Thursday, March 04, 2004

Truth in sausage. Truth in Advertising used to be up at iFilm, but disappeared awhile back, even though there's still plenty of pointage to it. Now it's back up at Gavinroy. I have no information about the video's provenance. It's been kicking around for years, mostly because it's a scarily accurate -- and extremely funny -- portrayal of life inside an advertising agency. (Avoid it if dirty words bother you.) Thanks to Jim for the pointer. [The Doc Searls Weblog] 3:32:42 PM    comment []

More on Penn State's Firing of a Tenured Professor. Several folks who have e-mailed Penn State President Spanier protesting the dismissal of a tenured professor have received the following... [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] 2:17:21 PM    comment []

Do you 'google'? Understanding search engine use beyond the hype, by Eszter Hargittai, in First Monday. 9:40:49 AM    comment []

Philosophers protest Bush's Dismissal of Bioethicists from Presidential Council. Philosophers Arthur Caplan (University of Pennsylvania) and Gerald Dworkin (University of California, Davis) have prepared a letter, signed by some 200 philosophers and bioethicists, protesting the latest political meddling with science and policy by the Bush Administration: In the absence of any public reasons explaining your action, we write to strongly protest your decision not to reappoint Professors William F. May and Elizabeth Blackburn to your Council on Bioethics. The creation of sound public policy with respect to developments in medicine and the life sciences requires a council that has a diverse set of views and positions. By dismissing those two individuals and appointing new members whose views are likely to closely reflect those of the majority of the council and its chair the credibility of the council is severely compromised. On controversial ethical issues your Council must consist of members with a wide range of opinions in order to provide wise, prudent and effective advice on the many challenges and opportunities presented by advances in biomedicine. [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] You can read the Caplan, Dworkin, et al. letter to PResident Bush (.DOC format, sorry). 6:59:26 AM    comment []

Interview with Ian, from SimoleansPlus. In this interview we talk with high school student and TSO entrepreneur Ian, who, through his SimoleansPlus site carries on a brisk trade in simoleans,... [The Alphaville Herald] 6:52:09 AM    comment []

Furtive Surfers Find a Way to Keep Their Travels Secret. A new thumb-size U.S.B. drive from a company called StealthSurfer aims to guard your privacy by keeping the records of your Web activity close to the vest. When you plug in the StealthSurfer and use its customized version of the Netscape browser, the device stores the cookies, U.R.L. history, cache files and other traces of your Web browsing that would ordinarily accumulate on your computer's hard drive. When you're done surfing, you unplug the drive and take the records of your travels with you. By Howard Millman. [New York Times: Technology] 6:46:19 AM    comment []

The passion of Howard Stern. The shock jock says radio colossus Clear Channel fired him because he criticized George Bush -- and he's sure as hell not going to go quietly. [Salon.com] 6:36:33 AM    comment []

How I Lost the Big One: When Eric Eldred's crusade to save the public domain reached the Supreme Court, it needed the help of a lawyer, not a scholar. By Lawrence Lessig, in Legal Affairs. is still astonishingly hard. If you know anything at all about this story, you know that we lost the appeal. And if you know something more than just the minimum, you probably think there was no way this case could have been won. After our defeat, I received literally thousands of missives by well-wishers and supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this noble but doomed cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me than the e-mail from my client, Eric Eldred. But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this story to myself, I can't help believing that my own mistake lost it. A brave follow on to Lessig's remarks on his weblog in the wake of the Eldred decision. 2:37:30 AM    comment []