"The thing that gets me, is that in the video, he says that he pulled the gun and hid it under the box while still thinking this was going to be an ordinary delivery."

Actually, he said no one came to the front door and he heard a someone rustling around in the bushes in the dark who told him to come around to the back of the house. He didn't say he expected it to still be an ordinary delivery. He said he still had HOPE that it would still be an ordinary delivery, but his suspicions were raised enough that he drew and concealed his gun under the pizza box. He also made it clear that the other man pointed his gun first.

Why anyone would have an issue with the way this chain of events played out as presented in the video is completely baffling to me. Sure, the camera work, music, and narration are laughable.

Still, people have the right to defend themselves from thugs.

I've used Simply Audiobooks a few times. Once I purchased an iRiver, I had to find a company that at least offered WMA format as an option. Audible wasn't cutting it and were completely unwilling to offer any "simple" solution for getting their files onto my listening device. (At the time, they claimed to support iRiver players, but not my particular model.)

DRM is insane. I don't purchase that many audio books, but when I do, I believe it should be a relatively straightforward process: purchase, download, move to iRiver, and listen whenever and wherever I prefer.

#1 wrote: "Also, I notice that Amazon is discounting the price, list price: $500.99, Amazon price: 499.99.

YOU SAVE: $1.00!"

Yeah, but you get free shipping...

The intensity and color of the lighting changes, but the clouds don't budge. How much do these things cost?

Awesome.

My internet connection is with a small provider that began as a cable TV company before expanding to offer internet and internet phone services.

Curiously, I constantly have trouble when it comes to streaming full episodes of TV shows from the major networks. I can run a speed test, and get close to advertised results, but I get glitches in streamed video ALL the time. Before I moved into my new home, I was using Earthlink broadband and didn't have these issues, despite having a slower Earthlink account (1.5 Mbps DSL vs. 2.0 Mbps cable).

A tool like this should (if I understand you correctly) help me determine if my ISP is hindering me from watching video on the internet so I'll subscribe to their cable TV services instead.

Has anyone paused to consider that Comfort's "atheist's nightmare" line MIGHT have been delivered tongue-in-cheek?

I saw this clip two or three years ago, and the reactions were similar.

Don't you people ever go to the movies? If you did, you should KNOW that when they catch the bad guy, he ALWAYS has a wall full of photographs depicting his intended target(s).

Good night...

Talk about serious flaws. My results list me as being in the state of Washington. I'm actually in a state on the Atlantic coast.

Pardon me, your 'slip' is showing.

Will these stairs float to more than one opening on the upper level...a la Harry Potter?

The mind reels...

Did she spell out "some pig?" THAT might have been worthwhile.

I have grown accustomed to broadband at home. I'm on 2 Mbs service via cable, with internet phone service as well.

I still have to deal with dial-up at my office where I spend 20 hours per week. We're more or less limited to checking email and placing the occasional mail order online.

I could go back to dial-up if I had no choice or if financial circumstances insisted, but it would seriously cut into what I'm currently able to accomplish at home when I'm online. I could go back...but I sure wouldn't like it!

I had a disc camera when I was in high school. What a piece of junk! Not only was the photo quality poor, the thing actually stopped working out of the blue and had to be sent back to Kodak for repairs.

I can't remember why I thought it was worth buying...knowing the film was so small...maybe because you could save time on "winding" it between shots?

Some time later, I got a Minolta X370 35mm SLR and never had any reason to break out the disc camera again.

I didn't have any problems with load times when I began reading at the beginning and scrolled to the next page...one page at a time.

I did have a problem with load times when I tried to skip ahead to a chapter. I can't imagine I'd want to read the entire book at one sitting. It appears to load the book from the beginning regardless of which page you have up on the screen at the time.

As for the detail, it was easy enough to read at the original size. If I clicked the "fit to window" button, it was very difficult to read. Since I'm viewing it on a laptop, though, I wouldn't use the "fit to window" option which forces it to show me a full page.

What Cory has said is so obvious.

What's sad is the number of people who need this sort of concept explained.

What's baffling is number of companies who don't listen to that vocal minority of complainers and try to improve their products. If the critical types are happy, there's a good chance the non-critical types are going to be that much more happy and willing to buy the product.

This goes for any product at any price point.

Gerrymandered districts are common in every state (except Colorado, evidently http://rangevoting.org/ColoradoFair.html).

I live in NC where we have the 12th Congressional district. http://rangevoting.org/NC_CDloc.pdf

It was created specifically to elect a black representative. http://watt.house.gov/

As for the driving distance, 7 miles is nothing in a rural area. In the last election, we only had one early voting location for the entire county in which I live. Some citizens live much more than 7 miles from the central board of elections office.

I understand they'll expand early voting locations this year, but they're also DECREASING the overall number of locations for Election Day due to a lack of volunteers/poll workers. You don't see us locking down traffic.

And keep in mind...this is Texas, not North Carolina...where there's huge expanses of open spaces.

According to Prairie View U's own press release: http://www.pvamu.edu/pages/122.asp?item=21300
"Waller County had reduced the number of early voting locations from about six around the county to only one at its courthouse because county officials said they could not afford to operate multiple early voting locations.

After getting pressure from federal government, the county added three early voting locations, still there was not one announced for the Prairie View campus, convenient to students. An early voting site will be open this weekend at a community center in Prairie View."

In other words, these folks were annoyed they didn't get an early voting location on their own campus. This is hardly up there with protesting the Viet Nam war.

OK...so it's like flipping up the flag on my mailbox, which causes another mailbox flag on the other side of the world to flip down and doesn't allow the original flag to go back in place.

Whatever...it still isn't the same thing as transferring the actual mailbox flag instantaneously (considerably faster than the limits imposed by the speed of light laws) to another location, which is the classical sci-fi definition of teleporting.

So, it's an improper usage of the word.

"The confusion in the comments seems to stem from an inability to distinguish two concepts of teleportation."

There's actually no confusion. We all understand how it's being used, we just don't all agree that it's a proper use of the word "teleport."

From the day the word was invented, teleportation has been a fantasy of science fiction whereby objects dematerialize (vanish, cease to exist) at one location and re-materialize at another. The word was invented, defined, and popularized within that context. The scientific community, dictionaries, etc. are mostly in agreement that it's impossible or hypothetical at best.

Quantum physicists said they'd done it a few years ago, but then here's this clear admission that they've only proven they can cause remote particles to assume the same state.

To use the term "teleportation" outside the context in which it's recognized is misleading and frankly, dishonest. It is especially dishonest to employ a science fiction term such as teleport in the field of quantum physics, which is already confusing enough to comprehend.

Causing two remote particles to display the same state in two different locations may be comparable to sending information via Morse Code, but it doesn't remotely fall under the definition of teleportation.

(On a side note, what's amusing to me right now is watching spell check refuse to acknowledge teleportation, teleport, etc. as a real words every time I type them.)

(I'm going to now hit POST and "teleport" the letters on my computer screen to Boing Boing's server.)

Imagine if you ordered a birdhouse from Amazon.com and they faxed you a set of plans. Would you be angry?

Simple solution...if stuff isn't teleporting, don't refer to it as "teleportation."

I'm somewhere in between, I suppose.

I rarely make lists when I go to the store, and I always regret it later.

On the other hand, I'm the type who nearly always shows up on time and I get frustrated with types who invariably come dragging in twenty minutes later.

I always thought the regular Fantastic Four comics were parodies.

"Knowledgeable sales staff"

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a local movie theater and asked the theater manager if they would be getting _There Will Be Blood_. He said he'd never heard of it, and added that if he'd never heard of it being in the business as he was, it must be some tiny little indie film that would never be considered for viewing at a major theater chain.

My experience shopping places like Circuit City and Best Buy has been similar. They often think they know more than they actually do and as a result, they're often more insulting to customers than helpful.

Re: #17, 18

Ah, I see now. Google Maps has a Gibson, NC pointer when you use your link. When I zoom out, switch off satellite view to get my bearings with regard to the location of the state line, and then zoom back in, it doesn't go back to the same place for some weird reason.

Did anyone else notice that the house is in North Carolina, not South Carolina...granted, it's very close to the NC/SC state line, but why is the SC governor being petitioned to protect a piece of property that lies in a different state?

Apple only went halfway on this. Their point was to make it as small as possible, so they should have ditched the keyboard and touch pad in addition to the optical drive.

The AIR looks cool to a point, but it is not revolutionary. A screen with internal motherboard, wireless functionality, a processor, RAM, etc. and nothing but ports on the outside with a weight of approximately 1 pound...that would have been revolutionary.

I mean...if customers are happy to plug in a CD or DVD drive into an $1800 computer that lacks such a convenience in favor of a weight advantage, those same customers should be just as happy to plug in a keyboard and a mouse (or peripheral touch pad).

A large version of the iPhone interface could be incorporated into the screen itself, so you could use it with no keyboard attached at all.

I made the mistake of renting that dog of a film a few nights ago. The title says it all.

Sue me.

As for the depth rating, I have a feeling this device was built with pools in mind rather than the ocean.

What red blooded teenage boy wouldn't willingly part with $100 for the opportunity to snap underwater "spy" photos of girls swimming at the community pool?

One arm of this "cross" is three times as long as the other and the horizontal line is centered on the vertical rather than being closer to the top?

It sure doesn't look like any other Christian cross I've seen.

Jesus wasn't a midget amputee.

A point about whether or not the Romantics "authorized" the use of their song...

The Boing Boing article implies that they were approached and that they authorized a cover to be recorded, but the original article actually states:
"The band's attorneys said Activision properly secured permission to use the song What I Like About You, which allowed it to record a cover version. "

"Securing permission" would involve informing the publisher of the song of their intention to record the song. That's how it works to record a cover song. You can secure what's known as a "mechanical license" which is an agreement between you and the publisher to pre-pay for X pieces of product royalties in advance OR, if you anticipate selling a large volume of product as Activision would, you merely inform the publisher of your intention to record the song. The latter is called a "compulsory license." "Compulsory" means the publisher CAN'T deny your right to record the song. There's no "permission" involved.

According to ASCAP, "What I Like About You" is administered by EMI Music Publishing. EMI publishing's job is to collect royalties for the benefit of their songwriters and exploit their catalog as much as possible for maximum profit. They aren't in the business of telling bands what style to use when a song is recorded. They are in the business of collecting as much money as possible. It's residual income, and the more they can pull in, the better it is for them.

This whole line of "securing permission" is irrelevant. I think there was some info that got translated improperly from the original article when Mark wrote it up for Boing Boing.

You can't be denied if you want to record a cover of a song that has previously been released. Songwriters can only choose the first artist that records their song. After that, the song is fair game to anyone who wants to record it as long as they pay the statutory royalty rate as product is distributed.

The only real question here is whether or not a judge will allow some stupid law written only for artists who sound "distinctive" to apply or toss this case straight out of court, as it should be.

Any law that is written only for the benefit of "special people" that could never benefit any ordinary citizen is bad law.

If deliberately mimicking someone else is illegal, there's a lot of Elvis impersonators operating outside the law. Why is Elvis Presley fair game while Tom Waits is protected?

#13
"You need a band's authorization if you sound so much like the band that people could become confused....that's the basis of 'voice protection."

If that were true, every bluegrass band in the world would be in trouble for sounding too much like every other bluegrass band.

Can you provide a link to this "voice protection" or "voice misappropriation" law as it applies in the USA?

Regarding the Tom Waits vs. Frito Lay, I think that was a faulty decision. No federal law was broken. The case should never have been heard in a federal court. It didn't surprise me at all when I read that it was the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California that handed down the final decision in the Waits case. The court held that a CALIFORNIA law had been violated in making their decision...not a federal law.

http://markroesler.com/pdf/caselaw/Waits%20v.%20Frito-Lay%20Inc.%20_1992_.pdf

As you said, this case between Activision and the Romantics would have to fall outside of both copyright law and trademark law. So, which laws are they claiming were broken?

Does anyone have a link to the actual filing (which should cite the laws they are claiming were broken)?

This lawsuit should be thrown out of court...

You don't need a band's authorization to record a cover of one of their songs. All you have to pay is mechanical royalties to the publisher of the song.

That's the law.

It doesn't matter how much it sounds like the original version.

See: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#115

This has to be staged. All the reps could speak English too well.

When I call Verizon, it's like the Mad Gabs question on You Don't Know Jack. "Tink ooo Foo-Kahl-een, etc."

The odds of getting that many customer service reps in a row to pronounce "kilobyte" correctly are astronomical...no way this is real.

I went from a response of "Hey, that's cool" to "Well, that's stupid" in about a five second span.

Ball mice are so 20th century.