LinkBack Outage
LinkBack
5/3/2000; 11:13:24 AM The LinkBack program will cease to function over the next few days... I hope I can set it up to function elsewhere, but it may stop working with no-one to repair it, so we'll see how it goes.
A Little More Privacy, Eh? Country Watch: Canada5/3/2000; 12:07:46 AM Mar 15, 2000: "A Canadian senator who says her country's pending information privacy act does not go far enough is proposing legislation that would enshrine privacy as a fundamental right. . . The senator's proposal, which is now open for public comment before it goes on to Parliament in April, provides far-reaching protections for privacy in all aspects of life."I've never heard a better argument for moving to Canada. Just the simple fact that such actions are being considered on behalf of the people of the country and not the businesses is a giant step ahead.US, wake up! Companies are no longer the ones who need protection, people do!
Date Rape Site Taken Down Misc.5/3/2000; 12:04:37 AM Mar 14, 2000: "Web hosting company MyInternet.com deactivated Daterape.org, which described itself as 'a one-stop shop for all your date rape needs.'"I do not disagree with the removal; it amounts to conspiracy to commit horrible crimes. Interesting point, though:"'It's potentially dangerous,' Schnall [president of feminist.com] said. 'Although the site only got about 500 hits, if even one person got the idea to go out and rape someone, it's terrible.'"Shut down in less then 500 hits. That's pretty speedy. I suppose people were watching that domain name, but still... you can't always hide as well as you think you can on the Internet.
In A Virtual World, Who Owns Ideas? General IP Issues5/3/2000; 12:03:11 AM Mar 14, 2000: Some days I think Jon Katz is OK, some days I think he's a complete idiot. In his recent two part essay, In A Virtual World, Who Owns Ideas? (Part 2), he has successfully wasted a lot of his time.Go ahead and browse through the essay. See if you caught what I caught. (Nobody did on slashdot on the day the first part came out.) Jon Katz's entire essay was completely tainted by one gigantic mistake, one that is unfortunately all-too-common in this sort of debate.(BTW, today is not a "Jon Katz is OK" day, in case you couldn't tell.)
Anti-spam e-mail suit tossed out Spam & E-Mail5/2/2000; 11:58:10 PM Mar 14, 2000:
'The victory came when King County Superior Court Judge Palmer Robinson dismissed a case in which the state charged Jason Heckel with violating Washington's anti-spam law. Robinson said the law, generally regarded as the nation's toughest, violates the interstate-commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.' To tell the truth, I can't find an "interstate-commerce clause" of the US Constitution. I'm going to guess it's the full faith and credit clause, but I could be wrong.
Article IV, Section 1: Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.Samuel Reynolds thinks it's Article I, section 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States:To borrow money on the credit of the United States;To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; ....(Emphasis his.)
No Voting Opportunity for All Political Speech5/2/2000; 11:55:48 PM Mar 13, 2000: "i" and "Rights" collided in a new way recently, with the online-voting for the Arizona Democratic primary. As you might expect, such an event was not without controversy, as described in the Wired article No Voting Opportunity for All.I think those who are claiming that voting on the Internet should be blocked as it discriminates against minorities who tend not to have access to computers should be considering their actions carefully. I don't remember all the details, but as I recall, the rate of increase in internet use is higher for blacks then whites, though the other minorities that we so casually lump into the group "minorities" are not necessarily increasing at that rate.Frankly, internet voting through your cheap 50$ WebNotebook is a better deal for minorities then the current polling process. In fact, it's a better deal for everyone. They really need to be careful how they proceed in court. By the time they obtain the injunction (assuming they do)... it may be out of date.
Site No Longer Bugs Terminix Free Speech5/2/2000; 11:53:40 PM Mar 13, 2000: Carla Virga ran a web site criticizing Terminix for bad service. Terminix fixes their service... no wait, that's how it's SUPPOSED to work. Instead, Terminix sues Carla Virga. Good news: Terminix has dropped the suit (I think they basically realized they were going to loose. ""This tells other consumers with Web sites that they shouldn't roll over and play dead if a corporation comes after them," said Paul Alan Levy, a lawyer for Public Citizen."It also sends a message to other companies that the way to respond to criticism is by answering it, not suing to stop it."I hope Carla Virga pursues a malicious prosecution case against Terminix.
Communities: Ties that Bind
Internet/Weblog Culture
5/2/2000; 11:51:55 PM Mar 10, 2000: A number of things we can do to enhance community. Good piece.
Yeah, the Internet does move fast... Personal Commentary5/2/2000; 11:50:11 PM Mar 3, 2000: On Misnomer, Dru Jay discussed yesterday the relationship of my essay on Weblog Communities and the Tragedy of the Commons. I have to apologize to him; I simply forgot about referencing that stuff as a source of some of the root ideas. While my thinking on the topic doesn't stem solely from that reading, they did contribute a lot to the ideas. His comments are dead on, and I've added a link to that day on his site to the end of the essay; it really belongs as part of it. Do read the comments if you haven't already.Since the features just aren't worth anything yet, in a couple of hours, the Linkback page will simply cease to exist. Hopefully, by this time next week, I should have context and decay working. (I figured out how to do them both at once, simplify the database by linking only to a site without regard to the contents of the links, and overall simplify the process immensely while gaining features, speed of processing, and decreasing time-to-program. Sometimes a little bit of design thought can save tens or hundreds of hours of work...)You know, it comes home yet again that the Internet DOES move things along more quickly... I'm disappearing for a week and I expect that half of you will forget I exist. I'll probably miss at least one big story. (The recent Amazon patent controversy is only what, 3 days old?) I'll miss multiple small ones, but interesting ones. In other words, the penalty for disappearing for a week is stiff around here. (Wait until my honeymoon, I suppose, it'll be even worse.)If I disappear for 3 months from home to go to college, my mother can catch me up in significant events in the church, my extended family, and the events of interest in the town in less then an hour. Meanwhile, she has little clue what goes on online in my life, because that much interesting stuff happens online in a day, and I can't explain it all to her in a reasonable amount of time. Even my fiance thinks I'm a little bit nuts running a daily website. (To the best of my knowlege, none of those people are reading this on a daily basis.)Of course, a lot of stuff happens in the real world, too, we just never hear about it because we lack the communication channels.Step back for a moment and look around you at those who are not connected to the Internet (not just online, but actually living 'here' to some extent). It's easy to forget how differently we see the world then those who are not connected... we get news in hours, including thoughtful opinions, commentary, and opposing positions, if you know where to look. (Sure, network news comes in hours, too, but its a very limited subset of what I see online.) Fads occur in a matter of hours, and can last no more then days. (Mahir, anyone?) There are two sides to nearly every issue, even the ones you'd think are a cinch for one side like "internet censorship", not just the Network News view.For me, who's never really known a world that has been changing at anything less then exponential speed, it is so easy to forget that even now, it is not like this for everybody. I am incapable of understanding on a gut level a world where change is slow, news is from last month, and adding 1,000,000 numbers together is impractical because even if you take the time to do it, your result will be too full of error to be useful.Just a bit of introspection here, and hey, I'll end it with a cliche, why not? Where will I be 5 years from now at this rate of change of rate of change? (That's not a typo.) Wow. The answers boggle the mind.(And to think... one of the projects I'm working on this week will only serve to speed up the weblog communities even faster then they already work now, and to help them draw closer together dynamically... I'm certainly not helping to slow things down any...)
Free speech or cyber-slander? Free Speech5/2/2000; 11:48:11 PM Mar 1, 2000: "The chatters claim a First Amendment right to post messages on electronic bulletin boards using pseudonyms. They have scored some success in challenging attempts to pry loose their identities from Internet service providers."I've been rolling around issues like this. I'd like to post my complete reasoning someday, but for now, consider this. I think that yes, we do have the right to not have to identify ourselves on a message board. I also think that no particular message board is obligated to allow people to remain anonymous.The two issues are distinct, but they are often carelessly merged, to the detriment of both issues."'Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority,' the court wrote."