On globalization, tactics, and the new football game. Love or hate it, football – or soccer for the Americans – is the biggest pro sport in the world. It has been practiced in almost every country for a long time, and has shown a remarkable stability in its rules since its creation as a sport, more than one century ago. If the rules are stable, the game itself is still evolving. Football is now a global sport. Players from all around the world play on the world's top leagues. The World Cup is now a truly global event, smaller only than the Olympic Games, which is also a remarkable achievement for a single sport. The globalization of football has led to big changes on the dynamic of the game, changes which have made the game that we watch today a different spectacle to watch than the one from a few decades ago. [kuro5hin.org]
E-mail snooping rider on child porn bill. This week I was phone solicited by the Concerned Women for America to support HR 4623, which is supposed to be a more legally tight version of the 1996 virtual child pornography law that was struck down last month by the U.S. Supreme court for being too vague. I agreed to a $10 pledge, but after researching the issue I retracted. I discovered the provision 8(a)(2) that would allow the federal government to request copies of e-mail for any reason without a court order. [kuro5hin.org]
Andy Edmonds: “The A Day in the Life study is a large scale sample of internet behavior. Data collected will be released under an open data license. The first study will commence in mid July.” [Scripting News]
Addicted to Google? Check out this page to find out how you can use it more efficiently. – Andy
Macworld reviews wireless access points. Glenn at 80211b News notes: Shelly Brisbin surveys seven Mac-compatible access points in Macworld: Shelly walks through standard features, installation problems, and a long comparison of seven access points that Mac users might consider. Many readers have written to tell me that some SMC and D-Link gear supports AppleTalk, but it appears to be works in progress. Great advice throughout the article as well as dead-on factual accuracy. (Disclosure: I'm a regular Macworld contributor and know Shelly, a regular reader of this site. But as regular readers know, I don't pull my punches.) [80211b News]
It's great to see Macworld doing this kind of story, but I need to set the story straight about at least one of the SMC Networks access points. The Barricade (SMC7004AWBR) does indeed offer AppleTalk support. In my case, I took the access point out of the box, walked through the setup process and upgraded the firmware for the thing and it started passing AppleTalk packets with no problems whatsoever.
In the months that I have been using the SMC Barricade I have only had to restart it twice to solve a nagging networking problem. Otherwise, it has been rock solid…
[Mac Net Journal] [dws.]
Groupware Application For Mac OS? [MacSlash]
I've added this item so that I can return to this thread on MacSlash often, hopefully finding solutions. [dws.]
You gotta know it's tempting to just tell the story, but there's a problem, I don't remember most of it. I was heavily sedated much of the time and am rapidly forgetting the rest of it.
Here's something I'm not forgetting. I am now an ex-smoker. I want to say that in public. Of course I still really want to smoke.
I figured something out in the hospital. I'm the kind of person who likes to solve problems by smoking. How do I know this? Because every time my mind encounters a problem it says “OK, I'll just have a cigarette then.” I bet a lot of other cigarette smokers deal with problems the same way. Now that I don't smoke, I still have the idea that smoking will help me deal with problems. It's funny, one part of my brain has figured out that this is wrong (in fact smoking causes more problems than it solves) but a deeper part of my brain still believes it. This leads to some funny arguments inside my brain. But so far so good. I got to go through the worst of the withdrawal in a hospital where there was no possibility of smoking, and now the craving seems manageable. No doubt other people have smoking stories to tell. I was one of the lucky ones, I survived to tell my story. So far so good.
Dave is back in the saddle. I'm just now becoming a groupie, but looking forward to it. – andy
Good morning and welcome to another in a continuing series of web logs called Scripting News. It's not quite a soap opera, but it's close. [Scripting News]
I really like the idea of a sofwtare based Dead man's Switch like the one slashdot pointed to. Makes more sense to have a browser interface so you can 'check in' from anywhere. Once I get my office organized enough I think I'll try that as my first tool for “radio” [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]