So, I’m back from a week in Sydney. The suggestions from the Ask Metafilter community were fantastic, and we kept ourselves very busy. In brief:

Five Neat Things About Sydney

1. Tim-Tams – addictive chocolate-covered cookies.
2. The Currency – bills are colorful and nicely-designed, and made of an un-rippable polymer; plus, no pennies or one-dollar bills!
3. Mandatory voting – vote or be fined. This makes so much sense.
4. The butterscotch souffle at Wildfire – the best dessert I’ve ever had, period.
5. Optional Tipping – like the encore, some gestures are meaningless when they’re mandatory

Five Not-So-Neat About Sydney:

1. Vegemite – I tried it and it’s about exactly what I expected. Blecch.
2. Stupid copyright laws – plus, the Kazaa offices were raided while we were there
3. Australian Cockroach & Huntsmen Spiders (tie) – giant roaches in the streets and giant spiders inside. Eek.
4. Television – lots of American TV, six months (or more) behind the States
5. Kylie Minogue – she’s some sort of a national treasure and completely unavoidable

I’d like to give everyone a sneak preview of my newest and greatest project, currently 19 weeks in development… With a tentative release date of June 13, I’m proud to announce Waxy v2.0!

The doctors say he’s perfectly healthy, and my wife started to feel him move actively in the last week or so. (We’ve picked out a name, but we’re still working out the spelling.) I’m joyous and terrified and wistful and optimistic, often all at once.

Mostly, I’m just excited that I’ll have someone to play video games with!

The Academy announced today that a second screener video was leaked to the Internet, after yesterday’s announcement of the “Something’s Gotta Give” appearance. I commented yesterday about how screener leaks are far more common than the Academy realizes (or acknowledges), but I decided to do some research to back it up.

I compiled a list of every likely Oscar nominee, using these popular 2004 Oscar predictions as a guide. Then, I tried to find downloadable screener copies of every film on the list.

The results might surprise the Academy. Out of 22 films, screeners for all but one were widely released on the Internet. Of those, 10 were leaked over a month ago, and five were leaked over two months ago.

Below you can find a list of the 22 films, with the date they were leaked and links to the NFO files added by the release group for each:

21 Grams (December 11, 2003)

A Mighty Wind (August 5, 2003)

American Splendor (November 3, 2003)

Big Fish (December 24, 2003)

Cold Mountain (January 3, 2004)

Finding Nemo (August 7, 2003)

Girl with a Pearl Earring (November 28, 2003)

House of Sand and Fog (December 16, 2003)

In America (December 15, 2003)

Kill Bill Volume 1 (November 24, 2003)

The Last Samurai (December 24, 2003)

Lost in Translation (December 11, 2003)

Love Actually (January 6, 2004)

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (only available as camcorder videos)

Master and Commander (December 23, 2003)

Mona Lisa Smile (December 20, 2003)

Monster (December 24, 2003)

Mystic River (December 24, 2003)

Pirates of the Caribbean (September 15, 2003)

Seabiscuit (October 6, 2003)

Something’s Gotta Give (December 25, 2003)

Thirteen (December 2, 2003)

The big question: how did the Return of the King screener avoid getting leaked? New Line carefully released screeners to voting members, but specific details about their methods are scarce. Anyone have any information about it?

At first, I thought the headline on this article was a joke: “Oscar Screener Ends Up on Internet.” It seemed about as likely as “Britney Spears Song Found Online” or “Copy of Photoshop Downloaded By Someone Who Didn’t Pay for It.”

But apparently, the Academy is stating that this is the first time ever that an Oscar screener was found on the Internet. Is that possible? Last year, DVD-ripped copies of nearly every major Oscar contender were available online, with almost all of them marked and tagged as “Screener.” The Pianist, Frida, Gangs of New York, About Schmidt and Road to Perdition, to name a few. This year, files claiming to be screeners of many potential nominees are being routinely swapped via the usual networks.

So is this just more obfuscation from an industry in denial, or is it possible that every one of those downloads originated from other sources?

Also, the liability form that Academy voters are required to sign is interesting:

I agree to ensure that I know, at all times, the whereabouts of all screeners sent to me under this agreement… I agree not to allow the screeners to circulate outside of my residence or office. I agree not to allow them to be reproduced in any fashion, and not to sell them or to give them away at any time…. I agree that a violation of this agreement will constitute grounds for my expulsion from the Academy and may also result in civil and criminal penalties.

Veteran actor Carmine Caridi now faces expulsion from the Academy, most likely for letting his grandkids borrow his copy of “Something’s Gotta Give.”

Joshua points to an unusual social networking project called Socialgrid, that bills itself as “a free dating service using Google, grid computing, P2P (Peer-to-Peer), and a file sharing program.”

The About Us section tells us that SocialGrid is the lifelong dream of one man, Chau Vuong. His main theory is that soulmates exist, and that you can beat the improbable odds of finding them with technology. Chau built SocialGrid to help him find a soulmate to meet his high expectations.

As far as I can tell, you’re assigned a lengthy identification code by the patent-pending Identification Coding System™, which you then place somewhere on your website. Other people can then use the SocialGrid web application to search Google for your coded attributes. Or you can use the patent-pending SocialGrid Search System™, a peer-to-peer Windows client, to search the codes of other people running the client. If the entire system works, you’ll find your soulmate.

No comment on the technology. For me, the entire project is summed up by the “Warning to Copycats & Clones” on the homepage:

We have retained one of the top intellectual property law firms in America. Everything is copyrighted and trademarked. The patent application claims coverage of basically all complex objects, including people, in almost every country. We will marginalize every profit margin. There is no money to made in creating another ID coding system. The world needs only one system. If necessary, we will donate SocialGrid and the patent to Google to insure one standardized coding system. Any copycats and clones will have to answer to Google. Do not compete with us. Join us and become a partner.

Take that, FOAF!

Nearly every episode of Computer Chronicles, the influential and long-running television series, is freely available on the Internet Archive. If you browse by year, you can find plenty of classic geek nostalgia dating back to 1984. A few of my favorites are below.

Computer Games, February 1984. Steve Kitchen demos Activision’s Space Shuttle, the most complex Atari 2600 game ever created and the only one to reprogram all of its switches. Electronic Arts’ Bill Budge shows off the classic Pinball Construction Set for the Apple II, while EA/3DO founder Trip Hawkins shows off Dr. J and Larry Go One on One, the game that paved the way for EA Sports.

Computer Games, January 1985. The authors of Sargon and Millionaire demo them on the original Mac, and talks to Pitfall creator David Crane about Ghostbusters and David Lebling discusses Zork and other text-based adventure games. The short piece on the fledgling Lucasarts (then named Lucasfilm) is great, which had just released its first two games a few months before, the groundbreaking Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer.

Software Piracy, January 1985. A spirited debate between an Activision exec against a developer of a cracking utility, a surreal interview with John “Cap’n Crunch” Draper taking an anti-piracy stance, and a demonstration by the pseudonymous “Frankie Mouse” of a pirate BBS on a 300 baud modem. (Look at that text scroll!)

Operating Systems, 1984. The big highlight is Bruce Tognazzini, then an Apple engineer, shrinking himself to give a guided tour inside an Apple IIe.

The “Random Access” news segment at the end of each show is also entertaining, if you haven’t had enough geekery. I’ve only watched a fraction of the episodes so far, so post a comment if you find any particularly good moments.

When you hear the words “Clear Channel,” you probably don’t think “Indie.” But on Christmas night, Clear Channel’s Los Angeles affiliate KDL switched from a failing dance format to Indie 103-1: “Your Independent Radio Station.”

Take a look at these two hourly playlists, to get a grasp of the new format. It’s not college radio by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a more eclectic mix of music (e.g. Postal Service, Polyphonic Spree, Jeff Buckley, X) than any other commercial radio station in Southern California. And, even more shocking, the station will be running without on-air “personalities” or commercial interruptions for the next few weeks.

The switch seems distinctly out-of-character for “radio’s big bully”, known for its secretive payola schemes. Why the sudden interest in providing an outlet for new music?

In Los Angeles, the “alternative” market has long been dominated by Infinity Broadcasting’s KROQ. In the last few years, it’s evolved into a corporate rock nightmare without any competition. Without an adequate alternative to the non-stop stream of Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park clones, many listeners simply turned off their radios.

One of the new taglines for Indie 103-1 is “bringing the alternative back to Los Angeles,” a direct jab at the new KROQ. By providing a more diverse station, Clear Channel will likely be able to profit off new bands that aren’t getting exposure from KROQ, while attracting KROQ’s alienated audience.

If you’re interested, I highly recommend reading Los Angeles Radio-Info, a message board for local radio insiders. They’re following the story closely, with tons of great commentary and speculation. It’s an interesting glimpse into the feud between radio’s two biggest conglomerates. If successful, Clear Channel’s “Indie” experiment may have surprising consequences across the nation’s radio landscape.

December 31, 2003: The Entercom-owned Seattle station “The End” switched to a similar format this week. It’ll be interesting to see how the ratings for both stations develop in the next few months.

An anonymous reader wrote in with some excellent insight into the situation, mentioning that Clear Channel is leasing the frequency from Spanish-radio giant Entravision in order to work around the FCC’s current regulations. I’ve posted the entire e-mail below.

January 1, 2004: You can view KDLD’s real-time playlists on Yes.net

January 4, 2004: Someone on the radio-info list found this mockup homepage of the Indie 103.1 website, which indicates they’re planning to stream the station. (Thanks, Boogah.)

January 7, 2004: Their site is live. A streaming radio feed was supposed to be added yesterday, but never went live.

March 30, 2004: I’m not affiliated with Indie 103.1, and I don’t know anyone that is! You can stop e-mailing me with song requests now, thanks.

Continue reading “Clear Channel Goes Indie?” →

Armin Meiwes, a computer technician in central Germany, liked to meet other men online. But instead of using Match.com or Friendster, he posted his personal ads on sites like “Cannibal Cafe,” “Guy Cannibals” and “Torturenet.” And instead of dinner and a movie, he preferred to slaughter and eat his dates.

Unlike other cannibals, Meiwes used the Internet to meet his (very willing) victims. So I went looking for his original message board postings, but the three sites he mentioned in his testimony have shut down in the year since his arrest. He also posted messages to a Usenet group called alt.sex.snuff.cannibalism, where several of his posts are archived by Google Groups.

The newsgroup, like many others, is so overwhelmed with spam that the active users started prefixing their posts with “ASSC” to separate out the noise. If you look around, you’ll find an active community of cannibal fetishists, with their own forms of fan fiction, creative writing, poetry, and the occasional “stab” at humor. Compared to this kind of creative output, Armin Meiwes’ posts are downright dull.

December 18, 2003: PETA is trying to convert him to vegetarianism.

Everyone’s been making a big deal about Berkeley Breathed’s new Opus comic, but the comic is completely unavailable online. So despite their magic DRM ink, I was able to scan in Sunday’s strip.

Some comics fans are upset about the removal of several long-running strips from local papers to make room for Opus, including Mary Worth, Prince Valiant, Herman, Marvin, Ziggy, and other desperately unfunny strips.

January 2, 2004: The Opus comics are available in a new archive. Here’s a backup archive.

April 6, 2004: I got a cease and desist from the Washington Post, and was forced to remove the Opus archive. I posted the PDF in the Opus archive directory.

February 27, 2006: The Opus comic is now published in digital form.

A couple weeks ago, I ordered a Japanese magazine called Bloggers Volume 1 from Amazon.co.jp. I just received my copy in the mail, and it’s even neater than it looks. The interviews with Ben and Mena Trott, Anil Dash, Howard Rheingold and Joi Ito are in full color, and there are in-depth reviews of Typepad, Blosxom, RSS readers, and more. Of course, I can’t understand a single word, which makes it even more exotic.

I scanned in the cover and the first six pages, which is an interview with Ben, Mena, and Anil. Enjoy.

Continue reading “Bloggers Volume 1” →