Month: August 2000

Some interesting news from Douglas Rushkoff’s Media Squat newsletter:

“All news is good: I’ll be releasing my novel as a book in the UK, but I

might be trying something new, electronic, and absolutely free here in the

US. We’ll see how it goes. I’m just tired of how long it takes to get a

book

out, here. Even serializing the entire book in a magazine, over the course

of a year, would get the text out to readers, sooner.”

And on the Ecstacy Club Movie:

“I’ve got a producer and writer working on an idea for Ecstasy Club; I can’t

really say more than this right now. It’s an unconventional plan for

getting

a movie made, but, looking back, most of the good fortune I’ve had has

stemmed from unconventional methods.”

Just in case I haven’t dissed the record companies enough recently:

Here

‘s a little story about how the record industry tried to steal recording copyrights from

artists — forever.

Slow news day… Wow – I just can’t seem to find anything I want to blog about. This is kinda cool, though. I’ll try again later. Gotta do some work right now.

Sorry, no update today… too busy. Maybe tonight.

From the Butt Head File – A Sony exec at a conference in Long Beach California, when asked about his company’s fight against Napster said:

“The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what.” … “Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source — we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC.”

This guy is a moron – First of all, he obviously has no idea how the internet works. And second, I think rcade at metafilter said it best: “Any music company that is basing its business plan on the ability to stop Napster and its ilk is completely fucked.”

Disappearing act – A team of scientists at the University of Texas have learned how to make flesh temporarily transparent. cool. (thanks metafilter)

Just a Tip sends free, anonymous email to your friends telling them about their annoying problems. Tell your friends all about their Crotch Hygiene, Dandruff, Obvious Toupee, Flatulence, Warts, Poor taste in music, or Inconsiderate Cell Phone Usage. All Anonymously!

DeCSS – If you have been following the DeCSS story at all, you’ll find this analysis of the court’s ruling by 2600 editior (and defendant in the case) Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley) very interesting. If you haven’t been following, it’s probably too complicated to really get into here, but here are links to some articles and sites:

Features: DVD Code Cracker Sent Packing

Salon’s DeCSS Coverage

OpenDVD.org

A professional opinion on DVD encryption from Bruce Schneier’s Cryptogram newsletter.

Looking for a copy of DeCSS?

Just go to go.com and search for DeCSS. They will link you to thousands of sites. (incidentally, go.com is owned by Disney -one of the companies represented by the MPAA in the case)

Or you can just go here for now.

Want to help the cause?

Distribute the code located here

Make a donation to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) who has been funding the defense in this case.

Pretty scary – This article over at the Citizen confirms all the things we’ve heard about the Ottawa rave scene over the last year. Pretty scary stuff, and pretty unfortunate.

The North Pole is melting. – Recent visitors to the Arctic Ocean have reported seeing an ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans. Scientists claim this as a sign that global warming may be real and already affecting climate.