Ruh-roh, Raggy - it's getting *drafty* out there. I hadn't seen this before, but the "Universal National Service Act of 2003" (currently in the House and Senate) would require "that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service..." to provide for the common defense of Dubya's megalomaniacal mission, of course. [via rense][blackholebrain]

I thought this might be a sick joke but the link goes to "thomas.loc.gov", no crazy IE bug either, it's the real deal.

Slashdot - Microsoft on Tuesday won a patent for launching a certain kind of HTML application within Windows. The patent, "Method and apparatus for writing a Windows application in HTML" (Hypertext Markup Language), describes Microsoft's way of opening up HTML applications in a window free of navigation and other interface elements, known as "chrome," and browser security restrictions.'

Wow, I haven't written on a specific patent in a long time, because there's nothing much new to say. But this time there is: This is the first patent I've seen that isn't even in theory a patent on a new piece of technology, or even a new application of an old technique. It's a patent on not applying technology! It's a patent on not surrounding an HTML document with browser chrome and not forcing the embedded Javascript to be as secure as a browser normally does.

I tend to work on larger writing projects; deep down I don't believe that anybody cares to hear me say "[Link to something].... Hmmm...." on an hourly basis (w/ a tip o' the hat to Instapundit, who had two seperate "Hmm" messages on the front-page for me to choose). I think my next project is going to be "Critical Listening Fallacies"; these are the complement of the more traditional argument fallacies where the listener fails in their part of a debate. Much like my definition of dancing, a rhetorical argument fallacy where I had to make up the term because I don't know of anyone else talking about it, I'll have to make up names myself because as far as I can see, nobody's talking about these even though they happen all the time.

If you're all exposed to any kind of public music, you're probably already tired of Christmas music. After all, there are at best around 20 to 30 Christmas carols, and that's counting quite a few things like "Still, Still, Still", which I recognize but rarely hear in public. And it's the same 20 every year.

But if you can get past the repetitive nature of the melodies, I've been noticing how innovative Christmas songs get harmonically. After all, the song writers are as aware as we are, if not more so, of how repetitive the season gets.

iRights is dead.

The mission of this weblog since Jan. 2000 has been to track the development of rights on the Internet. I've been eclipsed in every significant way by people with more time and perhaps more importantly, more real domain knowlege. LawMeme, Groklaw, Privacy Digest, and many other sites are doing a better job then I can.

With the publication of my Communication Ethics essay, I no longer have very much significant to say in this domain, other then occasional references to the essay. To me, it's a sign of the maturity of the piece that I have felt no great desire to modify it, or encountered a situation that I find the ethics espoused in that essay, but it makes for a rather boring weblog.

I thought it would be interesting to summarize my experiences with Atkins to date, since I haven't posted on it for a while.

First, so far I've lost about 30 pounds, out of a projected 50 or so I want to lose. The reason I'm not there yet is that I have not been on it full time.

Some observations:

Falling Off the Diet

Once I'm on the diet, I tend to stay there unless something knocks me off. Once off, I find it moderately challenging to get back on, because it's easier to drag your feet then exert the will power.

It was obvious that the democratization of the media would bring new voices into the field, but who knew that so many of those voices would be conservative, libertarian, or just cantankerously opposed to entrenched liberal doctrine? The conservative side is far from winning the culture wars, but the debate is broader and fairer now. The near monopoly is over.

This article re-affirms why I think the whole Second Superpower meme is true, but backwards. Consider the quotes from that essay:

As the United States government becomes more belligerent in using its power in the world, many people are longing for a “second superpower” that can keep the US in check.... it is a new form of international player, constituted by the “will of the people” in a global social movement. For example, the political activist group Moveon.org, which specializes in rapid response campaigns, has an email list of more than two million members.... Which brings us to the most important point: the vital role of the individual.

Third, this is going to be a product, not one that I plan to sell (although I may give it to UserLand and they might sell it). It's a new kind of outliner-based Web CMS, that does weblogs and all the other stuff you see popping up here on Scripting. I spent much of the day exploring ideas for how to package, test and then ship this. Should it be a Manila plug-in? Or something that's linked to Manila on a sort of peer basis? Or should it be completely independent of Manila? I want to deliberate on this decision, because I expect to live with it for a long time.

Thanks to the ability of Apple's iTunes to share music collections over local networks, it is now possible to judge someone's taste in music -- or lack of it -- in a way that previously required a certain level of intimacy.

The ability to examine the music collections of co-workers, neighbors or fellow students is akin to peering into their souls: Someone who appears cool and interesting from the outside is revealed as a cultural nincompoop through the poor sap's terrible taste in music.

Communication Ethics book part for Appendix: The Technical Lawyer Cirriculum. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)