Salon interview with the Arizona Democratic Primary ...
Digital Divide
6/5/2000; 7:10:22 AM March 20, 2000: An interview in Salon with the company that did the Arizona Democratic Primary online voting.

"Many people who are not voting now are poor people. They're people who are working two jobs, they're working mothers, they're in the military, they're in situations where it can be really difficult to get to a polling place. There's a big voting divide today; we think online voting will help close it." I agree.

Mattel Censorship Censorship6/5/2000; 7:10:19 AM March 20, 2000: Mattel, makers of CyberPatrol, a censorware product, are now censoring anybody who has the cracks on their site (not much surprise), and anybody who merely points to the cracks (more surprising).

Aside: Coporate America really needs to lose the idea that a site linking to something is the same as the site actually having and distributing that something.

Sites hosting the crack, hosting critical essays, or sites pointing to critical essays are being banned under every catagory CyberPatrol has, such as Violence/Profanity, Partial Nudity, Sexual Acts, Gross Depictions, Intolerance, Satanic/Cult, Drugs/Drug Culture, Militant/Extremist, Sex Education, Gambling, and Alcohol and Tobacco.

Computers, the Internet & the Abdication of Consciousnes Personal Commentary6/5/2000; 7:10:15 AM March 20, 2000: View from an Iowa Homestead: Computers, the Internet & the Abdication of Consciousness: 'I'm grateful for my liberal arts education, with a heavy emphasis on philosophy. Is it the case that people with strictly technical educations, say straight computer science undergrad work or engineering, cannot step back like philosophy allows one to do? I can't imagine living such a life, but perhaps people don't know what they're missing. Or don't care. Perhaps, like the retirees feeding nickels to the slot machines in Vegas, they are trying to reach the abdication of consciousness Talbott refers to.'

Netscape readies new browser, wins development support Misc.6/5/2000; 7:10:11 AM March 20, 2000: News Flash, 1996: "The browser was is over, and Netscape has won. Why does Microsoft bother with their 'Internet Explorer'?"

News Flash, 2000:Netscape readies new browser, wins development support: "Some analysts don't see Netscape making a dent in Microsoft's lead. 'The browser war is over, and Explorer has won,' said Seamus McAteer, an analyst at Jupiter Communications."

Ask Slashdot: Does A Software License Cover Patches? Misc.6/5/2000; 7:10:08 AM March 19, 2000: Ask Slashdot: Does A Software License Cover Patches?: I bring up this article because I believe some of the arguments apply to the question of whether or not Third Voice and other such things are modifying a page, as what Third Voice does is essentially patch a page.(Note that not all of them apply, as programs aren't exactly the same things as communications in general, but some still apply.)

With redesign, Deja.com drifts from its humble Usenet roots Internet/Weblog Culture6/5/2000; 7:09:35 AM March 19, 2000: "Should this continue, it's entirely possible that this gloriously diverse global party -- the greatest continuous shouting match in the history of computer communications -- will simply fade into irrelevance."

All good things come to an end, sooner or later.

Perhaps weblogs will fulfill people's need to engage in shouting matches. (On the other hand, those don't tend to work too well in the weblog world... Spontaneous Community Destruction tends to occur.)

Another PlayStation2 Flaw DVD & DeCSS6/5/2000; 7:09:33 AM March 17, 2000: "Sony's gamemaking unit, Sony Computer Entertainment, said it had found users of PS2 -- launched two weeks ago in Japan amid huge publicity and frenzied demand -- could manipulate it to watch DVD software sold overseas."

Hah! This is funny not because of the flaw; many other DVD players can be easily manipulated to remove copy-protection and watch DVDs from other regions. It's funny because Sony is one of the leaders of the consortium that created the rules in the first place! Sony can't even follow the rules.

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes
Humor/Amusing
6/5/2000; 7:09:30 AM March 17, 2000: Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes: "REDMOND, WA--In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday."

Software Co. Sues Hackers Censorship6/5/2000; 7:09:28 AM March 16, 2000: "They also offered a small ``cphack'' utility for ``people oppressed by Cyber Patrol'' that, when run on a parent's computer, reveals the password that blocks questionable Web sites - and also discloses the product's entire list of more than 100,000 Internet sites deemed unsuitable for children."

Mattel claims "`irreparable harm' from the publication of the bypassing software, which it said sought to destroy the market for its product by rendering it ineffective." Well, yeah... that is the point.

Information on Cyber Patrol, including some blocked sites.

Patently Bezos Patents6/5/2000; 7:09:18 AM March 16, 2000: "When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos laid out his proposals for reforming the patent system last week, patent experts reacted with the same lack of enthusiasm the bookseller's competitors showed when it won a patent on its customer-referral program. After all, Bezos' plan, like some of his company's e-commerce patents, did not sound all that novel to people familiar with the subject.""'This is really nothing new,' says Randy Lipsitz, partner at Kramer, Levin, Naftalis and Frankel. 'He's not the first person to have spoken out against the patent system.'"And thus goes the entire Salon article. I have two questions:

1. If the idea isn't new, why does that make it bad?
2. Where in Bezos' essay does he claim that his proposals are new? (The word "new" shows up twice, neither of them describing the proposal.)

What a waste of an article. I tend to expect better from Salon then an article falling into the "The Only Good Idea Is A New Idea" fallacy.