The Null Device
2003/4/17
TransluXent, a hack providing MacOS X-style alpha-blended windows under X on Linux, using OpenGL-enabled graphics cards. Currently it is an X server which sits on top of another X server, though it's still a proof of concept.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's campaigns against DVD region coding has become somewhat of an uphill battle, with the studios not returning their calls. Perhaps they're waiting for Fels' Howard-administration-appointed successor to come in and drop the case, or failing that, for a US-Australian "free trade" agreement which promises to criminalise DVD player modification and enforce region coding in the interests of "free trade":
"The rise in international cartels is a serious matter in the global economy," [Fels] said. "Free trade paradoxically has given rise to cartel behaviour which has required regulatory action. "When you deregulate markets, people are very aware that the way to make money is to create some restriction."
No doubt about it, Fels will be missed. The Australian people will have lost a great advocate. Let's hope that his successor's not a total corporate simp. (via Rocknerd)
Which Country Is Next?, where the peanut gallery inveighs on whom to invade next. France is, unsurprisingly, the clear leader with 31% of the vode, followed by Syria and the United States. Israel is at #4, and Canada is at #10. And then there are the people advocating invading California (#9), because it's "suffering under the stupidity of the far left" and "it will be our first victory over a communist country -- good practice for Cuba and others to come", and the MENSA member who wanted to invade Ireland because the inhabitants wear kilts and eat haggis. (via Mitch)
Musician George Ziemann tried to sell home-burned CDs of his music on eBay, but was stopped by RIAA accusations of copyright. So he turned his attention to investigating the RIAA's claims of CD burning and MP3 piracy cutting into their sales. He discovered that sales were down, but the decline was due to the major labels cutting back on releases; in other words, he asserts that the decline in sales is artificial, deliberately engineered by the RIAA, presumably to make a fraudulent case for more draconian laws restricting independent music distribution channels, in the interests of forestalling the collapse of capitalism and thus civilisation.