b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Recently
Sacrificial Lambs
Multiple RSS Feeds
Anti-RAVE Act Becomes Law
HP Time-limits Ink Cartridges
DMCA Goes Global
Alabama Won't Legalize Sex Toys
Mobile Number Portability
The Cost of a CD
'Method' Patents in Medicine
Free Country?
How the Verizon Decision Affects You
RIAA's Educational Spam
License to Steal
Earthquake Rocks Atlanta
Plan to Protect USA Patriot Act
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Knowledge Capture Mindmap
Matt Mower has created an excellent visual summary of the key elements in knowledge capture. Contrary to a lot of what's written in the mindmap literature, creating a good mindmap is not easy. Condensing thoughts to a single keyword or two, aligning them into patterns that add context, and keeping it clean are much more difficult in practice than in theory.Nice job, Matt.
Thinking about capturing knowledge.[Curiouser and curiouser!]
Terry Frazier at 10:53 PM
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Sacrificial Lambs
RIAA has first sacrificial lambs for its pursuit of individual file traders. This is where the focus should be, and should have always been (on individuals, not infrastructure providers.) Except the DMCA has removed any need for the RIAA to show just cause or submit to oversight for its actions. Essentially, the DMCA has turned the RIAA into an unregulated, unelected, unaccountable enforcement agency. Your government at work.If there were oversight restrictions in place we could be assured that the RIAA would be forced to concentrate on individuals acting with criminal intent. It would not be possible for them to flood entire networks or castigate entire classes of users. As it stands they can go after anyone they want, any time, without incurring significant cost.
RIAA Suits Against Students May Settle.. RIAA lawsuits brought last month against the four students making and operating network search engines apparently will settle soon. The Daily Princetonian reports that Daniel Peng, and the three others, have been working with attorneys to negotiate an end to this, and expect some kind of announcement today. "It would be really expensive to litigate," said Peng, who has avoided commenting publicly since the filing. "I would like to reach an amicable settlement." In a... [bIPlog]
Terry Frazier at 4:08 PM
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Multiple RSS Feeds
I've been messing around with my RSS feeds for a while, testing the ability of Stapler to create multiple feeds with different parameters. You will notice some new icons over on the right that link to a truncated feed (first paragraph) and a headline-only feed.It works pretty well and Stapler does a good job, but this is a less-than-optimal solution. IMO the aggregator should filter feeds the way a user wants to see them, rather than me having to provide multiple feeds. The RSS reader ought to be configurable to the point that it shows as much, or as little, of the feed as wanted.
The other thing that would be nice is an option for a "summary" of an item to be specifically called out. This would be especially valuable for longer posts. It's a technique John Udell uses pretty often. It's also supported in Conversant, though I'm not sure how it works within the RSS files.
Ideally, the summary text would be an RSS module that would be read if present, ignored otherwise. And the aggregator could be set to display the summary in full (if present), or display some truncated version of the full post otherwise.
I see the summary being used by folks who usually create longer, essay-style posts or by publications that want to syndicate full articles with a summary attached. Maybe something like this already exists. I'd like to know.
Terry Frazier at 2:58 PM
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Anti-RAVE Act Becomes Law
President Bush has signed 'Amber Alert' bill to reduce abduction and save the children. Every good Mommy and Daddy will support this bill.Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) attached his Anti-RAVE bill as a rider to Amber Alert, pushing it through Congress when it failed to survive on its own last year. Anti-RAVE makes business owners criminally liable for the personal behavior of their customers and is a significant expansion of the 'War on Drugs'. The rider underwent no public review, open debate, or Congressional hearings this year.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft hailed the law, calling it a "comprehensive effort to protect our children."
Make up your own mind.
Terry Frazier at 1:00 PM
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HP Time-limits Ink Cartridges
Tag this one with the Lexmark DMCA case, as a logical attempt to extend control, and hence profits, to the greatest reach legally possible. The problem is the DMCA extends this control well beyond previously legal ends by stopping any form of competition or modification that would bypass any of HP's digital intellectual property. It's only a matter of time before HP joins the DMCA legal chorus to enforce its rights under this new industrial monopoly grant.Whole industries -- aftermarket auto parts, aftermarket printer cartridges, memory chips, manufacturers of any performance mechanical parts, radio and computer hobbyists, and others -- could well be destroyed by a few oligopolies embedding sufficient DigIP into their products to make them immune to any form of competition.
I don't see why it would take anything more than simple RFID embedding to establish a DMCA-qualified barrier to modification. Within a few years companies could be embedding inexpensive RFID tags into every conceivable part, linking them to a DMCA-protected control system that stops operation unless all parts are identified as OEM equipment.
Whose law trumps in such a case -- restraint of trade or DMCA?
theinquirer.net - HP inkjet cartridges have built-in expiry dates.PRINTER GIANT HP has built in time limits for its inkjet printer cartridges which means machines may stop working even if the consumable has 75% ink let to go
[ ... ]
HP has told him that the date printed on the ink cartridge is not the expiry date, and that is determined either by a cartridge being in the printer for 30 months, or the cartridge is 4.5 years old, whichever comes first. [...]
[Privacy Digest]
Terry Frazier at 10:36 AM
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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
DMCA Goes Global
Copyright by fiat. Lessig is pointing to a fox in the henhouse. If you can't get a law passed to suit you then bribe the US Trade Rep to negotiate an international treaty that requires us to do whatever it is you want. This is sad, irritating, and funny. Funny because this Administration has no respect for international treaties. Hell, we just told the whole UN to get screwed, backed out of Kyoto, are dismantling NATO. But then, maybe it's more important to American interests to ensure our copyright oligopoly controls the world's intellectual property.
Copyright dweebs are crapping all over democracy. Again.. Lessig reports that the sneaky dweebs on the other side are end-running around the domestic efforts to reform the DMCA by initiating copyright treaties with Chile and Singapore that require the US to not change the DMCA. Ah, the sweet smell of subverted democracy. [Boing Boing Blog]
Alabama Won't Legalize Sex Toys
Alabama, where you can marry a 12-year-old but you can't buy a dildo.
Alabama Votes Against Legalizing Sex Toys
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 30, 2003; 4:42 AMMONTGOMERY, Ala. - Sex toys are still against the law in Alabama, at least as far as the Alabama Legislature is concerned.
The Alabama House voted against a bill Tuesday that would have removed a ban on sexual devices, such as vibrators, from the state's obscenity law. The ban on sexual devices was added at the last minute when the obscenity law passed the Legislature in 1998.
A federal district judge in Birmingham has twice ruled that the ban is unconstitutional. The first ruling was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the second ruling has been appealed to the appeals court. [...] [Washington Post Online]
This is undoubtedly the type of morally upright lawmaking that Senator Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, was defending in his unfortunate statement regarding the Texas sodomy case now before the Supreme Court. For more you can read this decidedly slanted appraisal of Santorum's stance.
Mobile Number Portability
I am eagerly awaiting Mobile Number Portability, since it seems the last barrier to real, customer-centric policies and performance by the wireless carriers. Take away their hold on the number and they will be forced to compete on service, access, coverage, and price. We can all hope the FCC's most recent deadline, November 24, 2003, actually holds and we get relief from the artificial switching costs imposed by the current system.
Mobile Number Portability: lessons from Hong Kong, China.There's a piece Court Hears Fight Over Numbers Used for Cellphones in today's New York Times about the battle to introduce mobile number portability in the United States. There are perhaps some lessons to draw from Asia, particularly Hong Kong, China. In this "mobile-mad" economy, over 90% of the population has a mobile and it probably has the most highly competitive mobile market in the world with 6 providers for slightly less than 7 million people. A few years ago (March 1999), I happened to be in Hong Kong the day the regulator, OFTA, introduced mobile number portability (MNP). [...]
[Robert Shaw: Regulatory]
The Cost of a CD
The RIAA provides an appraisal of the costs involved in creating a CD without providing any actual figures, but assures us:[...] By all measures, when you consider how long people have the music and how often they can go back and get "re-entertained" CDs truly are an incredible value for the money. [...]
Assuming, of course that we don't want to get "re-entertained" on our computers, MP3 players, digital devices, or in any order/combination other than their original.
Oh, wait. They do provide these figures:
[...] Between 1983 and 1996, the average price of a CD fell by more than 40%. Over this same period of time, consumer prices (measured by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI) rose nearly 60%. If CD prices had risen at the same rate as consumer prices over this period, the average retail price of a CD in 1996 would have been $33.86 instead of $12.75. [...]
Maybe they could give away free recordings of "My Heart Bleeds for You" and we could all wear green ribbons on our lapels to support the poor, grubby bastards who can't make enough money with these reduced margins.
'Method' Patents in Medicine
Mayo Clinic granted broad 'method' patent for using anti-fungals.
With New Patent, Mayo Clinic Owns a Cure for the Sniffles[...] The patent, in effect, blocks others from selling an antifungal agent to treat the condition without Mayo's approval. That adds to a similarly broad patent Mayo received in 2001 for treatment of chronic asthma, a disease that Dr. Ponikau says has the same cause. Mayo filed both patents, which received little public notice, in October 1998.
Broad patents such as Mayo's, called "method patents," are rare for a basic reason: Researchers very rarely claim to have discovered the root causes of a disease. In most cases, researchers seek to patent only specific treatments. Approval by the patent office doesn't mean that a product is considered safe or effective -- just that the rights to that product are protected. [...] [Wall Street Journal(subscription required)]
Free Country?
Patriot Raid....A security 'mistake' has the author eating dinner at gunpoint.
Patriot Raid[Ye Olde Phart][...] "You have no right to hold us," Asher insisted.
"Yes, we have every right," responded one of the agents. "You are being held under the Patriot Act following suspicion under an internal Homeland Security investigation." [...]
Three days later I phoned the restaurant to discover what happened. The owner was nervous and embarrassed and obviously did not want to talk about it. But I managed to ascertain that the whole thing had been one giant mistake. A mistake. Loaded guns pointed in faces, people made to crawl on their hands and knees, police officers clearly exacerbating a tense situation by kicking in doors, taunting, keeping their fingers on the trigger even after the situation was under control. A mistake. And, according to the ACLU a perfectly legal one, thanks to the Patriot Act. [...]
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
How the Verizon Decision Affects You
Ranting on acronyms. Thomas Greene of The Reg waxes ill over DMCA, DoJ, RIAA, and the 4th Amendment in regards to the Verizon case.DoJ supports RIAA in Verizon P2P privacy scuffle.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has weighed in on behalf of RIAA piratebusters in a court filing against telecomms giant Verizon, which is struggling to keep the identity of a customer and alleged P2P bootlegger confidential.
[...] [the Fourth Amendment] doesn't actually say that a judge needs to be involved. It only says that the proposed intrusive activity mustn't be "unreasonable," and insists that there be "probable cause" to act. Over the years it's come to be established that the way to ensure that probable cause exists is by obtaining a judge's approval. The DMCA, along with several other bits of 'tough-on-crime' legislation rammed through Congress in the past decade, eases the legal burden on those who would accuse their neighbour of wrongdoing, especially when the accuser is a corporate cartel with piles of money available to pursue neighbours doing wrong. This type of burden-lifting doesn't directly contradict the Fourth Amendment -- merely 230 years of case law, which the DoJ has conveniently neglected to recall. [...]
[The Register]
RIAA's Educational Spam
The three R's -- Reading, 'Riting, and RIAA. The Reg reports RIAA spews pollution into the digital environment.
'We know who you are' - RIAA spams IM users. Psyops[...] The messages are sprayed around the file sharing networks using the built-in chat function. One ominous message is intended to give the impression that the Pigopolists' Police are watching your every move:-
[You] "are not anonymous and you can easily be identified."
"By reaching out to individuals directly through these educational instant messages, we hope to encourage individuals to take the necessary steps to stop stealing music," says the RIAA's Cary Sherman, quoted here. [...]
[The Register]
License to Steal
Dan Bricklin points out a sticky wicket. Watch what license you use. You never know who you might be indemnifying. By the way, that's one reason I set my metatags to disallow caching. If a search engine follows the rules it won't cache my pages and if I need to make some sort of change to the legal jargon the correct pages will show up in the search engines, not the old one. (I don't know how many search engines actually obey the rules. Probably not many.)Which license is best? It's a personal choice. I use a Creative Commons license for all original material on my site (modeled after language from Denise Howell's Bag and Baggage), and crafted a heavy disclaimer for all other material. This is a mixed approach similar to what Dan describes in his article.
Will it keep me from getting sued? I don't know, but being broke and moving back to Texas will sure be a disincentive. (Note: Texas has really favorable laws for people entering bankruptcy or fighting court judgements.)
No commons left at all[...] What the Creative Commons people didn't do, as far as I can tell, is make a set of licenses for the casual weblogger, who does not want to consult a lawyer before each post. The Creative Commons licenses say, in effect, "After checking, I guarantee no one will sue you if you copy my work, with some restrictions". What many casual webloggers really want to say is "I guarantee I won't sue you if you copy my work, with some restrictions". [...] [SATN]
Earthquake Rocks Atlanta
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! 4.9 shaker hits deep South. No biggie for you folks on the left coast -- a 4.9 comes free with your house title. But here it's a novelty. We do get earthquakes from time to time. No, I didn't feel it. Here's the history of earthquakes in Georgia.Southern Earthquake Reaches 4.9
Web Editor: Tracey Christensen
Provided By: The Associated Press
Last Modified: 4/29/2003 11:01:44 AMA rare Southern earthquake rattled windows and woke people from western North Carolina to south Alabama early Tuesday, but there were no reports of serious damage.
The 4.9 magnitude quake was centered near the Alabama-Georgia line, not far from Fort Payne, Ala. Many Ft. Payne residents reported feeling a short-lived, intense rumbling throughout their homes. [...] [ 11Alive News]
Plan to Protect USA Patriot Act
Interesting view, by Andrew Glass of The Hill, on Ashcroft's politically astute plan to keep USA Patriot alive, hidden, and safe from exposure. Hill says Ashcroft, sensing a real problem with his heavy-handed use of USA Patriot, did the following (some background on Sensenbrenner):Ashcroft has been in Congress and politics a long time. He's a sneaky SOB, grown adept at hiding his political motives and actions from his constituents, and he now has the benefit of an unelected position with no answerability to voters. If Ashcroft gets his way and the (already marginal) sunset provisions of Patriot are killed we are in for a long, sad period in US history.[...] First, he soft-soaped Sensenbrenner, arranging to have lunch with him regularly, bringing him into the "national security" tent.
Second, he persuaded Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, to sponsor legislation that in the warm afterglow of the Iraq War would repeal the laws sunset provisions and make it permanent.
Third, he pulled the plug, for now, on further expansion of the governments snooping powers under a proposed "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," promptly dubbed Patriot II.
thehill.com - We're watching you: national security and privacy issues.[...] Last summer, Sensenbrenner and committee's ranking Democrat, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, asked the department for basic statistical data about how it was using its powerful new surveillance tools.
The department stalled for so long that Sensenbrenner threatened to subpoena Attorney General John Ashcroft and to oppose renewing the act.
Sensenbrenner reported to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had told Ashcroft: "If you want to play I've got a secret, good luck getting the PATRIOT Act extended. Because if you've got bipartisan anger in the Congress, the sunset will come and go and the PATRIOT Act disappears."
Beating a tactical retreat, Ashcroft thereupon launched a three-pronged damage-control effort.
[Privacy Digest]
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