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Wednesday, April 30, 2003 |
Slashdot: CrashRide writes "According to this story at AdAge.com, Unicast is attempting to introduce a new on-line ad format that takes over the entire screen of the PC for about 15 seconds and must be closed by the viewer. "The ultra-intrusive new format opens when a user is on one page of a Web site and clicks a link to go to another page on the same site. Instead of seeing that new page, the user sees an ad that fills the entire screen.""
Can they seriosly expect people not to backlash against this? I'm surfing the web, reading a news story, and suddenly an ad takes over my computer for 15 seconds? First thing I do is block it from working, the second thing I do is never go to that website again.
11:07:28 PM 
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Dear Dear Dear
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (excerpts)
 emo to: President Bush, the White House
From: Saddam Hussein, in a Baghdad basement
Well, you sure ruined my birthday. . . . O.K., you won, and your prize is Iraq. Are you ready for it? I don't think so. Truth is, I hope you fail. But because my people have suffered enough, I'll give you a few tips on how to run this place, before you make a total mess:
(no doubt this will appear on a lot of other blogs in the morning) [annoying white angry middle aged balding man (Soon, you're gonna work for free!!)]
9:57:33 PM
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RIAA Gets the Message About IMs. The Recording Industry Association of America is using instant messaging to warn thousands of file traders not to download copyrighted songs. Now where did they get that idea? By Katie Dean. [Wired News]
Two of the things I hate most put together, SPAM and the RIAA. Hmmmm.... Ain't that Ironic
9:41:22 PM
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We've seen it all before. There's a standard dance that the IP extremists do well: When they lose in Congress, they go overseas and negotiate a treaty that imposes on the US the same obligation they just lost in Congress; then they come back and say, "we must do this to live up to our international obligations." So here we go again: The US Trade Representative is negotiating trade agreements with Chile and Singapore. The agreements essentially require these two countries to adopt the DMCA, and make it a violation of "our international obligations" if we were to change the DMCA. Representatives Lofgren and Boucher -- who both have bills introduced to amend the DMCA -- have written a strongly worded letter to the USTR asking for clarification. For consistent with this policy making process, just what is being promised is never made clear -- until it is too late. Here's the letter. [Lessig Blog]
6:49:43 PM
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To those respectful and polite sorts:. Who kindly email to ask whether they can link to my content on my blog: The permissions for my site are expressed in (1) human readable form, (2) lawyer readable form, and (3) machine readable form in the Creative Commons license linked at the bottom of the page. The whole point of this is to enable people to build upon other peoples' work without signing a contract. (Here's a nice flash to make the point.) So please excuse me if in response to your request, all you get is a link back to this post. If you need express permission, then I'm sorry: CC-express is the best I will do, because a world that better expresses freedom is the space we are trying to build. [Lessig Blog]
6:48:15 PM
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In a widely-quoted comment, Justice Scalia said at a university in Cleveland that civil liberties may be properly curtailed during wartime:
"The Constitution just sets minimums. . . Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires."
* * *
Scalia did not discuss what rights he believed are constitutionally protected, but said that in wartime, one can expect "the protections will be ratcheted right down to the constitutional minimum. I won't let it go beyond the constitutional minimum."
Sheesh. An incredibly dumb comment. And he didn't even say "we won't".
I am far from being a Nino-basher. Indeed, his approach to jurisprudence and statutory interpretation is close to but not identical to mine. But this comment strikes me as, let us say, injudicious. I don't think he had any idea of the connotations carried by his comment. Things that are "ratcheted right down" in times of crisis include thumbscrews and the rack.
There is a reason that judges are expected to approach these issues with a sense of solemnity and deliberation. Off-the-cuff comments by Supreme Court Justices do not play well in the political arena. [The LitiGator]
1:09:44 AM
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An incredible story from Australia: During a murder trial of a 51-year-old man who had confessed to killing the victim, then 14 and now 18, she was found alive.
We noted last fall, in discussing the Eddie Joe Lloyd case, that there cannot be certainty about many murder cases, even cases in which the defendant "admits" to having done the crime. False confessions are not vanishingly rare; they happen all too often, for a number of reasons. We continue to adhere to the belief that capital punishment is appropriate for egregious cases only when there is absolute certainty that a crime has been committed and that the defendant did it. Not confidence beyond a reasonable doubt -- absolute certainty. And as we get older and grayer, we wonder how many cases truly can meet that exacting standard. [The LitiGator]
1:06:35 AM
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Vacuuming the Lungs, at FTrain.com. This is something that every trial lawyer can appreciate. My favorite part is the author's description of this technique as "rebooting" his pulmonary system. [The LitiGator]
12:14:55 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Kurt Hines.
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