PolarLava::Blog

I just read this this article over at Boing Boing and all I can say is "unbelievable"!  Nothing like having a publisher attempt to hijack/extort/strongarm your domain name from you because they did something stupid.  If you visit katie.com she has a very good explanation of her position on this whole situation and the inconvenience it has cause her.  And to Penguin Putnam all I can say is tough shit!  You don't own it and if Katie is smart, she won't sell it —at least not to you!  And although it seems that Katherine (Katie) Tarbox has a sad and unfortunate story to tell in the book Katie.com, why the hell did you agree to that name?  Why not call it "KatieT.com" which would point people's interest in it to your domain instead?  Pinheads.

8/6/2004
I just read this very interesting GrepLaw interview with Katie Jones regarding this whole situation.  Very interesting.  I've also appears that it's not Penguin Putnam that is doing the strongarming, but Katherine (Katie) Tarbox's lawyer, Parry Aftab.  Guess today is Scumbag Lawyer Day!

8/9/2004
Well, the latest news on this nonsense appears to be a major victory for Katie Jones.  Penguin Putnam has issued a press release stating that they will be changing the title of Katherine (Katie) Tarbox's book Katie.com to A Girl's Life Online.  Ah, the light goes on!  It still remains to be seen if Parry Aftab and her agenda disappear now also.

I've long thought that binaural sound recording was a cool idea.  It now seems that some of the brainy folks at UC Davis have come up with an improved binaural recording/playback system.  Neat stuff if you're into audio.

If you've been thinking about putting a SUN E450 in your car to operate as an MP3 player, you might want to check out Project ICECE.  You should have no trouble swapping notes, because it's obvious you both have way too much time on your hands!

Check out this story about a guy turning the tables on a Nigerian 419 scammer by scamming him with as a member of Church of the Painted Breast!  Very funny.

Well, it's back to reality/work today as my two week trek off to Hawaii has come and gone.  A wonderful time was had by all including myself, even with some unexpected events.  As time permits I will be documenting my adventures in the hopefully not too distant future.

11/5/04
Well okay, it did take me some time to get this reasonably well documented.  Here it is more than three months later!  Fortunately I outlined the trip as best as I could as soon as we got back.  From there it took a lot of work to fill in the holes, write the text, track down some good links and get the pictures online.  I still have more photos that need to be added and I will likely need to update this entry again to add some links for those.  But in the meantime, what follows pretty well documents our trip.  …more