Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Schooling the Judges (Donna Wentworth). Edward Felten, concluding a critique of the Posner/Becker reaction to the Grokster ruling, argues that it may be time for judges to start taking computer science classes: As we have seen so many times, bad computer science leads to bad law. Posner seems to miss this, but Becker's stance shows appropriate caution. One criticism of law and economics is that it works well in a seminar room but may lead to dangerous overconfidence if applied to a hard case by an overworked, generalist judge. One solution is to teach judges more economics, and economic seminars for judges have proliferated. Perhaps the time has come to run seminars in computer science for judges.  . . . On the other hand, as a reader over @ Freedom to Tinker points out, a little education can be a dangerous thing:  . . . If there were some kind of seminar in computer science for judges, so that they could avoid looking completely at sea, what principles would you want to teach them? I'd like to hear the answer to that one -- as would, it appears, former Posner clerk and MobBlogger Randy Picker, who teaches future judges: Perhaps you could post a reading list: top five (ten?) articles that lawyers, judges and law professors need to read to understand the technical limits that you describe? This is getting good. Check it out. [Copyfight] 9:13:07 PM    comment []

New article. The English version of my article about the Iranian youth and Ahmadinejad's win is now published on openDemocracy with lots of infromative links they've kindly added to it. Please check them out. Iran’s young reformers (openDemocracy) Ein TV-Sieg (Die Zeit) [Editor: Myself (English)] 9:10:26 PM    comment []

More on Sling(boxes), Arrows, and Outrage (Donna Wentworth). Over at Deep Links, Fred von Lohmann has more on the entertainment industry's warning shots across the bow for companies that make "Me2Me" technologies like the Slingbox: First Post-Grokster Cold Front?: "Prior to the MGM v. Grokster ruling, these companies needed only to prove that any substantial use of their product is noninfringing. Today, they may be called upon to prove that every use that they ever promoted or advertised is noninfringing." [Copyfight] 9:06:42 PM    comment []

What William Gibson said. What William Gibson said: "Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us. Though not all of us know it - yet." [rexblog: Rex Hammock's Weblog] 9:06:36 PM    comment []

Don't be a Sceptic. Luka Yovetich sent me a link to this article in the Washington Post about the costs of scepticism. The defendent was asked whether he would commit more crimes if he was released, and (to paraphrase) he said that he didn't know because he didn't have an answer to global scepticism. As they say on the interwebs, read the whole thing. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll recognise behaviour that previously you'd only seen in philosophical colleagues, etc. [Thoughts Arguments and Rants] 9:06:13 PM    comment []

EU Parliament Votes Down Software Patents, 648-14 (Jason Schultz). Big news. As reported by the BBC, the European Parliament has voted down the Computer-Implemented Inventions Directive, a law that would have given broad authority to the European Patent Office to start issuing US-style software patents in the EU. Rejection of this law is a huge, huge victory for innovation. In particular, it's great to see the European Parliament realize that while software patents can spur some incremental innovation amongst coders, they often also inhibit wide adoption of new technologies, entry of start-ups into new markets, and the essential lifeblood of any network -- interoperability of programs and data. Kudos to the MEPs for standing strong on this issue in the wake of intense pressure to maximize patent protection at the expense of competition and universal access to knowledge. Kudos also to FFII, FSF, and all the other organizations that worked so hard to shed light on the true effects this misguided law could have. A caveat: This vote doesn't outlaw software patents in the EU; it just doesn't officially sanction them. The European Patent Office will now have to decide on its own how to handle these issues, which should be interesting. Over the years, the EPO has granted some but not all software patents applied for, and has tended to do so on a haphazard basis. Hopefully, with such a resounding vote, it will curtail most if not all such grants. We'll see. [Copyfight] 9:05:19 PM    comment []

Rove: No questions, please. The president's chief political advisor has lunch with the Washington Post but refuses to discuss the Valerie Plame case. [Salon.com] 9:05:06 PM    comment []

Wes: Remember the part in Snow Crash where Hiro used lag to cut through the big black wall into a forbidden part of the Metaverse? Somebody did essentially the same thing by accident in World of Warcraft. 9:01:21 PM    comment []

Cooper to testify; Miller to jail. The Time reporter says his source has given him the OK to talk to the federal prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame case. [Salon.com] 9:00:37 PM    comment []

Federal judge jails New York Times reporter. On CNN [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 8:54:36 PM    comment []

Leibniz prizewinner cleared: Researcher whose award was threatened by misconduct claim is found innocent. By Ned Stafford, in The Scientist. Stefanie Dimmeler, a 37-year-old biologist at the University of Frankfurt, has been cleared of scientific wrongdoing by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and can now belatedly receive one of Germany's most prestigious scientific research prizes. . . . The issue had arisen when anonymous letters were sent to DFG President Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker and German scientific journal Laborjournal, referring to a November 2003 Nature Medicine article coauthored by Dimmeler that included a wrongly labeled panel image of mouse cells. Dimmeler told The Scientist in March that an anonymous letter also had been sent to Nature Medicine, informing editors that the exact same panel had appeared, differently labeled, in an August 2003 article by Dimmeler in Blood. Dimmeler at that time confirmed the mistake, saying that a coworker had inadvertently pulled the wrong image of mouse cells "from hundreds of images." In September 2004, Nature Medicine published an erratum with the correct panel. Dimmeler said she thought the matter had been settled. The DFG's statement on Tuesday said that an "experienced post-doc" in Dimmeler's working group had been solely responsible for submitting the wrong panel to the journal. Eva-Maria Streier, spokeswoman for the DFG, said that the prize money would be made available immediately to Dimmeler. The DFG had no choice but to investigate the allegations in order to protect the integrity of the Leibniz Prize, Streier said. "You do not want a shadow hanging over the Leibniz Prize." The DFG occasionally receives anonymous letters accusing scientists of scientific misbehavior, but usually does not find them worth investigating, she said. But in Dimmeler's case, "there were irregularities and we had to find out in the end who was responsible." Now that a thorough investigation has been conducted, the DFG is happy that Dimmeler has been cleared of wrongdoing, she said. "As of now, the case is closed." 3:09:27 PM    comment []

Keep These Kids From Eating Veggies? Try.. Alice Waters, the queen of California cuisine, takes her theories on gardens, food and children to the Mall in Washington. By R. W. APPLE Jr.. [NYT > Education] 8:00:48 AM    comment []

Russia'a Black-Market Data Trade. Interesting story on the market for data in Moscow: This Gorbushka vendor offers a hard drive with cash transfer records from Russia's central bank for $1,500 (Canadian). And: At the Gorbushka kiosk, sales are so brisk that the vendor excuses himself to help other customers while the foreigner considers his options: $43 for a mobile phone company's list of subscribers? Or $100 for a database of vehicles registered in the Moscow region? The vehicle database proves irresistible. It appears to contain names, birthdays, passport numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, descriptions of vehicles, and vehicle identification (VIN) numbers for every driver in Moscow. I don't know whether you can buy data about people in other countries, but it is certainly plausible. [Schneier on Security] 7:58:49 AM    comment []

Pediatricians Defy Abstinence-Only. Finally, some medical common sense around teens and contraception, but in the Bush era it ends up sounding like defiance when the American Academy of Pediatrics declares that all teens, abstinent or not, need to have education about and access to birth control as a matter of health. AND that the Association is updating its 1998 policy to remove the statement that "abstinence counseling is an important role for all pediatricians" because evidence shows that abstinence-only interventions are not effective. From the AP: Teaching abstinence but not birth control makes it more likely that once teenagers initiate sexual activity they will have unsafe sex and contract sexually transmitted diseases, said Dr. S. Paige Hertweck, a pediatric obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Louisville who provided advice for the report. The report, released today in the journal Pediatrics, is refreshingly unambiguous. It says pediatricians should "Help ensure that all adolescents have knowledge of and access to contraception including barrier methods and emergency contraception supplies." [Girl in the Locker Room!] 7:58:24 AM    comment []

Introducing the Spoken Alexandria Project + Podcast. “The Spoken Alexandria Project launches today at http://www.spokenalex.org/ with free MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis audiobooks, all without DRM constraints and all licensed with Creative Commons Licenses, so users, libraries, and projects may share them without permission. For interested parties, uncompressed audio files and an MP3 podcast are also available…. From the beginning, Telltale Weekly was designed to be the fundraising wing of a larger audiobook project: an online library of spoken word recordings which anyone else--including parallel (‘competing?’) libraries and projects--could share freely, just as sites like Project Gutenberg distributes its texts. The majority of Telltale Weekly recordings sold (all the ‘Funding a Free Audiobook Library’ pieces) would, after five years, be made available for free at this library, thus continuously stocking (and, more importantly) funding its growth. Today, sixteen months and 100 spoken word releases after Telltale Weekly first hit the internet, The Spoken Alexandria Project launches. Perhaps a suitable tagline would be ‘The Free Audiobook Library which Telltale Weekly is funding,’ but we'll go with ‘Creative Commons Audiobooks’ for now. Read more at: http://www.awstudios.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=48” Emphasis above is mine in order to point out that even if your library can’t afford the subscription fees for the big, commercial audio ebook vendors, you can still circulate audio ebooks…. And how easy is it now to just subscribe to the podcast to get new releases?!   [The Shifted Librarian] 7:57:57 AM    comment []

Philosophomon: great philosophers' heads on Pokemon bodies Philisophers photoshoppically fused with the physiques of Pokémon personages. Link (Thanks, Tyler Bletsch) [bOing bOing] 7:57:33 AM    comment []

Selling your photo to the press. With so many of the public armed with cameraphones, real people could be taking pictures that the press simply aren't there to catch. Scoopt is the first picture agency set up specifically to help citizen reporters around the world sell the pics they take on their cameraphones. First, you have to register. Then, you can send photos directly from your mobile phone via MMS or via mobile email. If you catch a scoop, Scoopt can make sure that the right people see your picture quickly. Each time Scoopt makes a sale, they split the money with you 50/50. [Smart Mobs] 7:55:57 AM    comment []

Is the Game Industry Really Bigger than the Film Industry?. Once a niche market and considered by some as a curiosity in the mid-1970s, the video game industry now takes in USD$10 billion per year worldwide. Contrary to the popular belief, the video game industry is not bigger than Hollywood. The film industry as a whole makes $180 billion per year, while book publishing makes $23 billion per year. (From Wikipedia) The claim that the video game industry has surpassed the film industry has been made a lot in recent years. I'm not sure I buy it. I have heard reports that the game industry bloats their numbers by including console sales, while the film industry only counts the box office. If the two industries went head-to-head comparing everything specifically related to them (including motion picture cameras, projectors, DVD players, etc. on the one hand vs. consoles, high-end graphic cards, etc. on the other), I wonder which would truly come out on top. Anyone got hard numbers they want to show me? [unmediated] 7:52:25 AM    comment []