How stupid CopyRight Law and bad DRM block You from your own Content

Clay Shirky tells Boing Boing his tale of woe:

He wanted to Transcript a talk he gave online. A friend had recorded the talk and made him a copy on a DVD. He needed to convert it to AVI format (used by his my transcription service), and what happened? He got an error message, which read: "To comply with copyright laws, DVD device input is not allowed."

Except he's the copyright holder. There are no issues here, or should be non. No moral, ethical or legal issues. But it will not allow him to do it. I think he saw red (with reason) :

Got that? I am in possession of a video, of me, shot by a friend, copied to a piece of physical media given to me as a gift. In the video, I am speaking words written by me, and for which I am the clear holder of the copyright. I am working with said video on a machine I own. Every modern legal judgment concerning copyright, from the Berne Convention to the Betamax case, is on my side. AND I CAN'T MAKE A COPY DIRECTLY FROM THE DEVICE. This is because copyright laws do not exist to defend the moral rights of copyright holders -- they exist to help enforce artificial scarcity.

He did figure another way to get the transcript he wanted. Maybe he figured another way around to convert it? Remember DRM doesn’t work; it only makes it inconvenient to the law-abiding and the non-technical. But that's him.

What if you made a home movie of you child and wanted to share it with your parents. Or you parent’s wanted to share it with someone else. Could you or your parents figure another way around the restrictions of your of copyright material.

The consumer electronic equipment manufactures have hard coded a set of assumptions, made into rules, into which only allows BIG CONTENT PRODUCERS to convert and manipulate all of this digital media. Why because your supposed to be a CONSUMER, not a producer of your own media, entertainment and information. Your not allow to be a copyright holder. If your trying to do something like backup or copy your home movies, you get treat like a pirate.

Lots more under : DRM/CopyRight

The Shouting Lamppost

Via the Guardian Unlimited, and only in Britain so far, an arresting new piece of street furniture - a camera that takes your picture and bellows at you to behave yourself.

The Flashcam, developed by a company which goes by the suitably space-aged moniker of Q Star, was developed in the United States and is being marketed to UK councils.
....
The cameras, perched high on lampposts and other vantage points in neighbourhoods where vandalism, theft, drug dealing and prostitution are rife, sense human movement and shout catchy warnings such as: "Stop! If you are engaging in an illegal activity, your photograph will be taken and used to prosecute you. Please leave the area."

Ah progress...... gone completely mad....See Bunny for further evidence.

Categories:Tech gone mad.

Pick Me Pick Me

Via SFSignal we have Cthulhu. I'm practicing...under Humour/Sci-Fi/SciFi

Pay your Toronto parking ticket online

About Time!! via Canada NewsWire Group

TORONTO, March 30 /CNW/ - Paying a City of Toronto parking ticket just got easier. With a valid MasterCard or VISA, residents can now pay a City of Toronto parking ticket online, in three simple steps at www.toronto.ca/parkingtickets. "This new online parking ticket payment system is part of the City's continued commitment to provide access to public services 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week," said Joseph Pennachetti, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, "and it is the third online service available from the City of Toronto."

"The online payment system is an easy, convenient way to pay a parking ticket," said Giuliana Carbone, Director of Revenue Services. "Simply enter your ticket number, the parking ticket amount and credit card information." A confirmation number is provided after a successful transaction. Those living outside of the City will also benefit from this new online service. More than half of all City of Toronto parking tickets are issued to non-Torontonians who can now pay Toronto parking tickets online, from anywhere they have internet access.

Parking tickets can also be paid over the phone with a VISA or MasterCard by calling 416-397-TAGS (8247) or at most banks and through the mail by sending a cheque to: City of Toronto, Parking Tag Operations, Box 8500, Postal Stations "A", Toronto, ON M5W 2E1.

Permit renewals for on-street parking and registrations for Parks and Recreation programs can also be processed online at www.toronto.ca.

The phone line was often very busy. Toronto

Vincent Van Google

Google's honors Vincent Van Gogh, born Today (30 March) 1853 in Groot Zundert, Holland for more on Vince via wikipedia

beautiful Images by a sad soul : "La tristesse durera toujours" (French: "The sadness will last forever")


Under:Art

Doing Time in Code

Coding Time and Date "stuff" is one of the hardest parts of any real world application.

It's messy for reasons beyond the technological ones, but start there, seems like every language does things differently - each languages designer(s) try to get it right "this time" - and frequently has several incompatible approaches - once they realized they missed something in the original design.

If you're very lucky in your assumptions, or very sheltered, you might not get thrown up on the next set of problems: cultural and political.

Joey deVilla (aka Accordion Guy) in Date and Time Calculation lead me to J R Stockton's Date and Time Index and Links page, which includes a - partial?- list of 23 Calculational Pitfalls past, present and future such as : Critical and Significant Dates; Ambiguity; Sorting; Month Stepping; etc.. JR also makes some general suggestions on Algorithms and Coding information relevant for Languages including Javascript, VBscript, Pascal & Delphi.

Also via Joey's post, Anonymous points to Erik Naggum's 1999 paper The Long, Painful History of Time, which was given at the Lisp Users' Group Meeting in Berkeley, CA.

I've blogged on this in Complication in Daylight Saving Time and Global reality: TimeZones+ Daylight Saving Time, is hard, which have links to more resources and cautionary tales, like from Loosely Coupled weblog:

Why is timezone awareness such a big deal? Because it only becomes a problem in a highly distributed, decentralized environment. So long as there's a single, central point of control, then it's easy to wriggle around timezone issues by pretending they don't exist. You can always decide that, since the data center is in Colorado, all transactions will logged using Mountain Time. Or if the company headquarters is in New York, you can decree that everything happens according to Eastern Time.

Have "fun". Under Category:algorithms

Joshua (Mr del.icio.us) goes full time

Via The del.icio.us discussion group, Joshua Schachter (Uber coder and creator of http://del.icio.us/ has announced he is working on del.icio.us full time, says he:

After seeing my little project go from a small hobby to a large one and then consume all my waking hours, I've decided to quit my job and work on del.icio.us full time.

I've given a lot of thought to how to make this happen, and ultimately decided that the best way forward is to take on some outside investment.

I've taken this step because it lets me continue to grow del.icio.us while keeping it independent.

I am excited to finally be able to devote all of my energy to working on and improving this site, and I'll also be able to acquire some much-needed infrastructure.

I'm still in charge of the site and still committed to making it as good as it can be.

I think what sets del.icio.us apart is the passion of the community that has organized around it, and I hope I can continue to rely on your ideas, help, and goodwill. Together we have made the site the success it is today.

-j

We all wish him luck and look for to even more big things. now on Boing boing(thanks Cory); Under del.icio.us

HPSC Fun in the Summer" (FITS) night April 21

Every April, the High park Ski Club (HPSC) hosts its "Fun in the Summer" (FITS) night showcasing a wide variety of clubs which complement HPSC's winter focus. Whether you are interested in biking, tennis, rollerblading, hiking, sailing, or just about any other summer activity, you are bound to find a club of others with similar interests at FITS night.

HPSC's annual FITS Night, is being held on Thursday, April 21, at the Lithuanian Hall, 1573 Bloor St. West (just west of Bloor and Dundas West; closest subway station is Dundas Street West). Doors open at 7:00 p.m. During this evening you will be exposed to a wide variety of summer activity clubs, associations and retailers in the Greater Toronto area. These organizations have been invited to exhibit and promote their summer activities and services to you and your friends.

More details here

Established in 1950, High Park Ski Club (HPSC) is Toronto's largest travelling ski club. Learn more about the HPSC. Under Toronto

Reworked del.icio.us API Doc

Joey (of accordion fame) has done an execlent job with his The del.icio.us API reworking over at his day job:

Although the offical docs are serviceable, these go into a little more detail and also provide a couple of examples.

category:Del.icio.us

Let the truth be told…MGM vs Grokster

Via SlashDot, Mark Cuban ( Master of the Long Tail via Boing Boing and Xeni) holds forth in his blog Let the truth be told…MGM vs Grokster

It wont be a good day when high school entrepreneurs have to get a fairness opinion from a technology oriented law firm to confirm that big music or movie studios wont sue you because they can come up with an angle that makes a judge believe the technology might impact the music business....

let everyone know that the EFF and others came to me and asked if I would finance the legal effort against MGM. I said yes. I would provide them the money they need.

Thank you Mark! ...underCopyRight

Neighbornode

Via Phil Windley's Technometria we have the newest kool idea: Neighbornode, using Linksys WRT54G and the free Neighbornode firmware file in order to build:

group message boards on wireless nodes, placed in residential areas and open to the public. These nodes transmit signal for around 300 feet, so everyone within that range has access to the board and can read and post to it.

past Linksys posts include: Linksys WRT54G with SNMP and VPN, Confusion surrounds Linksys WiFi hole, and disruptive router is The Little Engine That Could under the categories: WifI

HOWTO: defend yourself against domain trademark shakedowns

Via Boing Boing

Hank's TaubmanSucks site exhaustively details the legal wranglings that ensued when he registered a domain with the same name as a mall that was under construction near him, for the purpose of posting fannish reviews of the mall once it had opened. The mall's lawyers, halfway across the country, brought him to court for trademark infringment, and Hank defended himself, with help from advocacy groups like Public Citizen and the ACLU, and eventually prevailed. He's detailed every step of his work from initial letter right through to judgement -- it's practically a HOWTO for defending yourself from routine trademark shakedowns

JavaScript Wrapper for XMLHTTPRequest

All tricks on da WWWeb has constructed a DataRequester (Wrapper for XMLHTTPRequest) which is

A JavaScript wrapper for the XMLHttpRequest object that enables the trivial implementation of dynamic interfaces without the painful necessity for a complete page-refresh to talk to the server. In other words: Ajax without the confusing API.

Cool. Nicely done. Looks like more good stuff on All tricks on da WWWeb too.

Categories:JavaScript/XMLHTTPRequest

Economist.com on the peer-to-peer showdOwn

Economist.com | Illegal file-sharers under attack

The entertainment industry is taking its battle against illegal downloading to America’s Supreme Court. But attacking the technology behind file-sharing could stifle innovation without tackling the industry’s long-term problems.

Love this:

The music business should have stuck by Thomas Edison’s technology if it wanted to avoid the threat of piracy. His wax cylinders could record a performance but could not be reproduced; that became possible only with the invention of the flat-disc record some years later.

More on The Induce Act, the end of The Betamax doctrine, and MGM vs Grokster under Category: CopyRight

update: The Induce Act Blog has linked here in Thomas Edison on Copyright Control.

update2: Boing Boing (finally via Xeni Jardin) linked in: assault on filesharing by entertainment biz is senseless: "attacking the technology behind file-sharing could stifle innovation without tackling the industry’s long-term problems."; and Mercury News Comments : Grokster case pits tech innovation vs. Hollywood's rights. Tomorrow is court day.

Via Boing Boing, Copyfight has The revenge of Sapir-Whor : And Does P2P file sharing hurt sales? No. It may even help sales.

How do we know this? Well, we do studies. Like, for example, the just-published Japanese study by Keio Universtity Economics professor Tatsuo Tanaka, who looked at the P2P application "Winny" and its effect on Japanese music consumers. Prof. Tanaka's original study is reported on here (Japanese HTML), but fortunately for people like me there's an English translation (17 page PDF).

Canada's DMCA proposal: not great, could be LOTS worse

via Cory @ Boing Boing: Canada's DMCA proposal: not great, could be LOTS worse.

The Canadian government has introduced its draft legislation for a "Canadian DMCA" -- a suite of laws to bring Canadian copyright into harmony with the bad treaties that broke the American copyright system in 1998 with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

In many respects, this is vastly superior to the US version -- after seven years of horror stories, it would be criminally stupid for any government to consider a law as bad as the DMCA -- but there are still some substantial problems.

and Michael Geist, the Canadian academic copyright lawyer and columnist, has a great first look at the new proposal here:

The devil will be in the details but this represents a major shift away from the embarrassingly one-sided Canadian Heritage Standing Committee recommendations issued last May. While that report clearly pushed the agenda forward, the government’s response has certainly recognized the need for some balance.

Thanks Cory

Here's what CAN GOV: says, as well as this Statement and FAQ

update: itBusines Canada (aka Computing Canada) comments: Copyright reform plan veers away from U.S. approach

and this is why DMCA and DRM is bad: How DRM will harm the developing world

Tim Bray is noticing in "Calling all Canadians and comments:

If this turns into a futile attempt to shore up failed business models by forcing the development of user-unfriendly technology, I’m not going to take it lying down...With a minority government in Ottawa, we may even get some leverage.

and reminds me of The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (RSS feed now added to the BlogRoll).

More Under the Category:CopyRight/Canada

Mass spectrometry analysis with field-programmable gate arrays for for genomics and proteomics diagnoses

A article hightlighting the use of mass spectrometry analysis with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) is in todays Globe and Mail and applying it to the problem of processing gene (genomics) and protein (proteomics) data.

The Blueprint Initiative at Mount Sinai Hospital working with the University of Toronto's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, replaced a $80,000 computer cluter and staff, with a prototype build for ~ $7,000.

The Blueprint Initiative team had a lofty goal: Find a method of comparing a sample from a patient to these three billion pairs in less than a second on a single computer, so that doctors can identify signs of abnormality or disease..

Dr. Hogue explains that ordinary blood tests usually use techniques that look for signs of a specific disease, such as enzymes that might indicate a liver problem. Unfortunately, that means that while a sample from a patient might hold an important clue to an underlying health issue, it could go undetected unless the doctor ordered a specific test designed to check for that type of ailment.

Mass spectrometers can do a much more detailed analysis looking for any abnormalities in a sample, but they aren't used for blood tests today because they produce too much data to process easily.

A paper on the project, to appear in the March 30 issue of Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, but for those of us with out access the press release will have to do. (PMID: 15723443 :"Hardware-accelerated protein identification for mass spectrometry".)

They are also planning to spin off a company, Watershed Devices Ltd, that will concentrate on commercializing the FPGA technology for use in mass spectrometers.

See Protein Sequencing, Metabolomics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biolog for more background.

How soon before we can do home diagnoses of this sort or at least in your Doctor's Office? What improvments are happening in mass spectrometry?

Category:Tech

update: a related story on Slashdot: Using proteomic spectral pattern recognition software, as a way to diagnose Multiple Sclerosis from a blood sample. Anyone have a copy of the January 2005 Journal of Molecular Neuroscience so I can read : A Distinctive Molecular Signature of Multiple Sclerosis Derived from MALDI-TOF/MS and Serum Proteomic Pattern Analysis: Detection of Three Biomarkers

Canada is amending its copyright laws in favor of Big content creators

Via Scripting News: 3/24/2005, Tod Maffin (a producer on Definitely Not the Opera CBC radio's guide to modern culture in Canada, podcaster, and all around Techno Talking head - Media Head?),reports that Canada is amending its copyright laws in favor of content-creators here Canada to Amend its Copyright Laws

Later this spring, the Government plans to introduce legislation that will implement the provisions of the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaties, clarify liability for Internet service providers, facilitate the use of the Internet for educational and research purposes, and harmonize the treatment of photographers with that of other creators.

The government has posted the full text of all 700 comments, and 50 Reply comments on the submissions, from the public review process. (between June 22, 2001 and Oct 1 2001.)

Question: how many comments did not get submitted due to being overwhelmed by the events of early sept 2001?

included are Cory Doctorow's (who is a fequent commentary on CopyRight over on Boing Boing) submitted comments (based on a Mico editorial from 2001), and Tod has identified some broadcasting-related submissions:

• Canadian Association of Broadcasters
• SOCAN: Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publisher of Canada
• National Association of Broadcasters (American group)
• ACTRA: Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists
• The Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC)
• Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA)
• Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA)
• Copyright Coalition of Creators and Producers
• Periodical Writers Association of Canada (PWAC)
• Writers' Guild of Canada
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)/ Société Radio-canada(src)

It's going to be interesting to see/read these submissions. we have Mark Cuban of Maverick NBA and Reality TV fame is first on the list, and Russell McOrmond (http://www.flora.ca/) , plus IBM Canada.

Spot any other names we should know?

More Under the Category:CopyRight/Canada

Newsmashing with del.icio.us - progress on my LazyWeb request

(via Waxy Links) Kokogiak has built a " Newsmashing with del.icio.us bookmarklet" ( y.a.b. - yet another bookmarklet) which was inspired by a Slate piece on Newsmashing which looks to be an partial implementation of my November 20th, 2004 Lazy web brainfart inspired by Phil Windley.

Of course Aaron Boodman, aka youngpup, was going to look into it as well, but the success of GreaseMonkey has no doubt kept him busy, as well as his day job at Google (and using either the bookmarklet or GreaseMonkey may be a good way to prototype this kind of Web Hack).

category:BrainFart/del.icio.us/bookmarklet

Queryster searchx

Apple and Google may have killed the Google X search (and it mirrors, but the french one is still around!) but behold Queryster searchx


(do a view image to see it better)

Category:Google Not!

Vancouver couple's Net photo service in Yahoo's picture

following up on And FLickr Makes 3, The Globe and Mail posts some of the story behind the Story of Yahoo's agreement to acquire Flickr and Ludicorp, and Caterina Fake's and Stewart Butterfield's adventure, like: Flickr started as part of a online game (unnamed in the article, but we know as Game Neverending -which ironically ended..); Flickr.com has been growing by as much as 50 per cent a month since last June and currently has around 5 million images; A little bit on their backgrounds : English Lit and Philosophy majors; and a hint on how crazy the last year has been. (if the G&M article is not available use Flickr.pdf)

It's also worth revisiting the ETECH 2005 talk that Steward gave "Web Services as a Strategy for Startups: Opening Up and Letting Go" via Cory's Notes, and Cal Henderson's (Flickr's Head Techie) talk on Web Services Mashup via Reemer's excellect notes.

Categories:Flickr/Etech

The Globe and Mail & RSS Feeds

(Via Scripting News) Globeandmail.com now has RSS (2.0) feeds for eight categories and 42 columnists for use in RSS readers and on personal websites ( as part of a non-commercial website). It's a, long overdue, start.

I'll be "testing" this to see how well it works. (Most days I buy the hardcopy G&M). In the (near) furture, I would like to see feeds by Province and Major Cities, under National (maybe Hockey, CFL - Canadian Football League -, Soccer, Tennis,.. under Sports?)

However, they are still hiding the columnists behind a subscription only wall, about which I have very mixed feelings, plus after around 7 days regular connect goes behind the same pay wall, which means if I link to it it's unavailable so I must either: a) heavy quote and/or include the full article, b) find another link.

The New York Times now provide a way to generate a no registration link althought they still have the free registration required process for most users.

For more see Category:RSS/Canada

CITOKATE or... Criticism is the Only Known Antidote to Error

David Brin bring us "CITOKATE" in his continuing sereies of essay on Modernism, and a defined in Contrary Brin: Modernism Part 13: Michael Crichton vs Science, which started in December:

1. The Issue is Modernity
2. The Radical Notion Of Modernism
3. Modernism Part 2
4. Modernism Part 3: the Era of Can-Do
5. The Second Phase Of Modernism
6. MODERNISM TAKE A TUMBLE
7. Modernism Overcomes Setbacks
8. and more...

tremendous reading!

The Social Customer Manifesto

Via Will pate, The Social Customer Manifesto

• I want to have a say.
• I don't want to do business with idiots.
• I want to know when something is wrong, and what you're going to do to fix it.
• I want to help shape things that I'll find useful.
• I want to connect with others who are working on similar problems.
• I don't want to be called by another salesperson. Ever. (Unless they have something useful. Then I want it yesterday.)
• I want to buy things on my schedule, not yours. I don't care if it's the end of your quarter.
• I want to know your selling process.
• I want to tell you when you're screwing up. Conversely, I'm happy to tell you the things that you are doing well. I may even tell you what your competitors are doing.
• I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner.
• I want to know what's next. We're in partnership…where should we go?

Category:Advertising

And Flickr makes 3

It's official, Yahoo has made a definitive agreement to acquire Flickr and Ludicorp.

This is the third high profile Blog/RSS related buyout of 2005. Live Journal was bought by Six Apart, while Ask Jeeves snapped up Bloglines. Social Media Consolidation - Act 3: Call me Flyhckr?

Build it and they WILL buy! Now watch Stewart and Caterina do the dance of joy! (and Caterina will no long threaten to kick their ass). It's nice to see a Vancouver crew hit one out of the park. And remember: Om Malik called it first.

uber link: boing Boing. Category:Flickr

Farscape: The PeaceKeeper Wars comes to Canada

Finally, after waiting since last August, Space TV is showing "The PeaceKeeper Wars" : Part 1 March 25th, 9pm EST, Part 2 March 26th, 9pm EST. (And if you miss Part 2 it's repeated March 27th at 3pm EST.)

The final five episodes of Farscape on March 25th, 2005 starting at 4pm EST.

Bracca: You're the reinforcements?
John: No, we're the band. Looks like Kiss was your opening act.
D'Argo: Frell, I'm in the wrong band.

The wait is over, if you haven't bought theDVD, seen it on pseudo SCIFI channel in the southern Northern America in October. and there is always FoxTrot


Category:SciFi/SciFi

Update: It was truly - out of the park - awesome!! They will be missed! Frell!

Ten Ideas for Corporate RSS Feeds

Via Capulet Communications we have Ten Ideas for Corporate RSS Feeds, which,in brief, answers the "Why RSS" as much as the "What can we do with RSS" question:

1) Email is an increasingly problematic;2) Keep your ournalists and analysts who are covering your company informed; 3) Keep your partners informed; 4) Keep your customers informed; 5) Allow people to just receive what they are most interested in; 6)Busy people don't have to visit the website just to see what's new; 7) Put your events to work for you online; 8) Capture and publish the buzz; 9) Set up a feed for special promotions; 10) Create private (password-protected) RSS feeds.

Category:advertising/RSS

Configuring Asterisk to use VOIP

Via SlashDot with have The Geek Gazette - Configuring Asterisk@Home For BroadVoice, which does a Walk thur of configuring your system to use a VOIP provider for your telephone service. For this you will need your Asterisk@Home system up and running, a BroadVoice account, a SIP handset or SoftPhone configured to work with your Asterisk installation, and an internet connection. While the article will focus on configuring the system via the Asterisk Management Portal (AMP), the same configuration settings will work with a generic Asterisk installation..

It's a follow up on : Build Your Own PBX from spare parts and Asterisk.

Both excellent pieces wrtiiten by Kerry Garrison.

It's worth noting recent concerns over Telco companys blocking (or degrading) competting VOIP.
Robert X. Cringely: The Best days of Voice-over-IP Telephone Service May Already Have Passed;
Mark Evans: FCC Slams Down on VOIP Blocking;
Mark Evans: Trouble on the horizon for VOIP?;
Om Malik: Vonage is being blocked?

update:Mr. Hyde aka Samuel Tardieu's geeky side has this detailed post on Asterisk - build your own PBX.

Category: VOIP/Asterisk, plus there is always the Asterisk Users Mailing List

MAXO signals and other Futures

Via autopope, I now must scan the back pages of NATURE for the new series of back-page hard-SF stories, including Charlie Stross's "MAXO signals": a new and unfortunate solution to the Fermi Paradox". It's a short-short (only 803 words long).

They appear to be online under the "Futures" heading. We have:
"Last man standing" by Xaviera Young,
"A man of the theatre" by Norman Spinrad,
"A modest proposal..." by Vonda N. Mcintyre,
"The party's over" by Penelope Kim Crowther,
"Undead again" by Ken Macleod (in by Del.icio.us bookmarks),
"Under martian ice" by Stephen Baxter, and
"Play it again" by Ian Steward.

Which appears to be the first "Futures" feature (in February 2005). I've linked to the text version, but there are also PDF reproductions of the 1 page stories with a illustration. Much reading pleasure ahead, if only in small bites.

Category:SciFi (or Sci Fi)/Charles Stross

Why Britney Spears Hates HDTV!

Why Britney Spears Hates HDTV! cause there is no escaping the naked lens of High-Definition TV. The picture is so clear that aging signs and skin imperfections are clearly visible.

Britney is a case in point: her face is puffy and she's starting to show wrinkle marks around her lips, reportedly from a two pack-a-day cigarette habit.

Who Looks Better: Anna Kournikova, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Charlize Therzon, Sting, Scarlett Johansson, Halle Berry, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Liv Tyler, Penelope Cruz.

Who Looks Worse: Cameron Diaz, Michael Douglas, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Jewel, Renee Zellweger, William Devane, Bill Maher, Jamie Lee-Curtis, Joan Rivers.

Music Video had a huge impact on the Music Biz, I expect HD will influence the careers of HD Television and Movie "Stars". (Why aren’t Movies shot and shown in HD?)

Now on Boing Boing

update: June 12th NYT's "Not Ready for Their Close-Up"

Category:HDTV/Humour

More O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference

More from Etech2005 the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.

Cory's own talk on "All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites": Cory's talking notes; Boing Boing Link. It's good to be a Parasite.

"Von Neumann's Universe" presented by George Dyson (son of Freeman Dyson). Cory's Notes; Boing Boing Link. Stories of a proto-hacker.

James Surowiecki's Independent Individuals and Wise Crowds, or Is It Possible to Be Too Connected?. Cory's Notes; Boing Boing Link. I'm not a ant. Really!

"Folksonomy, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mess", a conversation between Clay Shirky, Stewart "Flickr" Butterfield, Joshua "Delicious" Schachter and Jimmy "Wikipedia" Wales: Cory's notes; Ross Mayfield's Notes; boing boing link; David Weinberger's Notes.


Wikipedia and the Future of Social Computing by Jimmy Wales: Ross Mayfield's Notes.


Category:Etech

Saturday Night Hong Kong Films in Toronto (Omini TV ) 2005 March, April and May

Update for Septebmer 2005: new listing at the new url :Saturday Night Hong Kong Films in Toronto (Omini TV ) Fall 2005

Omni TV 2 Listing for the next 12 Movies for March, April and May are now up for what they call "Super Cinema Night". All Movies run on Saturday's at 9:00 PM and go for 2 hours till 11:00 PM.

Update: April 9th, the inserted the The 24th Hong Kong Film Awards into their schedule, like we wouldn't notice! I'll adjust things later....done.

My Older Listing are here for 2005 January and February and the Last half of 2004

OMINI TV is to be congratulated for improving the quality of their listings; they now (finally) include a thumbnail image and a brief description of the movie. Giving viewers information about Cast and Crew is still to difficult for most of the movies. Update: They Now have the core cast info!

sorry for the delays in getting this up. I hate formatting issues!

March 12

Musa The Warrior (2001) -Korean Action/ Drama (no english subtitles for me!)

Set in 14th centary China, a delegation of Korean diplomats face many problems in trying to fulfill their mission between the oler Yyuan dynasty and new Ming dynasty.

Cast:Jung Woo-Sung, Zhang Ziyi, Yu Rong-Guang, Joo Jin-Mo, Ahn Sung-Gi

March 19

The Attractive One (2004) - Hong Kong romantic goof ball comedy. Moves a little slowly, very sweet and silly but with it's heart it the right place. ; Want happens when a girl grows a moustache?

Cast: Sean Lau Ching-Wan (ET alert!), Joey Yung Tso-Yi, Chapman To Man-Chat, Yumiko Cheng Hei-Yi, Jia Zong-Chao, Sophie Huang, Wang Yiyi, Lee Fung, Hyper BB, Hayama Go, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin (one half Twins cameo)

March 26

Dream Of A Warrior (2001) - Korea Drama (84 minutes long) with elements of Science Fiction

Cast: Leon Lai Ming, Lee Na-Young, Park Eun-Hye, Yoon Tae-Young, Kim Ji-Moo

April 2

Yesterday Once More (2004) - Romantic Drama

Normally the pairing of Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng would mean a good time but I found it slow to boring. Very Disapointed

Cast: Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Sammi Cheng Sau-Man, Jenny Hu, Carl Ng Ka-Lung, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Hui Siu-Hung, Chun Wong, Lin Chun

April 9th, they inserted the The 24th Hong Kong Film Awards

April 9April 16

Phantom The Submarine (1999) - Korean Action

This Korean thriller takes place aboard the Phantom, a Sierra-class nuclear submarine. Sent on a peaceful mission to monitor Japanese subs, the crew is taken by surprise when the submarine's commander takes over the ship with the intention of attacking Japan. Determined to prevent a full-scale nuclear war, the crew must figure out how to stop their rogue commander.

Cast : Choi Min-Su, Jeong Wu-Seong, Yun Ju-Sang, Son Byeong-Ho, Go Dong-Up, Han Ban-Do, Park Gil-Su, Seol Gyeong-Gu, Jeong Eun-Pyo

April 16 April 23

Escape From Hong Kong Island (2004) - Comedy

Stock trader attempts to cross Victoria Harbour and who gets handed a day from Hell in a satirical comedy.

Cast: Jordan Chan Siu-Chun, Chapman To Man-Chat, Paul Wong Koon-Chung, Steve Wong Ka-Keung, and more..

April 23 April 30

Too Young To Die (Jukeodo Joha) (2001) - Korean Romance

A man and woman in their early seventies meet, fall in love, and rediscover sex. They tease and learn from each other, argue over trivial matters, and make love over and over again, just like a couple in their twenties. Based on a true story.

Cast : Sun-ye Lee, Chi-gyu Park

April 30May 7

The White Dragon (2004) - Costume Action/Comedy

looks good. House of the Flying Daggers with a sense of humour?

Cast : Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Andy On Chi-Kit, Shuet Nei, Hui Siu-Hung, Siu Yee, Liu Lei, Huang Xiao-Xu, Tang Jin-Fung

May 7May 14

Crazy First Love (2003) - Korean Romantic Comedy

Tae-il is a problem child with a IQ of 148, but he's only interested in marrying his first love Il-mae. Young-Dal, Il-mae's father openly declares that he would allow Tae-il to marry his daughter if he could be admitted to the Law School of Seoul National University and pass the Judicial Examination. From then on, Tae-il's ultimate missions are to study and protect Il-mae from all the sleazeballs who approach her!

Cast: Cha Tae-Hyeon, Son Ye-Jin, Yu Dong-Geun

May 14May 21

Leave Me Alone (2004) - Drama

Twin Brothers exchange Lives in Hong Kong and Thailand. One is Gay, One is Straight. Hilarity ensures. Acutally better than it sounds.

Cast: Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Dayo Wong Chi-Wah, Jan Lam Hoi-Fung, Kenny Bee, Lawrence Chou Chun-Wai

recently added: May 28

CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST (KOREAN WITH CHINESE SUBTITLES OR LIP-SYNC)

May 21June 4

6 AM (2004) - Comedy

Bowl (Kenny Kwan) and Noodle (Steven Cheung), otherwise known as the BOY'Z, are best buds who get into a predicament that only happens in the Movies, including, most important of all, a Twins cameo (Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung)

Cast: Kenny Kwan Chi-Bun, Steven Cheung Chi-Hung, Katie Kwok Sin-Hung, Ray Lui Leung-Wai, Cheung Tat-Ming, Tats Lau Yi-Tat, Chan Wai-Man, Law Kar-Ying, Wu Feng, Lau Shun, Yau Yuet-Ching, Roderick Lam Chung-Kei, Bonnie Wong Man-Wai, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Gillian Chung Yun-Tung, Jeff Lau Chun-Wai

Categories: Asian/Movies/Toronto

Technorati Tags: Movies Toronto

Google goes X

Google X lets you access all the usual parts of Google (search Web, search Images, Groups, News, Local ) plus Froogle, Scholar,Video, Maps, and Labs in a Mac OS X style Dock done with DHTML and JavaScript.

(I'm thinking of starting a category of rejected SlashDot Submissions, with a sub-cat of stories that soneone else got Accepted, but don't want to be viewed as bitter or anything...)(Note:grammar corrected)

More under the Category:Google

Update a of this afternoon (march 16th) it's "The requested URL was not found on this server." missing in action.....Elliott has a screen shot of how it looked...or you can use http://ablaze.fr/GoogleX.htm

Advertising in the age of the The CEO Consumer

Dave Winer writes on Advertising in the age of podcasts in which he makes several points which I'll summerized as :1. Every day you seek out commercial information; 2. most commercials are ANNOYING (by design); 3 How about creating commercial information that is Informative, Respectful, Entertaining;4. Instead of being intrusive assholes, be entertaining informers; 5 Hopefully the intrusive assholes can go away.

Which is what The CEO Consumer is all about.

category:advertising

O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference

from Etech2005 the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference , Cory Doctorow has a great set of "Impressionistic transcripts" for :

""Web Services as a Strategy for Startups: Opening Up and Letting Go" presented by Stewart Butterfield, President, Ludicorp (and Flickr) (Boing Boing Link)

"Vertical Search and A9" presented by Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com. (Boing Boing Link)

"Remixing Technology at Applied Minds", presented by Danny Hillis, Applied Mind. (Boing Boing Link)

Category:Etech

Decompiling Programmer-Speak

From Fractals of Change we have "Decompiling Programmer-Speak", none of which I have ever used (and now I''ve got to get a new decoder ring):

“It’ll be done ASAP.”
Translation: There is no schedule yet.

“That feature shouldn’t add any time to the schedule.”
Translation: There is no schedule yet.

“It’s fifty percent done.”
Translation: It hasn’t been started yet.

“It can literally do anything you want it do.”
Translation: There is no spec yet.

“Take my word for it, my group isn’t on the critical path.”
Translation: It’s schedule-chicken time. We’re way late but someone else is bound to be even later.

“It’s ninety percent done.”
Translation: The remaining ten percent will take ninety percent of the elapsed time.

“It’s ninety-five percent done,”
Translation: The remaining five percent will take ninety-five percent of the elapsed time.

“It’s code complete.”
Translation: Some code has been written. Features will be added later.

“The code is 95% reusable.”
Translation: Five percent of the source code is utterly and irretrievably lost.

“It’s feature complete.”
Translation: The feature list has been truncated.

“The UI’s still a little bit rough.”
Translation: What’s not to love about the A:> prompt?

“I’ve got an idea for a really cool feature. It’ll blow you away.”
Translation: Please give me an excuse to blow the schedule away.

“It’s Alpha ready.”
Translation: A lot of code has been written; none tested.

“It’s Beta ready.”
Translation: It’s Alpha ready.”

“The daily bug count is going down.”
Translation: The testers have been reassigned or The testers have had their email server removed.

“What? You wanted the results to display? On the screen? That’s gonna be hard.”
Translation: Here’s a good place to bury all the slippage. Major schedule revision coming.

“Ship it!”
Translation: The Development team is sick of this and wants to move on to something else. The customers will test it.

Category:Humour/Plausible Deniability

SXSW: Will Pate presentation summary blogs

From theSXSW2005 Interactive conference, Will Pate has blogged very good summaries of various presentations:

How to Make $$$ With Online Ads
Startupland - A How-to Guide to Starting Your Own Company
How to Make Haste Slowly
We The Media by Dan Gillmor
Opening Remarks by Jeffrey Zeldman


More under the Category:SXSW as I discover them.

SXSW: How to bluff your way in CSS

From theSXSW2005 Interactive conference : How to bluff your way in CSS by Andy Budd & Jeremy Keith. A good Intro to Cascading Style Sheets, the What, Why, When and How.

More under the Category:SXSW as I discover them.

SXSW: Emergent Semantics & The Elements of Meaningful XHTML

From theSXSW2005 Interactive conference : Eric A. Meyer's presentation on Emergent Semantics and Tantek Çelik's The Elements of Meaningful XHTML

More under the Category:SXSW as I discover them.

A Whole New Mind

Yes , I need one of these! Via Many-to-Many we have a summury of daniel pink's on book "A Whole New Mind" (March 24, 2005) as presented at the SXSW Interactive conference.

His key thesis is that the future no longer belongs to analytical professionals—the linear, logical knowledge people (the “SAT people,” he calls them, pointing to his article in today’s USA Today. It belongs instead to creators and empathizers. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a metaphor can be worth a thousand pictures. Talks about the hemispheres of the brain—left vs right hemisphere. The future belongs to the right hemisphere — wholistic,empathic, big picture. Why? Three A’s…abundance, Asia, and automation.

Sounds very parallel to Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" (isn't he comming out with a "sequel" soon-ish?). Definitely worth a look-read.

Category:SXSW/Books

Hybrid Solar Lighting

More Bringing SciFi to Life (Via Gizmodo), we have Sunlight in a tube brought to you by the bright builds at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee:

A rooftop collector concentrates and sends sunlight through optical fibers, tubes made of special, high-purity material that transmit light by reflecting it down their inner walls....The fibers would transmit sunlight to special fixtures inside the building, which also contain high-efficiency fluorescent lighting....When the transmitted sunlight completely illuminates each room, the electric lights stay off...When less natural light is available during cloudy days and at night, a sensor activates controls that increase electric lighting adequately to supplement natural lighting and maintain desired illumination levels.

I like the idea of having a illumination switch (similar to setting the temperature?), and bringing natural light indoors (which might not work so well in, say, grey Toronto).

CategoryTech

Apple Store coming to Toronto April 15th, 05

According to a very brief story (like an inch) in the Saturday Globe & Mail (not on-line), Canada's first Apple store will be opening in Toronto April 15th with the new Yorkdale Shopping Mall expansion.

Previously it had been suggested that it was scheduled to open on May 21.

A new lulemon retail store is also going to be additions.

April 14th update: Looks like is going to be the end of May. (So Sorry). The Torontoist has a pre opening peek at the new mall expansion and also suggest that it going to be next month. Confirmed : The new lulemon space (for yoga wannbes), the first store of sassy Spanish Mango store (the Eaton Centre location opens next week, then Sherway Garden Shopping Center).

Update: It's official: May 21st at 9:30am at the Yorkdale Shopping Center in Toronto.

It opened, I was there and so was Cris Nolan (he links to some pictures). We both did the same thing: same the line up and said "Forget that!" (I wonder how many of them were in line for Star Wars (Revenge of the Sith) just a day or 2 before?

category:Toronto/Apple

Technorati Tags: Toronto Apple

Workflow is just a Pi Calculus Process

Workflow is just a Pi Process (1.5 MB PDF) via Manageability:Why ReST is Better - Part 5 - Self Descriptive State.

I'm going to have to read this again (slowly), as it introduces a new term - Pi Calculus - and a old chestnut - workflow.

See Hula, open source mail and calendar server, and GroupWare bad. for Jamie Zawinski's (of netscape fame) "GroupWare bad". Or for a counter claim consider Microsoft's assimilation of Groove Networks (a p2p collaboration tool) and Ray Ozzie (creator of Lotus Notes) as MS new CTO.

Category:Software

tour-guide PDA

Via Engadget (and Smart Mobs) we have news on a location-based tourist application for Amsterdam, from TimeSpots, which you can rent at major hotels for a fixed daily fee.

Cool! I would go for that. When we where in Spain last year (fall 2003), I was jotting down brainfarts on a similar GPS guide concept to help with a) Navigating the unfamiliar streets (i.e. where am I and how to I get to X) b) Tell me about X (i.e. this building/place and it's history, what did it look like when X happen or 100 years ago).

Category:technology

How to Start a Startup

Paul Graham has a new essay up :How to Start a Startup based on want he learned starting up Viaweb, an online store builder,that became Yahoo Store.

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.

Oh that's all......

category:Startup

IBM - Steps to Reinstall a Domino Server or to Move a Domino Server from One Machine to Another

IBM - Steps to Reinstall a Domino Server or to Move a Domino Server from One Machine to Another via eknori. A very timely link.

Domino/Lotus

Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is Really Gone!!

Following up Last weeks Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is Gone!! post is word that it Tung has official resigned:

Tung Chee-hwa announced at a press conference that, "An hour ago, I tendered my resignation as Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to the Central Government."

Other comments: Bye-bye, Mr. Tung via Simon; NYT (no registration required) Hong Kong's Embattled Leader Steps Down, and Tung steps down in Hong Kong at International Herald Tribune.

While china's spies hunting down the source of the leak in Hong Kong (PLA probes Tung leak: As reports of the resignation began emerging last week, operatives from the People's Liberation Army, State Security Bureau and Public Security Bureau were sent to Hong Kong, senior sources said Tuesday., now speculation centers on the "Acting" Chief Executive "The Donald" and if he will be confirmed (again NYT's):

Under the Basic Law, Donald Tsang, the chief secretary and second-ranking official here, will become the acting chief executive for up to six months. The 800-member Electoral Committee, composed of prominent businesspeople, professionals and politicians, will meet within 120 days to select a new chief executive.

Mr. Tsang is widely expected to be chosen, as he has far more experience in the senior ranks of government than any potential rivals.

By stepping down this week, Mr. Tung makes sure that his successor can be elected by current committee members, most of whom are strongly loyal to Beijing. Their five-year terms run until July 13. A new committee must be elected after that by 160,000 of Hong Kong's 6.9 million people, with mainly business leaders, neighborhood politicians and professionals allowed to vote.

While the complex rules for choosing committee members make it certain that the next committee will also have a pro-Beijing majority, growing democratic sentiment among middle-class professionals makes it likely that the next committee would at least consider candidates who favor greater pluralism here.

Category:Hong Kong

The Architecture of Lotus Notes

Via Lotus Advisor an comprehensive explanation of what Lotus Notes really is and how it works.

Songs to Wear Pants To, An Alternative Way to Do Music

Via the Globe and Mail with have Ballad for an albino kitten please (Sarah Efron, Wednesday, March 9) the story of Andrew Huang (aka Andrew Pants), his web site Songs To Wear Pants To and his passion to write music for people with a passion.

People contact him through the site and pay a negotiated fee (between $5 to $102) to have a custom-made song written for them on any subject and in any genre they can imagine. (Pants is only limited by the type of instruments he can get his hands on and he will only sing in English.) You can also request a song for free, but there are two conditions: Pants will only do it if he feels like it, and the end result will be less than 71 seconds.

This was the first I'd heard of this but, it makes a change from listening to the Dinosaur Music Industry that treat talent like "Mr Pants" as a resource to be strip mined.

Category:Music / Toronto

Would you pay 5 cents for a song?

Via The Globe and Mail, Would you pay 5 cents for a song?( By Guy Dixon , Wednesday, March 9, 2005 )also here)

Sandy Pearlman, a former producer of the Clash and now a visiting scholar at McGill, spoke at the Canadian Music Week conference in Toronto during the first week of march.

His idea was:
a) put all recorded music on a robust search engine.
b) charge an insignificant fee of, say, five cents a song.
c) a 1 per cent sales tax on Internet services and new computers.

The assumption is that if songs cost only 5 cents, people would download exponentially more music, and a windfall for musicians and those who own the publishing rights to the songs.

The head of the British recording industry (Peter Jamieson?), who also spoke at the conference, made much the same point: music companies need to get used to the idea of selling more music to more people more often, but for less money. It was a notion repeated often during the conference.

The recording industry (as represented by Richard Pfohl, general council for the Canadian Recording Industry Association) is against Pearlman's plan. Colour me surprised (not).

He (Pearlman) also suggested that computer companies as Apple and such major Internet companies as Yahoo simply buy up the world's four major record labels. Give what has happened to Sony since they bought Music & Movies companies, that might be a bad idea.

I've heard worse ideas. The very worse being "suing your best customers", followed be doing nothing. The First company to combine low enough prices, with a large enough catalog, a smart search engine, and no digital rights management (DRM), all arranged to take advantage of the Long Tail will reshape the music business. (even more and quicker than Apple is). Also add a way for Musician to by pass the Record company for a bigger share and you will get tons of new material!

Now on SlashDot via here.

Darren Barefoot doesn't think much of Pearlman's simplistic solution to a complex problem, links to EFF's proposal, and points out several holes in the article and the proposal.

Update: Russell McOrmond's reports (from the same conference) that NDP Heritage Critic and Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus...chastised the government for looking at copyright legislation that could be detrimental to the digital revolution. CopyFight and Michael Geist noticed as well the comments quoted in the NortherNews editoral.

Category:Music Business / CopyRight

Changing China on the BBC NEWS website

Changing China : As part of BBC News' China Week, you can use this guide to learn more about the country with the world's biggest population, and its most dynamic economy. Lots to read.... some of the material covered:

Long shadow
Malaysian Chinese eye opportunities in China's rise

Talking Point
The changing face of China: Send your comments & questions

Grip on power
A guide to how the Communist Party maintains tight control

New faces
Four young Chinese talk about their country's changes

Free expression
Author Mian Mian fights for China's artistic freedom

Future flashpoint?
How Taiwan could spark a confrontation between superpowers

Danger in diversity
China's latest clashes show how its ethnic pot can bubble over

China's choice
Hong Kong abuzz with reports that unpopular leader will resign

Poverty trap
Life for China's rural poor is a world away from booming cities

Category: China

Hong Kong's The 10th Golden Bauhinina Awards

Via twitchfilm.net : The Hong Kong Film Critics Association announced their winners for the past year.

Best Picture : Kung Fu Hustle -an excellent and funny film, which I enjoyed much more than Shaolin Soccer. Kung Fu Hustle had its World premiere in Toronto at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2004

Best Director - Ye Tung-Shing for "One Nite in Mongkok" - very good , lots of tension. Shown recently on Omini TV 2.

Best Screenplayer - Edmond Pang for "Beyond Our Ken" This goes on my must watch list.

Best Cinematography - Christopher Doyle for "2046" from what I've seen another visually delicious film. Christopher Doyle knows how to make Wong Kar-Wai look good. He also gets the award for working with Wong Kar-Wai. More : Kar Wai Wong's 2046

Best Actor - Tony Leung Chiu Wai for "2046" - a first rate actor.

Best Actress - Rene Liu in "A World without Thieves". This goes on the 2 watch list.

Best Supporting Actor - Yuen Wah in Kung Fu Hustle"

Best Supporting Actress - Bai Ling in "Dumpling - Three Extreme" - Horror films "arn't my thing", but I have heard very good things about this. Might it be a horror in the Alfred Hitchcock sense? Bai Ling is most famous in North America for her appearances in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and the soon to be released "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith".

Category : Movies / Hong Kong

Cory on the O'Reilly Network

Via Boing Boing is Cory Doctorow's interview by Richard Koman on the O'Reilly Network in the run up to the May 1st release of "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town" (ISBN: 0765312786), a WiFi Fantasy set in Toronto's Kensington Village. (an excerpt was published last year)

among other things Cory talks about Scott Card's "Ender's Game" and his deconstruction update of it Anda's game. And how The thing that Scott Card missed was the fragmentation theme. So he got the kind of ease- of-access theme, the means by which fame would be democratized. I think it was David Weinberger who said, "On the Internet everyone will be famous to 15 people."

or Famous for 15 clicks in the Case of FalsePositives.

Also (Card) still has this idea that all of humanity will follow en masse these one or two voices that are more compelling that any others...

Is that because of Card's Mormon background? He wants/need/believes in a compelling voice?

Cory's closing comments make for very future shock reading:

The thing that I'm really interested in now is the near-instantaneous commodification of everything and what that means for being on the technological vanguard...
I think we're going to reach a point where the fact that you understand and are deeply involved in a technological revolution as fundamental as the dot-com one will mean that you'll be out of work and irrelevant in about a year

Interesting times indeed...

Cory's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Novel is up for a Nebula during the end of May. Good Luck Cory!

What Do You Want the Internet to Be?

Michael Geist (law professor at the University of Ottawa) in his most recent column in the Toronto Star (Law Bytes) draws further attention to the disturbing policy proposals being considered by the Canadian government today which include:

telecommunications service providers will be required to refit their networks to allow for real-time interception of communications, to have the capability of simultaneously intercepting multiple transmissions, and to provide detailed subscriber information to law enforcement authorities without a court order within 72 hours.

Allowing Telecommunications Service Providers and ISP to block or slow data coming from competing sites or services such as VoIP.

The Minister of Industry, together with Liza Frulla, his Canadian Heritage counterpart, are also reportedly about to finalize new rules that may reshape the availability of Internet content to educational institutions.  Acting on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee that was chaired by Toronto MP Sarmite Bulte, the government may soon unveil a new ?extended license? that would require schools to pay millions of dollars for content that is currently freely available on the Internet.

Rules that make it far easier to remove an allegedly infringing song than to remove dangerous child pornography.

Raymond A. van der Woning @ PolySpy obsevers in And Orwell Wept: Humans seek to control information, how it forms, where and when it flows, and whom shall have access to it and under what conditions. They aim to monetize it.

As does Dana Blankenhorn over at Moores Lore in Who Will Sa-ave Your Soul (for those lies that you told) : There's a theme here. And the theme is right-on. It is that the Internet is threatened as never before, by cops, by greed, and by fear. If we allow these to dominate the conversation we lose. And we must not let that happen.

Also Doc Searls, and from Notes from a Teacher:THE INTERNET, CHILLED

I know some people think (hope) that "they" would never do such a thing, based on the evidence that hey have never done such a thing in the past (or at least hardly ever) - which sounds like something from Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore - but did they say that in Republican Rome or in Classical Athens? (History Majors step forth). And given the news about the EU Council Adopting the Software Patent Directive in disregard of it own procedures.

So is it "Money corrupts" and "Greed Rules"? Are we going to have a Neutered, watched Net or a Free and innovative Internet? Hopefully this is all just a False Positives.

Update: Michael Geist's Law Bytes column in the Toronto Star got SlashDot'ed (http://www.terremoto.ca/ beated me to it) Michael suggests writting Your MP as well as the Industry Minister David Emerson and Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla. Emails are good, written letters are better.

For More, see under the Category: CopyRight

Montage-a-google

Montage-a-google ( Flash) : enter a keyword, search, and construct a Montage of up to 20 images.

category:Google/Flash

A Rebel in the Emperor's Court, The New York Times Magazine does Long Hair

The New York Times Magazine has a major piece ("A Rebel in the Emperor's Court") on Leung Kwok-hung, better known in Hong Kong as Cheung Mo, or ''Long Hair" , a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, or Legco, since September 2004.

The timming is interesting, give the recent resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

BWG comments on the election of "Long Hair", and tells of the origin of his trademark:

With his attitude he may end up back in jail. Long Hair has been protesting since 1979 and has been incarcerated several times for short spells over a variety of offenses...Each time he goes to prison, he gets the regulation buzz cut. The longer his hair, the longer he’s been out of the pokey.

Category:Hong Kong

The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival

Via tenspeed we have The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) running from March 10-20, 2005 in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose. The Festival also has a Insider Blog.

Oh to be in San Fan....

Update March 8th : Your welcome Todd.

Category: Asian/Movies/San Francisco

Gmail now works with Picasa

New Feature, as per Gmail: Help Center and or Picasa 2 Help. Looks like we are slowly evolving to number 2 on my list of killer apps in the Google Space, if not the The Google Grid or the Google Semantic Web.

Category:Google/Gmail

BrainFart: Meme Spotter or Blog Chatter

I've been thinking about a sort of personal Daypop using RSS content and analyzing the link content within. Hot Meme aggregating and identification System?

A) get my current RSS feed content, say content created with in the last 24 hours or some other period or all.

b) from that, look - and count! - all the links (href's) within that content. Of course some feeds don't include the links with their feed content (which I understand), but they drop out of influence.

c) display the list from most links to least (dropping the solo links?), and who (and where) they blogged about it.

And Wholia! You have the most linked to items based on My RSS feed (or any RSS/OPML feed). Presumably the most important stuff from the people I feel are important enough to watch, and they feel important enough to blog about.

The difference between this and DayPop or technorati's breaking news, is it is "My Feed". It might be using for spotting broad trends, or Blog chatter. (might want to do a quick data hack to see if it is real world useful to me). A useful addition to any RSS feed reader?

One issue is that all feeds are equally weighed in the count, which is fixable in general terms but very hard (or just time consuming) to grant specialist Blogs extra weight in their specialized category (only). Would Bayesian_inference help? The Semantic Web to the rescue? (yuck!). Any danger of False Positives? Perhaps it would be good to remove link to the top of the domain, not a permanent link within.

Ok, lets see if I can get this out of BrainFart stage, past Yak Shaving and added to My own RSS news reader project.

This is a variation of an earlier Fartlet idea : showing technorati.com links on the current url in the Mozilla/FireFox side bar, which is in pre-shave stage.


Category BrainFart or things to do while going insane..../

Kikkoman Art

Antipixel introductions the Art of Kikkoman advertising, the illustrations of Ohashi Tadashi.

And while enjoying the excellent Soy sauce from Kikkoman (Not just in Canada) you can also enjoy the crime fighting adventures of Kikkoman from the Planet Soy
Categories:Art/Asian

Update March 6th : More gorgeous Kikkoman advertising art via Antipixel

Yak Shaving

Via: Joi Ito's"Yak shaving is the technical term for when you find yourself eight levels deep - and possibly in an recursive loop - in a stack of jobs.". And what do you get when you shave a Yak? Sometimes it Yak's all the way down!

Which is different from "Yak Combing": Which is we someone takes my hair ball writing and makes it presentable, kind of like what Donald Trump's hair stylist must do. Editing with a flamethrower. (or it could involve Yak's)

Update March 7th: Seth Godin warns about shaving, and points to it's possible coinage

Category:Words

Evolution: It's Only a Theory, But One Worth Teaching

A very good read : Evolution: It's Only a Theory, But One Worth Teaching.

The theory of gravitation is a powerful explanation of how objects interact in space-time. Its heritage goes back to Kepler’s description of planetary motion based upon Brahe’s observational data. It’s funny how no one argues that gravity is "only a theory," yet many dismiss evolution as "only a theory."
...
At a fundamental level, popular English and scientific usage are at odds here. In popular culture, a "theory" is understood to be a guess or speculation that may or may not be based upon evidence and analysis. In science, a theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

and also makes the point: Selective breeding in agriculture generated our crops and domestic animals over thousands of years; agriculture is evolution in action.. Are you dog breeder or a farmer? You use the "fact" of evolution as part of your lifes, and this "theory" was used before DNA was known about.

And a couple of weeks back NYT sunday mag had this piece : Unintelligent Design, which inculde as few good points :

But if we can't infer anything about the design from the designer, maybe we can go the other way. What can we tell about the designer from the design? While there is much that is marvelous in nature, there is also much that is flawed, sloppy and downright bizarre. Some nonfunctional oddities, like the peacock's tail or the human male's nipples, might be attributed to a sense of whimsy on the part of the designer. Others just seem grossly inefficient. In mammals, for instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it. Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have done. If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.

It things like this that make me reach for those Textbook Disclaimer Stickers

Category:Evolution

GORA DVD with English Subs Included!

Via twitchfilm comes word that the GORA DVD is out with English subtitles ( also French, German, and Dutch ). Maybe I can stop those languages class? (The coffee was keeping me awake all night.)

I previously mentioned G.O.R.A, a Turkish Sci Fi spoof with lots of Star War and Matrix references, last November here and its impressive trailer.

category :SciFi/Movies

Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is Gone!!

Confimring earlier rumors, Reuters reports that Old Fish Face (or Rabbit Face) has resigned for personal "Health" reasons, more than two years ahead of schedule. Tung's resignation comes just weeks after he was publicly reprimanded by Chinese President Hu Jintao for his poor performance over the past seven years.

That wound be number 3 out of 3 big fish to go after the July 1 2003, January 1 2004 and July 1 2004 democracy demonstrations. Simon asks : which will become truly democratic first, Hong Kong or Iran?; and provides links to more info (as always).

Chief Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang is expected to step in as Acting Chief Executive, hence forth to be known as "The Donald". There are lots of questions about how long he will "Acting". See The Basic Law On The Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive.

The Ecomomist comments on Dumping Tung: The reported resignation of Hong Kong?s leader, Tung Chee-hwa, will be welcome news for the territory?s pro-democracy groups. But the timing of his departure shows how masterfully Beijing is controlling political events in Hong Kong and the New York Times thinks: Hong Kong Leader's Likely Exit Is Mixed Blessing for Opposition.

Simon World is doing an ongoing roundup on the ongoing Tung resignation saga under Hong Kong's Long March.

The Globe and Mail editoral (March 8th " Good riddance, Mr. Tung) summed in up nicely : Good news: he's gone. Bad News: Beijing still pulling the strings. Or as Conrad(Gweilo Diaries) might have put it if he was still around : "Beijing is the Hand in the Chief Executive sock puppet".

Update: Fish Face has left the building (but the smell remains).

Category:Hong Kong

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