meta-roj

good-person and defender of the right to “opt out” (in so many ways), Lawrence Lessig has left us a pointer to yet another example of bad government.

Larry references an article in the washington post (sometimes they ask you for demo info), with the following quote from Lois Boland (director of international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office): “…open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which is to promote intellectual-property rights.”

this, of course, implies that the mission of WIPO and, by extension, the Patent and Trademark Office is to work only for those persons or entities that intend to restrict rights, as opposed to those that intend to assign, waive or freely license their duly-earned and protected rights. this further implies that rights are subject to intent, and that your government and friendly neighborhood bureaucrat is both capable of discerning your intent and empowered to determine what rights then apply to you.

this feels a lot like many of the other inconsistent policies i see on the part of my government here in the united states.

isn’t the fundamental nature of a “right” that it applies universally? does it matter if it’s a civil right, a criminal right, a political right, a first amendment right, or an intellectual property right?

today, apparently, it does. someone will decide what rights you may or may not have, based on what they think you might do with those rights. i say that is wrong.

thanks to a tip, we now have evidence of a major escalation in the “Smartass Arsenal” in the war for the control of Friendster. a weapon so powerful, so perverse, so inhumane and wanton in its destructive powers, that surely, no reasonable person would actually use it. and lo, it is called pretendster.

(just can’t beat that -ster thing)

now auto-generating fake ids and, more interesting, fake testimonials is click-through-easy. so, drop on by and play with the new tool.

i discussed determinism and the dawn of this friendster battle a while ago, and i promised you an update (and it came in exactly 7 days. how cool is that?).

this press release announces what is probably the coolest thing ever done with a cd (and yes, this includes high-rpm failure demonstrations).

in the journal Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, James La Clair and Michael Burkart describe a method “to screen the recognition between small molecule ligands and biomolecules using a conventional compact disc (CD) player.”

the full text of the paper is available from the abstract.

the project site doesn’t have much content, but if you want to get in touch with the researchers…

very cool.

one question: will cd-r’s used for biomolecular screening be subject to riaa-sponsored blank-media taxes?

this nearly escaped my attention with the pile of things to read around here, but wow. you really should read the whole thing. in small chunks, so the legalese doesn’t glaze you over for the rest of the month. emphasis below is mine. this is from the ticketmaster privacy policy.

By purchasing a ticket, or completing a registration form so that you are able to access a purchase page for a ticket, to a concert, game or other event on the Site, you consent (i.e., you opt-in) to us sharing your personal information with the venues, promoters, artists, teams, leagues and other third parties associated with that concert, game or other event (“Event Partners”). We cannot offer you a separate opportunity to opt-out, or not to consent, to our sharing of your personal information with them. Event Partners may use your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies, and may consequently use your personal information to contact you and may share your personal information with others. You will need to contact those Event Partners who contact you to instruct them directly regarding your preferences for the use of your personal information by them.

i can only begin to express the level of concerns i have after reading this statement. i’m no lawyer (shoulda…), but this reads to me that if you even THINK seriously about buying a ticket from ticketmaster (“.. completing a registration form so that you are able to access a purchase page”), you’ve pretty much opted into spam, catalogs, fliers, junkmail and just about everything in the world from any company that even remotely does business with ticketmaster or any company that does business with a company that does business with ticketmaster. and if you don’t like it, it’s your responsibility to figure out who ticketmaster gave your data to, and ask them to stop.

do you even get to see if tickets are available without “registering”? i’m not about to register to find out. perhaps one of my good readers is already ‘registered’ and can enlighten me a little…

in the meantime:

If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy policy, the practices of the Site, or your dealings with the Site, you can contact us at legal@ticketmaster.com. You can also send us mail to:

Privacy Officer
Ticketmaster.com, c/o Legal Department
8800 West Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069

yes. i have concerns. you should have concerns too.

and no, i don’t think i’ll be doing business with ticketmaster anytime soon.

the independent is reporting that kids are text-messaging the movie business out of their expected summer blockbusters.

“The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films – sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching – and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on its opening weekend.”

welcome to the era of the distributed moble hecklebot.

big media will never be the same…. and valenti will be even more dependent on the home-video market.

i just couldn’t resist the timing of these two events.

yesterday, on august 18, the World Markets Research Centre released their Global Terrorism Index 2003/4. i haven’t read this report (i don’t have $1500 burning a hole in my pocket at the moment), but, some other people have, and they reveal an interesting tiny bit of information. The author of the report is cited in this AP story (courtsey yahoo): “The report says the country least likely to be attacked by terrorists is North Korea.”

today, attorney general john ashcroft kicked off his campaign to “clear up some myths” about and build support for the usa patriot act with a speech before the american enterprise institute. this is apparently the first stop in a three-week, 18-city tour, but the details are being kept quiet. (the ACLU apparently thinks this is to discourage protest).

“If we knew then what we know now, we would have passed the Patriot Act six months before Sept. 11 rather than six weeks after the attacks” — ashcroft, AEI, August 19, 2003.

i guess the usa patriot act has worked so well that we are so “secure” that our attorney general can take a few weeks off to make some speeches. ashcroft apparently also cited today’s bombing of the un hq in iraq as evidence of a continuing threat. and that gives me an opening….

i observe that with 146,000 [heavily armed] soldiers on the ground, full military “control” of the country, 10,000+ dead iraqi soldiers, 6000+ dead iraqi civilians, 200+ dead american [coalition] soldiers – that the un headquarters in iraq wasn’t “safe from terrorists.”

iraq is roughly the same land area as california, with about 70% of the population (almost 33.9 million california residents, compared to about 24.6 million iraqi residents).

let’s return to our model of homeland security for a moment. north korea has about 1 million troops for about 22.5 million residents, and, according to the WMRC, is the safest country in the world (from terrorism). so about 1 soldier for every 22.5 people is “safest.”

extrapolating, maybe we can “secure” iraq with 1.1 million troops, and maybe we can “secure” california with 1.5 million troops (it’s a regime-change thing), and the whole united states with 13 million troops. then again, maybe not.

that’s not the kind of security i want, no matter how many cities ashcroft visits pitching expanded police-state powers. i appreciate the best intentions here, but this is the road to hell.

update: surprisingly, there is a flaw in the logic. israel has 550,000 active servicemembers “protecting” 6.1 million residents, and is most assuredly, “not safe.” so, a 1-to-11 ratio of troops isn’t adequate. i guess you can’t beat the terrorists with an army.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, and the other fallen heroes of peace.

this is questions, really. i don’t have the answers.

first, what is “critical”? who decides? is it the domain of the department of homeland security to designate something “critical”? once something is critical, who is in charge of running it? securing it?

it seems no one can “do right” by critical infrastructure. a quick informal survey:

the us mass transit infrastructure was pretty much destroyed by corporate interests
the us road infrastructure is in “disrepair” under the stewardship of government entities.
the electrical distribution system is quasi-private and falls apart in small spaces often, and in dramatic form recently
the email infrastructure isn’t really under anyone’s stewardship, and is becoming increasingly useless under the weight of spam.
the air transport infrastructure is an interesting mix of private carriers and quasi-public facilities and public security, and it’s barely viable.
the us rail infrastructure is also a mixed bag, but commercial passenger rail is an economic disaster.
the pipeline and fuel distribution infrastructure is mostly private, and it occasionally fails in dramatic form.

public? private? quasi-private? regulation? deregulation? reregulation? privatization? nationalization? it seems we’ve tried pretty much every combination in some form or another, and we can’t quite “get it right.” sure, these are complex systems. and we have complex tools to run them. but are they too complex?

the question the lawyers want to answer is “who is to blame?” but the question i want to answer is “have we exceeded our capacity to manage?”

i haven’t said much about eclipse here (partially because i really need to update that document), but today i’m making an exception, because today, i had an interesting eclipse-moment.

in a fairly brief conversation, with a well-regarded in-the-trenches kind-of-person-this-is-all-about, she actually came out (unprompted) and said “i’d pay yearly dues to be a member of that.”

this is nice. this is validation.

more importantly (right now), i’ve finally gotten this boiled down to something i can communicate in a conversational context, and it resonates with at least one of the people it’s supposed to resonate with.

so, thanks, pet rockstar. i appreciate your thoughts.

eclipse will not work for everyone, which is why i’ve tried hard to use the language of “performers” instead of “musicians.” it won’t work for session musicians, studio musicians or even the next spice girls (performers though they may be).

i really like the idea of making performing a key aspect – because really, it’s the ONLY aspect that’s truly important for a true musician

well, yes. sorta. it’s what i think is important for this project. there are “true musicians” that never leave a studio and never perform in front of anything but machines and technicians. and that’s ok, and i respect that work. but this project is not about solving their problems. maybe the next one 🙂

how’s that for a vague and self-serving post? ok, back to work. i have a problem to solve. thanks for your minutes of attention.

so don park has decided to run with [part of] the SMGT cell phone. this is grand. amazing.

who’da thunk that something like this little blog and a little irc would actually accomplish something? wow.

but, and i do have to say this to keep the spirit of the Bisness Model Of The Hour, this concept of implementing the function without the buzzwords is just crazy. i’m telling you, don, you simply have to do it the hard way, otherwise, you won’t get your proper geek-respect.