Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Creation Science Fair
Middle school 2nd place is particularly of interest ...
Someone tell me this is a spoof!
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
no, of course not! i was just being facetious. i thought it was a very interesting [and relevant] piece. i'm just one of those people that believes that if the government or spammers or whoever wants to get a hold of your personal information, there are a multitude of simpler methods to follow.
besides, orkut has a lot of positive traits that are worth investigating...no one is telling you you even have to be forthright with your actual name, user photo, etc. so there is not really much to be worried about if you are indeed that paranoid [which, i agree, could be for good reason].
anyway, you're still not invited, so ppbth. :P
Avoid Friendster and its clones, warns security expert
Computer users who value their privacy should stay clear of 'social networking' websites, and should warn their friends away too, according to a distinguished Australian security professional. And for good-measure, the rash of new websites - with names apparently inspired by artificial food preservatives such as Ryze, Plaxo and Orkut - make a mockery of existing data protection legislation. "In general, people would be well-advised firstly to stay well clear of all address-book and 'social networking systems', and secondly to prevail upon their friends, colleagues and acquaintances that they should avoid making any data about them available to service-operators like Plaxo," says Professor Roger Clarke, a visiting professor at the Australian National University. Clarke has studied the leading contenders, of which the most famous is the revenue-free Friendster, and concluded that not only do they lack a basic understanding of privacy concerns, but they are not likely to either. Clarke describes the opt-in data harvesting as "disturbing" - a self-evident observation to anyone outside the self-referential Silicon Valley bubble from which many of these services have arisen - but not a concern to the creators. The 'social network' sites present opportunities for ruthless marketroids and stalkers. Plaxo, the most notorious example Clarke cites, encouraged users to upload their entire address books to the servers. "Every IP-address, every email, and every social-network relationship that arises appears to be entirely free of any express contractual constraints." But Plaxo goes further by offering a weasel-worded privacy'guarantee'. Plaxo states: 'We respect the privacy of your contacts and maintain a strict policy of not sharing their contact information (received as a result of responding to your update requests) with other Plaxo users who are asking for this information.' But Clarke notes, "the emphasised words appear to exclude the data that is provided by the user when they upload their address-book, and hence the undertaking does not apply to the data about other people that users gift to the company. This assurance falls desperately far short of real privacy protection." The faddish websites also offer opportunities to be wrongly accused of nefarious activity. "Social networks are a primary way in which suspicion is generated about individuals. Acquaintances of terrorists, terrorism suspects, terrorism financiers, terrorist supporters and terrorist sympathisers are at risk of being allocated into a grey zone of terrorist associates. A tag of that kind is potentially as harmful to a person as have been negative categorisations made in previous contexts, such as 'etranger', 'subversive' and 'unamerican'," Clarke notes. [...] The Register Party poopin pundit or particularly prescient person?....hmmmmmmm!
Ken Meier invites you to join his network of personal friends at orkut.com.
orkut is a community of friends and trusted acquaintances that connects individuals through a social network that grows person by person.
With orkut, you can catch up with old friends, make new acquaintances through people you trust, and maybe even find that certain someone you've been looking for everywhere.
orkut helps you organize and attend events, join communities that share your interests, and find partners to participate in the activities you most enjoy.
* * *
If you're already an orkut member, make sure that the email address at which you received this note is entered into your orkut profile. That way, you'll automatically be connected to all of your friends.
This invitation was sent to BLOGDIAL on behalf of Ken Meier.
* * *
Just send me [jkmeier at uchicago dot edu] your email address and I'll invite you. For the uninitiated, orkut is like Friendster, only better.
Who's on orkut already?
Category: Race/Ethnicity
Subject: White people and the sea
Question:
Why do white people swim in the ocean when they know dangerous sea creatures lurk in there and it can kill them?
POSTED 1/4/2004
Polly S., Thurmond, KS, United States, Female, Mesg ID 14200494719 [...]
Oh dear that place is FULL of Trolls!!!!
For those that like newsreaders (not the ones on TV, since none of you watch TV) here is our xml feed.
In the United States, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 retroactively extended the duration of copyright from the life of author plus fifty years to the life of the author plus seventy years, in the case of individual works, and from seventy-five years to ninety-five years in the case of works of corporate authorship and works first published before January 1, 1978.
Under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works states are required to provide copyright protection for a term of the life of the author plus fifty years. However, the convention permitted parties to provide for a longer term of protection, and between 1993 and 1996, the European Union provided protection for a term of the author's life plus seventy years (see Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection). The United States, however, only provided for the minimum required by the convention.
As a result, many literary works, movies and fictional characters, which were quite profitable for the copyright owners, were threatened with soon passing into the public domain. This included several characters owned by the Walt Disney Company; without the act, Mickey Mouse would have entered the public domain between 2000 and 2004 when early short films such as Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy were due to reach the end of the 75-year copyright term.
Copyright owners successfully lobbied Congress for an extension of copyright, to provide for the same term of protection as exists in Europe. Hence both houses of the United States Congress passed the act as Public Law 105-298 with a voice vote, making it impossible to determine who voted for the act and who voted against it, and passed it during both the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and the Kosovo War, ensuring that the act would get little coverage from the mainstream media.
As a consequence of the act, no copyrighted works will enter into public domain due to term expiration in the United States until January 1, 2019, when all works created in 1923 will enter into public domain.
In addition to Disney, Sonny Bono's widow and Congressional successor Mary Bono and the estate of George Gershwin supported the act. Mary Bono, speaking on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, noted that "Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever", but that since she was "informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution", Congress might consider Jack Valenti's proposal of a copyright term of "forever less one day".
Proponents of the Bono Act argue that it is necessary given that life expectancy has risen dramatically since Congress passed the original Copyright Act of 1790, that a difference in copyright terms between the United States and Europe would negatively affect the international operations of the entertainment industry, and that some works would be created under perpetual copyright that would never be created under time-limited copyright. They also claim that Congress has the power to pass whatever copyright term it wants because the language "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" in the United States Constitution is not a substantive limitation on the powers of Congress, leaving only the restriction that copyrights may only be for a "limited time". Given this interpretation, a million years would still be a valid "limited time" under the letter of the Constitution.
Opponents of the Bono Act consider the legislation to be little more than corporate welfare and have tried (and failed) to challenge its constitutionality, claiming that such an act is not "necessary and proper" to achieve the purpose of "promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts". They point out that the Tenth Amendment limits the powers that a treaty can grant to Congress. More directly, they see two successive extensions of approximately 20 years each (the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Bono Act) as the beginning of a "slippery slope" toward a perpetual copyright term that violates the spirit of the "for limited times" language of the United States Constitution, Article I, section 8, clause 8. They question the proponents' life expectancy argument, pointing out that the copyright term under the 1790 act lasted only twenty-eight years, that life expectancies have not risen threefold since 1790 (ignoring infant mortality, they have increased barely ten years), and that even though terms of patents have not been extended in parallel, patents adequately reward investment in the field with only a twenty-year term. They also question the proponents' "works would not be created" argument by pointing out proponents' hidden assumption that the goal is to create all works, whereas the authors of the United States Constitution considered the goal "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." In fact, some works created under time-limited copyright would not be created under perpetual copyright because the creator of a distantly derivative work does not have the money to purchase a license from the owner of copyright in the original work, or the individual or privately held owner of copyright in the original work might refuse to license a use at any price (though a refusal to license may trigger a fair use safety valve). One can thus argue that a rich public domain is necessary for artistic creation.
For example, the works of Shakespeare and the Greek myths have been the basis for much of Neil Gaiman's writing, which might well not have been created if they were still under copyright. Recent works that have entered the popular culture, and for which copyright is arguably not appropriate, include the novels that created Frankenstein and Dracula, both originating in the 19th century. Most of the holy writings of major religions are also in the public domain, which allows them to be adapted. If the Roman Catholic Church had a perpetual copyright on the letters of Paul of Tarsus, it could have refused to license them for translation or for use by other churches. [...]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Now.
Imagine for yourself, a world in the future, where a decendent of Bill Gates has managed to buy up all the stock libraries and collections of photographs created since the first photograph in the 1800's, all of which are copyrighted forever thanks to another, final amendment to the copyright laws.
One man, one company will have total control over every photo ever taken, when in fact, many millions of photographs would have fallen into the public domain had corporate bought legislation not been allowed to be put into the law.
The benefit to the citezenry of works falling into the public domain is well understood. The choice presented to us is do we want to live in a world where all of the collected works of every artist belongs to one company, like a modern version of the Soviet era Melodia, or do we want to live in a world where after having plenty of time to exploit her work, an artist then serves humanity after she is dead.
Patents last 20 years. If they did not, everythying you buy would cost more because a patent gobbling monster corporation would be imposing a fee for every object that is manufactured; imagine the case for a walkman in a world where patents never expire, you would have to pay a small amount of money for each innovation in your walkman. For example:
Magnetic heads
hinges,
pulley,
capstans,
pinch rollers,
rubber grommets,
casette spokes,
anodizing metal,
integrated circuits,
volume slider,
lcd display,
and anything else that is an original patented idea that was incorporated into the walkman. The price would at least double.
As it says above, imagine if writers had to pay a royalty ever time they borrowed or enhanced an idea from an out of copyright book. It would mean that many works simply would not be made, and of course, this is completely separate from the horrible situation of a single company controlling all of western culture for its own profit.
There is nothing wrong with profit. There is nothing wrong with owning property. What is wrong however is the relinquishing of your responsibility to future generations, and the accumulation of the control of culture in one persons hands. The founding fathers understood this responsibility and wrote the copyright laws accordingly.
I say that you should not be made to forfeit your property because the word forfeit means something very specific, which is different to allowing your work to fall into the public domain.
Forfeiture means :
# Something surrendered or subject to surrender as punishment for a crime, an offense, an error, or a breach of contract.
# To surrender, be deprived of, or give up the right to on account of a crime, an offense, an error, or a breach of contract.
Which means that the state is forcibly taking something away from you. When a person creates a work it is immediately protected by copyright, and furthermore the person knows in advance that this copyright is subject to a fixed term that will end when the author is dead, plud 75 years. If they do not accept this, then they have the option of not releasing the work (keeping it secret). Most civilized people accept these terms, this contract with humanity, however, there are people wo do not, and these are the people who want to extend copyright to a term not less than eternity. They are a small number of "corporate scum" who cannot stomach that some of their works will fall out of control. Think about it; Disney is a company old enough for this to actually matter. They have mead billions off of the work of Walt Disney, and now, it (should have been) time to let Mickey Mouse go, and concentrate on making the new characters for the new generation of animation lovers.
Nintendo's Mario is more recognisable than Mickey Mouse. This proves that it is possible for a company to develop characters that can superceed the popularity of a brand as powerful as "the mouse". The question is for Disney, "why should we bother making new characters when we can sell Mickey Mouse for eternity?". And then the quesion is, is the world better off with companies making new characters, finding Nemo, Legend of Zelda, Masters of the Universe, Dragonball, or would we prefer one giant entertainment company controlling all characters art and creativitiy, selling it back to us again and again until the end of time without ever making a single new thing?
The answer is obvious; its better for everyone if copyright expires after a fixed term, so that people can benefit from expired works, companies dont get lazy, and creativity remains a dynamic, cross fertilizing, self iterating engine, working for the benefit of the people who create and the public.
# What have you proposed?
We have proposed a tiny fee designed to move unused copyrighted work into the public domain.
# How would it the [renewal fee] test work?
The [renewal fee] test is a renewal fee proposal that will help shift works no longer being commercially exploited by anyone into the public domain. Here's how: fifty years after a copyrighted work was published, a copyright owner would have to pay a tiny renewal fee, a requirement which serves as a test by the government to see if the copyrighted work is commercially viable or otherwise important to the copyright holder. That renewal fee could be as low as $1. If the copyright owner does not pay that renewal fee for three years in a row, then the copyright would be forfeited to the public domain. If the renewal fee were paid, then the form would require the listing of a copyright agent--a person charged with receiving requests about that copyright. The Copyright Office would then make the listing of renewal fees paid, and copyright agents, available free of charge on their website. [...]
http://eldred.cc/ea_faq.html
This instantly strikes me as wrong, since the government should never have the ability to make you forfeit your property.
Copyrighted works should fall into the public domain after a pre set amount of time, which by the way, should not be extended every generation.
Tower Records filed chaper 11 today. Its being widely reported that part of the reason for this is "internet downloading" where actually, the real reasons are to do with the picture above....get me?
COPE
History In 1968, civic politics in Vancouver changed forever. During the previous 30 years, one party had dominated council, school board and park board. Each election the backroom power brokers of the Liberal and Conservative (and later Social Credit) parties would get together with the boys from B.C. Electric, CPR, the Vancouver Board of Trade and some of the big corporate law firms, and decide who they would run on the Non-Partisan Association slate. Their agenda was simple: keep the 'socialists' out of city hall and make the world safe for developers. They had the money, the organizational power and the ear of the mainstream press to ensure that most of their candidates would be elected. "COPE brought genuine competitive politics to Vancouver for the first time: a different vision of the city and policies that promoted the interests of the people who live in the city and not those of the developers who look at the city as a giant mechano set to be torn down and rebuilt whenever the profit incentives were large enough." -Donald Gutstein Communications Department, Simon Fraser University Introduction, 1968-1993 COPE, Working for Vancouver COPE is part of a proud tradition of citizen groups, labour unions, socialist parties, and other reform organizations determined to elect progressive representatives to civic office. [...] COPE
I had mentioned earlier about the COPE party in Vancouver, they were elected with an overwhelming majority into municipal government. Their volunteers were quite amazing. I was called 4 times prior to the election: the first was two weeks before election day, to confirm that I was registered (also to discuss COPE platform/issues/etc); the second was 4 days before election day, to confirm I knew where my polling station was, and if I had decided on a candidate; the third was the day before election day, to confirm all of the above and encourage that I go out and vote; the fourth was on election day, to remind me where the polling station was and when it closed. I have never had that kind of attention from a political party before, and living in a lower income neighbourhood, you don't expect it. What worked was the person to person effort, and I highly suggest that if the people of USA want to change their government, they should get out and personally support the party they are interested in.
"Do-re-mi is in the public domain until you make a melody and turn it into a song and copyright it,'' Choudhury said. "The English language is public domain but if you write a book, on any subject, you get a copyright."
yoga copyrights???
I have not been to a Bikram's class, and now, I will never go. You don't sue people to respect your practise, you earn it. I always felt there was something funny about Bikrams, the sexy/sweaty/suffering yoga, it did not ring true. This story is not surprising.
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