Saw Barenaked Ladies at the Shoreline last night. It was a great show, as expected of course. Their improv bits were great, and left the audience with a few choice phrases, "'nuts out' night at the Shoreline' (better not to ask) and 'motherfucking nipple it getting me excited' (even mo' better not to ask). I didn't realize 'till the show started that this was a second SF run through on the 'Gordon' tour (I went to the first one last October) so the set was the same, but because they're such a good concert band, the experience was totally different.

Also, I've got to say I'm immensely proud of the band for saying "Hello Bay Area!" instead of "San Francisco," "San Jose," or "Mountain View."

Great news today. Apparently Palm is buying Be for $11 million in Palm stock.

This is exactly what Palm needs. The problem with PDAs, from the Newton to the Psion, to the Palm and, to a slightly lesser degree, WinCE, is that while they're great at manipulating snippets of information, they have lacked real multimedia capability. Playing MP3s on a handheld or any sort of video requires a really specialized application, and they're nowhere near as adept at handling multimedia data streams as even a cellular phone is. The OS just isn't built that way.

Enter BeOS. After showing such promise as a multimedia OS at the expense of all else, it couldn't find a market and has been foundering for the last three years. It's already been demonstrated that other OSes can be emulated in the Be environment, and PalmOS has already been ported successfully to other desktop platforms. All that's left is for Palm to pull an Apple and graft the existing PalmOS onto the slick media-centric BeOS and put it all into a tight m700-style case with a G3 cell connection.

This would be the machine that lives up to the hype. IT would be the knowledge navigator that fits in your pocket and can handle realtime video as easily as the current PalmOS can handle appointments. Bandwidth will be the sole remaining bottleneck to the full solution, and G3 systems should take care of that. Storage space will be irrelevant as the Palm will be (literally) a thin client, grabbing music, video, and videocommunications through the network.

Okay, so I'm waxing a little Dick Tracy here and we've heard it all before, but speaking as a former Newton programmer, I just want to say how vital a step it is to create a handheld OS with deep multimedia underpinnings, and I can actually say that I'm glad that Be ended up going to Palm instead of Apple (though sadly at one tenth the $125 million Amelio offered for Be just a few years ago).

And the future chugs along...

NPR did a piece this morning detailing the crackdown on Hobbits, and other Tolkien followers in Kazahkstan. The local government believes that dressing weird is against the public good, and they aren't standing for it. Something tells me they don't sell as many Darth Maul masks there, either... (thanks to David for the link)

First, why do we call it 'anti-piracy' protection when it's some company's crypto, but 'privacy' protection when it's ours?

Second, why do people constantly get persecuted and imprisoned under the DMCA when they try to publish the vulnerabilities in encryption systems (CSS, SDMI, eBook, HDCP). but several people have demonstrated successful attacks on WEP (802.11b wireless encryption) without any reprisals? Is it more onerous when someone documents how to attack a copy-protection protocol than when they document the vulnerabilities of a privacy protocol?

LeiaScofield: http://www.julen.net/downloads/
uniqueaimhandle: http://www.untickalock.com/jakob/gallery/jakob_watching.jpg
LeiaScofield: http://www.nobodyhere.com/justme/nose.html

Perfect...

I just found out my sister's getting Lasiked today. Most personal accounts I've read from say it's great, but it scares the willies out of me. Don't run with scissors, don't mix pop rocks and soda, and don't shine lasers into your eyes. These are the words of wisdom I live by. Anyhow, I've got to go put my contacts in now.

But it sounds very cool, and I'm looking forward to a first-hand account. Anyone else out there had this done? Any stories?

Heya, only two days left to submit questions for the 2001 Webloggers Purity Survey.

After Wednesday we'll be sifting through the questions (515 so far), categorizing them and paring the lot down to about 200 questions. I'm really happy with the thought that went into the questions. Hopefully the survey itself will provide as interesting an insight into bloggers as the responses themselves. Thanks to everyone who's contributed already!

People have many different motives for finding love on the web, and those motives aren't always obvious at the surface level.

After reading about Rob-in-his-ferrari cover to cover, I've decided that the motivation for this love connection comes from his administrative assistant, Linda, who is secretly pleading for someone to snap up this catch so he won't keep hitting on her and angering her husband.

Actually, my real curiosity is the choice of MIDI background music on the page. Is the "Bizzare Love Triangle" supposed to reference Robert, his Ferrari, and the love of his life, or is it just Robert and his two cars? My bet is on Rob, Linda, and her jealous husband.

First, Romeo & Juliet (L337 version) is really funny if you've spent too much time in chat rooms or on IM, and pretty nonsensical if you haven't. Gotta love flash.

Second, an inpassing moment last night:

Getting into my car, parked at People's Park, at 11pm last night...
• Girl on sidewalk: You leavin'?
• Me: Yeah.
• Girl: 'k, cos I'm gonna cop a squat an' I don't want you to watch me.
  and then she does...

Third, Gaskell's Ball is tonight! Ammy's getting back from Lark in the Morning Camp today, and I finally have to clean the post-Europe luggage explosion from my living room so she'll have someplace to crash after the ball tonight.

Grabbing a bite at Togo's last night, Emily and I noticed the place next door, called "Donut Den" and tried to think up less appealing names for a donut shop:

• Donut Deli
• Donut Hut
• All you can eat Donuts
• Far East Donuts
• Donuts R Us
• D'oh! Nuts
• Cheesey Donuts
• Bacon 'n' Donuts

And our personal favorite

• I can't believe it's not Donuts!