| By Sheila
Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Jan 10, 2003 - (Last
week's weblog)
Invitation to march against the war Jan. 18:
Updated Jan. 11 to fix link below.
This letter appeared only in the South County edition of the Providence
Journal yesterday.
The joyous holiday season is over, the new year has begun. I think of
the great blessings of my life: my family and friends, my health, my home
and hometown. But although these things give me great comfort, I am full
of frustration and fear about what the Bush administration, in my name
and with my taxes, is intending to embark on as early as the end of this
month.
Although the U.S. has been systematically bombing Iraq for over 10 years,
soon our ground troops will begin an invasion and takeover of that country.
Why? The Bush administration changes its “reasons” with the
political tide. Is it in retaliation for the horror of Sept. 11? No, there
is no evidence of Iraqi collusion. Bush knows that Osama Bin Laden would
not partner with Saddam Hussein, whom he calls an infidel. Is it for refusing
weapons inspections? No, inspectors have been given free rein, and so
far nothing has been found. This week, Bush's excuse for war is that “an
attack by Hussein could cripple our economy.”
This is not only ludicrous, it's an insult to the intelligence of all
Americans. Bush can plant the problems with the economy squarely on his
own shoulders, and experts everywhere agree that the U.S. is not under
any threat of attack by the Iraqis, nuclear (Iraq will have no nuclear
capabilities for many years) or otherwise. We are talking about invading
another country and killing its people. Does the U.S. system of justice
or the World Court condone preemptive attacks on individuals, groups or
nations? Absolutely not.
Then how can I stand by and watch George Bush and company send our young
men and women to Iraq to kill its young men and women? How can I live
with myself in my lovely home, in my beautiful town, in my country of
plenty, if one person dies and I have been silent?
So I must go to Washington, D.C. Jan. 18 with other Americans from all
over the country, to raise my voice to protest the Bush administration's
plans to invade, attack and take over Iraq. I will be going to this rally
and march, as I went with 100,000 others Oct. 26, because I can't not
go, because I cannot be silent, because maybe, if enough of us put our
bodies there, those in Congress who can stop this war will notice and
act, or just possibly George Bush will realize that the American people
will not support injustice and terror.
If you'd like to join the thousands of others converging on Washington
for this peaceful rally and march, and need transportation and/or would
like to go with a group of other Rhode Islanders, you can buy a round-trip
bus ticket for $50 by calling Mike Shaw at 726-2922, or at providenceanswer@iacboston.org.
If you'd like to know more about the march, log on to www.international
answer.org. (link fixed)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we'll be celebrating the day
of the march, once said, “Ultimately you can't reach good ends through
evil means.” Let us stand strong against this war.
Carole A. Costanza
Peace Dale
Link
to this item | Comment
The
joy of grocery work: Traveler's
Diagram points to this New Yorker Talk piece on Chelsea Whole Foods
(i.e. Bread & Circus) personality, Bill Jones, the line guy:
At Jones's instruction, the customer at the head of the line pushed
her cart toward cashier No. 7. Jones boomed out to the next customer,
"Twelve is ready!" Then, "Twenty-two is yours!"
And so on. Jones, the market's chief "line director" (none
of the other hundred and forty stores in the Whole Foods chain have
such a position), later explained, "I do two 'ready's and then
one 'is yours.' But sometimes I'll play around with it. Someone will
say, 'Listen, I've got my boyfriend with me, can you give me an "is
yours"?' And I'll break the sequence, and they're happy, and I
think, Life is good that this can bring joy." [...]
These days, when Jones gets on the bus to go to work (the No. 123 from
Union City), there is likely to be someone at the back who shouts, "The
123 is yours!" Children point to him on the street; customers invite
him to dinner. "People are mesmerized by the way our lines work,"
Jones said recently, during a break that would normally include a period
of transcendental meditation. "And people let it be known that
I'm liked. This is the most gratifying job I've ever had."
Link
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SUVs
support terrorists?: The Detroit Project is behind TV ads citing
gas-guzzlers as bad. Here's Arianna Huffington's explanation:
Welcome to Americans for Fuel Efficient Cars. The idea for this project
came to me while watching -- for the umpteenth time -- one of those
outrageous drug war ads the Bush administration has flooded the airwaves
with. You know, the ones that try and link using drugs to financing
terrorism. Instead of shaking my head in disgust and reaching for the
Mute button like I usually do when I see these ads, I decided to channel
my indignation. Why not turn the tables and adopt the same tactics the
administration was using in the drug war to point out the much more
credible link between driving SUVs and our national security? Thus began
our campaign to create a series of TV ads designed to win the hearts
and minds -- and change the driving habits -- of American consumers
by asking them to connect the dots and think about the effect energy
wastefulness is having not just on the environment, but on our foreign
policy.
Link
to this item | Comment
Fewer
Buyers Reading Papers: Newsday reports from the Newspaper Association
of America conference in Florida, where news executives were shocked to
learn,
Americans are willing to pay for news and information but increasingly
not from daily newspapers, according to a study released yesterday that
provoked debate among executives gathered to discuss the industry's
future.
Link
to this item | Comment
Genetically
modified crops are breeding with plants in the wild: The Independent
(UK) reports on a study it says
"is so devastating to the Government's case for GM crops that
ministers last week sought to bury it by slipping the first information
on it out on the website of the Department of the Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Christmas Eve, the one day in the year
when no newspapers are being prepared."
... Most worryingly of all, the report shows that the GM crop readily
interbred with a weed, wild turnip, giving it resistance to herbicides
and thus raising the prospect of the development of "super weeds."
Link
to this item | Comment
Hotmail:
A Spammer's Paradise? Interesting info from Wired:
Steve Linford, of the anti-spam Spamhaus
Project, ... has proof that at least one spammer has been conducting
a massive dictionary attack against the mail servers of both Hotmail.com
and MSN.com, at the rate of three to four tries per second, 24 hours
a day, continuously for the last five months.
A dictionary attack utilizes software that opens a connection to the
target mail server and then rapidly submits millions of random e-mail
addresses. Many of these addresses have slight variations, such as "jdoe1abc@hotmail.com"
and "jdoe2def@hotmail.com." The software then records which
addresses are "live" and adds the addresses to the spammers
list. These lists are typically resold to many other spammers.
...According to Linford, the attack is originating from servers operated
by American spammers in Beijing, China.
Linford said he has tried to contact Hotmail and MSN representatives
to offer assistance in stopping the current attack, but he has received
no response.
Link
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Here
comes 'we media': Dan Gillmor in Columbia Journalism Review.
Link
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Hardware and gadgets:
Allen's
Vulcan develops wireless Mini-PC: Dan Richman of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reports that Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, has designed a tiny
computer, about half the size of a small laptop, that will run Windows
XP -- and all the programs that run on it:
A hitherto unknown group within multibillionaire Paul Allen's Vulcan
Inc. techno-empire has designed a compact, lightweight, wireless computer
that is expected to debut by Christmas for between $1,200 and $1,500.
... And the Mini-PC is far smaller than a conventional laptop computer
-- about the size of a paperback book, 1 inch thick and weighing about
a pound. Compared with the Sony VAIO U1, a small laptop, it's less than
half the size and about 60 percent of the weight, with about the same
display size, Vulcan says.
It has a folding 5.8-inch screen with 800 by 400 resolution, a 20-gigabyte
hard drive and a downsized keyboard designed for thumbing or hunt-and-pecking.
An external keyboard and mouse can be attached.
Batteries last for up to four hours on a single charge. Software is
loaded through a USB 2.0 port on the back, which accommodates an external
CD-ROM drive.
The Mini-PC will come with up to three types of wireless networking
built into the motherboard, depending on the computer maker's preference:
Wi-Fi for Internet access from airports, coffee shops and other places
offering such services, plus two rival cellular technologies for connecting
from any location.
SanDisk
debuts 802.11b compact flash and secure digital cards + 128MB, 256MB,
reports Alan Reiter. Glenn Fleishman, on his excellent Wi-Fi
Networking News blog, explains what's cool about this:
The memory plus Wi-Fi combination is particularly useful because in
cameras that could be upgraded to handle Wi-Fi networking support, for
instance, it would require much more engineering to add double Compact
Flash slots.
Bleeding-edge WiFi bargain: Linksys 802.11g gateway is
$134 from Amazon.com: 802.11g is four or five times faster than 802.11b
(love the alphabet soup!) yet compatible with it.
Cheap-to-own Sidekick: Cory Doctorow (whose new sci-fi novel
Down and Out
in the Magic Kingdom was downloaded by more than 20,000 people
in its first 24 hours, he says) reports that "the T-Mobile Sidekick
(phone/pager/camera/browser/PDA/notepad/games/AIM) is down to $50 at Amazon.
"
This price is after rebates, so your credit card will get hit for $249.95.
A $34.95 T-Mobile wireless activation is required, however, and to use
it you'll need a monthly plan.
Related: Gadgets
Galore on Parade at CES from Wired.
Link
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Jan 9, 2003
Baffling
Bushspeak: Rejecting bonuses for the rich is 'class warfare'? The
president may have war on his mind, but it seems dangerous to extend that
belligerent us-vs.-them perspective to the lives of the citizens whom
he must lead.
Accusing critics of his $670-billion tax cutting plan of engaging in
"class warfare" is unlikely to gain many allies among the average
working folks whose taxes will be used to pay large windfalls to millionaires,
including George Bush himself.
"It's a fair plan. It's an important plan and it's a plan that will
help people find work," Bush said at a flag-making company in a Virginia
suburb of Washington.
It's also a plan that will benefit the rich mightily, and most of us
not at all. (Click on the headline link on this item for a Reuters report
on that.)
If you give the money to the middle class, we'll spend it -- (heating
bills will be high in this colder winter, for instance) -- and the
rich will benefit the old fashioned way: The businesses they own and the
stocks they hold will prosper from consumer spending.
Bush's plan probably won't survive intact. Not only do many find it
unfair, there are serious reservations about the growing deficit and the
cost of a possible war.
"I can't see giving away any more of our revenues, which we're doing
in tax cuts," Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) said today at a Capitol
Hill news conference.
It's likely other Senators will join the effort to pull the plan up short.
Link
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Free tale, the paper costs: Cory Doctorow --
BoingBoing blogger, EFF employee
and sci-fi writer -- has released his new novel online, for free. Down
and Out in the Magic Kingdom is set "in a futuristic Disney World
where talent cooperatives vie to run the attractions." You may read
more about it and download load it here, or you may buy it, your choice.
Lawrence Lessig -- Creative
Commons founder and Stanford law professor who argued the landmark
Eldred v. Ashcroft copyright case before the Supreme court in October
-- writes
on his blog,
"Cory’s book is also the very first to be offered initially
both for sale and under a CreativeCommons license. That means you can
also download it for free. As Cory describes it, 'The entire text of
my novel is available as a free download in a variety of standards-defined
formats. No crappy DRM, no teasers, just the whole damned book.' ”
Link
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No there there: An interesting tidbit from
Lessig: At Sen.
John Edwards' (D-NC) site, he tried to make a donation to the potential
Democratic presidential candidate's campaign. Two credit cards were declined,
and there was no email link on the site to report the problem.
"Oh well. Still waiting for the internet candidate," wrote
Lessig.
Link
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Books
become bookshelves: This into That -- "Second Editions:
art furniture " -- is a recycling center for books of bad writing
with good-looking spines. Jim Rosenau of Berkeley, Calif., explains it
all in his FAQ:
1.Yes, they are really books. I remove most of the paper and replace
it with a sturdy armature of salvaged lumber.
2. The idea evolved from (mis)reading Nicholson Baker. His essays,
Lumber, and, Books as Furniture, triggered me to figure out what I might
build if I could turn books into lumber.
3. The books come mostly from recycling centers, library discards and
fundraising sales. I try to place any apparently valuable books with
dealers but rarely succeed.
4. I am interested in older hardback books that look better than they
read. I prefer books with strong type on the cover and spine. Older
encyclopedias with gilt type on the spines and embossed covers are always
great. I will pay shipping to get certain books by arrangement.
5. Weight is not a problem; the shelves are sturdy enough to support
typical loads. However, their surfaces may be damaged by abrasion and
moisture. They must be kept out of direct sunlight.
Thanks to Judy Watt
for the link.
Link
to this item | Comment
Boucher
Introduces Fair Use Rights Bill From Internet.com,
Digital home recording rights became the first technology-related legislation
introduced in the 108th Congress Tuesday afternoon with the filing of
a bill intended to protect the fair use rights of consumers purchasing
copyrighted material.
Sponsored by Representatives Rick Boucher (D.-Va.) and John Doolittle
(R.-Calif.), the bill would amend two key provisions of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which currently prohibit the circumvention
of a technical protection measure guarding access to a copyrighted work
even if the purpose of the circumvention is to exercise traditional
consumer fair use rights.
Entitled the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (H.R. 107), the legislation
is identical to the bill introduced by Boucher last November (H.R.
5544).
In its 1983 Betamax decision, the Supreme Court established the rights
of consumers to make copies of legally purchased copyrighted material
for the purpose of "fair use," such as making personal backup
copies or multiple copies for different media devices. The 1998 DMCA,
however, which was enacted with the enthusiastic support of motion picture
studios, the recording industry, and book publishers, makes it illegal
to make copies of any digitally-recorded material for any purpose.
Link
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More cool sites: Dan Rigney of NYC, who sent
yesterdays P22
MailArt link, sends another today: "...look at http://www.ubuweb.com
for Concrete poetics, found art and more."
The list
of contributors is gigantic and diverse.
Lurkers: Feel free to gift the rest of us with links worth spreading.
Please.
And thanks again, Dan.
Link
to this item | Comment
Jan 8, 2003
 Dodge
Offers 500-Hp Concept Motorcycle: Dodge? Remember, it's Daimler-Chrysler
now. The 8.3 liter V-10 engine from a Dodge Viper will power a four-wheeler
-- each pair a few inches apart -- priced at at least $250,000. Its theoretical
top speed is 300 mph, with 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds, according
to Reuters.
The
Independent of South Africa gets giddy about the Tomahawk:
DETROIT – Dodge, part of the Chrysler Group, has stayed with
four wheels to create its radical concept machine for the North American
International Auto Show … but a car it ain't.
Instead, the company famous for the Viper sports car and awesome Ram
pick-up has sculpted an apocalyptic motorcycle for which Mad Max has
probably already made a down-payment.
It's called the Tomahawk and, Dodge says, shatters all the limits of
conventional thinking about personal transportation. Yeah, and them
some…
Apart from the obvious benefit of its rider not having to put a foot
down at traffic lights (though it's unlikely he'd be able to hold it
up anyway!) it has enough power to outrun most small aircraft.
Link
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What
happens when a high-school weekly is the only newspaper in town: From
the New Yorker,
For almost fifteen minutes, the audience of a dozen or so citizens
sat quietly as the mayor and five council members reviewed the town's
finances. Next on the agenda was a complaint from the owners of a convenience
store, who felt that they were being harassed by a member of the police
force. The police chief, G. A. Couldron, was present and explained,
in the manner of someone apologizing for a dog whose howling wakes up
the neighbors, that he'd spoken with the officer in question and would
do so again. Betty Sumner, representing the Board of Revitalization,
addressed the vacant-lots issue as well as the matter of Itasca's ubiquitously
potholed streets. Unexpectedly, the mayor announced that the council
was going into executive session to discuss personnel matters, which
meant that the public, press included, had to vacate the premises.
... At a certain point, the police chief reappeared, wearing his house
slippers. Inside, the city council gave him the choice of retiring or
being fired and he chose the former. The officer who had been the object
of the complaint from the convenience-store owners was fired, and another
officer was named interim police chief. This was by far the most eventful
city-council session Itasca (and the Paw Print Press) had witnessed
in several years.
At school the next morning, when I heard this news from Mrs. Petrash,
she said, "As of today, Geoff Couldron, the police chief, is retiring.
I've already gotten two phone calls from him. He says he turned sixty
in May, he's been in law enforcement for thirty-six years uninterrupted,
including nine years as chief. And his quote is 'It's time to get out
of the business and enjoy my family.' Now, was this provoked by anything?
Yes, but that's not what we're going to report. They gave him the option
of retiring and that will be our story. I'm going to redo the city-council
report I was typing yesterday. Basically, I'll just add this news to
the bottom of that."
Link
to this item | Comment
Bush,
Cheney would get tax-cut windfall:
WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney each stand to reap thousands of dollars in savings
from Bush's proposal on Tuesday to eliminate taxes on stock dividends.
Based on income reported in his tax returns for 2001, Bush would have
saved $16,511 on dividend payments of $43,805 if his new proposal had
been in effect for the year.
Cheney, who had dividends of $278,103 in 2001, would have saved $104,823.
The estimated savings were derived by using a tax-savings calculator
on the Internet site of the Heritage Foundation think-tank (www.heritage.org).
That calculator, at the bottom of the "Dividend Tax Relief"
section of the Heritage
homepage, requires the
Flash 6 plugin.
How much would you save?
If you, like me, have only the stocks in a 401k, the answer is $0. (And
that 401k will be taxable when we withdraw it in geezerhood.) Many boomers
have no kids left in the nest, either, so a dash to parents won't help
us, either.
So aren't my taxes paying the president's and vice president's and, shoot,
the entire stock-holding rich folks' windfalls? How odd, politically.
Link
to this item | Comment
Bought
a CD between '95 and '00? Go get your $20 settlement check from RIAA:
Cory Doctorow says it all:
The music industry STILL owes you $20!
Man, this is disappointing. Every US resident who bought a CD in the
US between 1995 and 2000 is entitled to up to $20 from the music cartel
as part of a court-mandated settlement over the labels' illegal price-fixing,
which is one way that the music industry has ripped off the public.
All you need to do is sign up at this
site, and the RIAA will mail you a check. If so many people sign
up that the settlement ends up getting spread too thin, the RIAA will
mail charitable organizations the checks instead. You can't lose!
Unless you don't sign up. Despite notices of the settlement in TV Guide
and throughout blogistan, the cash remains unclaimed. What are you waiting
for? Claim it!
Related: Few
Takers for CD Settlement Cash in Wired. March 3 is your deadline.
Go there.
Link
to this item | Comment
P22
Mail Art: A correspondence between Daniel Farrell and Richard Kegler.
A reader named Dan Rigney from NYC sends this link -- on the heels of
yesterday's Postal
Experiments link
Between 1990 and 1996, over 200 pieces were sent to/from P22. From
altered junk mail to minimally criptic addressing, Each piece has some
purpose to both test the post office and also keep an artistic discourse
going between its collaborators. The postal service almost always came
through. Recently, because of the desire to completely automate, even
the slightest variations from standard Postal Rules gets the peice either
returned or lost forever. This page is a testament to the golden age
of P22 postal art.
Among them, "the fragile, life-size paper cast of an entire human
head arrived completely intact. Each stamp was cancelled, and the nostrils
were mysteriously colored in with a black marker."
The host site -- P22.com
-- is worth a browse, too: "P22 type foundry creates computer typefaces
inspired by Art, History, and Science." Nice fonts. Mp3s, too!
Link
to this item | Comment
Data
stored in multiplying bacteria: Mind-boggler from New Scientist:
A message encoded as artificial DNA can be stored within the genomes
of multiplying bacteria and then accurately retrieved, US scientists
(at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State) have
shown.
The scientists took the words of the song It's a Small World and
translated it into a code based on the four "letters" of DNA.
They then created artificial DNA strands recording different parts of
the song. These DNA messages, each about 150 bases long, were inserted
into bacteria such as E. coli and Deinococcus radiourans.
Link
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Knights
Templar to use latest imaging in search for Grail: From The Independent
(UK),
For centuries the intricately carved stones of Rosslyn Chapel near
Edinburgh have tantalised historians, archaeologists and devoted Christians.
A labyrinth of vaults beneath the 15th-century home of the Knights
Templar is reputed to contain dozens of holy relics, including early
gospels, the Ark of the Covenant, the fabled Holy Grail – and
even the mummified head of Christ.
More than 550 years after the first foundation stones were laid, modern
technology is about to put the legend to the test.
A group of Knights Templar, successors to the warrior monks who sought
asylum from the Pope by fleeing to Scotland in the early 14th century
and fought for Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn, are to make a "non-invasive"
survey of the land around the chapel. They will use the latest ultrasound
and thermal imaging technology in the hope of finding evidence of the
existence of the vaults.
"The plan is to investigate the land around the chapel to a depth
of at least 20ft," said John Ritchie, Grand Herald and spokesman
for the Knights Templar.
"The machine we are using is the most sophisticated anywhere and
is capable of taking readings from the ground up to a mile deep without
disturbing any of the land.
"We know many of the Knights are buried in the grounds and there
are many references to buried vaults, which we hope this project will
finally uncover."
Related: Did
The Templars Possess The Holy Grail? by Templar author William Mann.
Link
to this item | Comment
AP
plans byline strike: From Joe Strupp at Editor
& Publisher,
NEW YORK -- U.S.-based editorial employees of The Associated Press,
who have been working without a contract since Nov. 30, are planning
a byline/credit strike to protest what they claim are unfair wage and
fringe-benefit offers from management, union leaders said.
Local 31222 of The Newspaper Guild/CWA represents about 1,700 AP reporters,
photographers, and other editorial employees, according to local President
Tony Winton. The byline/credit strike would begin at noon Thursday and
run through noon on Friday, Winton said, which would affect stories
slated for publication in Friday's newspapers.
"A byline strike is a public expression of our dissatisfaction
with AP's stance in negotiations," he told E&P. "It reminds
the company who is pumping out those millions of words each day."
The Jan. 10 date was chosen, Winton said, because that is the deadline
set by management for the union to agree to a new contract or risk losing
retroactive pay once a deal is struck. AP spokeswoman Kelly Smith Tunney
declined to comment on the byline strike or any element of the contract
talks.
A byline strike baffles most people -- by taking your name off your work,
don't you just hurt yourself?
Perhaps, but when public officials and other newsworthy folk don't know
who wrote a story, they tend to call the bosses.
And where would the farflung AP writers, editors and photographers picket,
anyway?
Link
to this item | Comment
What's
the Price of Newspapers' Profit Focus? by Lucia Moses, E&P
is related to the previous item, sort of...
NEW YORK -- You gotta hand it to newspapers. Even in the worst of times,
they deliver strong earnings, and last year was no different.
Operating profit margins approached an estimated 20.1% in a year with
essentially no top-line growth. While margins remain below their 2000
peak of more than 23%, they have increased dramatically since the 1970s,
when they were in the low teens. And publishers seem intent on protecting
margins this year, despite rising expenses and uncertainty about the
revenue outlook.
But at what cost? Defensive measures such as reducing head count and
switching to narrower paper sizes have been key to newspaper publishers'
margin-growth strategy, but their share of advertising dollars has continued
its long-term decline: U.S. dailies' share of total advertising fell
to less than 20% last year from almost 29% in the late 1970s. Are short-term
profit gains coming at the expense of share?
Culturally conservative, newspapers have a history of avoiding innovations
and new products that don't have "a 20% profit margin, immediate
return on investment, and 99% chance of working," says Earl J.
Wilkinson, executive director of the International Newspaper Marketing
Association (INMA). Probably the most notable exception last year was
the Tribune Co.'s chancy launch of RedEye, a stand-alone edition of
the Chicago Tribune aimed at young adults. But such examples are few
and far between.
The relentless focus on margins has many business-side newspapermen,
and even an investor or two, hoping that the industry will resolve this
new year to pay equal attention to increasing market share.
Link
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The
100 Best Companies to Work For. Fortune reports.
Link
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Teenager
wins DVD court battle:
Jon Johansen, author of the controversial DeCSS program, was cleared
of charges in a Norwegian court on Tuesday. Judge Irene Sogn found that
Johansen had not violated any of Norway's strict anti-piracy laws in
creating the software.
Indeed, DeCSS itself does not commit any act of piracy of its own accord.
The software allows the decoding of DVD movies, a function used for
a variety of legitimate purposes.
Halvor Manshaus, Johansen's lawyer in the case, told Reuters
that the case sets a strong precedent in Norway. "It is saying
that when you have bought a film legally, you have access to its content,"
he said. "It is irrelevant how you get that access. You have bought
the movie after all."
The case was brought against the young programmer at the behest of
the Motion Picture Association of America, which tried to use encryption
to prevent direct access to DVD content. DeCSS removes this encryption,
allowing for fair use of the content, including the ability to view
DVD movies on non-mainstream operating systems. The latter was Johansen's
original motivation for writing DeCSS.
Related: Supreme
Court won't hear DeCSS case:
The U.S. Supreme Court has bowed out of a long-running dispute over
a DVD descrambling utility, dealing a preliminary defeat to Hollywood
studios and electronics makers.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor placed a ruling by the California Supreme
Court on hold last week, but rescinded her emergency stay on Friday.
O'Connor's decision came in response to court papers filed by lawyers
for the defendant, Matthew Pavlovich, late Thursday. The effect is that
Pavlovich is no longer barred from distributing the DeCSS descrambling
utility by a court order, but he could be sued again if he decides to
do so.
"The entertainment companies need to stop pretending that DeCSS
is a secret," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, which is assisting Pavlovich. "Justice O'Connor
correctly saw that there was no need for emergency relief to keep DeCSS
a secret. It doesn't pass the giggle test."
Link
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Congress
to take on spam, copyright: Declan McCullagh at News.com reports,
Now that the 108th Congress has begun this week, some of those controversial
proposals dealing with spam, copyright and Internet taxes will resurface--and
some stand a better chance of becoming law.
Key changes to watch this session include:
• a policy switch by a major marketing trade group that could
help break a longstanding logjam on anti-spam legislation;
• a reshuffling of a key committee in charge of copyright legislation
that could help bring a stalled measure to mandate copy protection in
consumer-electronics devices to a vote;
• renewed calls for enhancing privacy protections following a
pendulum swing favoring security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Link
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Jan 7, 2003
Newport arts group needs patrons for a "nomadic
Art*o*mat": Yesterday's
lead item about Art*o*mat
-- retired cigarette vending machines that have been reformed and restored
into original art vending machines -- drew a speedy response from a Newport
reader:
Nice to see the Art*o*mat mention in the ProJo today. I am a huge fan
of Clark's project.
Such a fan, in fact, that I have been talking with him about getting
an Art*o*mat here in Newport, sponsored by Project One, Newport's all
volunteer public art organization. So, while there isn't one here yet,
Project One IS trying to change that!
Project One's budget is astonishingly small, and comes entirely from
personal and business contributions within our community. I have, therefore,
been soliciting funding in order to underwrite the machine, which we
would like to see moved about the city periodically to different venues:
a nomadic art*o*mat!...
Molly Sexton
Co-ordinating Volunteer, Project
One
401-846-4981
PO Box 746
Newport, RI 02840
Email
When contacted, Sexton ticked off what the group needs: "The machine
itself, an initial stock of art ,... a serious handtruck to move it around
the city, and probably some sort of custom-made quilted cover to protect
it during relocations.
"Project One has $3,000 left to raise," she added.
If you want to be a patron of this particular art form, contact Sexton
using one of the clues above.
Link
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Postal
Experiments: Hot
Air, from The Annals of Improbable Research strikes again.
We've wondered ourselves: What can you send through the mail, and in
what condition would it arrive? (If it arrived.)
Here's a sample:
Wrapped brick. Wrapped in brown paper; posted in street corner
box with same amount of postage as was strapped to unwrapped brick.
Extreme weight for size made package seem suspicious. Notice of attempted
delivery received, 16 days. Upon pickup at station, our mailing specialist
received a plastic bag containing broken and pulverized remnants of
brick. Inside was a small piece of paper with a number code on it. Our
research indicates that this was some type of US Drug Enforcement Agency
release slip. The clerk made our mailing specialist sign a form for
receipt.
Link
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Common sense on "Digital Identity": Doc
Searls has been blogging a conversation about Digital Identity that
remained murky to me. He points to a new blog (called Passing
Thoughts) by someone he idenitifies only as Judi, "the first
human being, ever, to respond affirmatively when I uttered "markets
are conversations" in a public place." (That's the title of
Doc's chapter of the Cluetrain
Manifesto, and the idea he's most closely identified with.)
Judi puts the murk I felt into words:
There are a few folks (Doc,
Mitch, Eric
N, with several others; one place to start is Doc's)
carrying on about identity, mostly of the digital variety. Identity,
it was reported,
falls into three "tiers:" assumed/personal, assigned/commercial, and
abstracted/aggregate/marketing.
I see, but I don't agree. Identity is different from reputation: reputation
is outside looking in, identity is inside looking out. The second and
third tiers are really reputations of a commercial sort. The second
tier, assigned, arises as a result of an agreement between two entities
(e.g., a person and a store). The third tier, abstracted, is a generalized,
functional sort relative to aspects that the owner/utilizer group wants
to see. We don't get to "own" our personas in either tier; rather we
make an agreement by use of services or goods (like shopping carts &/or
or credit cards) to be represented, abstracted, and relationalized.
Calling them digital identities is a bit of a misnomer. More truly
we are creating digital reputations, for our identity may or may not
align, and in fact our personal identity may not even be the only one
adding to our digital reputation. (What happens when our "digital ID"
is stolen?)
Ok then. My identity has several parts (as I see it): I am
not happy about our current politics, I hate commercials (why do advertisers
treat me as if I were Stooopid?), I've been poor too long. I have no
respect for liers, personal or corporate. I still don't know what fires
my soul. I want to donate my organs when I die. Exactly how many of
these bits do I think are appropriately represented by my corporate
reputations? Zero. They can't even categorize the stores I shop in properly.
But that goes to my reputation.
What I like best is how she applies this:
Now I ask: how is it that the marketing/PR industry–those that
spend so much to know all there is to know about us, paying large sums
to develop databases full of our habits and preferences, our reputations
and digital personas; those who would claim ownership over these databases,
and who pay more large sums to lobby on the behalf of their database
ownership–how is it that they know and care so little about us?
What do they think they own, anyway? Why don't they get their shit
together and build an online place (or set of places) where we can find
ads when we want them? Where do I go if I want to buy a widget? About
a dozen online shopping comparison sites, each one offering different
results... Their work serves them poorly. The industry's own reputation
needs attention.
I recently ordered online a small, tubular-metal desk. I started on eBay,
found what I wanted on the West Coast with huge shipping charges, then
put the name of the item into Google and found it at several online retailers
for a bit more but with minimal shipping charges. I bought it at the lowest
price, all the while thinking that the desk was probably on sale somewhere
nearby, for much less, but I didn't know how to find it.
I wish local retailers would show us their inventory databases, and let
us flock to their doors. I'm still waiting for my desk to arrive.
Link
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Urban
Web access as free as radio: This trend has legs. Here's a bit
of John Markoff's N.Y. Times story (reg. req.):
The city of Long Beach, Calif., plans to announce on Friday that it
will make free wireless Internet access available in its downtown area
as part of an effort to attract visitors and companies to the business
district. The city will use the increasingly popular standard known
as Wi-Fi, which lets personal computers and other hand-held devices
connect to the Internet without wires at high speed.
The new service is one of the first examples of a city's setting up
a free wireless Internet system. It is being supported in part by equipment
donations from a group of companies, with the city underwriting the
$2,500 annual cost of an Internet connection.
Providence's concentrated downtown area would be perfect for such a "cloud"
of free Wi-Fi.
Link
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Put
the Compact Disc Out of Its Misery: Former Wired editor Paul Boutin
shares my opinion, expressed yesterday, that DVDs are not the way to go.
His reasons are entirely different, though.
It's no wonder that gearheads who buy the latest, greatest everything
have ignored DVD-A and SACD in favor of MP3 players and CD burners.
Computer-friendly music formats let you archive hundreds of albums on
a laptop, create custom playlists that draw from your entire collection,
and download them to portable players smaller than a single CD jewel
box. Today's fans want their music in a form that fits the pocket-sized,
personalized, interconnected world of their computers, cameras, phones,
and PDAs. Asking digital consumers to give that power back in exchange
for a better-sounding disc is like offering them a phonograph needle.
Link
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Trouser
Press magazine published a total of 95 issues between 1974 and
1984. Click on a thumbnail for a larger cover image and notes on the issue.
via
Travelers Diagram
Link
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Stories
that stink: The 11th annual P.U.-litzer prizes for the year just
past, compiled by media critic Norman Solomon.
Link
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Science
fiction writer William
Gibson is now a blogger.
Link
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Jan 6, 2003
 Art*o*mat:
Cigarette vending machines now dispense art. Way cool. There are
none in Rhode Island, though. Let's change that:
What is an Art*o*mat? Art*o*mat machines are retired cigarette vending
machines that have been reformed and restored into original art vending
machines. Currently, there are 40 active machines in museums and various
locations throughout the country.
[ Click
here to find an Art*o*mat near you. ]
What do you get from an Art*o*mat? The experience of pulling the knob
alone is quite a thrill, but you also walk away with an original work
of art! Ker-plunk! What an easy (and inexpensive) way to become an art
collector.
[ Click
here to see Art*o*mat samples. ]
Do you want your art in an Art*o*mat? There are around 280 contributing
artists from 9 different countries currently involved in the Art*o*mat
project. We are always searching for fresh work. [ Click
here to learn more about the submission process. ]
Link
to this item | Comment
Fade
to White: Since J.C. Watts, the only black Republican in Congress,
decided to leave politics to spend more time with his family in Oklahoma,
I've been waiting to read the story behind that story.
Jake Tapper published it in the Washington Post yesterday, and it's a
good read. Here's a tiny excerpt:
Being the only black guy in the room wasn't easy, though Watts usually
treated it with eye-rolling good humor. When party leaders asked him
to appear at welfare reform press conferences, he'd privately remark
that since a majority of those on welfare were white, he didn't really
see the point in his attendance. But more often than not, he'd show
up.
Link
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Studios
Using Digital Armor to Fight Piracy: From Sunday's N.Y. Times
(reg.req.),
Someone who records a favorite show onto a hard drive in the living
room would not be able to retrieve and watch it over a wireless network
from another room, for instance, or from a country home. And since current
DVD players would not recognize the new electronic flags, they would
not be able to play back programs recorded under such a system.
Besides, critics note, a handful of people are sure to find a way around
the security system, as happened with DVD's. While most consumers never
copy DVD's, thousands of films are freely available on the Internet
because a small number of people do.
"This isn't going to stop serious hackers," said Mark Cooper,
the research director for the Consumer Federation of America. "All
you end up with here is an inconvenience to the average consumer."
This is all worth reading, but I have found a way out of much of this:
Don't buy into the bleeding edge this time.
The three households of my family now all own older Panasonic Showstoppers
or ReplayTVs bought on eBay that require no subscription. A lifetime subscription
was built into the selling price in the early days, but newer ReplayTVs,
like Tivo, require a monthly fee. These will record to VCR, for the price
of another cable at Radio Shack.
I have also just ordered a giant flat-panel LCD monitor that has two
analog and no digital inputs. It's half the price of both newer models
and its own release price, and gets better user reviews. It comes off
its stand and mounts on the wall, the screen pivots and software delivers
a vertical display rather than the standard horizontal one, and I can
get by with a desk only slightly larger than a keyboard.
A few years ago, I bought online an ABS Computers system (it's been trouble-free),
and configured it with an eye to the future: I chose to load it with a
CD writer, a separate DVD player and the Matrox Millenium video card.
(That allows two independent output displays with one card. You can use
either a TV or a second monitor.) So I can watch DVDs on my TV.
For 13 years I've been hauled on a spending curve, and I can finally
jump off it.
What if everybody said just said no to crippled technologies?
Link
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Think tank time: For the 6th Annual edition
of Edge.org's "World
Question," John Brockman posed the following imaginary query from
George W. Bush to the Third Culture mail list:
"What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the
world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?"
- GWB
Answers are now online from respondents, some of whom you may have heard
of.Via BoingBoing
Link
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Publishing interview transcripts (ongoing):
Like it or not, I'm
typecast as "the blogger who published her interview with the
New York Times on her own site."
But I'm not alone.
J.D. Lasica, senior
editor of Online Journalism review, points out that he's done it,
too. (Q&A
with PBS' Online NewsHour)
And blogger Dave Copeland, a business reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,
has, too, although he wasn't interviewed by a news organization but for
a paper on the future of blogs and journalism for a University of Minnesota
class. (It remains a way to get the thoughts out, no matter who's asking
the questions.)
Copeland
publishes the entire interview on his personal site. Dave doesn't
mince words. Here's an excerpt:
And, let's face it: newspapers still operate much the same way they
did 100 years ago. They fear change and insist on every graf going through
a half dozen editors so that the writing is certain to have all of the
life taken out of it. Few newspaper Web sites are worth reading; they
don't take advantage of all the space they have to present information
that won't fit into the paper (audio and video clips, photo essays,
etc.). Too often newspapers seem to operate Web sites because that's
what they're supposed to do, but they get too hung up on competing with
the printed product and really just rehash what they put in the paper.
Link
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365
Days: Here's a novel stop on your daily trawl:
For the entire year of 2003 (January 1st to December 31st) this page
will feature one mp3 file (every day) to download. The content will
be focused on musical pieces, but will also include spoken word. Listeners
of the incredibly strange and outsider realm take note, for this is
the majority of material that will be made available.
Thanks for the warning. Today's hit pick: Red Shadow (The Economics Rock
& Roll Band) - Understanding Marx on the LP Live At The
Panacea Hilton (Physical Records 21-005, 1975)
Yesterday's: Janeen Brady & The Brite Singers - I'm A Mormon
from 1980.
I don't think the RIAA will come complaining.
Link
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Common
man 1, airport security bully 0: Penn Jillette (of the Penn &
Teller comedy duo), wrote this in November, but it's only now surfacing
in the blogosphere:
Last Thursday I was flying to LA on the Midnight flight. I went through
security my usual sour stuff. I beeped, of course, and was shuttled
to the "toss-em" line. A security guy came over. I assumed
the position. I had a button up shirt on that was untucked. He reached
around while he was behind me and grabbed around my front pocket. I
guess he was going for my flashlight, but the area could have loosely
been called "crotch." I said, "You have to ask me before
you touch me or it's assault."
He said, "Once you cross that line, I can do whatever I want."
I said that wasn't true. I say that I have the option of saying no
and not flying. He said, "Are you going to let me search you, or
do I just throw you out?"
I said, "Finish up, and then call the police please."
When he was finished with my shoes, he said, "Okay, you can go."
I said, "I'd like to see your supervisor and I'd like LVPD to
come here as well. I was assaulted by you."
Turns out the Las Vegas police officer who responded is a big Penn &
Teller fan, and the story plays out in ways we can all appreciate.
Link
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Culture shocker: A bit of movie history unveiled
by MetaFilter:
Do you
know this scream? Originally labeled in studio reels in 1951 as
Man Being Eaten by Alligator, the sound effect now known as the Wilhelm
has turned up in dozens
of films; sound designers have made a game out of sneaking it past
the director's notice. This
NPR feature (includes link to RealAudio file) tells much of the
story of the Wilhelm Scream. Or you could just watch the best of Wilhelm,
compliled in this (27MB) video
compilation (read the making-of here).
(By the way -- an orc in The Two Towers lets out a Wilhelm as
he falls to his death.)
Link
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Ant
War dot com bills itself as "The Best Ant Colony Simulator
Online." I was laid low by a stomach bug Friday, and wasted a coupla
hours feeding and growing my colony and nest, battling natural disasters,
predators and other colonies.
Mindless enough for a sick person... until, when my colony grew to significant
size, I succumbed to the suggestion to save the game: "After Logging
in, you can either save or load your games!"
A simple registration was required -- pick a username and password, type
in your spamcatching hotmail address -- so I coughed it up. But when I
then proceeded to save the game, I was shown a PayPal button and told
it would cost 50 cents to save the game.
No thanks, I'll only play till my colony is defeated.
But I didn't like it that there was no warning up front that this was
required. There seems to be no mention at all in the help files or elsewhere
that to lead the Top Scores list, you'll have to save or be defeated eventually
by a stronger army. In the heat of the moment -- I was tending TENS OF
THOUSANDS of ants! -- it might be tempting to cough up the four bits.
But don't we tell people there are charges before they engage with products
any more?
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Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com
|
