Saturday, July 03, 2004

A Silver Dumbell
A Wooden Abacus
An A to Z

posted by Irdial , 5:50 PM Þ 



http://www.aerospace.nasa.gov/aboutus/tf/aero_blueprint/2_6_4.html

2.6.4 Aviation Security and Safety--Information Technology
Today's Challenges
Over 700 million passengers board airplanes in the United States each year. Pre-departure passenger screening must ensure that none of these passengers presents a threat to the safety of the flight.

Today's system makes use of passenger reservation information to make this assessment, but this information is clearly inadequate. The passenger screening system of the future must be more intelligent and comprehensive, without adding excessive time or cost to the process.

In addition to improving pre-departure security measures, an effective diagnostic system is needed to measure the performance of the security system and to identify emerging trends of concern to the appropriate authorities. Such a system will need to be able to accept and analyze large amounts of data, and provide meaningful interpretations of the results very quickly.

Flights in progress are continuously monitored by radar within the air traffic facilities. However, with current display systems, it is not quickly apparent when an airplane makes a significant deviation from its intended flight path. The air traffic controllers need to have better information about potentially threatening aircraft, without burdening their ongoing responsibilities for managing the air traffic safely.

Technology Solutions
An automated passenger identification and threat assessment system can be developed and will provide positive identification of passengers. It will also perform a real-time evaluation of security concerns that may require additional scrutiny. Using nonintrusive biometric devices, passengers will be uniquely identified at the time of check-in and again prior to boarding the aircraft.

Accessing a wide variety of databases using intelligent search engines, a much better assessment of security will be possible. Together these systems will ensure that passengers who board aircraft do not pose a threat to the safe completion of the flight.

The Aviation Safety Reporting System, currently managed by NASA, has a long history of receiving and analyzing safety issues. This system can be extended to include security concerns as well, creating an early warning system that will correct shortcomings in the aviation security system before a vulnerability is exploited. Since the system is secure, voluntary, and confidential, it is widely rusted and used.

Air traffic controllers are in a n ideal situation to monitor airplanes in flight. New expert advisory systems will assist controllers in identifying flights that are deviating from their intended path. The system will provide additional assistance in taking appropriate action notifying the proper authorities, ensuring the safety of neighboring aircraft, and advising the possible intentions of the intruder. This will enable an automated, and thus much more rapid, response to threats than is possible today.
posted by Irdial , 5:45 PM Þ 

a list of three things please.
posted by meau meau , 5:30 PM Þ 

he US media only used pictures where he looked sad but if you search around you can find pictures of how he REALLY was!



as emailed to me!
posted by Irdial , 9:09 AM Þ 
Friday, July 02, 2004

posted by chriszanf , 8:26 PM Þ 

"First, you take the ones that are only fit for garbage detail, then you take the ones who can think, but who cant act, and then..."

The real people, dwindling in number every day, and no replacements in sight, of even the most bland quality.
posted by Irdial , 6:06 PM Þ 

I wonder how long it will take for a philanthropist to back the creation of Open Source software?

George Soros could be the man for the job. His Open Society Institute is working towards the free flow of information and intelligence. They support some interesting projects in the realm of Digital Library Projects and even some Open Source ones.
posted by Josh Carr , 6:02 PM Þ 

Asking M$ to make a player that plays everone's records is like asking them to opensource windoze. They are no more likely to throw away an opportunity to lock in ten of millions of users than Apple or Sony are. Sony is now second fiddle to Apple precisely because they desire to lock in users. But you know this.

The fact of the matter is, the record players that play all your records are already out there. No one needs to beg M$ cap in hand to do the right thing; you simply need to assert your rights and take what belongs to you. In this case, that means downloading any one of the number of free players and compressors to convert your CDs into MP3s or Oggs. This includes itunes of course, which means that even the most simple of simpletons can do this task.

If you dont have the sense to do that (and we all know that the majority of people do not have this sense) then you will, as it is in democracy, "get the government you deserve". If the opposite were the case, Apple would not have been able to sell 100,000,000 DRM'd files. People are as unaware of their rights as ants are unaware of the rings of Saturn. Its a sad fact of life.

All that having been said, its an interesting talk.

I wonder how long it will take for a philanthropist to back the creation of Open Source software? Billions are given away to charity each year, yet the Perl foundation struggles to get the meager amounts it needs to keep working on Perl. A philanthropic injection into Open Source software projects would accelerate usability, documentation, drivers and everything else, bringing for example, Gnome, closer to the point where it will be able to scrump Apple.

Wouldnt you like to be drukn on that?!

Unfortunately there is an reciprocal relationship between computer literacy (cl) and Philanthropists (p); the bigger the philanthropist, the more compiuter illiterate she is:

cl=1/p

The sort of reciprocal relationship that doesnt pay.

I saw Farenhiet 9/11 today. There is a part in this film, where the mother of a soldier that was killed in action is shown grieving for her lost boy. Its very sad indeed.

I wonder just who these people really are. This mother, whose family had a long history with the military; how is it possible that she heard nothing of the Viet Vets being treated worse than dirt after they came back from the jungle. These young men, many of them forswearing war after finally coming to the conclusion that it was all a lie; how did these words not get to this mother?

How could they all have missed this, missed all the documentaries, missed all the written words, the testimony, the first hand accounts...how can there be anyone left that doesnt understand that being a soldier is simply the most insane job you can possibly apply for and get?

OK, Viet Nam was many years ago, so they could have missed that information. How could they have missed the appaling treatment of soldiers suffering form Gulf War Syndrome? How could they willingly walk into a war in the same country as the first Guld War and expect it to be more fair, just and the treatment of soldiers after the act, to this time, be done right?

Its probably the same answer that you get when you ask "how can people still be shooting Heroin?".

What is interesting is this; even if the LCD suddenly wake up and stop volunteering for the armed forces, the US government will simply draft all the fodder they need instead.
posted by Irdial , 5:16 PM Þ 

Cory Doctorow: Microsoft Research DRM talk

Read it if you haven't. Cory Docrow urges MS to build "record player that plays everyone's records."

Savoir vive, non?
posted by alex_tea , 4:56 PM Þ 



I was out in front of my daughters home in Seattle June 20th, about 11:15pm the summer solstice in full effect, so the sky was illuminated dimly, clear sky. I was talking to my wife and daughter when I tilted my head back to stretch, and this triangular shape craft was moving from south to north direction, quietly,without much effort. I witnessed it for about 3 seconds, then it went behind the house and I lost contact. It was triangular in shape with a black leading edge, and lighter gray color inboard, with dim white lights at each corner of the lighter gray surface, I don,t know whats its elavation was, but I could see very good detail, about the size of 3/4 full moon. This machine was mechanically and materially beautiful, I have seen up close and in flight all kinds of aircraft,F-14s,F-15 eagles,F-16 falcons,B-1s,B-2s, B-52s, B-58 hustlers,SR-71s, but this craft sent chills up my spine,because of its triangular shape , mechanical and composite beauty. I do believe this is very similar to the Belgium sightings in the 1990's that I have seen and read about. I new what it was the second I saw it.

http://nuforc.org/
posted by Irdial , 4:27 PM Þ 

lightcycle.org | weblog

If only I could create such simple beauty. Retrocell reminds me of an idea I have for the passage between the Jubilee and Picadilly Lines at Green Park station. Not that it would ever get made, because it is impractical.

Also I was playing with QBasic on a 486 SX/25 (at home), a 386 DX (at school) and an IMB PS/2 (at my Dad's). All I ever did was hack Nibbles so you could never die and run through walls and stuff.

Last weekend was amazing. I learnt a lot of stuff... Now to try and forget it all.
posted by alex_tea , 4:06 PM Þ 
posted by captain davros , 12:54 PM Þ 

The number of people from Asian backgrounds stopped and searched by police has increased by 300% since the Terrorism Act 2000 came into force.

meanwhile people with black skin stopped increased by 250%

The total number of stop and searches under terror laws more than doubled in 2002/2003 from 8,550 to 21,577.

that's about 250% of the previous value, a 150% increase

The percentage resulting in arrests remained at 13% for the second year.

A 13% arrest rate for supposedly intelligence led targeted policing - required for the tourism act to be invoked - is atrocious

BBC

Now if we had the proposed ID database, the fact that people had been stopped under the Terrorist Act would be recorded in perpetuity and held against that individual's record, despite 87% of these people having no charges brought against them (and of the 13% arrested what percentage are found to be guilty?). That's 18772 innocent people who are going to be flagged up as potential tourists, because of 'intelligence'. This flagged information would be accessible by the US defense department et al. and would probably result in some sort of surveillence if these people went to the US, their future flight patterns would DEFINITELY be checked by human eyes at regular intervals...
posted by meau meau , 10:34 AM Þ 

Could you be more.....specific?

"Can you use P2P technology to help one another with questions and problems and the like, as opposed to just swapping files around? Check out the site at P2PQ and see what you think. The idea is that you post a long question and someone somewhere who's on the network answers it if they know the answer. Weird? Maybe. Or maybe amazing."

enorgis.com

I had a long in person talk with a developer from IBM in the states; I may or may not have poached him
posted by Irdial , 6:53 AM Þ 

Here follows a comment from a locked Livejournal entry discussing a service which promises to answer any question, via text message.

Is this P2PQ that you're talking about? I heard the guy behind P2PQ speak at a geek conference a few weeks back. He was having trouble getting the idea off the ground... Presumably because (not his words) it's bloody stupid.

P2PQ isn't stupid, I just think that the apparatus needed aren't ubiquitous enough yet. Perhaps if it could be done via SMS it would be a start.
posted by alex_tea , 12:26 AM Þ 
Thursday, July 01, 2004

ingrained ineptitude in the psyche of the majority of people

Manchester had it's scene in the 80s and 90s, but too often bands/artists are heard bemoaning "Well, I had to move to London to get a deal/get noticed"

Last night we watched Life of Brian again.
"You are all individuals"
"Yes, we are all individuals"

And once moved, you're...
slapped down and forced into line to serve the corporate franchise conveyor belt

Because the world really needs another Coldplay.

Hasn't the internet freed artists from this capital-centric attitude? Or is it just a reflection of an artist's ego?




I sat on the bus wondering how many times Bush had practised writing "Let freedom reign" before the handover day...



And I spent 2 hours trying to sort out a DSL problem this morning, and the only nice thing was the Geordie accent of the call-centre staff.
posted by Alun , 6:46 PM Þ 

http://www.kdvs.org is where you can hear a set from IDX 1274, a chap who produced a Conet Project remix at a private performance in the USA.
posted by Irdial , 6:16 PM Þ 

Cassini is in orbit!!!
posted by Irdial , 5:57 PM Þ 

At the preliminary trial hearing, Saddam Hussein was told he would face charges relating to seven crimes committed over three decades. (BBC)

The first charge relates to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 which was ended by a US-led coalition in February in the Gulf War the following year.
The second charge involves the suppression of the Kurdish and Shia uprisings that followed the 1991 war.
The third charge covers the alleged ethnic cleansing of the Kurds during the so-called Anfal campaign in 1987-88.
Charge four specifically refers to the gassing Kurdish villagers in Halabja in 1988.
The fifth and sixth charges are for the killing political activists during the course of his rule and religious figures in 1974 .
Finally, he is accused of killing thousands of members of the Kurdish Barzani clan in 1983.

.

Those charges are certainly relevant to the man but none of them are related to any of the excuses for the invasion of Iraq & the detention of its citizens we have seen over the last year or so.

-

My meme of the day: Cable cars for cable stars
posted by meau meau , 3:32 PM Þ 

Iraqis, throw in the towel,
Your land's been dicked by Colin Powell.


Sorry. That song's been in my head all day.
posted by Alun , 3:17 PM Þ 

Saddam Hussein Harold Shipman Gerry Adams

Are all Google Search: bearded men untrustworthy?

Good job I shaved last week.
posted by alex_tea , 2:50 PM Þ 

I hear Northerners (and Midlanders and Welsh and Scots) moaning about London and the SE in general

I have nothing against the 'south' - I would probably be there by now if I had my own way but is annoying that practically anything with an international standing is based in the South East, the olympic bid could easily have been assembled on a 'midlands' basis.
British Airways lobbies for extra airport space at Heathrow to the annoyance of local residents and continuing to deny proper international coverage to the rest of the country, the only alternative offered by government is extension of Stanstead. And this is generalised the government skews planning and economics to allow lobbying companies to continue to overload the home counties whilst shipping off crap call-centre jobs to the regions , or India.

but I've spent time in Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester...

These places are not only ametuer and provincial there isn't the base of talent that allows you to escape some sort of ingrained ineptitude in the psyche of the majority of people, which is most manifest in the STUPID and RAMPANT inverted snobbery vis-a-vis the Twenty-first century that means anyone trying to offer an interesting alternative is slapped down and forced into line to serve the corporate franchise conveyor belt.

and most recently Newcastle

I do like Newcastle for all its clumsiness, I think there's a sense of being so far away from London that it has to be relatively self sufficient underneath the layer of crap that infects everywhere in the UK - even if there isn't the base for widespread greatness. And it has one of the few northern accents that is appealing.

I think of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and their regional cities that sustain and innovate and have presence that often eclipses that of the capital. Barcelona, Lyon, Hamburg, Munich, Lille, Milan. It's the whole nature of such a disproportionate duality in the country that pisses me off.

And that's not all...
posted by meau meau , 1:35 PM Þ 

With devolved regional government should be regional taxation. Then let's see what kind of infrastructure these uppity Northerners can provide without the invisible 'subsidy' from, in the main, London's income.

Re MPs; something would have to be done, lest we have the same ludicrous situation of Scottish MPs voting on 'English' (actually UK) issues with no reciprocal arrangement.

Further, London's gold-paved streets also 'support' 9 of the 10 most impoverished boroughs in the UK (including my home - Hackney), the other being Glasgow City.

I hear Northerners (and Midlanders and Welsh and Scots) moaning about London and the SE in general, and in specifics such as Wembley, the Olympics, Parliament, culture... but I've spent time in Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and most recently Newcastle, and these places are... well, the nicest terms I can think of are AMATEUR and PROVINCIAL. All these places are trying to be London, with 'waterside apartments' and 'executive living quarters', 'thriving nightlife' and 'world-class cultural attractions'.

Well, the Baltic Centre, Newcastles best-known art venue, was changing exhibitions while we were there and instead of doing this piecemeal, leaving say 70-80% of the space accessible during changeover, only 1 small gallery, the shop and the cafe remained open. Amateur. And annoying.

The 'thriving nightlife' was pubs, mating and fighting. Same as when I left 15 years ago.

And sure, Newcastle's citizens can now financially cripple themselves with an overpriced and undersized executive waterside property just like people 'down South'. But developer's profits do not improve the city.

Of all the places I've ever been only NYC compared to London (but I prefered London), so it might be better if Brum et al concentrated on being themselves rather than trying to copy London, or getting chippy whenever London gets preferred over them for, say, an Olympic bid. (The IOC said it wouldn't consider any that wasn't in London. And Manchester has tried and failed).

All this effort by these cities has just resuolted in several large sow's ears to keep your money in. And while London's no silk purse, I think it knows who and what it is.

This from a Northerner down South soon returning North. I've had it up to HERE with London.

posted by Alun , 12:02 PM Þ 

Are you tired of the constant stream of America-bashing from the shamelessly liberal news media and left-wing politicians who use every negative news story to launch a political attack against our military and our commander in chief?

Shamelessly liberal, now there's a piece of badness. They should all be like Fox/Microsoft and unashamedly Republican.
Left wing politicians! Does the US have ANY? Not that it matters

-

In the spirit that the UK:North can only be as prosperous as the UK:South if it has the infrastructure and political power to operate internationally whilst bypassing London and the SE; Devolved government to the regions on the condition that the numbers of politicians in both the Commons and Lords are reduced by half.
posted by meau meau , 10:57 AM Þ 

E-mail privacy suffered a serious setback on Tuesday when a court of appeals ruled that an e-mail provider did not break the law in reading his customers' communications without their consent.
The First Court of Appeals in Massachusetts ruled that Bradford C. Councilman did not violate criminal wiretap laws when he surreptitiously copied and read the mail of his customers in order to monitor their transactions...
But the court found that because the e-mails were already in the random access memory, or RAM, of the defendant's computer system when he copied them, he did not intercept them while they were in transit over wires and therefore did not violate the Wiretap Act...
Weird

This is what people should be worried about, not automated text ads as in Gmail, however as Gmail may have your email on its servers somewhere ad infinitum there is cause to worry about whether it may have no defence against divulging the content of its servers in the future.
Bad decision.

Good decision:
PGP
GPG
posted by meau meau , 10:28 AM Þ 



An Iraqi academic on the radio today said she wanted a full trial before Saddam was executed. She wanted to know why the Iraqi people had been made to suffer for the benefit of others; what were the connections to the US, why the Iran-Iraq war started, why it lasted so long, what the US knew, who helped who in all sorts of dirty doings, and wanted Rumsfeld called as the prime US witness...

...and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.



Notice how a highly-trained professional assassin creeps stealthily through the crowded ranks of America's Finest to deliver a fatal shot to the judicial process just before the evil truth of Oswald's lone mission could be told to the world.

Since America's best interests would be served by hearing every word of Saddam's testimony, I'm certain such a thing could never happen again. No?





One thing good about the Michael Moore film, if some people realize how their government is using fear to manipulate their opinions.... nah, that's the oldest political trick (maybe second, after bribery) and surely they've realized already.... oh..dear.



There are so many Blunkett-isms to choose from lately. But I've chosen this one as representative of his fair, open-minded and unbiased approach to being Home Secretary:

Fury at Blunkett's secret links to animal rights campaign
By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
(Filed: 27/06/2004)

David Blunkett, who has been widely criticised as Home Secretary for refusing to take tough action against violent animal rights activists, is revealed today as a supporter of a leading anti-vivisection charity.

The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that Mr Blunkett has discreetly served as a patron of the Humane Research Trust, which aims to eliminate the use of animals in human medical research.


Can't he see the position this puts him in with regard to his need to support the MRC, BBSRC and other government-funded research, to fairly judge what's best policy, to stand apart from any conflict on interest accusations? Is he blind?

posted by Alun , 10:08 AM Þ 

"In a unanimous 9-0 decision on June 30, 2004, the Supreme Count of Canada ruled that internet service providers are not responsible for paying royalties on music downloaded by users.

The court said although ISPs provide the hardware and technology, they are only "intermediaries" who are not responsible for what people download and are not bound by federal copyright legislation."
CBC

"OTTAWA - The RCMP's deputy commissioner says information about innocent people caught in police investigations is stored in a national security database.

Gary Loeppky says that information can be passed to U.S. authorities if they request it. Loeppky was testifying at the public inquiry into the Maher Arar case.

Arar is the 34-year-old Ottawa engineer who was detained in New York in 2002 during a stopover as he returned from a holiday in Tunisia. U.S. officials grilled him about alleged links to the al-Qaeda network and then sent him to his birthplace, Syria, where he was kept for a year in prison. Arar says he was tortured."
CBC again. This is a good example of what happens when people let this kind of behaviour go on (ie: "let's put everyone in the database, it's okay!")
posted by Barrie , 2:07 AM Þ 
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
posted by Ken , 8:08 PM Þ 

Music and books retailer HMV today reported record sales and operating profits as it held off a growing challenge from supermarkets...

The music industry could obviously do with a bit more illiegal downloading threatening its very survival, no?

-

Why is Bush so eager for Turkey to join the EU:

1. Addition of a very large relatively poor economy to the Euro would make it less stable and so not encroach on the dollar as an international standard currency

2. Routing of oil from the Caspian Sea via Azerbaijan & Armenia through a stabilised 'Western-friendly' zone would be more secure than the continual vagueries of the Gulf peninsula.
posted by meau meau , 1:34 PM Þ 

I thought it waas Singapore where chewing gum was outlawed, this has actually been relaxed for permitted users quite recently


Artists must form a union in cyberspace to represent themselves. The sum of many individuals could be quite powerful, not only financially, but politically, but that's another story...

This of course is an exact analogy of what United Artists was set up for, to break the stranglehold of the early Hollywood studio system over artist's right to work and produce as they wished. That we have Hollywood as it is today shouldn't be a cause for discouragement.

(Wikipedia) The United Artists Corporation (aka United Artists Pictures and United Artists Films) was formed on February 5, 1919 by four Hollywood greats: Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith. Their motive was to challenge the power of the major studios which, some felt, were making a fortune out of the talent of individuals. The four friends, taking advice from businessman William G. McAdoo (son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson), formed their own distribution company, with Hiram Abrams as its first managing director. It was bought by Arthur Krim in 1952.

UA set the standard for film distribution as the first major independent company both by and for the artists (hence the studio's name). Many silent and sound actors/filmmakers began their career at UA at the dawn of the studio's existence. For example, Charlie Chaplin made his home at UA producing, directing, and starring in some of his best film work, such as The Gold Rush, Modern Times, and City Lights...
posted by meau meau , 9:59 AM Þ 

Further US restrictions on freedom of information.

The US Supreme Court has narrowly ruled that a law meant to protect children from online pornography is probably an infringement of free speech.
Five of the court's nine judges opposed the law, which was passed in 1998 and is backed by the Bush administration.
The majority said a lower court was right to block it, as it may have violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution on freedom of speech... BBC

It's not all bad news, is it?
posted by meau meau , 9:49 AM Þ 
posted by chriszanf , 9:28 AM Þ 

Further US restrictions on freedom of information.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is making it harder for scientists to speak to their global colleagues and restricting who can attend an upcoming major AIDS conference, a congressman charged on Thursday.
Rep. Henry Waxman said he has a letter showing that the Health and Human Services Department has imposed new limits on who may speak to the World Health Organization.
Under the new policy, WHO must ask HHS for permission to speak to scientists and must allow HHS to choose who will respond.
"This policy is unprecedented. For the first time political appointees will routinely be able to keep the top experts in their field from responding to WHO requests for guidance on international health issues," the California Democrat wrote in a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.
"This is a raw attempt to exert political control over scientists and scientific evidence in the area of international health," Waxman wrote.

"Under the new policy the administration will be able to refuse to provide any experts whenever it wishes to stall international progress on controversial topics."

An HHS spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Waxman also complained that HHS had cut back a list of scientists planning to attend the International AIDS Society conference in Bangkok, Thailand, next month. The conference is considered the premiere meeting for AIDS experts.

Waxman said that 40 presentations scheduled for the conference were withdrawn after HHS decided that only 50 U.S. scientists could attend. "The scientific community was outraged by this pullback," he wrote.

"I ask you to rescind this ill-advised policy until it can be adequately reviewed and justified," Waxman wrote of the restrictions on WHO requests. He also urged Thompson to review his decision on the Bangkok
conference.
posted by Alun , 8:55 AM Þ 
Tuesday, June 29, 2004

I was bored at work the other day, and playing with my laptop, so I figured I'd give GarageBand

a go. It's pretty cool. Basically, you have a library of sampled loops,
and MIDI files to choose from, and you construct a song from there. You
can record yourself using Sound Studio, and import that recording into
a loop in GarageBand. All of the loops that come with GarageBand are
royalty-free, meaning anyone can use them free of charge, and new sets
of loops pop up online all the time.

Anyways, I created my first song using GarageBand, titled "Achtung!". It uses a sample from Irdial's The Conet Project (which they recently sued Wilco over for using an unauthorised sample of.)

To download my creation, "Achtung!", click here. (.zip file, 2.46 Mb)


http://www.electricschwa.com/
posted by Irdial , 11:28 PM Þ 

Can you feel the purity?!

Purity
Is obscurity
posted by Alun , 10:04 PM Þ 




Wow.


I'm going to try and think of my favourite poem.
I'll get back to you on that...
posted by Alun , 9:56 PM Þ 



Orbit insertion tomorrow; there is a great animation of Titan to look at. Hopefully there isnt a golden bb waiting in the ring plane to....

I wish they would set up an rss feed so we can keep up with the new pictures!
posted by Irdial , 8:01 PM Þ 

In, but more on how big company lobbying disbenefits the creator & public
posted by meau meau , 7:10 PM Þ 

Someone wants in:

"Copyright law is broken. The interpretation of it favours the extremely rich corporations over the artist and small business. This is more true for copyright law than it is of other law, because copyright deals with prima facie evidence and absolutes in the case of, and yet, the corporations prevail over the small business almost every time, whilst systematically trampling over the rights of the public."

I am not a lawyer. I never wanted to be one. The law and I have on a number of occasions nuzzled in a dark corner, as well as had screaming, dish throwing fights. What is a Law?
Laws are an artificial construct created by men of a certain social class to protect property and preserve "order" as the prevailing opinion of their class deems proper. Laws are, with the few exceptions of major consequence i.e. Murder, Rape, about property and it's control. Laws are about income and it's collection. Number plates on cars, taxes, tariffs, birth certificates, all deal with Newtonian objects and their movements both in life and the ebb and flow of commerce. Laws have trickled down from European based society to less fortunate civilizations. The most simple and basic laws, as those listed above are everywhere. The more arcane laws, like copyright, only apply if the society has an existing framework for following the word of law. If a society has a tradition of obedience, even the most absurd laws will stand.
In Hong Kong it is against the law to have or use chewing gum. In Jakarta, it is against the law to eat a Durian Fruit on a public bus. In Munich one can run buck naked through the Englishergarden, but try that on the street, and off you go to the clink.
The copyright law is broken because of two things:
Current 21st Century society has outgrown the original concept of controlling intellectual property for income gain, by usually, a broker of such properties.
Most laws deal with objects. The copyright laws were written when books, sheet music, disks, and piano rolls, held sway. Today, the world has moved on.
Music, or any other audio, can be transmitted via the internet. No more object. No more physical distribution of objects. A one to one transaction between artist and consumer can take place, cutting out the broker. It is an honor to pay an artist for their creative efforts. If an artist would rather concentrate on production rather than distribution, collectives of a number of like minded artists can be formed, a gathering place where one can go to hear new work and download. Huge media groups are swelling and merging like they are going out of style, which is exactly what is happening. The future is small. As small as the screen this is written on.
The second reason that copyright law is crumbling is for a law to work it must have a locale within which the population follows that rule of law. In cyberspace there are no borders.
It is a universe of intellects who communicate amazingly well across the crusty notions of city, state, and continent. A simple set of rules must be adopted and enforced by a sort of cyber United Nations, that sets basic fees, how many times a work can be duplicated, the ability to go after those who would, say, take a photographic image and publish it in a for profit magazine, and have the clout to collect due fees. All of this would protect the artist and their collectives on an individual basis. Visual and recording artists must realize that the landscape has changed. Literally. The giant media groups are extinct. Artists must form a union in cyberspace to represent themselves. The sum of many individuals could be quite powerful, not only financially, but politically, but that's another story...
posted by Irdial , 6:32 PM Þ 

Minority Government Night in Canada

This election was impossible to call. Voting trends have changed a lot in this election... the House will be chaotic and diverse. A Good Thing, I think.
Currently the Edmonton Center count is a Liberal/Conservative fight for about 40 votes. Yikes! These are always fun.
Unfortunately my riding was absolutely clobbered by the Conservative juggernaut. My province actually has become even more Conservative than it used to be, probably the only place in Canada that can make that claim. The combined right-wing actually lost the votes it sought to gain, those votes apparently going to a further left-wing party. Interesting!
Hooray for elections. urrrrgh.
posted by Barrie , 4:45 AM Þ 

Last night I saw Fahrenheit 9/11, in a large theater that was surprisingly full considering a late sunday showing.
It is of course very good. I keep hearing people say "it's not a documentary!" and it angers me how many people get caught up in the game of semantics. Who cares if it's documentary or not? What is a documentary? The film is an argument constructed around various forms of documents (newspapers, television, official documents, films, etc) so I think it qualifies. Do people expect a "documentary" to be a bland objective report merely stating facts? I for one am quite impressed my Moore's pride in his own opinion and his determination, passion to get his message across. I also think he realizes the impossibility of objectivity and runs with it. He knows what he wants to say and says it.
I don't particularily like his style, but there he is, big and bold. What a great production! It stands with "The Corporation" as the most important film of 2004, I say.

Edit: I was going to say something about being surprised at what he left out of the movie. Britain, the UN, and WMD all play pretty minor roles compared to the House of Bush and the House of Saud, the American culture of fear, the corporate agenda (money) and the plight of the US soldiers. It is understandable why Moore concentrates on those specific things but the movie did not feel entirely complete without the rest of the picture.
posted by Barrie , 1:10 AM Þ 
Monday, June 28, 2004

The EBS Authenticator Word List



If the alert message was received on the teletype, and the Authentication Word matched, the announcer was to supposed to send the attention signal (the old attention signal, which involved turning the transmitter off and on a couple of times), then begin reading the alert message scripts and stand by for further instructions. [...]

http://www.akdart.com/ebs.html

It all seems so familiar!
posted by Irdial , 7:17 PM Þ 

A Metafilterer said, in the same thread:

It's an interesting situation, but maybe not astonishing. In the publishing industry the same rules apply. Authors promise their publishers that they haven't copied someone else's book. If there is legal trouble down the road, the author is the responsible party, not the publisher who accepted the book in good faith. I think this is the only reasonable way to go, as it's very hard for a publisher to make absolutely sure that they don't accept material that has been printed somewhere before.
posted by Triplanetary at 10:40 AM PST on June 28


This is reasonable, but what is NOT reasonable is that these clauses insulate the publisher from paying a royalty on infringing works that they continue to sell. By being insulated in this way, a Monopoly label can make a profit off of infringing works and pay nothing; this is what is wrong with the clause, not the fact that they require indemnity as a safety measure.

If they find that they are manufacturing an infringing work, they need to pay a royalty on all copies manufactured, and then pass the bill on to their artist. That is the true function of an indemnity clause. They can either then decide to stop manufacturing the infringing discs, or pay a royalty on each new disc manufactured.

What should not be an option is that the artist pays only a proportion of her royalty as full compensation for the infringment of the larger parties share of the royalty split.
posted by Irdial , 6:46 PM Þ 

From Metafilter

That's why recordings of classical pieces long out of copyright can themselves be copyrighted.

Exactly. If Wilco had hired a voice actress to repeat the words "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and then processed them to sound like they were coming over a shortwave transmission, the Conet people wouldn't be able to do much about that, since they do not own copyright on the phrase. Since, however, the band apparently used the actual recordings made by this project, and the project owns the copyright on them, and did *not* give permission for their use, I'd say it's case closed.

The monopoly record labels use clauses in their contracts to immunize themselves against legal attacks if copyright infringement takes place.

Does anyone who knows more about contract law know how this can be enforceable? As the article states, it seems kind of odd that a third party who is not a signatory on a contract can still somehow be bound by it.

And, to balance out those who seem to think that those who produced the Conet Project CD should be punished for being uppity enough to go after Wilco, I'm gonna look for this disc and buy it. Maybe two or three copies.
posted by deadcowdan at 10:03 AM PST on June 28

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33989


This intelligent poster is of course, 100% correct.

A classical music recording of say, a Sarabande from J S Bach's "Clavier Ubung", is protectred by copyright even though the music itself is in the public domain. No one would argue that you can take a piece of one of Gustav Leonhardt's performances and then incorporate it into your own work, and then sell one million copies of that work, without paying a royalty.
posted by Irdial , 6:16 PM Þ 

Yet again I failed to find a long lost vinyl masterpiece of modern classical music at Oxfam this weekend but I did migrate to MozThunderbird...

How do I edit received messages (and is there a way to explode list digest messages)?
Can header information be displayed inline with the message text? i.e. so it can be selected/copypasted.

-

Uncontrolled spreading of personal information by third parties over a state financed wifi network sounds very, very foolish.

The use of commercial databases is nauseating, I've been added to mailing lists due to getting holiday money, etc. without being asked. The police would undoubtedly find at least as great an access. The people beind the counter practically always ask for personal details whenever I buy electrical equipment now.

Intercepted information would be lovely for the unscrupulous, from so-called identity theft to simply knowing you aren't at your home address.
posted by meau meau , 2:28 PM Þ 

I have been to busy these days, educating kids in the use of the Internet. But some of them cant even write their name...really they cant!
Found this american fact-page, maybe you know about it? maybe not?

Got my Conet Project saturday, wow it is amazing, truly amazing...
posted by Alison , 9:47 AM Þ 

Wireless Devices Help Police Fight Crime

Fri Jun 25,10:12 AM ET

By MARTIN FINUCANE, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - A police officer stops you on the street, then taps something into a device in the palm of his hand.

The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of car you drive or boat you own, whether you've been sued and various other tidbits about your life.

Science fiction? Hardly.

A growing number of police departments now have instant access via handheld wireless devices to vast commercial databases that contain details on just about anyone officers encounter on the beat.

In a time of terrorism worries, the information could theoretically save lives, or produce clues that an eagle-eyed cop could use to solve a case.

But placing a commercial database full of personal details at an officer's fingertips also raises troubling questions for electronic privacy activists.

"If the police went around keeping files on who you lived with and who your roommates were, I think people would be outraged," said Jay Stanley, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), "And yet in this case, they're not doing it, but they're plugging into a company that is able to do it easily."

In recent years, police departments have been testing different handheld wireless devices. Typically, they've used the devices to gain access to law enforcement databases meant only for police that, for example, alert them when someone is wanted for arrest.

At the same time, many police departments have been using desktop computers to search commercial databases to help them learn more detailed information about people they are investigating. These databases can hold billions of public records from a variety of sources. Thousands of law enforcement bodies now use them; five states have linked their own records with a huge commercial database in a federally funded program known as Matrix.

Now, in a convergence of the two trends, police are beginning to access the commercial databases using handheld wireless devices. [...]

Yahoo News

All those anonymity services that have gone to the wall will one day come back in force as millions try and disengage their identities from this pervasive net. Children will appear to dissapear as they adopt shell identities upon coming of age. What responsible parent would let their child use their "real" identity for anything?
posted by Irdial , 1:42 AM Þ 
Sunday, June 27, 2004

Fly like and eagle, even if you feel like a chicken.

Strange title, I know, but well worth the read.
posted by mary13 , 6:40 PM Þ 
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