Gone for Christmas Ry4an got me a Bill
of Rights Security Edition for Christmas. I'm flying tomorrow, but I'm
too scared to use it. I don't want to miss my flight or get arrested for
being a "wise guy". What kind of patriot am I if I'm afraid to carry the
nation's own Bill of Rights?
I'll be visiting my family this week in Pennsylvania for Christmas, so no
more posts from me for a while.
Posted at 23:16
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For once, a good Alertbox Fortunately, Top Ten
Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 (today's column) bucks the trend. While it
repeatedly links to NN Group wares, it has solid advice and charming
cartoon illustrations.
Viva Alertbox!
It's no secret that Jakob Nielsen's
Alertbox has been
going downhill
for a while. In the past, it's been a valuable source of useablity
advice. However, today it basically exists solely to hawk
Norman-Nielsen Group reports and seminars.
Posted at 21:24
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Lessig's Challenge Update Inspired by Lawrence Lessig's OSCON remarks,
Lessig's Challenge is a
way for people concerned by the attempts by the entertainment industry
to close off the net to fight back. The challenge is to spend more on
those who fight for the open network than you do on its
enemies. Since it
appeared on Slashdot last month, 10 people have joined me and we've
raised over $2300 for good causes (organizations like the
EFF, the ACLU, the
FSF, along with free software/open source
programmers and online artists). And that's just the ones I know about!
Cory Doctrow wrote to tell me that many
people were inspired by the challenge to join the EFF. If you want to
do your part, now's a good time -- you can still get a tax break in
2002 by donating before the end of the year. Check out the
list of suggested recipients.
Here's a little marketing blurb I wrote to talk about the results from the
first month of the Lessig Challenge.
Posted at 18:14
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Twin City Blogging It's good to see more weblogs from real journalists.
Two of the Twin Cities' news orgainizations have blogs now. The
Star Tribune has
2cents and the
City Pages has the
Twin Cities Babelogue.
Posted at 12:03
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CC: Part 2 A lovely future indeed. And I see no reason why a few RFCs couldn't be
modified to make it true. :)
Danny emailed me back about my
CC: post, where I tried
to remember what carbon paper was. Quinn (his
daughter's mother) pointed out a wonderful alternative expansion of "cc".
At the Creative Commons launch, she asked him, "Wouldn't it be a great
future if we had to work really hard to dissuade our daughter that Cc:
didn't stand for Creative Commons?"
Posted at 01:06
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Love Spam Too bad these aren't real! Love the tracking number at the end, that's
totally classic.
I'm sure everyone is tired of reading my spam, but I just keep getting
funny ones I want to share. Check this one out -- somebody's looking for
love (or valid email addresses) in all the wrong places!
Hi. My name is Kara, I saw your profile on the internet and was wondering if you were interested in maybe going out and doing something some time. I'm new to the area so I really don't know any of the hot spots around town, so if you're interested e-mail me at kara_532@hotmail.com and I will send you a picture of myself. I hope to hear from you soon. -Kara
2810wiaS3-014WMke1053hPxU8-080sKfN1699fmZg9-097hRVH4142IZl54
Posted at 00:59
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Lessig's Challenge for December
This month's Lessig Challenge
results are up. The recipients of this month's contributions are the Free
Software Foundation (I'm now associate member #78) and the ACLU (of which
I am now a "card-carrying" member). Take that, Ashcroft!
Posted at 00:56
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Word Unmunger Batch Mode Word Unmunger now features a batch mode, so you can process many files at
once, instead of one at a time. Hurray! You could've done this before with
a shell script, but I had a user request to add it to the program. Next
thing you know, it'll be able to send email.
I'm seriously considering moving in on
the demoroniser's turf for
my next release. I'm getting annoyed with the Microsoft-isms that remain
in the HTML (like "smart" quotes and Microsoft-only emdash).
For all you hordes of Word
Unmunger users out there, I've got a tasty new feature for ya.
Posted at 00:08
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Marriage is what brings us together today... So congratulations to McClain and Becca.
My coworker McClain Looney got married yesterday
and he asked Nick (another coworker) and me to be the witnesses. I've
never done that before. It was pretty cool. We signed the documents, the
judge gave a nice speech (more that I would've figured), and boom, they
were married. Then we went out for drinks. Now that I've participated in
both, I can say with authority that civil cerimonies are much less
stressful than the religous ones.
Posted at 13:59
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Pepsi's 349 Fiasco Wow, that's serious. As Jenny said, "You don't fuck with these people!"
I was browsing old Ig Noble awards for kicks tonight, and I came across
one that just takes the cake. It was the 1993 Peace Ig Noble, awarded to
Pepsi Cola of the Phillipines for their "Number Fever" promotion, which
ended in disaster when Pepsi mistakenly announced a million-peso winning
number held by 800,000 people.
There are also a tremendous price paid. In all, at least two people died, scores were injured, and 38 Pepsi trucks were damaged by the anti-Pepsi 349 movement. Some 10,000 civil and criminal cases were slapped against Pepsi. Since people generally think it was Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines that was responsible for the mix-up, PCPPI is the accused in the nearly all the cases. In none of the cases was PepsiCo sued. Pepsi has cases against it in some 100 courtrooms.
Posted at 23:03
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Manix
My coworker sent me this
funny but subtle
European advertisement. Hint: it's for a lubricant.
Posted at 17:52
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Kersten Debunked Now, it turns out the numbers are deeply flawed by the methodology used.
Independents were ignored, Libertarians were grouped with Republicans as
"Right", and the faculty surveyed were almost exclusively from the liberal
arts departments (especially Women's Studies). Martin Plissner reports in
Flunking Statistics
(The American Prospect, December 30th):
But as Plissner points out, it probably doesn't matter anyway. The spin
point is out there. Who are we to question?
I've talked about Kathern Kersten's op-ed about campus liberalism a few
times ( Lazy
Friday Links,
Nick
Mark on Katherine Kersten,
For my
loyal readers). Already, it's come out that the study she based her op-ed
on was funded by David Horowitz's conservative think tank, Center for the
Study of Popular Culture.
The findings look pretty compelling -- but not when you look at them closely. In the University of Texas sample, for example, 28 of the 94 teachers came from women's studies -- not exactly a highlight of any school's core curriculum or a likely cross section of its faculty. At the same time, none of the 94 was from the university's huge schools of engineering, business, law or medicine -- or from any of the sciences...The methodology employed is similarly slapdash at the other chosen campuses. Harvard's faculty of more than 2,000 is represented by 52 members from just three academic disciplines, all in the social sciences. More than half of the University of California, Los Angeles sample comes from just two disciplines: history and, once again, women's studies.
Posted at 17:02
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My First Slashdot Story
Today, I got my first Slashdot story posted.
Creative Commons Launches Today. It's mostly a dupe of my infoAnarchy
story of the same title.
Posted at 22:02
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Swiss Women and the Right to Vote For more, read
Swizerland in Sight: The Right to Vote.
I just learned tonight that Swiss women didn't get the right to vote in
federal elections until 1971! Wow, talk about behind the times!
Posted at 21:59
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Daddy, what does "CC:" mean? He wrote: "One more thing I'm going to have problems explaining to my
daughter: what 'cc:' stands for."
The first time I read that, I though, "Huh? Does he think they won't have
email in the future?"
Then I realized what he meant. "CC:" stands for "carbon copy". I'd almost
forgotten about those damn things! I'm 23, and I barely remember carbon
paper. Danny's daughter is going to have a difficult time with this
concept...
Danny O'Brien
posted an entry I didn't understand until I thought really hard about it.
Posted at 00:07
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Creative Commons Launches Well, their website launched a bit early. :)
You can check out their license
chooser already. Why wait? Beat the rush.
It's pretty slick. After you answer three questions (the default answers
lead you to select "public domain" as your license), it gives you a
license which meets your requirements, then tells you how to use it.
Optionally, you can enter some metadata about your project for the CC
registry.
I've started an
infoAnarchy story to track the Creative Commons launch.
This may well be my first scoop. This isn't on Slashdot or anything yet (I
just submitted a story about it). If so, that's pretty cool.
Creative Commons is having their big
launch party tomorrow, December 16. They're unveiling their human-,
computer-, and lawyer-readable licenses that make it easy to give away
part of your copy rights to the public.
Posted at 00:03
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Letter to the Editor -- Roy Carlton, Chanhassen
I tried to keep my response short and sweet, while still crushing the
Mr. Carlton with the power of logic.
For my sources, I used the following articles:
Jim Chapin:
Why the GOP's Southern Strategy Ended
Time, July 26, 1948:
The Line
Squall
Glenn Feldman:
Dixiecrats: The States' Rights Party, 1948
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow:
Program Four: Terror and
Triumph (1940-1954)
Today, this letter to
the editor appeared in the Star Tribune:
A few questions for those people screaming for Sen. Trent Lott's head:
What party did Strom Thurmond belong to when he ran for president as a Dixiecrat? Which party did George Wallace belong to when he attempted to block segregation of Alabama schools? Of which party was the governor of South Carolina who hoisted the Confederate flag over the State Capitol? To which party does the senior senator who is a former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan and who spoke the dreaded "N" word two times in a nationally televised interview belong? In all cases they were Democrats.
It was the Democrats who voted for secession from the United States and were the governing party of the Confederate States of America. It was the Democrats who supported the Jim Crow laws and segregation. And it is the press that doesn't have the courage to print letters like mine to shine the light of truth on their chosen ones.
Roy Carlton (Letters, December 14) tries to pin the charge of racism on the Democratic Party. However, he fails to mention one key fact. Strom Thumond's Dixiecrats stormed out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention when Hubert Humphrey took the stage and yelled, "I say the time has come to walk out of the shadow of states' rights and into the sunlight of human rights." Since then, it has been Democrats who have lead the fight for civil rights.
More telling are the questions Carlton fails to ask. Which party welcomed the Dixiecrat racists with open arms? Which party has fought against civil rights for over 50 years? Which party's Senate Majority Leader openly praises racist policies? Perhaps Carlton is afraid to ask those questions.
Posted at 14:52
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Epinions is Toast Why does this concern Epinions? Epinions deals mostly with rating and
reviewing products, which Froogle doesn't touch...yet. But another new toy
from Google Labs does:
WebQuotes. WebQuotes annotates
your search with quotes (and links) from other websites. Imagine WebQuotes
matched with a product search feature, and you can see why Epinions might
be in trouble.
Epinions can fight back against irrelevance by attempting to become the
prime source for quotations. But I still think people will click through
from Google.
So. I will make my first tech-pundit prediction: Epinions is Toast.
Some of my reasoning in this piece is inspired by Paul Ford's fictional
story August 2009: How Google
beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web.
I'd like to make a prediction: Epinions is
toast. Google is going after the price-comparison market with their
"Froogle" shopping search engine tool
(incidentally, PriceWatch and DealTime ought to watch out, too). I think
it's clear that they'll be posting the most relevant Froogle results on
the main search page soon, like they do for Google News.
Posted at 16:26
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Another Missile Defense Test Fails To be fair, five of the eight tests of the Exoatmospheric Kill Vechicle
have been successful. However, there are
grave concerns about the artificiality of the tests. For more
information, see
Limitations and Artificialities of the Testing Program by the Union of
Concerned Scientists.
Don't we have a War on Terror to be fighting?
Guess what? Yet another
missile defense test has failed (via
Stupid Monkey). How long before
we start to listen to scientists who say that
missile defense is impossible?
Posted at 18:13
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My first Score:5 But wait...was the 5 for
my cogent analysis
of the flaws of a record-sales study or
my impassioned post
to the doubters of Lessig's Challenge?
No. It was for my
me, too! post praising the movie Starship Troopers in Slashdot's poll
section.
Oh well, I'll take 'em where I can get 'em.
I just noticed my that I got my first Score:5 on Slashdot. This is
certainly cause for celebration!
Posted at 19:35
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Saving Christmas, Part II Here's what I got:
Plus, Joey threw in a copy of
Angry Young Spaceman by Jim Munroe -- autographed, no less! -- just for
the hell of it.
After the book swap and this new shipment, I've got a serious book
overload. And yet...I still need more! Muhuahahahahahaha!
I'm addicted. I need help. Someone buy me a TV!
I got my books from
Joey's Save Christmas sale yesterday. They're all in excellent shape. It
was a great way to help out a friend and get some cheap-ass books.
Posted at 23:32
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Trent Lott's Racism Check out this
1948
Mississippi Democratic sample ballot to see what Thurman was running for
back then: "REMEMBER: A vote for Truman electors is a direct order to our
Congressmen and Senators from Mississippi to vote for passage of Truman's
so-called civil-rights program in the next Congress. This means the
vicious FEPC -- anti-poll tax -- anti-lynching and anti-segregation
proposals will become the law of the land an our way of life in the South
will be gone forever."
ANTI-LYNCHING? How can you be pro-lynching? And to think we had a chance
to kick Mississippi out of the Union for good and we threw it away.
The liberal weblogging community is all aflutter because Trent Lott
"endorsed" Strom Thurman's 1948 presidential bid. Lott said: "When Strom
Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if
the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all
these problems over all these years either."
Posted at 02:04
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More Java 1.5 info
Preparing for Generics: An Introduction is a good first look at how
generics are going to work in Java 1.5. You'll be able to use generics for
your own classes, not just Collections. Cool.
JSR 201: Extending the Java
Programming Language with Enumerations, Autoboxing, Enhanced for loops and
Static Import is another Josh Bloch-lead enhancement for 1.5 (Doug Lea's
involved, too). We've heard about some of these things already but this
gives them a number and released draft specs on how they'll work. See:
A Typesafe
Enum Facility for the Java Programming Language,
Autoboxing support for the Java Programming Language,
Importing Static Members in the Javatm Programming Language.
I'm a little disappointed with the for each syntax. They don't want to add
a new keyword to the language so they're adding to the meaning of the for
loop. I'd rather just see something like "foreach ( Foo in bar ) { ... }"
but maybe it's too late in the language's development to add that.
Wes Felter has had some great links about
Java 1.5 recently. As a Java programmer, I try to stay up on the new
developments (check out my
previous
coverage of Java Tiger).
Posted at 21:08
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Don't Make the Smug Guy's Head Explode Hm, I'm pretty sure I ate one of those quiches last night...
(While you're at it, check out Wedding
vows to avoid. I like "The Explicit".)
My inner yuppie is crying: Don't
Make the Smug Guy's Head Explode (requires Flash). "I made a quiche using
soy bacon. Organic soy bacon."
Posted at 18:27
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For my loyal readers Duane J. Gajewski, Northland Gay Men's Center:
End homophobia at
the altar: "The state has no compelling interest in continuing to deny
lesbian and gay citizens the right to marry. The only rationale offered to
maintain this institutionalized discrimination is shrouded in religious
beliefs to which many citizens do not subscribe. Giving credence to
religious doctrine to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians is
tantamount to the state recognizing one particular religion over another,
and that is unconstitutional."
David S. Broder:
This time around, where's the shared sacrifice? "Almost everywhere you
look, the element of shared sacrifice that should be expected in a nation
at war is missing. A few people are being asked to give up a lot --
measured in time or money -- while others are being indulged in ways no
can claim are fair."
Matthew Miller:
Democrats need a fourth way. Everyone (even Republicans) has their own
theory about how the Democrats should change to win the next election. My
own personal theory is that Democrats need to retake the center by showing
just how conserative Bush really is underneath his fascade of
"compassionate conservatism". Miller presents a "fourth way" that would
accomplish that: "The substantive virtue of a Fourth Way is that it could
solve big problems, even as its reliance on conservative-sounding
approaches (like tax subsidies for health coverage and market-based
compensation for teachers) appeals to moderate Republicans and
independents. But its chief political virtue would be a vision of America
that can't be 'me too-ed' by the GOP." I'm not sure if I agree with this
"fourth way", but Miller's point that the Democrats need a vision that
can't be co-opted is right on.
Danny O'Brien:
Software in the Public Transport Interest. Danny makes a good point about
public transport. When its coverage is spotty and irregular, it's hard to
take, which descreases its popularity. Incidentally, this is why people
like trains instead of buses. Trains are fixed in position and destination
and extremely regular. Busses are often rerouted and, dependant on roads,
often late. Software can help bridge this gap by letting you know when the
next bus is coming. In
Suburban Nation, the
authors talk about a great way to increase transit ridership: notification
systems inside shops near transit stops. Riders can sit and read the news
paper, buy a snack, or drink a cup of coffee while waiting. When their bus
is near, a sign lights up so they don't miss it. This is used in Japan and
Europe.
Katherine Kersten Redux
I've talked about Kersten's op-ed piece on the liberal bias of academia
before ( Lazy
Friday Links,
Nick
Mark on Katherine Kersten). Now, the Strib has some good rebutals.
Rob Levin: Radical
conservatives find a willing mouthpiece in Kersten. Levin attacks the
source of Kersten's data...which turns out to be from that paragon of
diversity, David Horowitz and his Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
Dan Malotky:
Indoctrination or relativism? You can't have it both ways. Malotky cuts
to the fundamental logical flaw of Kersten's argument. Conservatives often
claim that the problem with liberalism is moral relativism. Yet moral
relativism cannot indoctronate, because it treats all ideas equally. He
writes: "But [conservatives] cannot have it both ways. Liberals either are
ramming their own ideology down the students' throats, or are being too
fair to the various points of view available. Conservatives might claim
that it is precisely the belief in relativism that is the cornerstone of
the liberal ideology."
Some of my loyal readers have chastised me for not posting enough
recently. To those that wish I wrote more, I applogize. I offer them this
entry, and some advice: get a news aggregator. It makes reading weblogs
much less frustrating. RSS readers keep you reading sites, even if they
don't update every day. It's worth it. I use
AmphetaDesk myself.
Posted at 17:58
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Weirdest Spam Ever
I recently received what I consider to be the weirdest spam ever. It's
called
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE IS UNTENABLE. It's from some guy in China. It's
full of equations. It's not trying to sell anything. In fact, it seems to
be a set of scientific experiments.
Posted at 18:47
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Why do books cost so much? According to the article, hard cover prices have pretty much stayed steady
since 1975 after you account for inflation. But the price of soft covers
has skyrocked due to the introduction of the trade paperback (aka "the
paperback that won't fall apart in 10 years").
Christopher Dreher, Salon:
Why do
books cost so much? Interesting look at the publishing industry and why
books cost what they do.
Posted at 23:20
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Book Swap The books you'll find at a book swap will run the gamut from campy
to classic. You can tell some books are there because people just wanted
to get rid of them. But others are clearly important to their owners,
who've contributed them to pass them on to someone else. These are the
best books.
My girlfriend and I didn't really know what to expect from the book
swap. We didn't know how many to bring, so we emptied our shelves of
books we didn't want or wanted to give away, ending up with 14
books. Some were worthwhile (like A Clockwork Orange and Pillars of
the Earth) and others were not.
We were a bit early, but after a while the people (and books) started
pouring in. People milled around the table, checking out the recent
additions and browsing for books. Amusingly, four pairs of books were
duplicates, brought by different people (The Outsider, One Who
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Pillars of the Earth, and
Memoirs of Geisha). After a while, people started claiming their choices and
contributors tried to pawn off the books they'd brought.
At the end of the night, we ended up with 16 new books:
How to host a book swap
As you can see, a book swap is a fun and cheap way to get some new
books to read. Here's how you can host your own:
At the end of the night, you'll probably end up with quite a few books
that nobody has claimed. These books are fair game for anyone who wants
to take them home, even if they've already taken their
share. After that, you'll probably still have extra books. I recommend
donating these books to your local library, Good Will, or a book
charity like Baltimore's Book Thing.
I recently attended a book swap hosted by some friends. A book swap is
exactly what it sounds like: you get together with a bunch of people
and exchange books. A book swap is a sort of literary stone
soup. Everyone who attends adds a little something, and the result is
greater than the sum of its parts. It's surprisingly fun and very
interesting to see what gems people dig up.
Posted at 18:58
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New EFF Members That's pretty sweet.
Well, if nothing else, it seems
the challenge has inspired some new people to join the EFF. Cory Doctrow
sent me an email:
When EFF members sign up, they have the option of giving us some free-form feedback explaining why they're joining. Several this week came on board because of your challenge!
Posted at 16:52
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Happy Thanksgiving
I'll be out of town for the holiday. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving.
Posted at 14:40
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Responses to Lessig's Challenge I've received a number of very good responses (even and email from
Lessig himself!). I'll post a few excerpts here.
My favorite negative response so far has been the
450
word essay about the futility and irrelevance of Lessig's Challenge from an
old high school debate sparring partner, followed closely by my shortest
negative response, which reads in whole: "WHAT THE FUCK IS EFF?????????????"
(I replied: "The fuck is: http://www.eff.org").
A common theme in the emails is that my idea has motivated people to help
out. Paul Curry wrote, "I think you have motivated a lot of folks, myself
included, to do more." Kathy Tafel says, "thanks for helping me get off my
butt and do something!" Brad Kuhn of the FSF writes on
his Lessig's
Challenge page:
It's hard to think of people who've done more for the FSF than Brad Kuhn
or Eben Moglen. But even they are donating money. That's amazing!
Together, we are powerful. Don't underestimate the power of a simple idea
with a catchy name.
Whew! It's be a crazy couple of days since my
Lessig's Challenge page went up
on Slashdot. It was posted in the early morning so the number of hits
wasn't what it could've been (Most of my co-workers didn't even see it). I
hesitate to think what my inbox would look like if it'd been posted at
noon.
That Slashdot story was one week to the day after an FSF fund-raiser in Boston, where I watched Eben Moglen (who gives many hours of volunteer time a week to FSF) write a $20,000 check to the Foundation. After all this, I knew that simply donating time -- however substantial -- was not enough.
Posted at 00:21
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Supporting the Rebel Alliance Jarrett is an old debating colleague of mine from back in high
school. Seeing my page on Slashdot compelled him to write this essay.
Online privacy is an oxymoron at best. Our data is no more secure
online than the size of the cluster required to break it. And we have
no excuse or reason to complain or whine about our lack of online privacy.
We have reached an interesting point where, the internet community can
not be shut down or voted out because of the DMCA or other associated
bills. In fact Gnutella servers thrive across the Internet in spite
of copyright law, fair use provisions and the DMCA.
Lessig's challenge is flawed in the belief that single points of
challenge hold sway over the future of the Internet. They do not.
Let us say, hypothetically, pictures of Bill Gates are banned by the
government. This will not prevent thousands (more than effectively
punishable) of enthusiasts from posting Bill Gates pictures on their
sites in response.
The Internet is effectively its' own social structure. No more is
online freedom a question of government, it's a practical fact. You
cannot punish tens of thousands of people with imprisonment for one crime.
Software like Freenet directly inhibit enforcement of 'unjust'
legislation. If Dmitri Sklyarov had used Freenet and simply referred
to the anonymous node, he would not have landed in jail.
The most effective way to get legislation overturned is to prove its
inadequacy. Demonstrating that is harder than sending ten dollars to
the EFF. In fact that is almost pointless.
If you want to save your online freedoms, use the software that
secures them en masse. Freenet, PGP and other free software is a
better target of your money than a PAC or the digital equivalent of
the ACLU.
I would rather see one million people using PGP than one million
contributing to the EFF. Supporting the Rebel Alliance (EFF/GPL) is
sometimes not nearly as effective as paying lip service to the Empire
and reaping the rewards of doing so.
If the open source community truly desires freedom, they will chuck
Stallman off the cliff. His mindless bantering about GNU and the GPL
causes businesses to turn away from free software and the secure
benefits it brings.
By simply using one piece of software over another you can provide a
de facto public response to legislation. If you don't like the DMCA,
request a company like TIVO to manufacture products that allow you to
backup your DVD's. Commerce is the one area that willingly breaks the
law to encourage litigation and have the legislation reworked.
A chorus of voices are more powerful than two litigators and a judge
in a back room deciding the fate of the land.
By Jarrett Wold (indented comments by Luke Francl)
This is neither here nor there.
I suggest you read Lessig's book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace for the reasons why this argument is not true. In short, just because the internet is architected in a way that makes control hard now does not mean it always will be. Consider, for example, Microsoft's Palladium DRM scheme.
My idea of a challenge is more akin to thousands of people posting contraband photos of Bill Gates than it is to government control. It's a decentralized effort to support organizations and individuals who will further the fight against the forces of centralization and control of the net.
This argument won't help you if the government or the RIAA choses to make an example of you (consider the Navy midshipmen who were busted this week for file sharing).
Nor would his company have made any money selling their software.
Also, Freenet has serious technical problems as a workable anonymous caching service. See: http://pl.atyp.us/content/tech/freenet_fiq.html
The battle for control of the internet has not yet been won or lost. That's what my challenge is about.
There is no reason why one cannot do both things.
I have donated to the Freenet project before. Have you? No one is forcing you to donate to anyone. I merely give a list of suggestions. The idea of the challenge still stands: are you giving more money to people who want to destroy the internet than you are to the people who are trying to save it?
Again, there is no reason why you cannot do both.
This is also neither here nor there.
And who do you think provides legal support for the TIVOs of the world when they get sued by the MPAA? The EFF.
See: http://www.craigslist.org/about/craig.vs.hollywood.html
Which is exactly the point of Lessig's Challenge. Instead of being so self-assured, you can help determine the future of the net supporting the organizations and individuals who care about its future.
You can also read my post, "To my doubters": http://justlooking.recursion.org/2002/Nov/25#on-slashdot
Posted at 00:19
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Nick Mark on Katherine Kersten Hopefully the Star Tribune will publish his piece.
Speaking of which, there was a
hilarious letter to
the editor today about Kersten's piece. I include it below because of the
Strib's link-breaking policies.
Nick Mark emailed me regarding
my recent
discussion of Katerine Kersten's
opinion piece about
campus liberalism. He wrote a
very nice counterpoint to
her editorial:
Kersten seems to claim that to "adopt a reflexive skepticism about America's role in the world" is to be brainwashed by the political left. So we'd be balanced and open-minded to adopt a reflexive credulity? How would that further anyone's intellectual development? "[T]o analyze American society through the lens of race, class and gender," it seems, is to kowtow to lefty ideologies. No question of what conclusion your analysis arrives at . simply accepting that those aspects of society are important and informative analytical elements is indicative of "ideological imbalance." Please. Kersten is not, as she claims to be, arguing for "unrestricted critical investigation," of which skepticism is a necessary part. Rather, she seems to want an academy that serves right-wing instead of left-wing ideologies, and she's using intellectually dishonest tactics to argue for it. It's the same method that worked so well to create the "liberal media bias" myth, and it's crap.
I had to laugh out loud when I read the Nov. 22 letter from a reader asking, "If most professors who have been lecturing for years really do have the power to indoctrinate students with a leftist ideology, then where did all the Republican voters on Nov. 5 come from?"
The most obvious answer? The voters clearly were not very well-educated. Some of us have been saying that about Republicans for years.
-- Kirsten Cackoski, Minneapolis.
Posted at 23:40
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Save Joey's Christmas!
My friend Joey de Villa is in a tough spot. He's
unemployed and owed hundreds of dollars by dead-beat roommate(s). To help
save Joey's Christmas, he's
selling off dozens of
computer books from said roommate(s) at cut rate prices. So do yourself a
favor by getting some sweet, cheap books while doing him a favor.
Posted at 10:54
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I'm on Slashdot! Now there's dozens of highly rated flames attacking my idea. Awesome.
To my doubters: This isn't about a fundraising drive for the EFF (though I
think you should join. Did you know the EFF only has 7,000 members? You
can make your voice heard in the way the EFF operates if you join). It
isn't about me buying cool stuff and writing it off as hurting the MPAA.
It's about supporting a different way to do things than the MPAA and RIAA.
They want to lock up content and charge you every time you view it. They
want to prevent you from viewing DVDs on Linux. And we help them do it.
Every time you buy a CD, every time you go to a movie, you help them take
away your freedom.
It's time to fight back. We can fight back not only by giving money to the
EFF and the ACLU and the Free Software Foundation and Digital Consumer --
orgainizations which will fight against the media oligarchy -- but also by
helping those artists and programmers who are outside the system. If they
can make a living without turning to the RIAA or MPAA, the media oligarchy
will not survive for long.
I'm not asking you to boycott these orgainizations entirely because it's
not really plausable. Everyone likes to go see a movie now and then,
everyone likes to listen to the radio or buy a few CDs. What I'm
challenging you to do is to keep track of how much you're giving to the
oligarchy (to take away your freedom) and counter that with a donation to
people who will fight against that.
Here are a few suggestions:
The list goes on and on.
Christ, I wake up and check my email and it turns out my
Lessig Challenge page is on
Slashdot! Erik submitted
the link.
Posted at 10:55
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Zooko and Joey DNS: MIA Hm...
Both Zooko and Joey "Accordion Guy" de Villa's DNS records have gone MIA.
Joey's webpage now tells you to open a trouble
ticket with "Water Element Network", which is not his hosting company.
Zooko's DNS is just gone, even though he renewed it in August.
Posted at 19:40
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Bond and LOTR I've also been watching the new Lord of the Rings trailer. Oh, man, I want
to see that now. My friends and I have tickets for the midnight showing.
Yes.
From the trailer, it looks like this is the movie where Arwen's increased
role will be apparent. I'm fine with that, because the subtext was there
in the book. Otherwise, the things that made the first movie so good are
still there, the gorgeous New Zealand landscapes, the amazing special
effects, the drama, the faithfulness to the book. I can't wait.
I saw the new Bond movie last night. It's worth seeing. I thought it was
way better than Tomorrow Never Dies, which was the last Bond movie I saw.
Posted at 11:49
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Lessig's Challenge Lessig's Challenge is my new
website to track these donations.
My purpose is not only to fight Big Content, but to foster a gift economy
where people really can make money for their hard work. The majors want to
lock us up into their "trusted", DRM system. We need to fight against them
technically, with better P2P tools; we need to fight against them in the
market, by refusing to buy DRM products; we need to fight against them in
the legislature, by lobbying our representatives; and finally, we need to
co-opt the majors' niche by creating an alternative gift economy without
the middleman.
You can help. Donate money to your favorite open source project or
website. Give money to the EFF or ACLU (or both!). Buy a t-shirt from an
online comic strip or musician. Will you take
Lessig's Challenge?
At the 2002 Open Source Convention, Lawrence Lessig
issued a challenge to the audience: spend more money fighting the RIAA
and MPAA than you do helping them by buying their products. I've
accepted that challenge. For the last four months, I've been making
donations to orgainizations which fight for freedom and open source
programmers and purchasing things from online artists who could use the
cash.
Posted at 02:25
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Free Pepper Yup, some folks are trying to free the source
code to Pepper, and I'd like to help them. Not because I use Pepper, but
because I want to see these Blender-style
source buyouts succeed. It's proof of concept for the
gift economy.
Yes, the Free Pepper website kind of sucks. Erik of infoAnarchy
criticized it as
"bland and uniformative" and several posters on the
OS News board said much
the same thing. But since he posted that story, Free Pepper has added
Pepper demos for 3 platforms and noted what license they'll be releasing
Pepper under if they succeed (BSD/MIT-style, a wise choice). Now they just
need to make a progress meter like Blender had, put it somewhere visible
and publicize the hell out of it.
Oh, and maybe some proof that they're not out just to rip people off...
< wmf> <Look> "I am Look,
affiliated with the late Martin Hekkelman,
lead programmer of the democratic republic of
Pepper. I urgently need your assistance in recovering some source
code..."
Posted at 00:26
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Lazy Friday Links Mike Hatch: A
wrongful 'need to know'. Minnesota's attorney general takes on the
Information Awareness Office.
Katherine Kersten of Minneapolis's own Cato-clone, the
Center of the American Experiment wrote an
opinion piece for
the Star Tribune on Thursday bashing the liberal bias of American
universities. But today's
Letters to the
Editor took her down a notch. Kate Mudge of Minneapolis writes, "Not only
does Kersten cite notoriously liberal schools to prove her 'point' (Brown,
University of California at Santa Barbara) that all liberal academics are
out to promote their 'liberal orthodoxy,' but she herself makes a
ridiculous claim that it is the conservative worldview that is most
concerned about freedom of religion, speech and civic virtue." No kidding!
My favorite economist/pundit, Paul Krugman wrote an excellent article
Victors and Spoils about the
real story behind Bush's plan to cut 850,000 federal jobs.
Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one concerned about Bush being openly
compared to Andrew Jackson, one of the most corrupt and ignorant
presidents of the 19th century.
Sheldon Drobny, Salon:
What would
Moses drive?. Jews used their economic power to punish German and
Japanese car companies after World War II (and Ford, too, because Henry
Ford was a racist fuck). Drobny suggests it's time to do the same for
gas-guzzling SUVs. "I'm sure there are plenty of Jews who send money to
Israel, and then turn around and send money to its enemies, every time
they fill up their SUVs with gas....I hope other Jews will join me. It's
nice to have no guilt about subsidizing Islamic fundamentalists, or
ruining the environment, either." That's a great idea. And it's good to
see boycotts as a serious part of capitalism, too. Labor unions and
consumer boycotts help keep corporate power in check.
TeleRead has some
great stuff
about poor kids who grow up in book-rich households. Here's a hint:
they're more likely to succeed.
Tom Tomorrow has a weblog: This Modern
World. I've checked it out before, but I think I might start reading it.
I can't find an RSS feed for it, unfortunately.
The Singularity
When I read about the Singularity (the idea that technology is advancing
exponentially and will continue to do so until it reaches a point where it
instataneously surpasses our ability to understand it), I can't help but
think of the parallels with religion. There is a huge leap of faith to
believe that progress is always positive and always increasing. There's a
further leap of faith to believe that AI or brain replication will enable
humans to make the jump into the enhanced, sped-up conciousness that the
Singularity demands to maintain its progress. The evidence that this is
possible just isn't there. It makes great, entertaining fiction (some of
my favorite SF books, including Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series, deal
with the Singularity; and of course the concept was invented by SF author
Vernor Vinge). But I don't believe it for a minute.
Slashdot recently had a story about
some people who want to build an interstellar lifeboat for humanity to
preserve some vestige of humanity from the Singularity.
A comment by Artifice_Eternity just nails it:
The "Singularity" =
the Rapture for atheists. "I like Vinge's fiction, but the Singularity
thing strikes me as an apocalyptic/transcendent/eschatological scenario
for people who can't stomach the Book of Revelation."
AP News:
Appeals court upholds Louisiana's 197-year-old law against oral and anal
sex. Morons.
Kevin Burton:
Emacs Needs Floating Windows (Advanced Tooltips for IntelliSense
Support). Preach it, brother! This is the only feature of IDEs that I
miss in Emacs.
Some worthwhile links for today...
In the face of budget deficits as far as the eye can see, the administration...must make a show of cutting spending. Yet what can it cut? The great bulk of public spending is either for essential services like defense and the justice system, or for middle-class entitlements like Social Security and Medicare...Privatizing federal jobs is a perfect answer to this dilemma. It's not a real answer -- the pay of those threatened employees is only about 2 percent of the federal budget, so efficiency gains from privatization ... will make almost no dent in overall spending. For a few years, however, talk of privatization will give the impression that the administration is doing something about the deficit.
Posted at 23:25
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My First Word Unmunger Comment That's the kind of thing that makes you feel good.
I just got my first comment about the
Word Unmunger: This is a
beautiful thing. Thank you!
Posted at 16:20
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DayPop is Back! I wonder why DayPop went down. In my imagination, I think it would've been
really cool if they simply went down to study what the Blogsphere is like
without DayPop constantly reporting the top links. There must be a
feedback loop. For example, I try not to make my weblog a constant copy of
the DayPop Top 40, but I've found a few stories of interest there. What
was the difference when that feedback loop didn't exist?
My news aggregator suddenly started reporting results from
DayPop again today. It's been patiently asking for
DayPop's RSS feed for the last few weeks as DNS lookup failed over and
over again. But today it was welcomed by the bitstream of fresh RSS
goodness. A short message on DayPop's homepage says simply: "Daypop is up
and running again. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Posted at 15:59
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Java 1.5 (Tiger) Information The standard list of new features in Java Tiger is generics, enumerations
(yeah!), autoboxing of primitive types so they can be added to
collections, Collection iteration like a "for each" construct (very
welcome), Doug Lea's conncurrency library, and better graphics libraries.
Unfortunately, it seems that a better Calendar class has been
rejected by
the Tiger steering commitee.
Here's some information about what will be in Java 1.5:
Java 1.5? --
This thread on the Java Developer Connection has some good explaination of
what Java 1.5's new features mean.
From Mantis to Tiger
-- a maketriod summary of the new features of Java 2 Platform, Standard
Edition(TM) 1.5(TM) "Tiger"(TM).
Interview with Joshua Bloch from Feburary 2002. This includes some
questions about Java 1.5, but it was a long time ago so Josh wasn't
certain what would be ready for inclusion yet.
Java Specification Request 175 "A
Metadata Facility for the JavaTM Programming Language" describes what the
new metadata features of Java 1.5 will be. I'm still a little hazy on how
this will work, but a
thread on Lambda the Ultimate and
The Server
Side helped clear it up for me.
JSR 014 "Add Generic Types To The
Java Programming Language". According to the
Generic Java page, "Sun has put
forward a proposal to Add Generic Types To The Java Programming
Language...GJ is one of the leading proposals being considered. The
process is spearheaded by Gilad Bracha, one of the GJ designers." Back in
Feburary, Josh Bloch said in his interview: "[I]t looks like we'll get
something very similar to gj." I'm unsure if this is still true.
Overview of package util.concurrent Release 1.3.1 from Doug Lea. Lea is
the author of Conncurrent Programming in Java.
JSR 166 "Concurrency Utilities"
is based on util.concurrent.
Java 1.5 (codenamed Tiger) is the next major release of the Java language.
Tiger is scheduled for release sometime in the second half of 2003.
There's going to be some really exiting stuff in this release, but it's
hard to find details.
Posted at 15:29
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Rock & Roll
So I'm riding the bus to work today, and I sit next to this older lady,
maybe in her 60s. And she's sitting there reading the latest issue of
Rock & Roll. I think to myself, "that's pretty cool."
Posted at 10:06
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Microsoft Word Unmunger Enjoy. And send bug reports to look@recursion.org.
I'm pleased to announce the release of the
Microsoft Word Unmunger,
a small Python program to remove cruft from Microsoft Word 2002's HTML
output (
Freshmeat page). It removes XML namespace declarations, smart tags, meta
tags, HTML comments, style sheets, DIVs, the file list, CSS classes, and
Office grammar and spelling error markers -- perfect for making Microsoft
Word-produced HTML hand-editable. The Word Unmunger is released under the
permissive MIT License.
Posted at 01:57
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Buy Bush a PS2! Why? I think the reasons are obvious:
While I doubt Mr. Bush will ever even see his new PS2, this site is a
hilarious use of the internet for devistating political satire: "We ask
that you accept these gifts and use them, rather than the lives of Iraqi
civilians and our U.S. servicemen, to fulfill any militaristic fantasies."
I hope it works.
The Buy Bush a PlayStation 2
Campaign has succeeded in raising the $370 necessary to buy President
George Bush a PS2, two military-themed games "to suit his apparent taste"
and "an extra controller for Mr. Cheney's use".
As I sat pondering the President's motives one day, it suddenly dawned on me that it is entirely likely our Commander in Chief has never played a single video game in his life. "Of course!" I exclaimed, startling mygirlfriend, who was driving at the time. "Without the catharsis that video games provide, Bush has no way of fulfilling his militaristic fantasies other than actually fighting wars."
Posted at 22:24
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A classy logo for Free Software Hello.
You have no doubt seen the recently adopted Open Source Initiative "OSI
Certified" logo for software projects which use open source licenses. If
not, you can find an example of the OSI Certified graphic at http://opensource.org/trademarks/osi-certified/web/osi-certified-120x100.png
and instructions for its use at http://opensource.org/trademarks/ .
I find the the OSI Certified mark distinguished and visually pleasing.
It's clear keyhole symbolism reflects the ideals of the open source
movement. However, as a proud
free software developer, I would like to be able to display a similar
graphic on my free software programs. Perhaps there could be two versions,
one which proclaims that the software is "Free Software", and another
which complements that with "GPL Compatable". Any project that adheres to
the FSF's list of free
software licenses could use the logo.
What do you think of this idea?
I just sent the following email to gnu@gnu.org. Perhaps I should've also
sent it to RMS himself to make sure someone reads it, but I imagine he
gets enough email as it is. Comments on the idea are welcome.
Posted at 21:44
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Some Links from Planetizen Portland's streetcars
get C-U wheels turning: "If renaissance and streetcar in the same
sentence appears to be an overstatement, consider this Portland statistic:
The streetcar triggered $1.5 billion in new construction along its line,
boosting property taxes 40 percent." The Twin Cities once had an extensive
street car system, stretching from Lake Minnetonka in the west to
Stillwater in the east. It was ripped up in pique of crony capitalism in
the 1950s. We could -- and should -- rebuild it.
Lessons in
suburban sprawl: "Laurence Aurbach, a new urbanist and geographer from
the University of Maryland, identified key characteristics of the suburban
landscape that seemed to abet the sniper and prevent law enforcement from
detecting and capturing him." When I first heard about the DC sniper
capping people at gas stations, I wondered if he wasn't a pissed-off New
Urbanist with a score to settle...
Going
for a Sunday Drive. What would Jesus Drive? Christianity as environmental
activism. I just think this article is funny.
Island cities
planned off Israel's coast: "Two artificial islands, each a
square-kilometre in size, could soon be given the go-ahead for
construction off Israel's Mediterranean coast. One would house a new
international airport, the other a new city of homes and businesses." This
reminds me of those crackpot libertarian
schemes to build island nations out in the middle of the Caribbean.
Revving Up Their Engines Against SUVs. Describes Arianna Huffington's
SUV parody of the government's anti-drug ads which say drug money funds
terrorism. You can get much the same effect by purchasing the
Thank you for financing global terror
sticker.
Twentieth Century Architecture as a Cult
by Nikos A. Salingaros. "How
does the architectural profession so successfully repel attempts at
reform? I believe that the answer is to be found in a system phenomenon.
Architecture is a cult..." Salingaros is one of Christopher Alexander's
colleagues. [Note: this essay will probably move to http://www.intbau.org/essay3.htm as soon as INTBAU puts up another essay].
I just caught up with my Planetizen reading.
Here are some of the interesting articles I found.
Posted at 23:17
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Addicted to Tetris When I was in high school, I used to dream about playing Doom, but I've
never dreamed about such a "boring" game as Tetris. It's a truly amazing
game.
I was recently introduced to Tetrinet by a
co-worker. Tetrinet a multiplayer online tetris games which supports up to
6 players. Ever since, I've been addicted to Tetris. I play Tetrinet at
home, play Tetris on my Treo, and lately, I've even started dreaming about
tetris. I think it's fair to say that I'm addicted to tetris.
Posted at 20:49
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Dinosaurs!
I love dinosaurs. Dinosauricon is a cool
site which loads of dinosaur information and
images (warning: that page has a huge
number of large images on it). Check out the
art gallery for an orgainized
listing.
Posted at 15:03
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Scientia Est Potentia The Information Awareness Office is a DARPA
agency with a
freakishly Orwellian/Illuminatus logo (the eye in the pryamid is watching
over the world) and the motto Scientia Est Potentia: Knowledge Is Power.
The man who heads this office is John Poindexter, who orchestrated the
Iran-Contra affair for Reagan. Do you want him in charge of your privacy?
More Links from Politech
Pentagon wants a "Big Brother"
supercomputer, from NYT
Pentagon's Big Brother computer:
Echelon on steroids?
Washington Post:
U.S.
Hopes to Check Computers Globally
William Saffire (a man with whom I do not often agree) has an excellent
editorial in todays New York Times about the Information Awareness Office
which will be granted amazing powers by the Homeland Security Act:
You Are a Suspect.
Posted at 12:12
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A better way to vote
Star Tribune editorial:
Instant runoff: It's
a better way to vote.
Posted at 10:45
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Fixed RSS Links
Thanks to Ry4an for pointing out that the links to
weblog entries in my RSS feed were broken. I have fixed the problem.
Posted at 16:43
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Know Your Place! Shut Your Face!
Know Your Place! Shut
Your Face! is a collection of doctored propaganda posters in support of
the War on Terror by Micah Ian Wright. My
favorite is
Ashcroft...you're next!. You can also
buy them, but it's
CafePress so I'm a little worried about the quality. 300 by 500 pixel
images don't expand well into 20 by 14 inch posters...
Posted at 14:30
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Strange Anniversary Today was a strange anniversary for me because my boss and one of my
co-workers were both fired. I don't know why the management picked today.
It's neither the end of our pay period nor the end of the week. We were
all pretty shocked about the announcement. I don't think anyone knew what
was going on. My boss was pretty well liked among the developers and now
we are unsure what is going to happen. His replacement starts Monday.
Morale, of course, went through the roof.
As of today, I've worked at Ancept for over one
year. I believe I actually started on November 5th, 2001.
Posted at 22:40
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Elections and Third Parties Here's some links of interest.
Sadly prophetic:
Green Party - Dem nightmare.
Two pieces which discuss "fusion voting":
AlterNet: Politcal
Dreaming: If Only the Democrats Were Better.
Brett Bursey: Is South
Carolina ready for a progressive third-party?
TomPaine.com: 2002 Results
Underscore Need For Major Election Reforms.
If Democrats want to stop losing elections, I think they need to enact
fusion, approval, or instant runoff voting in as many places as possible.
Major parties have traditionally opposed these much-needed reforms, but in
Minnesota the DFL is being hurt, bad, by centrist and progressive third
parties. Maybe they will consider reforms. More info about alternative
voting systems at the Center for Voting and
Democracy.
And as for growing a spine, Joseph Duemer proposes a
lexicon for
Democrats: "...Policy of endless war, Where is Bin Ladin? How come the
good guys in Afghanistan don't control much more than Kabul? Warlords. A
woman's right to choose. The discredited War on Drugs."
Well, as you can imagine I'm pretty upset with the outcome of the election
nation-wide and here in Minnesota. My only consolation is that if the
Republicans screw up, they'll have no one to blame but themselves, and
maybe being in the minority will cause Democrats to grow a spine.
Posted at 22:10
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Tuesday, November 6th 2002 If Microsoft Had
Written Nmap [via #infoanarchy]
Paul Krugman is hated in much of
the conservative blogosphere because he's a member of that rare species:
eloquent liberal economists. I often see his articles in the New York
Times linked to from various sites, but I rarely read them because they
are locked up behind the Times's foul registration system. Today I found
his homepage and I've been happily reading his insights for some time.
Krugman has
Even better is the Unofficial Paul Krugman
Archive which seems to have a copy of, or link to, just about everything
he's ever written. If your leanings are liberal, conservative, or
libertarian, his site is worth a visit.
Here are some interesting pieces:
The Daily Howler reminds me of
the cross between MediaWhoresOnline and
Spinsanity.
Here are my quick links for today.
Posted at 19:40
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Gay Sheep On the one hand, it would be nice to have conclusive proof that
homosexuality is not a choice, but instead is an inate characteristic.
This would not sway the hard-liners, but I think a majority of people
would agree that gays deserve equal protection under the laws including
the right to marry, adopt children, recieve domestic benefits, and be
protected from discrimination in the workplace.
On the other hand, if research determines the cause of homosexuality, it
may be possible to genetically screen homosexuals from the population.
However you feel about gays, you probably agree that eugenics is not
acceptable.
The CNN article mentions that the scientist believes exposure to hormones
while still in the womb is what causes differences in sexual preference.
Just watch -- the cause of homosexuality won't turn out to be genetic.
It'll be that your mom ate too many Doritos or something.
I've read that homosexuality has been observed in dozens of animal
species. CNN is reporting that scientists studying gay sheep have found
Gay sheep may shed light on sexuality).
Posted at 11:29
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Vote Today! I know that voting doesn't make a very big difference in the way our
country is run. But some time ago, I realized that voting is easy and it
doesn't hurt, either. This year's close elections (including Minnesota)
are all going to come down to get out the vote, possibly decided by a few
thousand votes. Make yours count.
If you live in the USA, please get out and vote today. Many states will
allow you to take off work to do this (Minnesota even allows you to do so
with pay).
Posted at 11:07
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Where Spam Goes to Die Since 1998, the FTC has been archiving every email sent to their spam
reporting email address, uce@fcc.gov.
However the volume of the spam received is now so high that the FCC is
considering getting rid of the database.
Unfortunately, the FCC says they can't share the database due to privacy
constraints. But maybe they could share word count statistics from their
corpus...
Wired News: FTC:
Where Spam Goes Off to Die.
Posted at 10:40
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Huh?
Posted at 11:39
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Decentralized Policing I'd like to defend my opinion and show how I think it differs from
informant programs like TIPS.
One concept I'll turn to is David Brin's
Transparent Society. I disagree
that we should have monitoring in every area of private life because I do
not think that will encourage freedom (see
A Watched Populance Never
Boils by Brad Templeton). However, I believe that it is unavoidable that
acts which occur in public will be recorded -- often by the actors
themselves. Therefore government activities, reports, meeting notes, laws,
debates, court documents, and so on should all be part of the public
record; and the public facade of people's lives should not be assumed to
be private. If it is in view, someone can take a picture of it with a
digital camera and post it on the web. And there's nothing wrong with
that.
That brings me to the difference between recording public activities and
informant programs. The fundamental difference is that informants cannot
be verified. They give the police a tip, and the cops break down your door
and take all your stuff whether you're guilty or not. This promotes a
culture of fear and resentment which is not healthy for an open society
like ours. Sadly, we already see this in America with our unfair "War
against Drugs". Now, with the equally open-ended "War against Terrorism",
Bush has proposed a similar system called
Operation TIPS. I am completely
opposed to this. Certainly, people should record and report suspicious
activity. But recruiting a corps of citizen informers is beyond the pale.
Compare informants to the California
Coastal Records Project. The information CCRP is collecting is all in the
public view. It's only now that technology has reached a point where the
entire coastline of a state could be photographed and archived. And as
technology advances further, CCRP will re-run their survey and
Californians will be able to see how their coastline is faring -- and do
something about it.
Ry4an rightly took me to task over my advocacy of
decentralized policing, also known as turning in your neighbor.
Posted at 10:58
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Sorry about all the political stuff Our regularly-scheduled program will return shortly after the election.
To my non-Minnesota, non-American, non-interested readers: sorry for all
the political stuff. When I started this weblog, I told myself it wouldn't
get into politics. I'd just use it to talk about cool tech and promote
some of my own projects. However, I've never been so wrapped up in an
election before. I think this one is critical, and I am doing everything I
can to make sure the Republicans to not get the chance to take away more
civil liberties or kill more people abroad. Having a weblog just makes me
want to write about the things I care about, and right now, that's
politics.
Posted at 10:22
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Lazy Sunday News The California Costal Records
Project is a super cool site in in the spirit of
Scorecard. A husband and wife team are flying
in a helicopter along the California coastline from Oregon to Mexico and
photographing the whole coast with a digital camera and GPS. They'll use
the records as historical data for what the coastline looked like and
enforcement of environmental laws. If you visit the site you can look up
any location along the California coast. And if you know California law,
you can help spot abusers and turn them in! Decentralized policing -- I
love it.
The author
Secrets of the Tomb (and, apparently,
total hottie), Alexandra Robbins posted to the
Democratic Underground forums (DU is sort of like Free Republic for
liberals. I recently discovered it.). Secrets of the Tomb is one of the
books on my "too read" list. It's about the Skull and Bones secret society
which three generations of the Bush family have belonged to. Robbins was
able to get unprecidented access to the Skull and Bones.
I mentioned instant runoff voting a few days ago. This week's Science
News has a
good article on the different kinds of voting systems. It's a
good introduction. It points out that no system can be perfect (it's been
proven mathematically) but all experts agree that any system is better
than the plurality system the US has now. I think it's crucial for third
parties (Libertarians and Greens) to support ballot initiatives in the
states which allow them to switch to IRV or "fusion voting" (where a
canidate can be on the ballot multiple times for more than one party) if
they want to stay relevant. With the plurality voting we have now is just
too hard to get elected.
I tought this Pioneer Press story was amusing:
Tough to fight a legend: "Whoever wins the election Tuesday, Mondale's
place in the pantheon is secure. The next U.S. senator from Minnesota will
go to work each day at the U.S. Capitol, passing by a marble bust of
Walter F. Mondale." Hah!
I got into a discussion about wind turbines with my friend
Ry4an so I thought I'd post an article I read about
the subject recently:
Fossil Fools. "America is the Persian Gulf of wind. The Energy Department
estimates that wind in the Dakotas alone could meet two-thirds of
America's electricity needs..." In the name of fairness, here is a
position paper against alternative power sources:
Electicity from
Coal is Essential.
Here's a few cool things I've come across in the last few days.
Posted at 23:32
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Draft Boards Being Formed? This is totally unacceptable. Vote on November 5th.
Reigme change begins at home.
The Journal News:
Selective
Service System seeks draft board members: "The state headquarters of the
Selective Service System is searching for men and women to serve on draft
boards..."
Posted at 22:46
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About the Wellstone Memorial I left work early to attend the memorial. I first went to the book store
to pick up some reading material so I wouldn't be bored waiting for the
memorial to start. I got on the jam-packed bus to the University. After a
few stops, no one else was let onboard. I was glad to have a book to read
on the long, stuffy ride. But the delay of picking them out probably
prevented me from getting a seat in Williams Arena. I was about 15 minutes
too late for that. We were directed to overflow seating in a building next
door where 4 large screens had been put up to show the memeorial.
Fortunately I was able to get a seat there. Others weren't so lucky and
hundreds watched from outside in the cold. Essentially, I watched it on TV
-- with one minor difference: I was with about 8,000 other people.
The first thing people seem to jump on is the booing of Trent Lott. That's
because it's the easiest to attack. This was clearly wrong and I did not
participate (honestly, I didn't recognize Senator Lott). I was happy that
Republican politicians came to honor a man whom they disagreed with, but
respected. Wellstone counted many of them as friends and worked with them
to secure legislation a number of times.
The second thing that I've heard a number of times is the idea that the
audience was instructed to applaud; that the memorial was somehow
scripted. This is completely untrue. The so-called "applause" message was
actually the close-captioned text for those who are deaf. It actually said
"[ LOUD CHEERS & APPLAUSE ]" or "[ APPLAUSE ]". In fact, it was clear that
the memorial was not scripted by the number of atrocious spelling spelling
mistakes that scrolled by on the screen (one of the most amusing turned
"Jesse Helms" into "Jesse Helps"...not exactly what most people in
attendence think about him).
Finally, people are attacking Rick Kahn for his speech (one Democrat on
the Strib's message board called it "the Wrath of Kahn" -- heh). Kahn was
over the top and many of us felt uncomfortable with where he was going.
But we went along with him because we want Wellstone's replacement (since
confirmed to be Mondale) to carry on his legacy. "Stand up and fight" was
the theme of Wellstone's campaign and the memorial service. I laughed when
Kahn started naming Republicans and asking them to support Wellstone's
replacement: "Yeah, right." He was clearly emotional, his voice nearly
cracking. The one positive thing about Kahn's speech is how Representive
Jim Ramstad, who was specifically singled out by Kahn, has
responded:
Is it any wonder people got "carried away"? People loved that man. I
think this is what many Republicans are upset with. There were more than
20,000 people who ready to hear that Paul's legacy would not be forgotten.
And they got what they came for. There was such incredible energy there.
What did people expect to happen? Wellstone was a controversial,
passionate, political man. So was his family, and so are his supporters.
We aren't ashamed of Wellstone being a "true DFL liberal". Doug Grow has a
column in the Star
Tribune that sums up how I feel about this: "[F]or the most part,
Wellstone followers acted as we'd expect Tuesday night. And Republicans
have been acting as you'd expect them to act ever since....[W]henever the
subject has been Wellstone, Minnesotans never have been indifferent."
Will the memorial-turned-rally hurt the Democrats in the election? We'll
see. It may. A lot of people are very angry about it. But I think
something Paul Wellstone taught us is not to worry too much about public
opinion. Speak from the heart, never mind the consequences.
I attended the Wellstone memorial/rally on Tuesday. It's since become
controversial (though reading the
Star
Tribune message board is reminding me of that saying, "Arguing on the
internet is like being in the Special Olymics. Even if you win, you're
still a retard") , so I'd like to share my thoughts about it.
I think it's unfortunate that a memorial service has become a center of controversy. Last night was about paying our final respects to six wonderful people and beloved Minnesotans who perished in a terrible tragedy. That was where my focus was.
People get carried away sometimes with emotions. We all get carried away sometimes with emotions. Just let it be.
Posted at 00:47
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Spam Assassin to get Bayesian spam filtering I've been saving my spam for the last couple months so I can use Bayesian
spam filtering. Maybe I will end up using Spam Assassin after all.
I'm still considering going to the Spam
Conference. I'm not sure if it would be worth it for a non-developer. I'd
be attending as a journalist/weblogger, and to learn the best way to run a
small conference like Spam Conference or Lightweight Languages
Workshop( LL1, LL2). I'm
considering hosting a small workshop on the gift economy and voluntary
payments.
The 2.5 version of Spam Assassin is going to
include
Bayesian spam filtering. This is very good news!
Posted at 15:39
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R.I.P. Paul Wellstone, 1944-2002 I was unable to concentrate at work all day yesterday. I couldn't believe
it. I hadn't felt like that since September 11th. Today was just as bad.
As I read more peoples' recollections of Wellstone, I realized what a
terrible loss this was.
Wellstone was one of the few politicans I could feel really good about
voting for. He cast some votes I disagreed with, for the anti-gay Defense
of Marriage Act, the DMCA, the Patriot Act, and others. But by and large,
I knew that he would look out for my interests and civil liberties. Often,
he cast the sole dissenting vote against bad laws. He was the only Senator
running for re-election to vote against Bush's Iraq resolution.
It made me proud to have a Senator who ruffled so many conservative
feathers, who consistently voted and acted for what he believed in. I was
looking forward to voting for him in November. The only thing we can do
now is keep Wellstone's ideals alive. In his final campain ad, Wellstone
said: "I don't represent the big oil companies, I don't represent the big
pharmaceutical companies, I don't represent the Enrons of this world. But
you know what, they already have great representation in Washington.
It's the rest of the people that need it. I represent the people of
Minnesota."
We'll miss you, Paul. But we'll keep fighting. I know it's what you
would've wanted.
Paul Wellstone, Minnesota's outspoken progressive senator died in a plane
crash Friday along with his wife and daughter. I found out yesterday at
work, after a meeting. One of my coworkers was listening to streaming
radio. He said, "Some woman thinks the Green Party killed Wellstone." I
replied, "Pttff! Why?" That's when I found out he'd been killed.
Posted at 18:37
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Funding Free Software We need a sustainable way to fund free software development. If developers
could make money -- even a little money -- writing free/open source
software, not only would there be more a lot more free software, but the
objections of commerical developers would be silenced and software
innovation would flurish.
Lessig continues with this teaser:
Yes, indeed. I know of some efforts here (including some I'm doing
myself). The project which is furthest off the ground is BerliOS's
SourceAgency. There should be some
very exciting developments in the next year. If you want to keep up to
date, check out Potlatch's gift economy
coverage. And if you know what Professor Fisher is working on, email me:
look@recursion.org.
Larry Lessig posted some commentary about the criticism by some
proprietary software developers to the OSAF announcement:
Is
there any vice in free code?. These developers are concerned that open
source kills commerical software opportunities. Don Park has written quite
a bit on this topic
( Free Software
Kills Markets,
Mitch Kapor's
OSAF,
Double-Edged Sword). Lessig hits the nail right on the head when he
writes:
If there were a way to assure coders -- especially independent coders -- got paid even though the source of their code was open, then it would be hard to oppose open code. And while it might seem odd to imagine how that is possible, we should recognize that our economy already has about a billion ways in which it secures payment to creators without locking up the creativity. Some of those would be bad (moving music back to the patronage system, for example); but not all of these would be bad. And if we could devise a way for coders to get paid, including coders independent of companies like IBM, while allowing the source code to be free, then this legitimate concern of good-souled skeptics could be met.
Professor Terry Fisher is devising such a technique in the context of music. Pester him to publish, because it is truly brilliant. Equivalent geniuses should be crafting a similarly brilliant solution for code.
Posted at 22:10
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Instant Runoff Voting in Action
I recieved a ballot for the co-op I belong to today. My co-op gives grants
from its after-tax profits to non-partisian, non-sectarian orgainizations
which further its basic goals. The election for this year's seven options
is an instant runoff vote with three choices. It's the first time I've
ever seen an instant runoff election in action. It works out pretty nice:
you just rank your top three choices.
Posted at 21:03
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Free Software, Free Society
Richard Stallman has a new book about the philosophy of free software:
Free Software, Free Society. Sounds
cool. It features an introduction by Lawrence Lessig.
Posted at 11:40
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First Post!
I posted my
first entry to the TeleRead blog today.
TeleRead promotes ebooks and print-on-demand for
libraries and advocates for a national ebook library. Expect to see more
from me there in the future!
Posted at 23:46
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Don Park on OSAF I've criticized Don's stance on free software
before. I just don't understand it, particularly in this case. There is
no market for PIM software, because Microsoft crushed all its competition
with format lock in and monopoly power. Even if OSAF burns the commerical
PIM market to the ground, as Don believes, they're leaving their formats
and APIs open so companies and individuals can build killer apps on top of
that datastore (much like what is happening with Apple's new addressbook).
What excites me about OSAF is what happens next. Kapor is putting up $5
million dollars of his own money for this venture. He expects it to be
self-supporting by 2005. If this is true, OSAF could become one of the
dynamos of open source software creation, filling in the gaps and bringing
open source software over the last hurdles to widespread acceptance.
Exciting times.
Everyone's all abuzz about Mitch Kapor's new non-profit venture, the
Open Source Applications Foundation. Don
Park has a
critical take on the OSAF from the perspective of a proprietary software
vendor. He says, "Every time a new OSAF product ships, a market segment
will die." Be sure to check out
the comments, too.
Posted at 22:50
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Updated Links
I've updated my links in the sidebar to more accurately reflect what I'm
reading. I've also included most of the sites on my old homepage/bookmark
list. This is part of my scheme to finally get rid of my crappy old
homepage.
Posted at 19:53
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I want YOU to invade Iraq! TomPaine.com is keeping a log of
reasons not to invade Iraq,
from the left, right, and center.
Osama bin Laden says I
want YOU to invade Iraq!. Also available as a
PDF, perfect for
printing.
Posted at 18:15
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Some truth about copyright He writes:
Mr. Eldred isn't being hypothetical here. Consider
Dover Thrift Editions.
Dover sells hundreds of public domain books for the price Greene describes
as "magical". Well, they seem to be $1.50 these days; maybe magic is
getting a little harder to come by? This is all made possible by the
public domain. Granted, all these books are relatively popular. Unpopular
public domain works can be made available online by dedicated people like
Eric Eldred,
Brewster Kahle and Michael Hart. Unpopular
copyrighted works are simply abandoned.
Greene is right. Profit motive keeps
Good-Bye to All That in print. If Eldred fails in
the Supreme Court we will never get to test the theory that the public
domain would as well, because neither it nor anything else will ever fall
into the public domain again. Copyright is a creative engine, but once it
has served its purpose (getting books like Good-Bye to All That
published) why must it be continuously extended? The Eldred case is not
anti-copyright, it is anti-extension. Greene does him a disservice with
these straw-man arguments.
Thomas Greene in The Register:
Some truth about
copyright
Right, Eric -- assuming it can be printed for free and distributed for free and promoted for free, and further assuming that the retailer will be so grateful for this magical inventory that he'll be happy to earn only $1.00 per copy. Otherwise we're going to have to stretch that dollar something awful. When we start printing dollars on latex, do let me know.
Posted at 11:02
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EverCrack Birth Control
FDA Approves EverQuest for
Birth Control Use
Posted at 10:59
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Partisan-in-chief It makes me wonder: When did the flag become a Republican Symbol?
What's up with that? As I've said before, I agree that more often than not, patriotism is the sign of a scoundrel.
So when I see people decked out in American flags, I immediately think "conservative". It shouldn't have to be that
way. The flag stands for the American nation, and the nation is supposed to stand up for freedom, equality, and
opportunity. And it does, sometimes. But when I see people waving the flag around, I don't think they want to stand
up for those things. They want to go kill people for some reason, shove Jesus in my face, keep people in jail for
hurting no one but themselves, strangle mass transit, and tell me that if I don't like it, I should go back to
Russia, or where ever the regime de jour is.
I don't like that. I want to be able to do whatever I want to my own body. I don't want people to hate my country
because we keep fucking theirs up. I don't want morality to be legislated. Does this mean I "hate" America? No. It
means I want to be free.
The Economist: Partisan-in-chief. I don't
agree with the Economist's stance on the Iraqi war, but they've got the analysis right in this piece. Bush is
somehow managing to kick the Democrat's asses in the campaign.
Posted at 23:45
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AmphetaDesk Thoughts What follows is a short list of features I'd like to see added to
AmphetaDesk. These are ordered from most to least important to me.
I'd like to check items as read and delete them. Most aggregators have
this feature, and it is the #1 feature I'd like to see. This would
solve the problem where people who have long weblog entries (which
I've read already anyway) make the AmphetaDesk page terribly long.
I run AmphetaDesk on my colocated server so I can access it where ever
I happen to be. This works great...except that if anyone finds my
installation, they can totally fuck with it. I don't mind people
reading my feeds, but editing them should require authorization. I
know this is a non-issue for most users of AmphetaDesk, who use it on
their local machine. But I'm sure I'm not the only one in this
situation.
Relative images are not displayed correctly.
Being able to searching for channel by title/description would be
nice. I know the metadata sucks, but it'd still useful. I understand
this feature is in the works.
The globe icon on the "My Channels" page is unnecessary -- clicking
on the title of the website takes you to it (as it should). More to the
point, I don't think the globe icons should stand in for links
anywhere in the application. They are too small and more ambiguous
than textual links. These icons are a disease lifted wholesale from
Radio Userland, and they should be taken out back and shot. Links are
easier to click on and a ubiquitous user interface on the
web. Edward Tufte has written a lot about
this. He says that the words should be the interface, and I agree with
him.
There is too little distinction between the names of the "Channels Home" and "My
Channels" links. They need better, more descriptive and distinct
names.
I would like a visible preference for how to sort the channels (alphabetically,
chronologically, etc).
Feeds which start with "A", "An", "The" should be sorted by the first word
which is not an article, like a book title.
It'd be nice to display all the stories together, regardless of
channel. But if I could check stories as read, this probably wouldn't
be necessary. In fact, this idea may be totally stupid.
I know it's wrong and immoral, but I wish invalid feeds with invalid
XML were displayed anyway. :)
Well, I've been using
AmphetaDesk for a couple of weeks now and I really like it. It does
take some of the fun out of visiting dozens of unique sites each day,
but then again, it takes most of the time out of visiting dozens of
sites each day, too. After using AD for only a few days, I started
becoming annoyed at sites without RSS feeds. It's almost like they
don't exist anymore for me.
Posted at 22:59
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Funny Microsoft Proxy Site Microsoft Proxy Server, the quick
way to force everyone to use MSIE on your corporate network.
I like the "handshake" graphic. Heh.
My coworker Nick sent me this site:
Posted at 11:19
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Image Syndication and Weblogs Basically, the idea has two parts: publishing images using RSS and a
search tool to find images related to whatever you're working on. Don
says, "Tie two parts together and you got something
When Don Park first
wrote about
his ideas for an image syndication service, I thought it sounded pretty
lame. But he further expanded on the idea in recent posts
( Blog Inline
Image Service using Syndicated Images,
Syndicated
Image Use Cases) and I realized it's actually a really worthwhile idea.