Monday, November 15, 2004

How to never miss an episode with BitTorrent and RSS. There's a great new app floating around that automatically downloads and saves your favorite programs via bittorrent. I haven't used TVtorrent before so I'm not sure how complete it is, I bet you'd have to stick to fairly popular shows if you really wanted to get every episode. People have been building apps with bittorrent and rss before, but this is the first automated app I've heard of that combines the two to grab just the shows you want. Sounds a lot like the app wished for here. [unmediated] 8:43:23 PM    comment []

On the Roots of Copyright Activism (Donna Wentworth). As many of you already know, Siva Vaidhyanathan is one of the leaders of the current movement for balanced copyright, and his first book, Copyrights and Copywrongs, is among the handful of canonical texts for understanding what a number of us have been calling "the copyfight" -- not only what it is but why it matters. The Nov. 19th edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education has a great new profile of Siva, exploring (among other things) why and when it began to matter to him: Mr. Vaidhyanathan came to his academic career in copyright not through an interest in law but as a fan of hip-hop music. In college he loved how rappers used samples of recorded music to form the backbones of their songs, which brought new meaning to both the rap lyrics and the sampled, looped tune. Despite poor grades, he slipped into graduate school -- also at Austin -- and took a course on American music. At the time, hip-hop was getting "bum rushed," he recalls. Established songwriters were threatening rappers with copyright lawsuits, effectively stripping a whole creative element out of the music. "I decided I had to read everything I could on copyright," says Mr. Vaidhyanathan. "I went looking for a clearly written book for laypeople to read, and I found that there wasn't one. I thought I should probably write one." What's intriguing to me about this is what it reveals about the people in this movement -- that what inspires many of us to become copyright activists is our admiration for the creative process. This is, of course, the opposite of what we hear from the "other side," which imagines/insists that people fighting for balance are a bunch of lazy freeloaders -- adherants to a morally suspect "Everything-For-Free" philosophy. Yesterday, my Everything-For-Free colleague Seth Schoen, who is far more brilliant than he has any right to be, wrote an email to the Dave Farber IP list that is ostensibly about whether TiVo has betrayed its customers by selling out to copyright holders. What it's really about is the struggle to maintain creative freedom in the face of companies or organizations that would dearly love to own (control) the process. My friend and former boss, Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain, says watching TiVo is like "mainlining" television -- and for the copyright cartel, that's plenty good enough. It's time to stick a fork in the PVR and move on. Seth begs to differ: I would not get so worked up about any one action that TiVo takes. We know their strategy, and it involves co-operating with movie studios to impose restrictions on end users. The reasons why they do this are not mysterious. If you want to criticize TiVo -- and that's fine with me! -- the right place to start is much earlier in the company's history. But if you actually want to opt out of the DRM game, it seems to me that the thing to do is to spread the remaining unrestricted technologies as far and wide as possible while they're still legal. People who got excited about "convergence" last decade often didn't mention DRM (and sometimes weren't even aware of it). [...] In terms of end user control, there is an opportunity for [Consumer Electronics] devices to converge up (enhancing customers' control) and a risk of PC devices converging down (eroding it). I think the world the entertainment companies have built is providing exactly the wrong incentive at every point as this question is worked out. These are not the words of a freeloader. They are the words of someone who plans to spend his Friday evenings after work patiently guiding a group of volunteers in developing new recipes for something far better than mainline TV: technologies that allow us to continue to create as well as to consume. There's a lot more to say about this, but alas -- the day calls. Do check out the Siva profile and Seth's IP list email in full. Both are rich in food for thought. [Copyfight] 8:43:22 PM    comment []

Hacker hire costs SecurePoint an ally. SecurePoint's decision to hire the alleged author of the Sasser worm has upset a software partner. [CNET News.com] 8:43:22 PM    comment []

Renovated MoMA opens doors for preview. On CNN [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 8:37:52 PM    comment []

Human Subject Regulations Decision Charts The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) provides the following graphic aids as a guide for institutional review boards (IRBs), investigators, and others who decide if an activity is research involving human subjects that must be reviewed by an IRB under the requirements of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations at 45 CFR part 46. OHRP welcomes comment on these decision charts. The charts address decisions on the following: whether an activity is research that must be reviewed by an IRB whether the review may be performed by expedited procedures, and whether informed consent or its documentation may be waived. 12:46:43 PM    comment []

Marriage Blues. "If blue states care less about moral values, why are divorce rates so low in the bluest of the blue states?" So opens The New York Times article “To Avoid Divorce, Move to Massachusetts "It's a question that intrigues conservatives, as much as it emboldens liberals."   But the article left me not altogether satisfied about the answer to the question [disclosure: I live in Massachusetts and have been married 23 years and sometimes wonder how in the world did we get into our THIRD decade!] so I went to The National Center for Health Statistics for figures on divorce in America for the past 40 years.   Yes, today the lowest divorce rates are in the Northeast and the highest are in the South and West, but looks like that geographic distribution goes back many, many years, even as the country as a whole saw an average increase in the divorce rate for reasons economic and cultural. Massachusetts is lowest today with 2.4 divorces per 1,000 population. Two decades ago it was also lowest with 3.1 divorces per thousand. Even four decades ago, the map looks virtually the same: couples in the Northeast and upper mid-West were least likely to get divorced.   1960: Northeast         0.9 divorces per thousand Northcentral    2.1 South               2.8 West                3.4   In 1960, the very lowest rates of divorce (between 0.4 and 0.9) were in New York, New Jersey, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Alabama had the highest (5.3) after Nevada, which doesn’t really count because people would go there expressly to establish residence and get divorced.   What accounted for the regional differences? The Center for Health Statistics 1960 report analyzed the demographic profiles of divorced couples and in dry language, notably absent opinion, came up with the strongest marker for eventual divorce: a young age at marriage – and the states with the highest divorce rates had the youngest brides and grooms. The way the report put it, couples married younger were “overrepresented” among divorced people. The analysis showed that with every five year increase in the age of newlyweds, the probability of divorce was lower.  In Alabama, divorced women on average had become brides at 18.4 years of age and divorced men became grooms at 21.9 years of age. These were averages a couple of years younger than the national average.   What does it mean when people get married young? It means they are probably in a disadvantaged socio-economic group relative to older couples ie. By virtue of their age, they almost certainly have had less education, are less employable, have lower income and all in all face a more difficult household situation than more established couples. They are also, by definition, less mature.   How “morality” impacts the age at which a person gets married can only be speculative. However, these statistics suggest a twist on the “abstinence only” message. When concerned adults tell teenagers to wait before getting involved, maybe the emphasis of the message shouldn’t be so much on wait for sex, but wait for marriage…. [Girl in the Locker Room!] 6:33:12 AM    comment []

Why the Democrats Need to Stop Thinking About Elephants. George Lakoff, author of the surprise best seller "Don't Think of an Elephant," offers the Democrats a road map for going forward. By By ADAM COHEN. [NYT > Opinion] 6:33:12 AM    comment []

Trial Shows How Spammers Work. On Foxnews: U.S. & World [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 6:31:57 AM    comment []

Sun to Roll Out Free Solaris OS. Hoping to attract developers and customers, Sun Microsystems will announce its next-generating operating system will be offered for free. The company spent roughly $500 million and years of development time on the software. [Wired News] 6:29:43 AM    comment []

Two from NYT > Education: Ivory Tower Executive Suite Gets C.E.O.-Level Salaries. The earnings of many top university presidents are spiraling toward $1 million a year, rising far more quickly than faculty salaries. By By SAM DILLON. Those Bake Sales Add Up, to $9 Billion or So. Private support of public schools is reshaping the nation's schools. By By GREG WINTER. 6:29:38 AM    comment []

Monday Nov 15: Kerry 252, Bush 286. Today's map The election may not be quite as finished as most people think. Take a look at this article about recounts and strategy. It may explain why Kerry has been so silent of late--he is letting others do the heavy lifting. If the expected recount of New Hampshire turns up serious problems, especially with voting machines, there will be demands for recounts elsewhere. Even if it doesn't change the result, this exercise could convince people that maybe now it is time to get serious about devising an electoral system in which every eligible voter can vote and every vote counts. We are still very far from that goal and it is a national disgrace. In addition to the recount in New Hampshire (which Kerry won), the Libertarian and Green parties intend to file for recounts, starting in Ohio. There are two reasons to ask for recounts. First, the exit polls, which historically have been quite accurate, differ from the tallied results by more than could be expected by chance alone. Second, there are issues about the invalidated, provisional, and absentee ballots. Once the results have been certified, which could be as early as tomorrow in some states, the paper ballots are destroyed and the computer memories are cleared unless a recount has been formally requested. In Ohio, requesting a recount there costs $10 per precinct or about $113,600 for the whole state. If you want to contribute, click here for the announcement. I was unable to get through to the actual contribution site at 5 a.m. EST Sunday morning. I don't know why, but I doubt it was due to their being swamped with traffic. You might have to call the Libertarian or Green Parties if you can't get through. It would nice if the mainstream media were more interested in getting a complete and accurate count of all the votes, but they don't seem to be. An analysis of the pollsters can now be found on the Compare the pollsters page. Take a look to see who gets an A+ and who gets an F. The LA Times has an article comparing the election results to those of previous ones in which an incumbent president ran. By historical standards, this was an incredibly close contest. [Electoral Vote Predictor 2004] 6:29:04 AM    comment []

Do Blogs Change the News?. A conference dedicated to online journalism explores the effect blogs have on news reporting. Some say they draw attention to under-reported stories. Others struggle to establish the credibility enjoyed by professionals. [Wired News] 6:28:27 AM    comment []

Iran Gives Pledge on Uranium, but Europeans Are Cautious. European officials are studying a new pledge from Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities in exchange for incentives. By By ELAINE SCIOLINO. [NYT > International] 6:19:28 AM    comment []

Four selected from The Shifted Librarian's Catch-up post: I hope that BroadcastFlag.com becomes a good resource on this topic, because librarians really need to start paying attention to and understanding what's going on with Digital Rights Management (DRM) and how it could affect us. Yes, the Broadcast Flag is seemingly related just to TV shows, but it will end up being oh-so-much-more, including a precedent.   Check out Borders' new GiftMixer 3000 for an interesting take on readers' advisory.   Jessamyn has a great rant about anytime, anywhere reference. It's very Scan-like and shifts library services to where the patron is at the point of their need. I like.   In case you missed it, I talked to several library vendors about RSS at the Illinois Library Association conference back in September. I even gave each of them a handout. Only two of them have responded in any way, shape, or form. Only ProQuest and Innovative cared enough to call me back. Not even a courtesy "thanks for sharing" contact from the others. For shame, library vendors, for shame. [The Shifted Librarian] 6:19:24 AM    comment []