Legislators and law enforcers will have to fight and win a "war" against online piracy in order for the digital marketplace to have any chance of realizing its full potential. "This war against piracy must be waged on several different fronts, including the commitment of adequate resources to law enforcement, the cooperation of various industry players, and the education of consumers. Only when the war against piracy is effectively waged and won, will businesses and consumers move in significant numbers to the online marketplace. [Copyright piracy] is growing exponentially with billions of unauthorized music downloads per month. Until we can stop the growth of piracy online, it will be difficult to truly create a marketplace that will work for digital online content."

More silliness ... Obviously this guy didn't get the memo about cutting back on the "war" metaphors. These statements are so clearly baseless as to be meaningless. Billions per month, and growing exponentially? So in a few months, we'll have 100 trillion downloads per month? I think not. But who cares, any way? Why doesn't anyone recognize the success stories? The Wall Street Journal has a profitable online subscription service. Lexis-Nexis is popular and has been sustainable over a long period of time. The IEEE has a successful online library. Clearly there are no overwhelming technical challenges to running a successful business selling digital online content.

Decius: This is the first time I've seen Goodlatte act completely clueless on a tech issue.

washingtonpost.com: Rep. Goodlatte Calls For

We need to start thinking in terms of disruptive compliance rather than civil disobedience if we want to be effective on-line. Disruptive compliance has no meaning outside of cyberspace. Disruptive, of course, refers to disruptive technology, a radically new way of doing things; compliance refers back to the Internet and its original intent of constructive free-flow and openness. "

This is a really good article. Of course, cypherpunks don't write code, they sit around and bicker on a mailing list. I've found that getting "hackers" to actually hack is next to impossible. "Oh, you mean I actually have to DO something? Fuck that! I'm busy reading slashdot." Yes Virginia, Television does rot your brain.

The cDc on online activism...

:)

Attack of the Clones: Less Plastic Crap, More Story?

"Jar Jar has been blessedly reduced to a bit part, appearing only briefly in Attack of the Clones. And 'N Sync, who supposedly shot a cameo for a Jedi battle scene, reportedly wound up on the cutting-room floor.
"George is now much smarter about what he should do and should not do," a source close to the director told Newsweek. "He's not a stupid man. He doesn't want to hurt the franchise." "

Hrm... I remain skeptical. The mushy clones preview on Harry Potter's opening night was booed by the entire audience at the Metreon. I don't think these guys realize just how baddly they fucked up.

Yahoo! News - Lucas Offers New Hope with 'Clones'

"It is possible to build a computer-driven, life-size, android robot head (Figure 1) for cost of materials of about $600.00. The android head will have two color video-camera eyes with the video going both into a window on the PC and into an image processing Java application. The robot will have six servo motors controlling: (1) base of the head spins, (2,3) each eye moves left/right, (4) both eyes move up/down, (5,6) each eye-lid opens/closes. All servo motors are controlled via a Java application. The user supplies the computer (PC). The details of how to construct such a head follows, based on the authors creation of Robot Maxamilian, R. Max for short. "

On the surface this sounds like a stupid idea, but crazy ideas sometimes bear useful fruit. Are Java libraries available for turning "sterescopic" video into a 3D object representation?? I wonder if a neural net's recognition of objects like "chairs" improves if you provide stereoscopic input...

How to Build a Computerized Android Robot Head for $600.00.

"The VOIP Blaster is a very useful device at a very attractive cost. It allows you to make voip calls using a standard telephone in much the same way you make normal wireline calls. The software that comes with it has one very big limitation, it will not work behind a firewall, NAT, or other internet-connection share scheme. It also requires that you sign up with a credit-card for their service. In order to overcome these limitations I have written software to use it under NetBSD, Linux, and Windows. Since FreeBSD (?and OpenBSD?) use the same usb subsystem, should be relatively easy to use with these also. "

Another hardware device offered as a "loss leader" for a service is hacked, this time creating an interesting Long Distance alternative... Someone needs to get behind consumer VOIP and drive it. Open source is as good an option as any. Otherwise it will have to be hardware makers or broadband providers. There is no money in this for a "start up" (which is the reason you're still using a pots line.)

VOIP Blaster Driver Software

"If Delaware really wants to solve its problem, maybe it's time for it to rethink its tax policy. "

Most corps are Delaware Corps. Industrial Memetics is a Delaware Corp. If Delaware changed its policies, as Salon suggests, this would have a broad impact. There are a lot of reasons to incorporate in Delaware that cannot be summed up purely as "tax evasion."

Salon.com Technology | Huge corporation, can you spare a dime?

Smartcards for linux...
unified logins, openssh integration soon, browsers taking advantage... if smartcards go big, PKI's problem of storing certs will be taken care of...

Linuxnet.com - MUSCLE - Linux Smart Card Development

Fake Electronic music artists (Aphex, Moby, Crystal Method, etc) IRC chat... quite funny.

mIRC32 - [#IDM [ nstl 1337]: WHOEVER I LENT MY NORD MODULAR TO /MSG ME ASAP]

Yup, calling somebody a "chicken neck" isn't slanderous, but the jury is still out on "dick head" and "numb nuts."

'Chicken Butt' Not Slanderous (washingtonpost.com)