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Tonight I watched a dvd on my new computer. Upon inserting the disk a window opened with the option of setting the region or ejecting the disk. It also informed me that I would only be able to set the region 6 more times. I didn't like the sounds of it but I went ahead and chose to set the region and the dvd began playing immediately.
I've read this article and although I feel I now understand what the regions are and why they exist, I'm wondering if anyone has advice on whether I should get some software that let's me get around this region jazz.
Any thoughts Jim?
I found this line from the article interesting "If on the other-hand you plan to purchase DVDs from other regions (which might or might not be illegal) then making your DVD player capable of playing all regions is the best and cheapest way to go." So being an American and purchasing a dvd in say, London may be illegal?
Also, region codes may actually be illegal in New Zealand and violate some World Trade Organization laws?
Hey, I said I found it interesting, not surprising.
- steve 10-06-2002 3:09 pm [link] [4 comments]

Before buying the new computer I attended an anti-war march in downtown Portland.
The press is saying that there were almost 5000 people, it looked like more than that to me, course us protesters always seem to stretch the numbers. Although many of the protesters seemed to be in their mid-50's and to be old hands at marching, there were lots of seniors and teens, even the locked out brothers of the ILWU.
I've decided that almost any panel from Get Your War On would make an awsome poster. Here's GYWO page 15
- steve 10-06-2002 7:44 am [link] [add a comment]

Toys-R-Us
Been working a little bit lately, enough so that I'm posting from my new Imac with 17" display.
10.2 seems pretty cool. So is having a dvd player/burner.
Seems that you have to launch netscape in "classic" (OS 9.2) mode though.
I'll be downloading Mozilla and Rea7 player asap.
- steve 10-06-2002 7:16 am [link] [3 comments]

Out of all languages presently spoken in the world, what percentage are spoken in NYC?

I have no idea, but I'm very curious. I'll guess 70% just to get things going. Probably it's much less than that. Or possibly there is no way to even get a grip on the number of different languages spoken in the world.

Any guesses? Any idea where to look for possible answers?
- jim 10-06-2002 5:04 am [link] [2 comments]

That feature Jim was talking about a couple of weeks ago, used I think only once by Alex, and brought up again by Linda, that automatic posting in the future feature--is that, as Jim implied, a total bust, a feature with too many bugs, or could it be dusted off and tried again? I was just getting ready to use it when you removed it. Is there a worst that could happen, not worth the risk sort of thing going on here, and would it be wasting Jim's time? I was looking for a way, by visiting online only once a week or so, to do a gradual, maybe everyday time release of the remaining old NOLA crap.
- jimlouis 10-05-2002 8:57 pm [link] [1 ref] [10 comments]

A pair of nuns just walked by
- jimlouis 10-05-2002 8:40 pm [link] [1 comment]

I've had some problems with transmission at Dumaine so this is the first got up the nerve time to try a library machine. I have come all the way up Canal to an affluent lakefront neighborhood because I reasoned rich people would all have machines at home. My hypothesis has proved true. But I'm sitting here at an expose machine right by the checkout, weird.
- jimlouis 10-05-2002 8:33 pm [link] [1 comment]

Atlas of the Universe
- alex 10-04-2002 6:21 pm [link] [11 comments]

Bad news for trees.
- alex 10-04-2002 5:42 pm [link] [add a comment]

i was lucky enough to be at the museum today when a few people from the library got to go on a tour of the beetle collection, and i tagged along. the museum has about 17 million insect specimens and over a million are beetles. pretty amazing. the scientist who showed us around just finished a 2,000 page paper on one particular beetle. and back in his office we got to see one (with a microscope) which is the only known specimen of its kind.

back in the fifties (or sixties maybe) a very large african beetle was found in a shipment of bananas at one of the ports, and was sent over to the museum to be checked out. turned out to be harmles, so the entomology people kept him as a pet. when he died the times ran an obit -- with a photo.

did you know that fireflies are a type of beetle?
- linda 9-28-2002 4:21 am [link] [3 comments]

anybody needs to watch the first four episodes of the sopranos can download them with kazaa by searching for "Sopranos pre-air." not a broadcast quality picture but not terrible either.
- dave 9-27-2002 8:39 pm [link] [1 ref] [add a comment]

Anybody know more about this:

The FBI insists there was no military plane in the area but at 9.22am a sonic boom - caused by a supersonic jet - was picked up by an earthquake monitor in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles away from Shanksville.
This could be very big. It's certainly a verifiable claim (unlike almost every other claim.) And if it's true then either the administration is caught in a very big lie, or some extra governmental force has supersonic aircraft operating in our airspace. To put it mildly, the latter seems highly unlikely.

FWIW, I personally have always believed we shot down that plane. And it may well have been justified. I don't really have a problem with that. It's the lying about it afterwards. This points to a larger pattern of deceit that really needs to be uncovered.

Any more links on the sonic boom? Anybody remember mention of this before?
- jim 9-25-2002 7:40 pm [link] [3 comments]

go Al!!!
- big jimmy 9-24-2002 6:59 pm [link] [add a comment]

anyone know about these mutants?
- big jimmy 9-21-2002 12:05 am [link] [1 ref] [add a comment]

I booked the Austria trip on Expedia, and accepted a blind flight, based on the Wheel's sage advice. Here's a take on online travel from the Voice's tech column.
- alex 9-20-2002 12:06 am [link] [1 comment]

You're a real gem.
- alex 9-19-2002 10:36 pm [link] [add a comment]

Flexcar's fleet of rent by the hour vehicles includes Toyota's gas-electric hybrid Prius. I rented one ($6.50 per hour, flexible rates) for a test spin. Cute, comfortable, quiet, clean and peppy off the line.
.
- steve 9-19-2002 5:49 am [link] [1 ref] [1 comment]

They're heeeere......er..almost..
- steve 9-19-2002 5:25 am [link] [6 comments]

Re-zoning?
- steve 9-18-2002 6:31 pm [link] [add a comment]

Some interesting 9/11 fallout, so to speak. I heard from a Parsons classmate I hadn't been in touch with since back in the day. She spent the anniversary reading accounts on the web, and in the course of searching for old acquaintances found our site by looking up Steve DiBenedetto (as a relatively unusual name). First such contact I've had here. I guess she got something out of it, and she'd had the same memory of Larry Rivers and the pope that I recounted. I suggested that this was the sort of connectivity the internet was supposed to foster, and a positive thing to bring out of the remembrance of an awful event.
Meanwhile, in the Park, I met a woman who said she's only recently begun to really get over the whole thing, and it seems bird-watching is helping her. Trying to be helpful, I proceeded to find a rare Connecticut Warbler, which thrilled her no end.
Sometimes I think I talk it better than I walk it, so it was nice to feel like my insular activities might actually be of some use to others.

- alex 9-17-2002 9:33 pm [link] [2 comments]

Reality TV is finally getting interesting. The point is not individuals and their "realness", but polling, which abstracts them. Polling has transformed politics in the last century, and now Argentina is going to choose a presidential candidate through a TV contest. This may start out as a species of joke, but who knows where it could lead?
(NY Post story in comments)

- alex 9-17-2002 6:17 pm [link] [4 comments]

Duh!
- steve 9-17-2002 5:36 pm [link] [add a comment]

Treehomeless
- steve 9-17-2002 5:32 pm [link] [1 comment]

Here, I will attempt to relate to you the realities of homelessness. But there is certainly more to a homeless person than being homeless, and this may be the best thing this blog could accomplish - a greater awareness about the whole-ness of homeless people. Not every post will be about homelessness, but they will all be about a homeless person, me. For some people it will be their first experience with the "me" identity within a homeless person. Welcome to My world, a subsidiary of Our world.

- dave 9-16-2002 1:37 am [link] [add a comment]

strange wind on 9-11 , hope it cleanzed nyc....
- Skinny 9-12-2002 8:49 pm [
link] [1 comment]