Buzz Out Loud Podcast

EPISODE 820

Stallman rejects cloud computing
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080930-why-stallman-is-wrong-when-he-calls-cloud-computing-stupid.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

House Web site overwhelmed by e-mails
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10054346-38.html

RealNetworks files suit against Hollywood over realDVD
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/30/realnetworks-files-suit-against-hollywood-over-realdvd/

http://www.download.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=dvd%20ripper&searchtype=downloads&tag=mncol;rbxcdl.2.a.1

Meanwhile Amazon had some Adobe Flash problems and was giving away movies
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080929-adobe-amazon-point-fingers-over-video-ripping-exploit.html

U.K. spy agency looking for a few good Facebook users
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080929-uk-spy-agency-looking-for-a-few-good-facebook-users.html

MI6 terror photos, data accidentally sold on eBay
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/slashdot/eqWf/~3/AM–AiheNPg/article.pl

AMD’s 45nm Shanghai enters production, next stops are Deneb, Istanbul
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/30/amds-45nm-shanghai-enters-production-next-stops-are-deneb-ist/

The 25 most influential people on the Web
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0929_most_influential/1.htm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10054281-36.html

VOICEMAIL
Doug in Culver City
Trick for burning without CDs

RogueTess
In defense of men using EeePCs

Anonymous
Zune is DRM-free (mostly)

E-MAIL

OK, two (three?) things.

About Spore, did you see: http://xkcd.com/480/, very funny. No need to buy Spore!

Secondly, the comments in various episodes about turning off the DRM servers...Games get patches, right? Well, when the game is 5 years old and people want to still play, just release a patch. Didn’t that happen with another game (also discussed on BOL previously) where the DRM was bunk and the developer actually released a community-created patch to strip the DRM? Few people will be playing it then and piracy wouldn’t be as rampant on a 5-10-year-old game.

For music, they just die because they are built into the files…but this could apply as well. Look at DRM-stripping programs for iTunes, etc. Walmart (from Ep. 819) could just release/e-mail a bit of software that looks in a folder and runs the program to strip the DRM and it’s done. If the labels are OK with them coming out and saying, "Hey burn to CD and re-rip," why not just allow them to strip?

Erick the Satellite Guy.

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Hi Buzz Crew -

I’d like to throw some ice water on the idea that a 250GB cap from Comcast should be enough for the average user. I just listened to the Real Deal episode on Bandwidth Caps (plug!) where the size of a “downloadable game these days” was guessed at 1GB.

I just purchased Call of Duty 4 over Steam and downloaded all 10 Gigabytes of it. 1/25th of my monthly stipend gone. Guess what? The install went awry and I had to redownload the game, which thankfully Steam easily allows you to do. 20GB later… BAM…. 1/12 of my monthly allotment gone. One-twelfth…. just downloading a game.

We’re doomed.

Love the show!
Fraggle

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JaMoTo & Guest

In Ep. 799 you talked about the 100-flavor Coca-cola soda fountain (http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/29/coca-cola-readying-100-flavor-soda-fountains/). Here are a few quick updates:
There a 100 flavor-cartridge bays--not 100 flavors.
The syrup is very unstable and must be kept at a specific temperature and must be agitated to keep from EXPLODING.
Carbon is added separately to the water, allowing for non-carbonated drinks such as Gatorade.
The image on Engadget is confirmed. The freestanding fountain features a touch screen.
The machine is so complex that the company making the inside of the device makes and designs medical equipment.

The project has just been completed and is now into production. Hopefully to be seen early 2009.
Sam
Melbourne, Australia

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Hi,
I kept laughing through Buzz Out Loud 818: The Zipless Squirt as you discussed “College bookstores turning to kiosks to stem e-textbook tide” and how they do not understand how to save themselves and all the things they should consider.
They are already history; they just do not know it yet.

My son just started his second year at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County), which is a totally wireless zone with Internet everywhere.

Other than the first books that we purchased on the Internet for his first semester, he has not purchased books.

Since everything at the school is online, there is an online community for swapping books without going through the bookstore.

Two of his computer science teachers give the books they wrote away in PDF form--the professors figured they were paid to be there and present the material in a form needed/understood by the students.
In his current Java class, the teacher refered the students to sun’s JavaDocs and the Sun Tutorials at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/. Their IDE is eclipse.
Similar story in his C class, GNU GCC complier and my 20-year-old copy of K&R C, the oldest copy in the class!

For his reading assignments in English Literature, he found the books in text form at the Gutenburg project http://www.gutenberg.org or MP3s for his iPod also at the Gutenburg project.

As for teaming with Amazon, it has already happened. We purchased his first books through Abe Books (http://www.abebooks.com), “used”. They are now owned by Amazon, who has always had a very good used book market. Read http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/shelfari-and-librarything-awkward-bookends-to-abebooks-amazon-deal/

Now, I admit he is a programmer, as am I, and we tend to go to the Web before going to the store.
But where the geeks (and engineers) tread the world eventually follows.

luv the show,
Kent -> State of the Ark programmer -> 37 years of coding excellence!

The evil power of Dr. M is even greater than we thought...strong enough, in fact, to tarnish the shining reputation of the long-awaited Spore. Also in the news today, DVD ripping goes legit, a little too late, thanks to RealDVD, but we determine it's probably not worth getting sued over. And we put gurus against geniuses in a battle to the tech support death.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 804

Happy Birthday Google - 10
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9930
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-09-06-google-ten-years_N.htm

DVD ripping goes legit with RealDVD
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10034540-1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/technology/08dvd.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Gamers fight back against lackluster Spore gameplay, bad DRM
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080908-gamers-fight-back-against-lackluster-spore-gameplay-bad-drm.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/07/amazon-reviewers-clo.html

4,000 Anti-Scientology Videos Yanked From YouTube
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/09/08/0256208.shtml

Apple admits iPod is from 1970s U.K.
http://slashdot.org/articles/08/09/08/1343248.shtml
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/08/ipodlike-gadget-from.html

Microsoft “Gurus” coming to a store near you
http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Gurus+Coming+to+a+Store+Near+You/article12887.htm

McAfee brings nearly instant malicious software updates
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10034741-83.html

New e-newspaper reader echoes look of the paper
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/technology/08ink.html
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-the-dream-lives-on-plasticlogics-e-newspaper-reader-esquires-e-ink-cove/
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/08/new-epaper-tech-to-b.html

Creating a ‘Facebook for spies’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10034509-93.html

VOICE MAIL

Joel Chandler
Demolition Man is here.

Remy
On the guest hosts.

Sgt. Wagner
ON Chrome's password storage.

E-MAIL

Hello, Buzz Crew!

I’ve been listening to the speculation about how hard it might be for Comcast to provide users with a bandwidth usage number and though I’d comment on a few realities. The idea that “they already have this data in a database with your account number because they assign your IP address” is just plain silly. Your IP address is irrelevant to the process. Carrier-class routers are amazingly powerful computers, but… the Comcast device that’s in a position to meter your usage is a fast but cheap and none-too-smart Layer 2 aggregating neighborhood switch modem that has a port physically connected to the cable that goes to your house. It knows your port number and not much else--even your IP address is assigned at a higher level by another device. The neighborhood switch isn’t primarily built for accounting--fast and cheap, remember?--and asking it to report very much info in real-time will blow its tiny mind.

Those port-level traffic counts have to be passed up to an accounting computer in batches--and not too often or for too many ports at once. Otherwise Comcast starts using up too much network bandwidth and router processing power for accounting, reducing what’s available to users.

And then the accounting computer has to correlate the neighborhood and port ID and traffic count data with the billing records to account for network changes, port reassignment and customer movement in the middle of the accounting period, and all that other boring real-world stuff. I’d guess that the only way it’s practical to do this for millions of users is an overnight mainframe batch run--and maybe not every night.

How many years did it take cell phone companies to get geared up to do a similar job and tell you *approximate usage as of a day or two ago? They don’t ever seem to tell you EXACTLY when the cutoff for the online > total is, and they never guarantee it will correlate 100 percent with your bill, do they?.

Certainly Comcast has an obligation to provide me with a usage meter if they’re going to cap my usage. No doubt they will--once they get their IT and Billing departments to catch up with the Grand Concept their executives decided was appropriate for the FCC. But give them a little time and recognize that it just might not be QUIE as simple as it looks.

Carl
Spokane, Wash.

Hey buzz-crew, long time listener Bob (from Michigan) here. I had an interesting experience today with Micro$oft and thought it deserved a rant. I sold my Xbox 360 via Craigslist, but forgot to delete my credit card information off of the console. I get billed $25 the next day from Microsoft. I rush to Microsoft’s Xbox Web site to cancel my account, but I can’t. I can’t even remove my credit card information! After wrestling my way through the tangled Webs of their customer service site, I ended up getting their 800 number. I immediately gave it a call and was put on hold. I talk to a girl after a few minutes and she transfers me to her supervisor. Ten minutes into this hold, I get charged again for $12.50 from Microsoft. That sunuvagun is still using my card! I finally get the supervisor, and after another long hold, she tells me she cannot refund any of the funds. Not even the funds that were charged during the ridiculous 45 minutes of waiting I did! To add insult to injury, she said she could only put a “hold” on the account and that my card could not be removed from the system for a billing cycle! GRRR, Molly, please back me up on this one.

ps. I’m happy I switched to Sony for my gaming needs.

Hello Jamoto,

I’ve been a long time listener and have heard you refer to the listeners of BOL as the “buzz army”. Well….we already have an army…the twit army.

Therefore I move that we adopt “The Buzz Force” or “The Buzz Air Force” moniker. I’m an Air Force Communications Officer and believe that the sophistication of the BOL audience lends itself to an elite Air Force rather than the a ground pounding Army (just kidding Leo).

Just a thought, keep up the great work and LOVE THE SHOW..

Brian, in O’Fallon IL.

Episode 672

Judge: Wikileaks gets its domain name back
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9883240-38.html

First spam felony conviction upheld: No free speech to spam
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080302-first-spam-felony-conviction-upheld-no-free-speech-to-spam.html

Vista prices fall even further
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9883961-56.html

Pirates find proper way to crack Vista’s activation schema
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/03/0622230

More audiobook publishers drop DRM: Will Audible follow suit?
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/03/more-audiobook-publi.html

Nine Inch Nails uploads new album on Torrent sites
http://torrentfreak.com/nin-uploads-new-album-on-torrent-sites-080303/

Fan-funded music
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13526_1-9882091-27.html

Woz strikes again: Disappointed by iPhone, wary about MacBook Air and Apple TV
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/ woz-strikes-again-disappointed-by-iphone-wary-about-macbook-ai/

MacBook Air aflutter: Demand stays strong, sold out often
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080302-macbook-air-aflutter-demand-stays-strong-sold-out-often.html

iPhone jailbreak tools updated to open firmware 1.1.4
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/02/29/iphone_114_hacks_released/

Source: Apple may not restrict free iPhone apps
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/02/29/apple.and.free.iphone.apps/

Advocacy groups bash Comcast’s “technical-sounding nonsense”
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080303-advocacy-groups-bash-comcasts-technical-sounding-nonsense-fcc.html

Will RealNetworks buy Scrabulous?
http://gigaom.com/2008/03/02/will-realnetworks-buy-scrabulous/

Mark Shuttleworth reveals definitive list of Ubuntu code names
http://menpro.blogspot.com/2008/02/mark-shuttleworth-reveals-definitive.html

Voice mail

Anonymous Darwinist
Robot-Grandma love anecdote.

Brian
Tax the filing process.

Alex Romania
Warranty on unlocked iPhones.

E-mail

Comcastic!

Hey buzz crew,

I opened my current Comcast statement and on the last page after all the stupid fees there was “IMPORTANT ACCOUNT NOTICE” it said “Effective March 2008 - Standard cable service will no longer be sold. Current standard Cable-Only customers may continue their subscription at the new monthly rate (see enclosed) but new customers will no longer be able to purchase, upgrade or downgrade to the standard package.”

Now this is where it is stupid.
Standard cable's new rate is $54.40.
Digital started package is $55.40.

Just a dollar more?

Patrick

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The Tilde

The tilde in URLs came from many of the original Web servers running on Unix. If my account on a server is chris on a Unix server, then my personal home directory is probably something like /users/chris2x but can also be referred to by “~chris2x”. URLs often had ~ because that was shorthand for where this particular user’s home page was stored. Since the users on the Web in those days were nerds, it probably did not occur to people at first that this was obscure. The death of the tilde in the URL was caused by people trying to tell their less nerdy friends how to type the darn thing.

Here is a good reference:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/10/04/history_of_the_tilde

Chris the podcaster

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The Archivist!!

Hey Buzz Town,

I’ve been listening to TWiT for about a year now, and finally decided to try BOL a couple weeks ago. Now, of course, I am kicking myself for not having come over sooner. However, I am now on a mission: archiving ALL of BOL.

When I noticed that iTunes did not have all of your backcasts (I wonder if I just created a new word…), I started listening to the earliest episodes available, starting with episode 483. Then, even though I knew it was coming, I was distraught at episode 521, when Veronica left. I decided that I needed more Veronica, so I wanted to find even older eps. I heard alpha.cnet.com from the older eps, and was able to find all of the backcasts. I am still working on downloading all of them, since I could not find a single link for all of them.

As I have been downloading, I have imported them all into iTunes and am working on making all of the titles uniform to comply with the format of the recent episodes. I am still deciding on whether or not I want to put the show notes in. The problem that I am running into is that there are some episodes that are just interviews, and I don’t know whether they count as separate for the episode count. For example, by my count, Episode 089 is “What the heck is Google Base?” dated October 26, 2005.

Also dated October 26, 2005, is an interview with Cory Doctorow. Neither of these intros actually list episode numbers yet, so I don’t know if the interview should be Episode 090, or 089i, or what. I would hate to get back to 483 and find that I have been counting wrong all along!

Also, I was fortunate enough to have heard your request to make a list of all of the things that Molly has said she wanted to buy, and once I start listening from episode 1-482, I will do so.

Thank you all for a wonderful podcast. Veronica, even though I see you on Mahalo, and BOL is still great, I miss you.

Thanks,
Joshua the Archivist
Wichita, KS

P.S. I also work for the post office, and was wondering what position Remmy (sp?) is in. My guess is he’s a DCO like me, and thus has 8 hours a day to podcast.

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HD-DVD disc best-selling HD movie last week.

American Gangster HD DVD Tops VideoScan’s weekly high-def disc sales chart | High-Def Digest
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Disc_Sales/ Universal/American_Gangster_HD_DVD_Tops_VideoScans_Weekly_High-Def_Disc_Sales_Chart/1526

Ha!

-Nav

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Buzz Town motto - Vote!

Jacob here to let you and the rest of Buzz Town that you can now vote for the Buzz Town wiki motto at: http://buzzoutloud.wikia.com/wiki/Buzz_Town_Motto

Thanks for the podcast,

Jacob the student from Australia