This is a Twilight Zone kind of coincidence — or perhaps the subtle work of crafty writer. It turns out that the address Marvel Comics picked as the home of Spiderman is actually occupied by the Parker family. No one named Peter lives there, though, so knock off the junk mail.
Continue reading... May 8, 2002
“Enforce the Law As It Is, Not As I Would Have It.”
From The New York Times: U.S., in a Shift, Tells Justices Citizens Have a Right to Guns. The Justice Department told the Supreme Court for the first time late Monday that the Constitution “broadly protects the rights of individuals” to own firearms. The law is a living thing. It isn’t just what Legislatures enact (thank […]
Continue reading... May 7, 2002
Mr. Parsons? Set Your Content Free
“I’m always grateful for whatever help I can get from the press, or a bunch of business-school students, whatever,” Mr. Parsons said dismissively. Those words yesterday from Dick Parsons, who is about to become CEO of AOL Time Warner. Thanks for asking, Dick. Here’s some more of what you said: “We’re the No. 1 movie […]
Continue reading... May 7, 2002
It’s the Carpenter, Not the Tools
Trust me on this. I have lots of equipment that isn’t turning me into George Martin. Or Alan Parsons. Jerry Garcia’s guitars up for auction. After a long strange trip, two guitars once owned by the late Grateful Dead lead singer are put up for auction.
Continue reading... May 6, 2002
More on Features By Judicial Fiat
A propos my filing of 5/3, below, AdAge has a story today about Personal Video Recorders like TiVO and Replay, in which it reports that there aren’t nearly as many of these boxes around as analysts thought there’d be, and owners aren’t skipping ads as much as the networks feared. Three years ago, Forrester Research […]
Continue reading... May 6, 2002
Really Unfortunate Quotes Dept.
OK, so Newsweek has a story in its current (May 13) edition about how Afghan military intelligence thinks Osama bin Laden is alive and living in Pakistan. This is in the next to last graf: … bin Laden is likely to prove harder to catch. “He’s kind of like Elvis,” says Col. Wayland Parker, the U.S. military’s […]
Continue reading... May 3, 2002
Features By Judicial Fiat
The TV industry has been lobbying against consumer freedom since the first VCR made its way into the first home. To its credit, the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that people were perfectly within their rights to tape programs off the air and watch them whenever they wanted to. (The music industry hasn’t quite heard […]
Continue reading... May 2, 2002
Didn’t Get Your Way? French Court Declares Mulligan, Blames Hackers
The French company Vivendi Universal is one of the Big Six global entertainment companies. It’s been having some trouble of late; among other things, the firing of the CEO of Canal Plus sparked demonstrations and protests, and shareholders have had their doubts about the French company buying the U.S.-based Universal Studios and its associated record labels. […]
Continue reading... May 2, 2002
Protecting Kids from Online Porn. No, Really.
The National Research Council has released a study about protecting children from online pornography. As a congressionally chartered organization, one might expect the usual flaming about the evils of the Internet. Happily, one apparently would be wrong. The full report — 420 pages, so you probably won’t want to read it all online — is […]
Continue reading... May 2, 2002
Ziff Sees Clear Water. Now to Get There in One Piece
There’s some good news and not-so-good news today from Ziff Davis. Ziff is the publisher of — among other things — PC Magazine, Yahoo Internet Life, and a bunch of gaming titles. I used to work there twice. I don’t anymore. A lot of friends still do. It was a financial pawn for a few years […]
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