plausible to argue that having an iPod enhances the lure of using P2P to download music (gotta fill all that space!) and because all the major record labels still believe that private sharing of songs from your CDs with friends is copyright infringement. We still disagree with the labels on these points, but the reality is that no court has yet convinced them that their legal theories are flawed. We also threw in Toshiba for making the iPod’s hard drive and CNET for showing people how to move the iPod’s music files.
Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sony v. Universal (the Betamax VCR case), devices like the iPod and CD burners are legal as long as they have legal uses—what the Court called & quot;substantial non-infringing uses.& quot; This has been the rule in the technology sector for the last 20 years. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs have depended on it. Industries have blossomed under it. And any case brought against Apple or HP or Dell would be immediately dismissed because of it.
Now Senator Hatch and his allies want to tear down that rule and substitute a new one with the Induce Act. With it, the fact that a device or product has legal uses, even lots of them, is irrelevant. Filing a lawsuit under the Induce Act is like dropping a litigation bomb on any company that gives users products that have even the slightest potential to assist in copyright infringement. Technology companies will avoid being innovative, and investors will avoid supporting new technologies for fear of being sued out of existence based on the possible conduct of their customers. If this bill had been law in 1984, there would be no VCR. If this bill had been law in 1995, there would be no CD burners. If this bill had been law in 2000, there would be no iPod. If this bill becomes law in 2004, we may lose those devices and many more that we haven’t even begun to imagine.
Join EFF and our friends in the fight against the Induce Act today.[s]…
June 27, 2004
yellow[alien]probed I really want to write something about my thoughts on SIP phones but I am not coherent enough to be able to do so at this juncture. Hopefully tomorrow, after I return home from work, I can get my “report” completed for all to read.
Picked up a 20GB iPod today. Along with that I grabbed this little transmitter thingo that will allow me to play my iPod in the car and listen to the tunes via an FM station. Kinda nifty. Finally no more burning CD’s! Will probably end up writing up something on it as well, once I get enough “play time” with it.
Please take time to offer your thanks to $spyed and $chris for all the hard work they performed over the last 72 hours. Without them, especially $spyed , there would be no hardware to power deviantART with!
*runs off and passes out*[s]…
June 25, 2004
yellow[alien]probed You can all calm yourselves down. deviantART, the affliction or addiction, is free for use once again, or so it would seem. In your extreme bout of withdrawl over the course of the last forty-eight hours I know a great many people have had to seek medical attention.
Fear not for deviantART is back online and quite possibly better than ever. Fuel that addiction of yours and enjoy all the art and interactivity that you have been unable to taste.
This is a no-shaking and no-vomiting zone so if you are feeling ill then take yourself elsewhere; go on someone else’s page.[s]…
June 23, 2004
yellow[alien]probed A few days ago I announced the Gmail Invite Contest. The basics of the contest were to create a wallpaper sized deviation that is at least 1280×1024 and depicts both the Yellow Alien and the Black Ninja. There were some very cool entries to this contest, just as there were to the “Visualize the Collective Rectum” contest.
So who submitted the winning design? Well, it was tough to select just one! Seeing as I have 2 invites left I have decided to award to the following deviants for their very cool wallpapers:
[link] by *pugz - I liked this one because of the whole theme. It is vibrant and full of life and offers some “cute” humor along the way.
[link] by *damphyr - This, right here, is straight up originality. The character design and the idea behind the scene are quite cool.
If you are one of the above winners then sent me a note with your full name and email address so that I can get you the Gmail invite. The sooner you get that to me the sooner you will be on Gmail!
Congrats to all and enjoy![s]…
June 21, 2004
yellow[alien]probed (Do not forget the Get Yourself a Gmail Invite! contest; get your entries in before the contest expires!)
Looks like my machine rebuilding is on hold until I can figure out why Gentoo 2004.1 does not want to boot up on my desktop.
I could, conceivably, use a Gentoo 1.4 LiveCD to boot from and then use a Stage 3 tarball from 2004.1 but if I do that then I have to bring my machine upstairs and hardwire it to the network whereas if I can get 2004.1 to boot I can WIFI it.
So, for now, I am still on my same, screwed up, Windows XP install.
In other news, get those Gmail contest entries in ASAP because I plan to close the contest and announce the winner somewhere in this vicinity but tomorrow.[s]…
