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Thursday, May 23, 2002
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 Thursday, May 23, 2002
started 5/23/2002; 1:13:04 AM - last post 5/24/2002; 5:11:20 PM
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Doc Searls - Thursday, May 23, 2002 
5/23/2002; 1:13:04 AM (reads: 7584, responses: 5)
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Now just a number 
Somewhere in here (a link I offer as a test to see when his permalinks start working) Andrew Sullivan calls Glenn Reynolds' new Instapundit "frightening."
Most frightening of all is the URL: it's the purely numerical address. So much for branding in the address line.
This is not a simulation. This is a real attack.
In Hollywood Wants to Plug the 'Analog Hole', Cory Doctorow reveals key points of the "Content Protection Status Report" filed with the Senate Judiciay Committee by the MPAA — a document that lays out the Evil Empire's Internet-destruction plans, which involve turning humble ADCs (Analog/Digital Converters) into content permission valves that would govern approximately the full range of "content" use:
| | Under its proposal, every ADC will be controlled by a "cop-chip" that will shut it down if it is asked to assist in converting copyrighted material — your cellphone would refuse to transmit your voice if you wandered too close to the copyrighted music coming from your stereo.
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| | The report shows that this ADC regulation is part of a larger agenda. The first piece of that agenda, a mandate that would give Hollywood a veto over digital television technology, is weeks away from coming to fruition. Hollywood also proposes a radical redesign of the Internet to assist in controlling the distribution of copyrighted works.
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| | This three-part agenda -- controlling digital media devices, controlling analog converters, controlling the Internet -- is a frightening peek at Hollywood's vision of the future.
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You know what to do. If you don't, read Cory's report.
Qwaste
Eric Norlin sez Quest is going down.
By the way, I spoke a few days ago to a guy I respect, who knows his stuff about the Net, telcos and the rest of it. He says that Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest, is actually not all that bad a guy. "His first problem is that he's smarter than nearly everybody else. His second problem is that he's not as smart as he thinks he is." Also, "He's a tough fighter from New Jersey, and that rubs a lot of people the wrong way."
Whatever, he's got a lot of unhappy customers. Stockholders too.
Only six shopping months left
Sheila Lennon:
| | Is it too much to ask for a globally wireless box, a sleek, $200 laptop designed for communication via satellite? No spreadsheets, no heavy crunching, not much giggery, just a browser, email and publishing software. Perhaps it is too much to ask, now.
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| | When might this be something we routinely give each other for Christmas?
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She also asks,
| | Except for NS7 being a 30 meg download while Mozilla is less than 10 megs, is this merely a choice of features? Why would I use NS rather than Mozlla for ordinary browsing and email?
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And while we're at it, here she is on predators.
CARPola, cont'd
Mary Wehmeier: It's Not Over Yet...
| | Should this new rate structure not be satisfactory to both RIAA/SoundExchange and the webcasters, it could all end up in the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals for a long and expensive court battle.
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Getting real
Dave is thinking out loud about real-time blogging at conferences, and what that means — both for blogging and conferences. Neither will be the same. How should both improve and evolve?
Here's one way: it puts more journalists, like me, on the road, taking public notes at conferences, which become much more inviting. For example, I wasn't even thinking about going to PopTech this year, but what's rumored to be happening there with wi-fi and blogging has me tempted.
Here's another: it invites whole new classes of software and hardware. New inventions, new convergences. How about broadband through cell phone signals? (For those places that don't provide wi-fi.) The technology exists, and so do its advocates; just not the knowledgeable demand. Blogs can change that situation in a matter of weeks.
How about if Arraycomm, Verizon and TakeYourPick wireless card maker showed off some synergy at a conference like PopTech or PC Forum? If you want to blog anywhere there's cell coverage, that's the way to make it happen.
The fact that users and developers are in the same conversation is a highly viral (or combustible, choose your metaphor) combination. Add the conference-givers and you've got a whole venue species. Add an inspired (and unselfish) wireless broadband provider and a few partners, and you change the world.
When I read what John Engler says, and what Joshua Allen shows, it's clear to me that we're looking at a lot more than how to set up and run a blog. As Dave told me on the phone today, "the cursor is on conferences" right now. Not last year's agruments, or even what we're reading about blogs in the mainstream press.
We're going to click on that cursor and turn it into an insertion bar. What are we going to write with it?
So who's the mother?
Larry Roberts, Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee have been awarded the 2002 Prince of Strurias Award for Scientific and Technical Research for being "founding fathers of the Internet."
Hello Marybeth, goodbye CARP
Drs. Weinberger and Jastrzebski have come up with contact info for Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights and candidate for Internet radio saint. Send her your love.
Where do you want to screw up today?
Once again, Microsoft seems to be shooting itself in the mouth again, this time with the Pentagon.
There are lots of ways the company can compete against open source and free software. Saying its coexistence threatens the company's intellectual property isn't one of them.
[Later...] The Head Lemur explains. And here's the Slashdot.
Set your lobbying switch back to ON
Here's my take on CARP, at the Linux Journal site.
Here's more news about the issue. And still more.
Truly a Thing of Beauty
One upside of my TiBook G4/500 crash: getting used to the new G4/800. Much better color, finer (shrunk down) detail, brightness (Test case: Cheyenne, courtesy of Chris). And faster, even though the /500 is no slouch.
Gotta be a lot more careful with it, though, 'cuz it ain't mine. Discredit where due: I beat the crap out of my /500, and was doing many simultaneous not-recommended kinda things when it went down.
[Later...] A reader just came back with a pointer to this site.
Tales of Turning Tides, cont'd
Rob Walker in Anchor Steam at TNR Online:
| | If the network news divisions think they are producing an evening broadcast so noble that it deserves to be defended from the corporate huns, they're kidding themselves.
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Rob is also co-author of Titans of Finance.
Credit where due
I am told by a local that the great restaurant I went to yesterday was most likely the Monterey Palace, in Monterey Park, CA.
A tragedy of manners
Eric Olsen and Virginia Postrel have been explaining Andrew Sullivan.
I think The Problem With Andrew has less to do with putting down (Eric) or sucking up (Virginia) than it does with simple manners. The man has been loath to link, and that's bad form, whatever the excuse.
Anyway, he's getting over it. The link densitiy at AndrewSullivan.com has been going up (yes, always more for the mediarati than for the rest of us, but so the fuck what). And one of these days his permalinks will finally work.
Blog and learn. Let's move on.
[Later...] Readers respond here and here.
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Shelley - Re: Tuesday, May 21, 2002
5/23/2002; 1:51:12 AM (reads: 955, responses: 0)
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lou josephs - Re: Thursday, May 23, 2002
5/23/2002; 11:46:39 AM (reads: 711, responses: 0)
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The people at the copyright office are smart folks, it doesn't not surprise me that they killed carp dead. The RIAA/Sound exchange folks however, won't be giving up without a fight. Look for an appeal in Federal Court and if that doesn't work back to congress to push hard for the "broadband bill".
Memo to Billg. I am really liking Mozzila and it's that evil un-american open source.
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Ryan Irelan - Andrew Sullivan Revisited (Sorry, Doc)
5/23/2002; 1:27:18 PM (reads: 1375, responses: 0)
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Andrew gave his reasons for not linking and not having permalinks. He responded innocently: "As for the permalinks, I'm such a loser I didn't even know what these were." I'll take that as a confession.
Sullivan then begins to poo poo the idea of the bloggers functioning as a community. He insists that his reasons for blogging are fueled by his individualistic nature, wanting to publish without the hinderance of an editorial staff and press politics.
Actually, blogging, in it's current and most successful form is indeed a community activity. One blog cannot stand alone. Without the support and conversation of a community the single lone blog is just another homepage with blinking icons and pinwheels. But Andrew wants to "have a great interaction with readers in real time." That sounds pretty much a like a community effort. You see Andrew, perhaps your naiveté has caused you to miss the fact that we bloggers do have "great interaction" with our readers, through links and comments. This is how we communicate.
So, everytime I hear someone shit on the pile that feeds them, it makes ME wanna retch. And it triggers my bullshit detector. Don't tread on us, Andrew.
Ryan
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Frank Horowitz - This is not a simulation. This is a real attack.
5/23/2002; 10:18:48 PM (reads: 2012, responses: 1)
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Heh.
Those bozos don't have a clue as to how widespread A/D technology has become (e.g. medical equipment; avionics; heck, even in engine management systems in modern cars).
My initial reaction was outrage, of course. Now that I've calmed down a bit, I think this might turn into an opportunity to dose 'em with a taste of their own medicine:
Step 1: get the *names* of the individual(s), and of the corporate entity(ies) that dreamed up this inspired piece of nonsense.
Step 2: advertise widely the kinds of technologies that A/D are found in (any sophomore EE student could quintuple the length of my list above with their eyes closed).
Step 3: Simultaneously, (in the nicest possible tones, of course) advertise that the people and corporations identified in step 1 might be held personally/corporately liable for any future accidents involving A/D technologies failing due to bugs in A/D interactions with the "cop chip" mandated by *their* proposal.
Step 4: Sit back and watch the fun as *their own lawyers* convince them that maybe mucking around with A/D systems isn't such a good idea after all, due to possible liability considerations.
End of story.
Am I being too naive?
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Brian Cheesman - Re: This is not a simulation. This is a real attack.
5/24/2002; 5:11:20 PM (reads: 1027, responses: 0)
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Hmmm...
Here are a few scenarios:
Crosstalk in car wiring sends (watermarked!) audio from radio to engine management system, and shuts down the car - in a remote area in a snowstorm.
Even worse, (watermarked) movie gets funnelled to a 767's control systems and they shutdown.
And on the other side, it should now be possible to shut down a video surveillance system by letting it see a (watermarked) video.
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