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Monday, December 16, 2002
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I found an easier way to keep the LiveJournal version of this blog up-to-date, so I'm going to start doing that again. I've also started the arduous task of archiving stuff in the LiveJournal - which allows you to back-date entries. Today I started with August 1 and hope to do at least one day everyday.
I also tentatively restarted some of my categories. I had them before but they all disappeared in the meltdown of my work PC blog.
8:36:19 PM 
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WOW Café Theatre announced today the world premiere of this original play for its month-long run in January 2003. Based on actual domestic defense operations, and eerily prophetic of recent government invasions of personal privacy, Spies in the Stacks begins in 1962, in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A New York librarian is approached by the FBI to spy on patrons, including those people close to her. Initially opposed to such tactics, her convictions waver after the assassination of President Kennedy. When a beautiful Cuban woman begins to visit the stacks, the librarian's surveillance becomes obsessive in this play about danger, desire and spying as an erotic impulse. Spies in the Stacks, written by Lori Bonfitto and Marie Laure Léger and directed by Lori Bonfitto runs Thursday-Saturday January 2nd through January 25th (previews January 2nd, 3rd and 4th officially opening January 9th ). All performances are at 8pm, tickets are $10. WOW Cafe Theater is located at 59 east 4th street between Bowery and 2nd Avenue. For reservations call 212-777-4280 or visit the website, http://www.wowcafe.org. Ms. Bonfitto's previous writing and directing credits include Groupies, A Very Special One Hour Georgie and the cult-hit Felony Femmes on the Lam at the Hamlet on Bank Street Theater. Ms. Léger is a student of Creative Writing at New York University.
6:42:53 PM
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- "As a librarian for more than 15 years, I read " .... - "As a librarian for more than 15 years, I read "Librarians Get Advice on Handling Government Requests for Information" (news article, Dec. 12) with interest and chagrin. Is it too obvious to point out that libraries are not the only places that suspected terrorists can gain access to the Internet?""Internet cafes are opening up in every city I have visited here and abroad, and access is available to anyone who has money to pay for it. Will the government start asking for information from businesses that offer Internet service next?" (from New York Times - Letters to the Editor) [Library Stuff - Updated daily by Steven M. Cohen]
6:24:16 PM
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More DMCA Abuse. Big Chem Deploys DMCA to Takedown Parody Site
"My, how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the DMCA, is turning out to be a fine and flexible friend. It extends across continents. It reaches into computers in Norway and Russia, which when we last looked, were sovereign nations and not US States.
A fortnight ago it was used to protect price lists, claiming that these are trade secrets. And now it has been turned onto a parody site.
Last week, the Yes-Men created a replica of Dow Chemical's website at the domain www.dow-chemical.com....
The letter [78kb PDF] spearheads a collection of copyright and trademark claims with the DMCA boilerplate.
Many of the claims are arguable, and on some grounds precedent favors the litigant. But the use of the DMCA obliges the recipient to take immediate action. And in the current frosty climate, that is intimidation enough:
'The carrier must reply. It can state that to best of its knowledge this does not violate what they're citing, but it has to be in good faith, or the carrier will lose his exemption status,' says Robin Bandy who runs a co-operative ISP in Oakland, CA....
Bandy advises other ISPs to check that these robo-generated emails have been cryptographically signed and come from the aggrieved party, or someone verifiably associated with them.
'In the one case we received a complaint, all they cited was a file name. There was no assertion of the contents of the file therefore they were not even making a valid assertion of copyright. It came from a system that had no traceable relationship to the MPAA and no reasonable network admin would assume that it did.' " [The Register]
How long before this type of abuse of the DMCA hits libraries because we preserve and circulate material that someone doesn't like? [The Shifted Librarian]
6:10:21 PM
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Victim of zeitgeist. Steven Levy writes on how Google is changing the zeigeist and the rising prominence of Google in both meatspace and cyberspace:
In the singles world, for instance, "Google dating" - running prospective beaus through the search engine - is now standard practice. If the facts about a suitor stack up, then you can not only go on the date with confidence, but you know what to talk about. [via Boing Boing Blog]
Yep, I too have been Googled, and I fear that my web pages grossly misrepresent me. Maybe I should change my name or something. Or change the name on this weblog. I've said it before already: this isn't me, it's something I do for fun. I'm a very different person. You may be surprised or disappointed if you meet me in person. I've had both happen.
Update: Levy's article seems to have spawned quite a debate: There is now an article about Googling your date in The New York Times, and the whole thing has also been slashdotted. From the article:
While Googling is innocuous, it is not entirely reliable. For starters, people share names. You can't be sure if you're reading about one guy who has had a varied career (or who can't hold a job) or several people. And you can't be sure which one will be buying you a cocktail. (The surgeon? The sock collector?) Googling myself -- which sounds more perverse than it is -- turned up an architecture prof at McGill University, a video editor, a broker of sports tickets and a table-tennis champ; I'm now jealous of all of them.
I must say that I have the unfair disadvantage of having a fairly unique name. [thx to Privacy Digest]
Another update: Niek Hockx is writing about it, too and has some good points. I quote merely his conclusion:
[I]t takes only a slightly intelligent person to understand why not even a zillion Google searches can ever represent another human being. But sadly, as machines get smarter and humans get more dependent on technology, we tend to leave our own intelligence and perhaps even more important, our own common sense at home. It's one thing to use Google as an information retrieval tool. But when the spider bots start directing our lifes and our loves, we might as well stop thinking and feeling altogether.
...
Maybe my bot can have a date with your bot some day. Just remember it isn't really me. But then again it isn't really you either... ;-) [shutterclog]
Indeed - all this googling business makes me think that if some people had access to Poindexter's Total Information Awareness thing, they'd use it for their dates, too. [The Aardvark Speaks]
6:03:08 PM
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Vile substances. Dave and Natalie reveal that they "actively hate that most wretched of holiday drinks: eggnog." In response, they have created the No-Nog Weblog, chronicling its path of destruction throughout history. [davezilla.com].
Now I have never encountered eggnog (it seems to be pretty much an American thing), but if it's anything like advocaat, which is probably the vilest substance drunk hereabouts around Christmas and New Year's, I can fully understand their reaction, and they have my unconditional support. [The Aardvark Speaks]
6:01:04 PM
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Blogs vs. Lott. When the major media and the Democratic leadership in the Senate were ready to give Lott a pass on his accidental honesty at Strom's 100th birthday party, it was the blogosphere that kept the story alive until the beltway consensus gelled and the pile-on began.
We always here about the power of right-wing talk radio and the libertarian blogosphere to build a drumbeat in an echo chamber and influence national politics. Are we now seeing a similar stirring from the left, a late-blooming awareness that we (that is, anyone) can set the agenda without waiting for the imprimatur of the powers that be? [Radio Free Blogistan]
5:57:36 PM
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How to shut them up. Davezilla overheard two interesting cell phone conversations. I, on the other hand, found a way to shut up pesky cell phoners: listen.
I mean, act as if you're listening. Not that you wouldn't hear everything they say anyway, given the way they're shouting into their phone. Heck, you'd have to be outright deaf not to hear everything about what illnesses their children have contracted, what they will be having for dinner tonight, and how they're lying to their spouses about where they are at the moment.
But seriously. Look at them and act as if you're really interested in what they're saying. Surprisingly enough, after half a minute or so, they'll suddenly become aware that somebody can hear what they're saying (as if that hadn't been the case before), and they'll become embarrassed. You'll notice how their voice volume goes down and, if you keep on looking and pretending to listen, they'll become so distracted that all they want to do is finish their telephone conversation, which they'll do very quickly.
I managed to shut up three people that way today. What, you say I have no respect for these people's privacy? I ask you: what is private about whatever somebody shouts into their mobile phone at the top of their voice? In fact, by shutting them up, I am helping them to keep their private lives private. Come to think of it, they should actually thank me for being an egoist bastard who just wants his peace and quiet. [The Aardvark Speaks]
4:59:26 PM
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Monday is usually a pretty slow day for the Exploded Library. I don't usually feel like writing anything.
At the same time I've noticed that I've been neglecting my own metablogging - that is, blogging other bloggers. There are some many good things being put out, but by the time I get around to looking at them, it's too overwhelming, especially if I'm adding silly comments of my own to them.
I'm going to try to solve both of these problems with my Meta Monday experiment. I'll post the blog entries which caught my eye over the past week. Just going to be the stuff which interests me but I don't feel like commenting on. It's a way of keeping of notes so I don't waste time searching for something if I want to read it again later.
Generally I try to add something unique or value-added in this blog, but no longer on Mondays! This will be unashamedly value-added free.
4:55:14 PM
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© Copyright
2003
Morgan Wilson.
Last update:
5/14/03; 12:13:10 AM.
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