Thursday, May 18, 2006

Very important Fair Use decision. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Graham v. Dorling Kindersley Limited is fantastic. Could this signal general progress? [Lessig Blog] 5:50:02 PM    comment []

Update on hands-off virtual society-evolution (sho .... Update on hands-off virtual society-evolution (shortish via Euk) [robot wisdom weblog] 5:48:11 PM    comment []

Question of the Week. The mothership asks If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be? I answer ... "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved" (Charles Darwin, 1859) A simple testable idea, but a powerful one, and one that can fruitfully both explain and predict phenomena. Irrespective of putative mechanism, and natural selection is just one, organisms are connected by common ancestry and continue to evolve. [Stranger Fruit] 5:47:49 PM    comment []

Freedom of Information: For Everyone. Earlier this year a Houston Press reporter drove 1,683 miles in Harris and its surrounding seven counties, visiting 63 school districts to test for compliance with the Texas Public Information Act, which is designed not just for reporters like me but for everyone. Here’s his story, called “Needling the Haystack.” Quite instructive. [Center for Citizen Media: Blog] 5:45:41 PM    comment []

Surveillance: the slope is ever more slippery. From CNN: Gen. Michael Hayden told his Senate confirmation hearing that the controversial National Security Agency wiretapping program he helped institute would have caught two 9/11 hijackers in San Diego, California, before they carried out their mission. This is lazy theory. In fact we know that the FBI and others had enough information, but failed to act. It's impossible to say whether wiretaps would have made a difference, just as it's hard to say whether wiretaps will be abused. Classified surveillance programs must be deployed only with great caution and sensitive oversight to prevent abuse. The Bush administration has demonstrated neither caution nor sensitivity in its pursuit of an endless "war on terror" that might ultimately be used to justify practically anything. And we have many examples in our own history, and in the recent history of countries like Germany and the Soviet Union, that suggest surveillance is readily deployed by those who would gather and abuse power. [Weblogsky] 5:45:30 PM    comment []

WBAB radio signal hijacked, by Bart Jones, Newsday. Olsen said the station's engineers were investigating what happened Wednesday, but he had one possible explanation. He said that from its studio in Babylon, WBAB sends a high-frequency microwave signal to its transmitting tower about six miles away in Dix Hills near the Long Island Expressway. "Somebody using an illegal transmitter and small antenna we believe overtook our signal between the studio and the transmitter and that's how they got in," he said. He added that the pirate would have to be near the signal but not necessarily at the transmission tower. "You have to be technologically pretty proficient in order to know how to do it," he said. "The equipment is probably readily available and if you know how to put the equipment together ... then it's something that's possible." He added that the station was taking steps Wednesday to ensure its broadcast isn't hijacked again. 8:01:14 AM    comment []