Wednesday, October 26, 2005

From Benton Headlines: A FAKE END TO FAKE NEWS [SOURCE: AlterNet, AUTHOR: Diane Farsetta, Center for Media and Democracy] [Commentary] When the Senate Commerce Committee amended the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967), it weakened the bill. First, the revised Act drops the continuous on-screen notification requirement for VNRs. Second, it calls for "clear notification within the text or audio of the prepackaged news story," without specifying the minimum requirements for audience disclosure. Most troubling, it allows that disclosure to be removed altogether, following rules that the Act requires the Federal Communications Commission to develop. "The bill clears the way for TV news operations to continue using snippets of government-produced VNRs for [video footage] in their own stories, as they do currently, leaving the issue of how to identify the material up to station news personnel." The problem is that nondisclosure -- that's covert propaganda -- is currently the norm. NEW RULES ON INTERNET WIRETAPPING CHALLENGED [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Arshad Mohammed] New federal wiretapping rules that would make it easier for law enforcement to monitor e-mails and Internet-based phone calls were challenged by privacy, high-tech and telecommunications groups in federal court yesterday. The groups argued that the rules would force broadband Internet service providers, including universities and libraries, to pay for redesigning their networks to make them more accessible to court-ordered wiretaps. The groups also said the Federal Communications Commission rules, scheduled to take effect in May 2007, could erode civil liberties and stifle Internet innovation by imposing technological demands on developers. The law "will have a devastating impact on the whole model of technical innovation on the Internet," said John Morris, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, which filed an appeal of the rules with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit yesterday. "The Internet evolves through many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of innovators coming up with brand new ideas," he said. "That is exactly what will be squelched." Morris said his group did not dispute the idea that the government should be able to carry out court-ordered wiretaps, but rather argued that the 1994 law was a blunt instrument ill-suited for the Internet age. He said the matter should be referred to Congress, which "can tailor the obligations to the Internet context as opposed to importing the very clumsy [telephone system] obligations and imposing them on the Internet." CDT, Others Challenge FCC Wiretapping Ruling CDT joined with a coalition of public interest and business groups today in asking a federal appeals court to overturn a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling requiring that broadband Internet and interconnected voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services be designed to make government wiretapping easier. CDT joined the American Library Association, COMPTEL, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Pulver.com and Sun Microsystems in filling the appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Press Release Petition for Appeal FBI Net-wiretapping rules face challenges 12:07:36 PM    comment []

Get Your Freak On. Supply and demand. Rational choice. Cost-benefit analysis. All nonsense, say the authors of Freakonomics, a bestseller that fuses pop culture with economics, while turning conventional wisdom on its head. Make a $100 pledge today and the book Freakonomics is our gift to you. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 5:00:53 AM    comment []

BBC to Close 10 Radio Services and Open an Arabic TV Service. The BBC World Service is shutting down 10 of its foreign-language broadcasts in order to open an Arab-language television news and information service in the Middle East. By SARAH LYALL. [NYT > Business] 5:00:46 AM    comment []

Observations from Internet Librarian 2005. [The Shifted Librarian] 4:56:14 AM    comment []

Katamari Damacy: the text adventure This is insanely awesome: a walk-through for a theoretical text-adventure game based on Katamari Damacy, a mind-altering video game that plays like a cross between the Eames's Powers of Ten and Tetris. You are standing on the floor of a bedroom. Your Katamari is 10cm. > N There is a PAPER CLIP here. > ROLL CLIP I do not know what a CLIP is. > ROLL PAPER CLIP You roll up the PAPER CLIP. You are standing on the floor of a bedroom. > LOOK KATAMARI Your Katamari is 10.2cm. > N You are standing on the floor of a bedroom. There is a bottle of WHITE OUT here. > ROLL WHITE OUT You attempt to roll the WHITE OUT. You bounce back with a jarring force! You are standing on the floor of a bedroom. There is a bottle of WHITE OUT here. > INVENTORY Your Katamari contains the following items: PAPER CLIP Link (Thanks, Ruxxell!) Tricks with poker chip HOWTO backup your DVDs (thanks, Cory, Xeni, and Mark, respectively! Read them at bOing bOing -- ask for it by name!) 4:55:38 AM    comment []

The Nanoworld. "Mapping out the eight main nodes of nanotechnology discourse that have emerged in the past decade,we explore how various scientific, social, and ethical islands of discussion have developed, been recognized, and are being continually renegotiated.We do so by (1) identifying the ways in which scientists, policy makers, entrepreneurs, educators, and environmental groups have drawn boundaries on issues relating to nanotechnology; (2) describing concisely the perspectives from which these boundaries are drawn; and (3) exploring how boundaries on nanotechnology are marked and negotiated by various nodes of nanotechnology discourse,"the papers abstract says. A Map of the Nanoworld:Sizing up the Science,Politics,and Business of the Infinitesimal [Smart Mobs] 4:55:17 AM    comment []

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs. A memo to Wal-Mart's board proposes ways to limit health care costs, including discouraging unhealthy job applicants. By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO. [NYT > Business] 4:54:52 AM    comment []

53MB of Copyright Violations (Alan Wexelblat). DJ Food's presentation of Strictly Kev's massive remix of "Raiding the 20th Century". Subtitled "a history of the cut-up" it includes bits recorded by Paul Morley from his book Words & Music. [Copyfight] 4:38:03 AM    comment []