]
] Here's a hopeless scheme. Microsoft has revealed its DRM
] Janus software to the world, named after the Roman god of
] gates and doors. An inside joke, a little double
] entendre, I gather. It's designed to make your music go
] poof after a time, no matter where you put it. That's
] appropriate. Whenever I've bought Gates' software, my
] money went poof.

GROKLAW on M$ new DRM -- Janus

There's a press-release on this linked off of Groklaw that gives
some more particulars from the report.

A Patent System for the 21st Century

] Snort! says the pig. We find we own the patent on JPEGs
] and now that you are all accustomed to what you thought
] was an open standard format, ha ha, everybody has to pay
] us:

Lots of good stuff here.

GROKLAW on Forgent/JPEG Patent Mess

] China agreed on Wednesday to give up a plan to impose
] its own standard for wireless technology, essentially
] agreeing to join the rest of the world rather than
] dividing it up.

I think this is good news though I'm not sure of what all
issues are involved. Is this really a trade thing or is it a
key-escrow sort of thing? It would be totally assinine for China
to deploy non-standards to create an entry-barrier for foreign
electronics...

China Agrees to Postpone Wireless Plan

] Pittsburgh International could become the nation's first
] major airport allowed to abandon the federal government's
] post-Sept. 11 rule that lets only ticketed passengers
] proceed past security checkpoints to the gate. If
] successful, the test might become a model for other
] airports

U.S. Ponders Easing 9/11 Airport Rule

] Federal safety data has shown for years that booming
] sales of S.U.V.'s and large pickup trucks are adding to
] the death toll of people riding in cars, particularly in
] side-impact accidents. At the same time, S.U.V.'s and
] pickup trucks do not, as a class, better protect their
] own occupants, because they tend to be less stable and
] more prone to rollovers than passenger cars.

Guess what: if you're in a sedan and you get t-boned by an
SUV, you're fucked.

Struck in Side, Many Cars Fare Poorly in Safety Test

]
] Richard Stallman has written an article on Java, "Free
] but shackled: The Java trap," and Sun's Dr. James Gosling
] didn't much care for it or all the speculation about Sun
] that he's been reading about in the media, so he has also
] written an article, reproduced on Newsforge, which he
] thinks refutes it. What it really does is show what Sun's
] problem is with the FOSS community.

Stallman and Gosling on Java and the GPL

]
] This is no longer a job for engineers alone and no longer
] simply a question of making the packets flow to their
] appointed destinations. Our basic human rights and basic
] economic needs are determined by the current technical
] infrastructure.
]
] We've got to be sure that their design meets the test of
] both technical merit and social soundness. As Annan said,
] "In managing, promoting and protecting (the Internet's)
] presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative
] than those who invented it. Clearly, there is a need for
] governance, but that does not necessarily mean that it
] has to be done in the traditional way, for something that
] is so very different." Our challenge is to retain the
] flexibility to introduce new, innovative technologies,
] and on the other hand, to be sure that we meet basic
] human needs in the process.

Governments and Governance

] Voters in Inglewood, Calif., a racially diverse and
] economically struggling suburb of Los Angeles, soundly
] rejected on Tuesday a ballot initiative to permit
] construction of a Wal-Mart complex that would have
] exempted the 60-acre development from virtually all local
] oversight.

Yay.

California Voters Reject Wal-Mart Initiative

] We need honest discussion about the trade-offs between
] child quantity and quality.

Ding ding ding...

Two Is Enough - Why large families don't deserve tax breaks.