September 2011
48 posts
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“Different languages are spoken at varying speeds but thanks to correlated...”
– The speed and density of language (via wildcat2030). This might be my favorite paragraph about comparing languages that I have ever read. I love everything that it implies about information and communication and the evolution of language.
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Uniform Motion: Release day economics →
uniformmotion:
Our new record was ‘officially’ released today. This means that you’ll find the digital version on various different Digital music stores like iTunes, AmazonMP3 and eMusic, and you’ll be able to stream the music from services such as Spotify and Deezer.
The physical versions (CD…
A bit of a reality check on how much it costs to make music available for purchase and...
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“Cameras are copy machines. That doesn’t mean that photography...”
– Photographs Are Mechanical Representations Of Facts, And Thus Should Have Only Thin Copyright Protection | Techdirt.
Ok but remember: something taking skill is not what makes it elligible for copyright protection. It’s that it has creative elements. Photographs have creative elements. Those...
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Silly People, Books Are For Reading. Copyfight:... →
An interesting case that’s attacking the first sale doctrine from a weird angle. It’s hard to imagine a world in which any books printed overseas cannot ever be resold without the printer’s permission. Bookstores couldn’t really exist in that kind of a system.
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“Hotfile claims that Warner removed hundreds of files wrongfully. For example,...”
– Filesharing service sues Warner Bros. for copyright fraud | MacNN.
Maybe this will establish a mechanism for fighting back against companies that use the DMCA to have fair use works pulled from the internet. There needs to be a re-balance between the rights associated with fair use and the rights...
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Mega space storm would kill satellites for a... →
infoneer-pulse:
A MAJOR solar storm would not only damage Earth’s infrastructure, it could also leave a legacy of radiation that keeps killing satellites for years.
When the sun belches a massive cloud of charged particles at Earth, it can damage our power grids and fry satellites’ electronics. But that’s not all. New calculations suggest that a solar megastorm could create a persistent...
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There's No Such Thing as Free Streaming Music →
infoneer-pulse:
Just when we thought iTunes had convinced us to pay for our jams, it looks like we’ve come full circle, back to free. Today, streaming music service MOG will join other services like Spotify and Pandora, offering a “gratis” option, reports The New York Times’s Ben Sisario. “MOG, an American music streaming service, has developed a free version to compete with Spotify.” But is...
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“Interestingly, the amount of data people create by writing email messages,...”
– World’s data will grow by factor of 50 in next decade - Digital Lifestyle - Macworld UK (via infoneer-pulse).
Our computers and our Google profiles and our internet histories will eventually know more about us than even our close family will be able to piece together from our communication with...
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“Why are books so long? Do the weighty thoughts of authors require it, or is it...”
– Neil Postman (via azspot). I think this might be an unpopular opinion, because it’s easy for people to confuse a desire for concise communication with a distaste for reading long books. I LIKE reading long books, but not when the introduction elucidates the argument just fine, and the rest of...
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“Sixty per cent of the data still resides on unprotected laptops and desktops....”
– Security and Google Apps - storage, security, google apps, Google, Eran Feigenbaum, cloud computing - CIO (via interestingsnippets)
This little set of numbers highlights the real threat to privacy and security. Our sensitive information is in danger of being taken from us not because our technology...
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Google is an identity service, Schmidt says →
Saying that he’s been thinking about identity for 20 years, Schmidt calls it a “hard problem”: “The Internet would be better if we had an accurate notion that you were a real person”, he says.
A real person, Schmidt says, can be held accountable: “we could check them, we could give them things …bill them, you know, we could have credit cards and so forth … there are all sorts of reasons.”
“My...
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“So I decided that if Facebook was going to bombard me with fake birthday wishes,...”
– Fake Facebook Birthdays: What happened when I celebrated my Facebook birthday on July 11. And July 25. And July 28. - By David Plotz - Slate Magazine.
Great article, if a little obvious. I think we’ve all figured out by now that birthday wishes on Facebook are lazy and not necessarily very...
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Can You Track Me Now? Not Without a Warrant! |... →
Short, sweet, simple description of a pretty important (if relatively obvious) ruling.
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“Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be...”
– Appeals Court: Arresting Guy For Filming Cops Was A Clear Violation Of Both 1st & 4th Amendments | Techdirt.
This is a fantastic quote and a fantastic ruling. Our Constitution does not protect our government from us, it protects us from our government.
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“It’s been a week since Fox stopped offering free access to its TV-shows the day...”
– Fox’s 8-Day Delay on Hulu Triggers Piracy Surge | TorrentFreak.
This is all still pretty obvious. The article oversells it a bit, but it’s always been true that limiting the availability of legal sources for content boosts the illegal access. Remember that the traditional TV companies (Fox,...
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“SB 914 was intended to reverse the California Supreme Court’s decision in...”
– EFF-Supported Bill Requiring Warrant for Cell Phone Searches Passes CA Legislature, Goes to Gov. Brown | Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Obviously a very interesting issue. I’ve got more to say once we see if the governor’s gonna sign it.
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times, changing
agrammar:
tankboy:
You know what? I went to high school in the ’80s. I had a computer. I read sci-fi. I was super fucking smart. And I was what one would call a huge fucking nerd. The day “nerd” became sexy was also the day I realized everything that had caused me pain from age 0-19 had been coopted by jocks and diluted past the point of fucking no return.
Everyone’s adolescence is painful,...
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Experts worry that the family photo album is being... →
We keep our pictures on our computers, or our phones; we display them on Facebook or some other networking site. But we rarely print them out, trusting instead in the permanence of technology that changes hourly.
In 2006, Fujifilm looked at the photography landscape and came to a startling conclusion. That year some 25 billion images were captured, and most of them were printed. Analyzing...
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“American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our...”
– 1988 George Lucas Calls 2011 George Lucas an “Egotistical Gangster”. I’ll just leave this here.
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FCC finally kills off fairness doctrine →
infoneer-pulse:
The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules.
Earlier this summer FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agreed to erase the post WWII-era rule, but the action Monday puts the last nail into the coffin for the regulation that sought to ensure discussion over the airwaves of controversial issues did not exclude...
