Tag! You're it! Yahoo's acquisition of Flickr gives them access to its meta-tagging community. Very, very clever. I wasn't really that aware of Flickr before this, but they've got a novel approach to solving one of the more complex problems in computing: resolving searches of non-textual data. How cool would it be to say, "find me the picture from my wife's birthday where she's wearing the funny looking hat" and have the computer bring back the right thing? Or "bring back the cool live version of that song I like that happens to be named almost exactly the same as the studio cut (which is much less cool)?" Cool, indeed.  ¶ 1:05 AM 0 comments

  Sad story... A federal judge today denied a request by Terry Schiavo's family to order that her feeding tube be reinserted. I don't usually write about these kinds of stories, because I think most people prefer to be entertained, not lectured. Still, this one strikes home for me on all kinds of levels, and since I call this thing 'thinks,' thinking once in a while seems like a good idea.

I don't know whether Terry Schiavo told her husband that she didn't want to be kept alive artificially. What I do know is that, as tragic as this is for her parents, brother, and her husand, this woman deserves to be at rest. When Congress acted this past weekend, they acted on behalf of her parents. Many people have acted on behalf of her husband. More than a couple (particularly big lobbying groups) acted on their own behalf to establish precedents. None of those matter. What matters is acting on behalf of Ms. Schiavo. There are only two possible states that can describe Terry Schiavo's condition right now. Either she is brain damaged beyond the point of consciousness, or she isn't. If she is, with all due respect to her family, she is dead and all this wrangling over her legal status is moot. If she isn't, then this story is all the sadder. I cannot believe any reasonable person would want to "live," trapped inside a non-functioning shell of a body, without the ability to communicate, for fifteen years. I personally find it terrifying. I certainly wouldn't want it for myself, nor for anyone that I love.

Technology shapes our lives in many ways. In this case, it extended one. Maybe more than it should. Without technology, Terry Schiavo most likely would have died long ago. As our society ages, more and more work is done to find the technological solution that will keep us alive just a little bit longer. That's OK with me, as I'm not really looking forward to dying anytime soon. However, as these technologies improve, our values and our ethics are struggling to keep up. The definition of "alive" gets a little cloudier, a little grayer, every day. Some people in this debate cast this as a question of human rights, whether Ms. Schiavo is entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Of course she is. There's no question. I think it misses the point. Ms. Schiavo is entitled to the same rights as everyone else, as long as she is alive. The real question here is, "what does it mean to be alive?" Until we get that one right, this case is far from over.  ¶ 7:57 AM 0 comments

  I must be getting old... But this is one of the more horrible ideas I've run across in a while. Some video game manufacturers plan products that feature drug use as one of the aspects of the game. I'll admit, I don't watch too many movies that focus on the drug culture, but I understand their place in society. Not too many portray drug use in a favorable light. Still, watching a film where you empathisize with a character's drug problem (or can't wait for his downfall like Frank Booth in 'Blue Velvet'), is a far cry from shooting up, simulated or not. Sure, you can argue that violence has been part of games for a long time, so why shouldn't drug use be? And for me, it's a question of benefit. Wars are violent. Police work can often be violent. Portraying someone in a game who has to take someone's life, presumably a bad guy, to achieve a more positive result is a big difference from taking a hit on a joint or sticking a needle in your arm just for its game play benefits.  ¶ 7:32 PM 0 comments

  Today's dispatch from the dot-bomb bust... This just in: the dot-com thing may have been overrated. According to researchers, Metcalfe's law appears to be wrong. Um, do you think? Metcalfe's law basically says that the utility and value of a network increases exponentially the more things are connected to the network. Basically. As it happens, Metcalfe was full of crapola on this one. In a related story, most of the people who worked for Metcalfe's company have been unemployed for the last three years.  ¶ 10:02 PM 0 comments

  One more shuffle note... No pun intended. OK, one quick question: is it just me, or did Scissor Sisters run across a whole stack of Elton John albums, say, Honky Chateau and Captain Fantastic? I've been listening to that on my iPod shuffle, and I swear, if I didn't knkow better, I'd swear some of these tunes are covers. Forgetting, of course, Comfortably Numb, which actually is a cover, albeit one of the stranger ones I've run across in a long time. It vaguely reminded me of the Flying Lizards' cover of Money (That's What I Want), which is still the oddest cover I've ever heard. Not that odd is bad. Too many songs these days aren't odd enough, I say. So grab a shuffle and boogie down.  ¶ 10:35 PM 0 comments

  Shuffle off to buffle... OK, that's a stupid title for a post, but hang with me for a minute. I just got an iPod shuffle. I don't care what anyone says. It is awfully cool. It's fun. It sounds great. It works tremendously well with iTunes (which is still the best Windows MP3 player). It's uncannily musical in how it moves from song to song. Downright spooky, actually. For instance, did you know that The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts (Reprise) segues really, really well into Same Direction by Hoobastank? Me, either. Cool, though. Some people don't like the fact that it doesn't have a screen, but I think they're missing the point. When I'm on the treadmill, riding my bike, or even sitting on a flight or subway, I'm not paying too much attention to reading the song. The shuffle pulls all the songs from my library, so it's not like I've got hundreds lying around that I don't know to listen to. Most reviews I've seen for it say that it's really only recommended as a second MP3 player, but I'm not convinced. I guess that iTunes, Winamp (the second best Windows MP3 player), and Musicmatch count as my first (um, and second, and third), given that I run those on my computer. However, for someone like me, who listens in the car, or while working out, I can't imagine what more I'd need. The only bad thing I can say about it is it's Autofill feature, which somehow found a really cheesy Escape Club MP3 on my hard drive. Not only did I not know it was there, I can't imagine how it got there. Ah, well, I guess I can't blame the shuffle. I just wish I could pin it on something, because I really don't want to take the blame for that one. Really.  ¶ 7:56 PM 0 comments