Barnes and Noble screw customers with DRM

content providers insist on punishing paying customers with idiotic "anti-piracy" schemes.
http://www.shellypalmer.com/2012/11/barnes-noble-decides-that-purchased-ebooks-are-only-yours-until-your-credit-card-expires/

Yep....like i said buy, rip, store on your own servers and make sure you back up. bought = usage until i feel like i no longer want to keep it. Fuck DRM - my money was green enough when you sold it, its still green in your pocket.

Twitter Vs PeopleBrowser

Interesting move by the courts in Twitter Vs PeopleBrowser .How do you think this is going to turn out? - http://tnw.co/Ud6Uxr - Surely at the end of the day Twitter has the rights to its own data right?
lol I hate Twitter but even i dont hate them enough to see them not control their own destiny.

Minecraft reality not Augmented Reality

Ok now this is H-O-T hot!! This is exactly where SL went wrong.

Virtual worlds should be based on REAL worlds and melding the two is what is going to make them S-T-I-C-K-Y.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/25/3688674/minecraft-augmented-reality-iphone-app
For many players, the best part of Minecraft is building things, and a new app for iOS lets you see what your creations would look like in the real world. Called Minecraft Reality, the augmented reality app lets you upload your creations to a website, and then place them in the real world so that you can view them through your device's camera.




Doesnt look like http://13thlab.com/ have an Android version available yet (tsk tsk....pretty lame). but will be interesting to see if "reality" matches up with the video.

This app does bring up an interesting point in that its the second "geo location" app that i've seen this morning (www.Wyst.it) the question is will people really have all of these apps running in the background as they walk around?

I can see that some apps need to be on all the time (eg Mogi Mogi) but its almost like we need a standardized API from Apple/Android that corals these apps into just a "popup" that says hey there i something here do you want to be interrupted by Wyst right now or, there is a 13thLab alert, dismiss or fire up the app now. Its only so long before someone posts some Augmented Reality Spam

I'm just not sure how this "interaction can be done" without the apps themselves running.....screw software I'm going to start spending 24x7 on battery research.

Percentages by primal

Astounded by how little i know about food when you consider you eat this each and every day......

I just found a great pdf that shows percentages of hanging weight by primals (page 18 and on), well worth downloading to check out

https://store.extension.iastate.edu/ItemDetail.aspx?ProductID=13056

 

Monsanto

Enjoy this while eating your turkey tomorrow....at the rate American corporations are going it will be the last "natural" turkey you eat.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/11/21/1224761/farmers-insurance-sued-by-corporations
 
Don’t American politicians realize that this country is being driven over a cliff by corporations focused on next quarters profits? Between this and Apples “page turning” patent I read about on the list last week I have to wonder when it makes sense to leave the USA and go set up shop somewhere else.

My customers will still be in the USA (for now) but my legal operating base will be in a location where common sense still rules business operating laws.

What can we as startups do to get someone elected to congress who is prepared to filibuster or hold the rest of the politicians who “don’t get technology” so that we can bring about technology.

Normally I’m a pro free markets kind of guy but this short term thinking is going to tip the longer term Keynesian balance.

Watchfulness - Who is McAfee

lol you have to love people who dont give a shit - http://www.whoismcafee.com/watchfulness -There is something about it that points out the follies of modern society.

3 lungs (and a half! wow what a set of pipes) and various instruments

Got to see "Pearl and the Beard" play last night - http://bit.ly/PearlAndTheBeard

They opened last night for Ani Difranco, cool band, like them enough to buy a cd on the spot.
They certainly know how to have fun on stage (a trait lacking in so many bands).

Emily Hope Price has a set and a half of lungs, hoping she's not overdoing it and can keep up her volume but once you've seen her on stage you are an instant fan.

Well worth going to see if they are playing in your area.

Twitter being a dick yet again

In other words: “Even though we don’t currently have a Windows 8 client, we might have one in the future, so yours isn’t allowed.”
http://www.marco.org/2012/11/16/twitter-being-a-dick-again

 

I think its time that we the users took this up with the VC’s who have invested in Twitter and start putting pressure on them.

Anyone have access to the current cap table?

Education

So you think you are having a bad fucking day.......

Now shut the fuck up and try not to be so miserable about your "first world life" for the next 24 hours.

NumRows trick in IE9

neat....I should have read the manual ages ago i love this feature

Show More Sites on the New Tab Page

By default, there are two rows of sites on the New Tab page. However, you can display up to five rows. To display more rows, open the Registry Editor by entering “regedit” (without the quotes) in the Search box on the Start menu. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\TabbedBrowsing\NewTabPage


Right-click on the NewTabPage key and select New | DWORD (32-bit) Value from the popup menu to create a new value in the right pane. Name that new value NumRows and set the value to a number from 2 to 5. (eg i created 4 in my setup below)

More like this at http://www.howtogeek.com/116553/the-best-tips-and-tweaks-for-getting-the-most-out-of-internet-explorer-9/

Oppo BDP-103

Wow Oppo have released a blu-ray player that can now upscale to 4k hi-def video

http://bit.ly/OppoBDP103
The BDP-103 incorporates Marvell's Kyoto-G2H video processor with the latest generation Qdeo technology.
Enhance the home theater experience with four times the resolution of Full HD 1080p "by up-scaling all video sources to 4K (3840 x 2160) output resolution".

Wow!! now does anyone reading this have a tv to take advantage of this? I'd love to see how well it does this as for $499 its a pretty sweet deal....i'm thinking Santa might be visiting this christmas.

Also note that as your home theatre amp almost definitely isnt capable of 4k switching that the Oppo BDP-103 comes with 2 hdmi out so you can run one to your 4k video to your tv/projector and then your audio seperately to your amp.

Mastercard "LCD Display Card"

MasterCard is billing a new credit card it’s issuing in Singapore as the “next generation of payment cards.”

With security in mind, the Display Card has an LCD screen and touch-sensitive buttons both of which let the user employ a one-time password. Such OTPs as they’re known are often delivered via text messages or chip-based authentication devices. The card is designed for “banking institutions that necessitate a higher level of security for their online banking services require the use of a separate authentication token or device,” according to a press release from MasterCard.

Aside from the increased functionality, the card operates like a standard credit, debit or ATM card. The idea is to provide a two-in-one device for users who have to carry a second authentication device for sensitive transactions.
 - http://mashable.com/2012/11/08/mastercard-lcd-screen/

its a shame they didnt implement pin enter with a OTP then being displayed which can then be entered in place of the CSC to signify the user has "the real card".
 

I'd swap banks if a USA based bank implements this functionality.

Facebook Groups problem

Interesting Facebook groups problem that i just found. I've also posted this to facebook support but thought it might help other admins.

If you are the admin of a facebook group you may want to read this.



I am the admin of the
"  http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/sanfrancisco49ers.livefootballchat  "
facebook group that posts about the 49ers.
The settings are currently " Closed " and each user has to be approved by admin and i am the only admin.
One of the members posted a comment about the amoutn of spam in the group in this comment
http://www.facebook.com/groups/sanfrancisco49ers.livefootballchat/permalink/10151279057256351/
Interestingly I couldnt see any spam.......(as in the past anyone who does post spam i block their accounts and remove their posts).
As you can see in their discussion they could see spam BUT i couldnt see any spam as all.
They then posted the user profile
" http://www.facebook.com/deltaablanchett "
but when i click on this link i get
"The page you requested was not found..
You may have clicked an expired link or mistyped the address. Some web addresses are case sensitive."
However when i logged OUT of my account and log in as my wife i can see the userprofile for
" http://www.facebook.com/deltaablanchett "
Basically i'm guessing that this user had
1/ requested to join the group
2/ once approved block me the group admin from seeing their profile
3/ then started to post spam links into the group but as facebook had blocked me from seeing their posts....was able to annoy the users with these posts without me seeing them.
Resolution;
1/ I logged in as my wife and joined the group
2/ i then logged in as me and upgraded her to admin
3/ i then logged in as my wifes account and blocked the user from posting
(i then had my wife "leave the group" as she hates football)

Suggestions for Facebook dev team
1/ if you are a group admin you have to see ALL posts by other users as such if a fb user blocks someone from seeing their profile...great no probs for general pages BUT when a user has admin rights they have to overide seeing posts in their groups.
2/ implement a "view group as XYZ User" eg the same way i can see my own profile as one of my friends implement this for group admins.

Hope this has helped and you delete this facebook users account permanantly however we all know they'll just create another fake account.

Colorado, Washington Legalize Recreational Marijuana

http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/colorado-washington-legalize-recreational-marijuana/story?id=17656515

This has to be the biggest side story of the night.

Recreational use is VERY different to medical use. No need to fly to amsterdam anymore just go skiing in colorado.

Could explain the rapid increase in tech startups in Colorado

QR code "summary of the market"

 QR codes relevance under threat
- http://www.zdnet.com/qr-codes-under-threat-from-new-tech-7000006963/

"However, he remained optimistic QR codes are "here to stay" for now because they are very easy to implement, inexpensive, and most importantly, they are openly available to millions of people.

You don’t have to download a specific app to read a specific image. It's an open ecosystem which has made it much easier for people to use. That is what is most important right now," Wehr said.

Couldnt have summed it up better myself :)

Cheers,
Dean

RIP MS Messenger

RIP Windows Messenger! Or good riddance.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20222998
Microsoft is to close down its Windows Live Messenger in 2013 and is urging users to switch over to its Skype chat software..

 
Shame its such poor reporting....they are actually closing Skype and "rebranding windows messenger"

Basically skype is dropping the p2p architecture and is going to be using the old messenger architecture with MS servers sitting in the middle of all traffic......

I've been waiting for someone to announce a "new and improved" P2P chat application to counteract this very problem.

Quick someone put a call out to Kim Dotcom and get him working on it.

Cheers,
Dean

Hmmm at the bitching

Could just be me and i know this is going to be unpopular with some of your but after listening to that last harpy on NY1 i feel like saying.... Hey New Yorkers quit your freaking bitching, listening to some of you after 3 days ...the gov is ignoring us where is the help....
This is New Orleans after 1 year - http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/fortune/katrina/page.3.2.html