Tag Archive for 'lolwut'

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If The Department of Defense Starts Probing reQall, Be Scared

Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 3:17 PM on May 7, 2009 in Commentary. 0 Comments Tags: , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/o7

A recent New York Times video got my mother interested in reQall, a to-do list/reminder/calendar thingy with many interesting features, notably the fact that you can add items with your voice. Of course, because speech-to-text technology still isn’t 100% accurate, hilarity could occasionally ensue:

>From: reQall
>Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 11:53:24 +0000
>To: <Withheld so you won't spam my mom>
>Subject: Added: Look at Joe's gold in the Swiss Bank....
>
>Added to reQall:
>Look at Joe's gold in the Swiss Bank.

That’s not exactly what I said. I said ‘look at Joe’s goals in the system.’ Whatever…

The botched transcription touches on the suspicious. If you decide to hop on reQall, make sure you don’t slur your words reminding yourself to “show up at” your son’s football game. An innocent mistake by the system could cause a suicide bomber panic at Giants stadium.

    YouTube Blocks Content ID Matches Worldwide Except In Everywhere

    Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 4:11 PM on May 1, 2009 in Commentary. 4 Comments Tags: , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/LD

    I got a very odd notice from YouTube. Apparently their robots finally detected my fair use of a copyrighted Universal Music Group song in one of my ridiculous convention videos. However, this was not cause to automatically take down the video, nor to automatically mute the audio. Instead…

    As a result, your video is blocked everywhere except in these locations:
    American Samoa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Cuba, Fiji, France, Germany, Guam, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kiribati, Mexico, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Spain, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, United Kingdom, United States, United States Virgin Islands, Vanuatu

    So, wait, where is it blocked, then? Most of the countries I’m not seeing on there don’t have their own versions of YouTube. Um…China? Is it blocked in China? Oh, no, that’s all of YouTube, sorry.

    I’m very confused. Oh well. I’d imagine that it’s still accessible everywhere regardless, now that I submitted the fair use dispute. This is the third time I’ve had to do that, and it’s kind of annoying. Why can’t I just submit the fair use claim when I upload the video? I know it’s got copyrighted music, I state that in the description, so let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?

      Apple’s Gone Too Far: Bans Terrorism Via iTunes

      Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 3:47 PM on April 30, 2009 in Commentary. 0 Comments Tags: , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/JVh

      I used to love Apple. I thought they were a wonderful company that made wonderful things. Then the iPhone came along, with its endless censorship and anti-competitive practices in the App Store, and quite literal Digital Rights Manufacturing in the iPod Shuffle. But even then, I still liked Apple. But now Failblog exposes how their egregious exploits of copyright and licensing law have gone too far:

      iTunes EULA: You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

      (Original post, which you shouldn’t look at because Failblog’s 3235875 comments per post is browser-crashing)

        How Does One Pronounce “Technorati”?

        Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 1:16 AM on February 26, 2009 in Commentary. 4 Comments Tags: , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/trn

        Technorati, I love you so, but how do I pronounce you?

        I figured it was “tek-NAH-ruh-tee”, but that kinda sounds like I’m making fun of a Japanese person saying “technology.” Unless that’s what I’m supposed to say, in which case, wtf.

          Authors Guild Hates Children and Blind People, Demands That Amazon Kindle Not Read To Them

          Published by Zacqary Adam Green at 1:06 PM on February 11, 2009 in Commentary. 0 Comments Tags: , , , . Short URL: http://plankhead.com/XIc

          CrunchGear just brought to my attention a recent WSJ article about how the Author’s Guild is making a frivolous attempt at making people realize that they exist. Oh, and something about how Amazon’s recently announced second-generation Kindle is infringing on copyrights because of its text-to-speech technology.

          The Guild’s executive director, Paul Aiken, says that “They [Amazon] don’t have the right to read a book out loud. That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.” In other words, if you purchase a copy of a book, in printed or electronic form, then under no circumstances may anyone or anything utter a single one of the words in it, be it your teacher, your mother, or your own mouth if you happen to unconsciously mutter the words to yourself like zillions of people do. Now, the Kindle doesn’t even go so far as to use accurate vocal inflections like any of those three would do, as no text-to-speech technology is that good. But nonetheless, it’s still a derivative work.

          I wasn’t aware of this, but now that the Author’s Guild has informed the public about it, I think it’s time we crack down on this sort of illegal behavior. I need to track down my kindergarten teacher and have her ass arrested — she illegally, without license or permission from the publisher, performed the copyrighted text of Where The Wild Things Are for an entire class of 20 children; I’d be surprised if she wasn’t continuing such criminal behavior to this day. And to think my own father, on more than 40 occasions between 1993 and 1996, committed the same offense with Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

          And let us not forget that every day, people who have impaired or no vision use this same illegal text-to-speech technology to browse the Internet, with entire copyrighted newspaper articles being infringed upon for an automatically-generated performance. If those sons of bitches can’t read the text, they should buy the damn audio version that trained actors worked so hard to produce, am I right?

          So, yes, the new Kindle’s text-to-speech technology is illegal, and clearly not a fair use of copyrighted material because its robotic and monotone performances of the text will have a very real and tangible impact on the sales of audiobooks sold by Amazon’s Audible service. Screw blind people, old people, and children who can’t read yet, we need to stop Amazon from stealing from themselves.