Archives for 2000

I’m just now

November 3, 2000 by Michael Boyle

catching up with Groove and Groove Networks, and what I see is very very cool. Camworld pointed me to an article in Byte.com that describes it well. The main message I get so far is that Groove is what wireless networking will have to be. And the artistic potential is very interesting as well.

Screw WAP – too closed, too small. Give me instant, secure, flexible nets on a dozen or a hundred personal wireless devices (like, almost anything you can imagine up to and including each light bulb in my house and its switch) and I’ll go wireless. Meter every second of my use of crappy portal content and I’ll pass, thanks.

As noted at

November 3, 2000 by Michael Boyle

Scripting News today, the U.S. Copyright Office has issued Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. Which is the long way of saying that you can hack blocking software to figure out what it’s blocking. This rule neatly obviates many of the concerns that were noted by ACLU lawyer Chris Hansen in his excellent article in Writ Magazine, Do We Really Want a Secret Censorship System.

The question I have is about the second class of works specified in the Rule: “Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsolescence.” It’s hard for me to parse exactly what this means. But it’s interesting, and the possibilities are, to me, very positive. Anyone who still thinks the gov’t doesn’t get it is out of touch, in my opinion. As I’ve said before, the government gets it just fine (at least in the US), it’s just that things have to be worked out in terms of law and policy, which can take a while.

Check out Lines + Splines (again)

November 3, 2000 by Michael Boyle

Check out Lines + Splines (again): “…because I’m now beginning a spate of all-Dutch posts; for the next few days (or so), all my posts will be related to Dutch type/design. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and now is as good a time as any.”

Type is great, but even better are the textual diversions, themes and sub-themes, clauses and sub-clauses, he (he?) uses to get to the point. Seemingly out of left field will come this extra something – a little anecdote or digression – that completes the picture. Quite seriously, I don’t know that any text has every mirrored the way my own brain works quite as closely as Lines + Splines.

Song haunting me

November 3, 2000 by Michael Boyle

at the moment: Deportees as performed by Arlo Guthrie (words by Woodie Guthrie):

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon, A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills, Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves? The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards? Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit? To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil And be known by no name except "deportees"?

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria; You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane, All they will call you will be "deportees"

Not only are

November 2, 2000 by Michael Boyle

the Rheostatics one of the closest things to a genius literate pop band you’re going to find, but group member Dave Bidini is a fine writer of books, not just songs. His latest is Tropic of Hockey and you can read an unedited sort-of excerpt called Gretzky Eats Shit. Bidini has also posted another story called Joan. Interesting maybe-fact – the “Gordie” in the story is probably Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip. I’m not certain, but I’ve been hearing stories for years about the rock-band house-league hockey team in Toronto. So it makes sense.