TechMiso

In what has got to be one of the wackiest technology related stories I have read in quite some time, Wired’s Threat Level is reporting that kids across the United States are getting high on the internet thanks to so-called ecstasy-inducing MP3 files:

Kids around the country are getting high on the internet, thanks to MP3s that induce a state of ecstasy. And it could be a gateway drug leading teens to real-world narcotics.

At least, that’s what Oklahoma News 9 is reporting about a phenomenon called “i-dosing,” which involves finding an online dealer who can hook you up with “digital drugs” that get you high through your headphones.

Oddly enough, an Oklahoma school is taking this whack-ass threat seriously. They ended up sending out letters to parents to warn of this supposed new “drug” making its rounds on the internets. A side effect of this is the school has now banned iPods on school grounds to hopefully prevent students from becoming “cyber-drug” fiends. Seriously.

For the life of me I can not believe this is serious. No matter how much these digital drug dealers try, I can not fathom how this would even work to create some crack-like state of ecstasy. This whole idea is ridiculous.

Now I’ve listened to some MP3 music which made me want throw my laptop out of a fourth story window because the music was absolutely horrifyingly bad. I’ve listened to other highly intense music which made me feel all tingly inside.

But never have I listened to an MP3 which made me high, as if I had just gotten baked off some of the good stuff. Never. Ever.

The article is worth a read, if for no other reason than the amusement factor. Maybe it was meant to be taken in stride, maybe it is completely serious. Whatever the case, it sounds like there are some morons out there “educating” our students about things that do not yet exist.

The lesson in all this: keep your kids away from the Oklahoma Mustang Public School district because they will surely not be receiving a quality education from idiotic teachers like those who believe one can get high off an MP3 file.

Those jackasses at patent holding company NTP once again have opted to use the courtroom to attempt to generate revenue rather than innovating in the technology space. This time they are suing Google, Apple, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola for allegedly violating eight of their patents covering wireless email delivery.

In 2001, NTP filed a similar suit against Research In Motion, and in 2006, the suit was dismissed after RIM paid $612 million in a settlement. As a result of that arrangement, RIM is not named in the new suit, nor is Nokia — the world’s largest smartphone maker — since both companies have licensing agreements with the patent company.

I find the timing quite interesting. The NTP vs. RIM lawsuit concluded in 2006, yet it took NTP four additional years before deciding to sue these companies. Here in 2010 Apple and HTC own the smartphone market with their iPhone and Android products respectively. Could this suit have anything to do with the extreme popularity of those devices?

Surely there is a relationship otherwise, for example, why not sue Apple upon the release of the first iPhone since its email capabilities have virtually remained the same?

Either way, patent holding companies like NTP – companies which purchase patents rather than innovating themselves – which do not produce any types of products but opt to use the courts for profit only end up hurting the technology sector as a whole. As long as there are greedy bastards like NTP running around suing companies on baseless grounds then many corporations will be afraid to take risks for fear of being in the crosshairs of some pointless, faceless, product-less lawsuit machine.

John Gruber on the annoying use of Tynt on certain high-trafficked web sites:

All of this nonsense — the attribution appended to copied text, the inline search results popovers — is from a company named Tynt, which bills itself as “The copy/paste company”.

It’s a bunch of user-hostile SEO bullshit.

Everyone knows how copy and paste works. You select text. You copy. When you paste, what you get is exactly what you selected. The core product of the “copy/paste company” is a service that breaks copy and paste.

He goes on to offer a simple, easy-to-implement trick to disable Tynt on all web sites in one fell swoop. It took me a mere five seconds to do and works like a charm.

Any web site believing they can get away with bullshit tactics like this does not deserve to be visited. I am not certain what these sites believe they are getting out of using a service of this nature. Seems much more counterproductive than anything.