Tuesday, November 16, 2004

The FCC says it has power over anything that can receive and play a digital file. We don't much like how the Broadcast Flag forces companies like TiVo to get government approval before they can add new features to their products, but Susan Crawford writes that what's even scarier is how the FCC is using it as part of a power grab to wield control over everything that can receive a digital file. In a brief filed in a suit brought against the Broadcast Flag by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and PublicKnowlegde, the FCC argues that not only do they have the right to regulate that all digital TVs, settop boxes, digital video recorders, satellite receivers, DVD recorders, etc. only be able to receive authorized content, that they also have regulatory power over “all instrumentalities, facilities, and apparatus ‘associated with the overall circuit of messages sent and received’ via all interstate radio and wire communication.” And yes, that also means your PC, your cellphone, or basically anything else that is capable of receiving a digital file and engages in some sort of communication. [Via BoingBoing] [unmediated] 5:59:48 AM    comment []

Tracking Your Turkey. Ruth Reichl explores the new trend of raising turkeys the old- fashioned way. Patrick Martins and Todd Wickstrom, founders of Heritage Foods USA, explain how their customers get to know their poultryfrom choosing the farm on which its raised, to watching its progress via a farm web-cam. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 5:59:28 AM    comment []

Europeans Say Iran Agrees to Freeze Uranium Enrichment. France, Britain and Germany said Iran agreed to freeze part of its nuclear program in exchange for possible rewards. By By ELAINE SCIOLINO. [NYT > International] 5:59:12 AM    comment []

Terror Informant Ignites Himself Near White House Yemeni Was Upset at Treatment by FBI By Caryle Murphy and Del Quentin Wilber, Page A01    A Falls Church man who worked as a federal informant on terrorism set himself on fire in front of the White House yesterday, hours after announcing his suicide attempt and citing his growing despondency over how the FBI managed his case. [Washington Post: Top News] 5:57:50 AM    comment []

Bound but Gagged. The Treasury Department's regulations on written material from embargoed nations compromise America's standing as an advocate of democracy and freedom. By By SHIRIN EBADI. [NYT > Opinion] 5:51:25 AM    comment []

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill. As early as this week, the Senate may try to quickly pass a bill that would radically change copyright law in favor of Hollywood and the music industry. One provision: Skipping commercials would be illegal. Michael Grebb reports from Washington. [Wired News] 5:51:05 AM    comment []

Work Out Now, Ache Later: How Your Muscles Pay You Back. No one knows for sure exactly what causes muscle soreness, but many scientists think that the delayed pain is caused by microscopic tears in the muscles. By By VICKY LOWRY. [NYT > Science] 5:50:26 AM    comment []

Tuesday Nov 16: Kerry 252, Bush 286. Today's map The Libertarian and Green parties have collected the needed $113,600, so there will be a recount in Ohio. Ralph Nader is also asking for a recount in New Hampshire. If nothing else, these recounts will give us two data points for the popular vote in each state so we will be able to compute the standard deviations. We are all used to the concept of margin of error caused by the statistical sampling used in polls, but it may take some getting used to if there is a substantial statistical error in counting the actual votes. Exit polls showed that 7% of the voters have a cell phone but no landline. Among 18-29 year olds, the figure is 20% and growing. Furthermore, this group favored Kerry over Bush by 56% to 41%. Since pollsters are forbidden by law from calling cell phones, this age group was undersampled in the polls, but the pollsters were able to correct for the omission statistically. If the number of cell-only voters continues to grow rapidly, by 2008, the pollsters are going to have a big problem on their hands. [Electoral Vote Predictor 2004] 5:46:17 AM    comment []

FreeCulture.org crosses 13. The Free Culture Movement (started NOT by me but by the first to stand up to Diebold) now has over 13 chapters in colleges around the country. Read more at TechNewsWorld. [Lessig Blog] 5:42:43 AM    comment []

King Kaufman's Sports Daily. A Forbes report says the NHL has wildly exaggerated its losses. You remember the NHL, don't you? Don't you? [Salon.com] 5:41:42 AM    comment []

Graduate Admissions. In a couple of months, philosophy graduate programs all around the country will begin evaluating graduate applications. Judging from my experience, in a not insubstantial number of cases, one of the chief factors influencing admissions will be the supposed “quality” of the undergraduate institution, i.e. whether the applicant went to an Ivy League school or an elite private college. The best undergraduates from Harvard and Yale (for the most part themselves graduates of expensive private schools or all-white suburban public high schools) will receive multiple offers of admission from the best programs. If you’re the valedictorian of a mid-rank state school with a not very distinguished philosophy department, you’re going to have a great deal of trouble getting into a leading philosophy program. Everyone must have very good writing samples, but your writing sample needs to be significantly better than the writing samples of the graduate students from ‘name’ institutions. I’ve always wondered whether this is a sensible system. Does having the class background that facilitates admission to an Ivy League school really correlate well with future success as a philosopher? Some research should be done on this topic. In the meantime, I thought I would list some of the undergraduate institutions some of the leading young philosophers in the world have attended. Here are the undergraduate institutions of philosophers in the middle-40s or younger employed in philosophy departments ranked in the ‘top ten’ in the United States in the latest PGR, who attended US undergraduate institutions, and whose information is either available on the web or known to me personally: Harvard, Gordon College, SUNY Stony Brook, University of Minnesota-Mankito, Notre Dame, Oberlin, Calvin College, Brown, Princeton, Cornell, Westminster College, John Carroll University, Harvard, Tulane, Bethel College, UC Santa Cruz, Reed, Yale, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Williams, Swarthmore This is as unscientific as it gets; many philosophers inexplicably don’t have their CVs available on the web. We do see a lot of the expected names cropping up here on this list. But we also see a lot of not so expected names popping up. This I think is something for us to keep in mind when graduate admissions season rolls around again… -Jason Stanley [Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates--Guest Bloggers Nov. 15-21: Professors Jason and Marcus Stanley] 5:39:52 AM    comment []