Monday, June 23, 2003

ALA denounces Supreme Court ruling on Children’s Internet Protection Act (press release) The decision . . . is very narrow in that Justices Kennedy and Breyer did not join Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion, they only joined the judgment, said Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Justices Kennedy and Breyer joined the judgment because they believe adult patrons need only ask the librarian to ‘please disable the filter’ and need not provide any reason for the request. In light of this, we expect libraries that decide they must accept filters to inform their patrons how easily the filters can be turned off. . . . The American Library Association again calls for full disclosure of what sites filtering companies are blocking, who is deciding what is filtered and what criteria are being used. Findings of fact clearly show that filtering companies are not following legal definitions of “harmful to minors” and “obscenity.” Their practices must change. . . . The ALA will do everything possible to support the governing bodies of these local institutions as they struggle with this very difficult decision. (If the long url gets munged in transit, I expect you'll still find the press release prominently linked from the top page of the American Library Association home page. 4:32:11 PM    comment []

[Insert swearing here.] The Supreme Court upholds the Children's Internet Protection Act, a federal statute requiring libraries to put programs on their computers blocking pornographic web sites as a condition for receiving federal funds, 5-4. [SCOTUS blog] Rehnquist's plurality opinion Stevens's dissent Souter, joined by Justice Ginsburg, in dissent Kennedy's concurrence Breyer's concurring opinion 3:32:04 PM    comment []

Here in Toronto, Michael Geist says Reforming copyright is a concern for everyone. [T]he emerging reality is that neither view reflects the Internet's most significant impact — the blurring of the distinction between creators and users such that soon everyone will be both creators and users. The days of content creation resting solely with a select few movie studios, music promoters, and book publishers is long gone. In today's Internet, we all access traditional content on mainstream media sites, but alongside those activities we increasingly craft emails, maintain blogs or other Websites dedicated to a dizzying array of topics, publish our digital photos, contribute to community chat rooms, opinion sites, or open source software initiatives, and share our attempts at music creation with the world. In short, we both consume content and create it. This new reality is spearheading a profound change in the world of copyright as the widespread realization that copyright matters grows. No longer an issue best left to lawyers, individuals are taking an interest in copyright policy as never before. This leaves policy makers with the challenge of balancing competing stakeholder interests in an environment where everyone believes that they too are stakeholders. Mostly about the public opposition to the Lucy Maud Montgomery Copyright Term Extension Act and noting that copyright reform — no matter how small the issue — is a matter of concern for all, ensuring that every issue will be contested until the final hour. (The long url if that expires is http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer? pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid56320421049&call_pageid– 8350072197&col–9048863851) 3:32:00 PM    comment []

Ali (scroll down under Monday, June 23, to the 12:something a.m. post) responds to a piece by Michael Ledeen in National Review. The intelligence about iran is somehow exaggerated and rotten.The L.A.based iranian TV channels claimed that about 500,000 people had gathered over here in streets,but that is something we ourselves know it's not true.Iranian ordinary people are conservative ones.They don't want their job,repetition and comfortable life to be threatened.During recent protests,they didn't even bother themselves to get out of their cars and only decided to horn! or even stood beside the street and watched the students ! They come right now for having fun and adventure for a while,not for direct political purposes.They come for clapping,whispering,laughing,and watching anti- riot police,the plain-clothes and so on.Any kind of change in the regime needs a powerful and charismatic leadership.You know,although I hate the fuckin' 1979 revolution of iran,but I should confess that it was Khomeini's innate charisma that put the excitement of people in the way that he himself wanted (even with remote leadership from France while in his exile).Not only me,but also anyone in iran acclaims this matter.However,I assert that I've been always against that revolution,and blamed anybody involved in it.We've been people who always seek for a sudden change,not a basic,gradual and logical one. So unlike Ledeen,I say that Iran today is comparable to Central Europe half a century ago, or for that matter to revolutionary France of America in the 18th century, or Russia on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution,becuase although almost all the people of iran are against this regime like me myself,but like all those cases, the real devoted iranian revolutionaries are a distinct minority and sparse (like the university students) but the potential disagreement is so much high, and only a combination of dynamic and charismatic leadership ( for gathering and organizing the protests and bringing people to the front line and giving hope to them ) and foreign support can bring down the regime.This seems the only way. 2:31:54 PM    comment []

The North American Phonograph Company takes great pride in announcing they will be recording one of the world's premier rock and roll bands, The Dead, using 19th century Edison acoustic recording equipment (no electricity or microphones)and wax cylinders on June 29,2003 at Vernon Down's raceway in Vernon, New York. 2:31:49 PM    comment []

Roberto's public listening tests. The recent developments in perceptual audio coding, including new formats like AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack and Windows Media Audio, have brought competition to an arena formerly completely dominated by MP3. Users want to check out these novelties, but frequently stumble over the doubt of "What to choose?". One of the most importat aspects to consider about a format is it's sound quality. Undesired artifacts like hissing, "pre echo" and "stereo collapse" can ruin the pleasure of the listening experience. One of the most acclaimed methods of comparing codec quality is by performing so- called "Double Blind Listening Tests". In this sort of test, the participant compares various encoded samples against each other and against an uncompressed reference sample. The blind part means that the participant doesn't know which sample was encoded by which encoder. That guarantees there'll be no psychological bias towards his/her favorite codec, or against the codec he/she dislikes. The purpose of this page is hosting the public tests I conduct from time to time. 6:28:53 AM    comment []