New York Times and National Public Radio release APIs to open up their web sites

Interesting. I hadn't heard about this, but you can write programs that directly interface with NYT's and NPR's databases. In fact, a programmer from Phoenix has written a timeline program for the NPR API that's kind of interesting, you can play with it here.

http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/New_York_Times__Derek_Gottfrid_and_NPR_s_Dan_Jacobson_Discuss_APIs

RIP: N. Robin Crossby, creator of the Harn RPG

Harn is among the games that I never got around to playing, but based on what is described in the article, I might have liked it. I'll have to give it a try if I ever stumble upon a campaign and get an opportunity. indisputably the game had/has a very loyal following, the Wikipedia entry for the game definitely sounds interesting: apparently the closest historic analog was that of Norman England, there is no alignment, he tried for internally logical consistency, and low levels of magic. Sounds interesting, maybe I'll look for a used copy of it when I'm out and about today.

Mr. Crossby, 54, passed away a few days ago of cancer.

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/07/harn-lives-on-a.html

Two bad tastes that will taste really bad together! PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts fused into new bill

"Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to. Feel free to contact your representatives with your feelings about this bill. Right now, they believe the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"

Why evolve or die when you can litigate!

The Slashdot Thread and Some Userfriendly mockery of the above

Heh. I love consistency!

I happened to catch a brief segment on Cops where they're doing a traffic stop, apparently after a multiple-county pursuit. The license plate of the van was fuzzed out. But while they're pulling in to finish the stop, they radio in that they're at whatever location and then they call in the phonetics of the license plate.

Then again, most people wouldn't know what those phonetics would represent.

16gig flash drives. Huh.

I'm not surprised. Saw it today at Staples, $100. I knew 8 gig were out, so it was only a matter of time, a VERY short period of time, before they had 16.

I'm perfectly happy with a 1 gig that rides in my pocket, quite useful at work. There are times that I could have used a larger one, but that was usually when I was copying big directories between school and home computers. I just find it kind of amusing that we now have pocket flash drives that have three times the capacity of a DVD disc.

I wonder where it will end, considering that you can fit any microcomputer operating system that I know of on one of 'em...