Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Experimental Philosophy. A new term, time for a new approach to philosophy: visit the Experimental Philosophy blog. A good place to start is here. [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] 9:21:41 PM    comment []

Blog Crackdown in Iraq. Soldiers in Iraq are blogging, but the military has shut a couple of blogs down and are reviewing others before they post. (Suggested by David Brake). [Link] some critics worry that military officials are trying to muffle dissent from troops in the field. "I really think it has much less to do with operational security and classified secrets and more to do with American politics and how the war is seen by a public that is getting increasingly shaky about the overall venture," says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. [Smart Mobs] 7:24:04 PM    comment []

Guerrilla Dancing Update. Plans evolve to dance in the streets during the Republican Convention [BarlowFriendz] 7:23:27 PM    comment []

Five Benton Headlines: PHONE INDUSTRY FACES UPHEAVAL AS WAYS OF CALLING CHANGING FAST Our industry and our business is going to change more in the next five years than it has during the last 20 combined, says Duane Ackerman, the chairman and chief executive of BellSouth. Across the nation, the business models that have worked for decades for the Baby Bells are showing signs of unraveling. The cable industry's push into the phone business and a torrent of innovations such as Internet calling and advanced wireless technology are threatening the foundations of the nation's $300 billion telecom industry. The Bells have lost some 28 million local phone lines since the end of 2000 -- a drop of more than 18%. This is the first time since the Great Depression that phone companies have seen their lines decline. The Bells are now losing 4% of their residential lines a year. The phone companies are furiously trying to cut costs to stay ahead of declines in revenue. The Bells are trying to add new kinds of revenue by teaming up with satellite television companies, offering packages of phone, broadband and TV service. But their basic business still is selling a high-priced commodity in a market that is now highly competitive. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ken Brown ken.brown@wsj.com and Almar Latour almar.latour@wsj.com] (requires subscription) NIELSEN REVISES RATINGS POINT AS TV HOUSEHOLDS GROW Nielsen Media Research announced Tuesday that the total number of television households in the United States has grown to 109.6 million, an increase of 1.2 million television households from the 2003-2004 season. [SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Christopher Lisotta] THE UNOFFICIAL MEDIA GUIDE TO THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION MediaChannel.org and Media for Democracy have released the "Unofficial Media Guide" ­ a resource for journalists seeking a detour from the tightly scripted rhetoric at Madison Square Garden next week. The Media Guide list hundreds of sources and experts available to reporters seeking to cover events occurring throughout New York's five boroughs. The guide includes: New York experts, ready to talk on the record; coordinates for the protest groups active citywide; the lowdown on political bloggers and alternative news outlets; and the big media backstory. Find link to the guide at the URL below. [SOURCE: MediaChannel.org Press Release] PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE URGES SUPPORT FOR ALTERNATIVE COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, said she hopes the Senate Judiciary Committee will give serious consideration to a proposed alternative to the so-called “Induce” legislation being considered by the panel. “We still doubt the need for new legislation, but the draft legislation comes closest to giving the senators what they have said they want -- a law targeting those who ‘induce’ infringement,” Sohn said. “We are pleased that so many other groups are with us on the need for an alternative approach,” Sohn said. The draft language focuses more tightly on those who engage in “indiscriminate, mass infringing” than does the existing legislation, S-2560. That bill, which was strongly criticized by most of the witnesses at a July 22 hearing, is sufficiently vague and overbroad that devices like the iPod might be judged to be illegal “inducement.” The new proposal: 1) would impose liability on those who actively distribute in commerce a computer program or other tool that is specifically designed to cause or enable infringement; provides appropriate exemptions from for ISPs, investors, credit card companies and others if their provision of routine services is used to facilitate infringement; 3) allows for recovery of full costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees, by the prevailing party and otherwise discourages frivolous litigation; and 4) codifies the Supreme Court’s Betamax decision, confirming that a person or company may--without fear of liability--manufacture or distribute a hardware or software product that is capable of commercially significant non-infringing uses. [SOURCE: Public Knowledge Press Release] INTERNET FILE SHARING: THE EVIDENCE SO FAR AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE FUTURE Advocates of file sharing argue passionately that the practice has not harmed album sales, and opponents argue with equal vehemence that it has. This paper provides a brief discussion of these issues and explains why the music industry's long-term viability is endangered by peer-to-peer file sharing. The author concludes, Making copyrighted material instantly available to the world without the owner's permission is stealing. The challenge for policymakers is to curtail this theft of intellectual property without limiting legitimate activity or chilling technological innovation through regulation. [SOURCE: Heritage Foundation, AUTHOR: Norbert J. Michel] 10:33:04 AM    comment []

Police follow up 'Scream' leads. On CNN International: Europe [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 7:50:58 AM    comment []

A Regular Soda a Day Boosts Weight Gain [Washington Post: Top News] 7:48:57 AM    comment []

Sweet Corn That's Best With a Grain of Salt. Silver Queen corn, the elusive star of Maryland's produce offerings, is a fleeting sweetness, remembered forever. By By R. W. APPLE Jr.. [The New York Times > Dining and Wine] 7:48:24 AM    comment []

Copyright Bill Needs Big Changes. Technology companies and public-interest groups want to narrow the scope of the controversial Induce Act to focus on those who engage in 'mass, indiscriminate infringing conduct.' By Katie Dean. [Wired News] 7:47:58 AM    comment []

Thieves face challenge. On CNN International: Europe [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 7:47:54 AM    comment []

Silberman's "The War Room" in WIRED WIRED contributing editor Steve Silberman says his new story, "The War Room," is a first look inside "a new Pentagon-sponsored training program for soldiers headed to Iraq and elsewhere that immerses them in highly realistic virtual environments designed by Hollywood special effects artists.... Interesting, troubling." This is the new way soldiers will train for battle. In September, a select group of Army infantrymen, Marine corpsmen, Navy sailors, and Air Force pilots at Fort Sill will become the first military personnel to learn the art of combat and the rules of engagement from surround sound action movies starring themselves. The installation is the brainchild of the Institute for Creative Technologies, an Army-funded R&D group at the University of Southern California. ICT brings together videogame developers, f/x artists, research scientists, and Pentagon experts to create faster, cheaper, and more effective ways of preparing recruits for their jobs on the front lines. If all goes well, similar facilities will go up at bases from Fort Bliss to Fallujah. The military has been using flight and tank simulators for decades ("War Is Virtual Hell," Wired 1.01), but the installation at Fort Sill is the first attempt to duplicate battle conditions for troops by combining wartime science and theme-park showmanship. The Joint Fires and Effects Trainer System, or JFETS, is the product of an unprecedented level of cooperation among the Pentagon, film and gaming companies, and Silicon Valley - a synergy that Stanford history professor Tim Lenoir calls the military-entertainment complex. Virtual war will never fully replace the mainstays of boot camp life: live-fire exercises and ass-busting field training. But as weapons systems grow smarter, they become more expensive to deploy in real-world war games. Now that consumer gaming engines like Unreal are able to render cinematic-quality graphics in real time, even big-ticket munitions are trivial to simulate. Link to Steve's article released earlier this month in WIRED. Also of note: a story on the Institute for Creative Technologies from this Sunday's New York Times: Registration-required Link (Reminds me of Bruce Sterling's piece on the future of war in Wired 1.1, War Is Virtual Hell.) (Which reminds me (again) that that Bruce is giving an interview on The Well's Inkwell, rooted in his newest novel, The Zenith Angle. You can join the conversation from the beginning or catch up on the most recent posts.) Iran web censorship update: admins detained Persian blogger Hossein Derakshan says Iranian officials recently detained several staff and web technicians who worked on banned reformist websites, in order to gain control of the sites. They have now reportedly taken control of the servers, shut them down, and deleted all of their content. Link [bOing bOing] 7:44:50 AM    comment []

Militia's other weapon: videos. Video has become an important propaganda tool in the Mahdi Army fight against the US. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 7:41:25 AM    comment []

Keeping the Lid on Plan B. The Bush Administration does not want teenagers to have sex (nor gays, nor unmarried folks, nor with any toys, nor with any joy, etc.) and thinks that letting people know that there is a Plan B out there eg. emergency contraception that can be used effectively within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse, would actually encourage more teenage sex.   Can we clue you in: It is impossible to encourage MORE teenage sex. That game is over.   Trying to keep the lid on Plan B only encourages more unintended pregnancies and more abortions. In case you didn’t know, the FDA decided last May to ignore the advice of its own scientific panel that Plan B, a progesterone-based after-the-fact set of pills, should be offered by pharmacies without a prescription. The FDA said teenagers couldn’t be trusted to use the pills safely on their own. The science advisers said studies showed they could.   We’re not going to let our objection to this decision get cold. The lead editorial in this month’s journal Obstetrics & Gynecology is titled: “Emergency Contraception: Politics Trumps Science at the F.D.A.” and is discussed by Jane Brody in today’s NY Times. Emergency contraception has been around for decades, but no one is telling our young people about it or helping them get it. Occasional unprotected intercourse is a fact of life—for us married heterosexual couples too. I’d give you a story about how it used to be in the dark days, when abortion was illegal (this was the early 70s) but you know what, we still have a ways to go when our government thinks that effective, emergency contraception should be kept from those who need it most.   p.s. if you happened on this site via a web search and YOU NEED EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION NOW go here: www.not-2-late.com   [Girl In the Locker Room!] 7:41:21 AM    comment []