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.)

Communication Ethics book part for Conclusion. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for Usefulness. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for Short Term Viability. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for Completeness. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Unreason's seductive charms. "... our rationality is bounded by what our brains were constructed -- that is, evolved -- to do." [dangerousmeta!]

The article really deals with two types of unreason, "strong emotions" and "not applying logic where it should be applied". Actually, the article itself covers how to explain the latter in a reasonable framework. In reference to a pure-logic formulation of a probem vs. a socially-based formulation of an equivalent problem:

whereas the first is a matter of pure reason, disconnected from reality, the second plays into issues of truth telling and the detection of social cheaters. The human mind, Cosmides points out, is not adapted to solve rarified problems of logic, but is quite refined and powerful when it comes to dealing with matters of cheating and deception. In short, our rationality is bounded by what our brains were constructed -- that is, evolved -- to do.

EFF: FCC Adopts Hollywood "Broadcast Flag" Mandate. [Hack the Planet]

This just boggles the mind. "We all know" the government agencies are in the hip pockets of "the industry", but even by those standards this is a lopsided ruling, 110% in favor of "the content industry" with all the costs completely shifted onto the manufacturing side of the industry, and by extension everybody who needs to buy that equipment.

Canonical asymmetry; we are all actively paying for the protection of the content industry while they pay nothing. This is already asymmetrical, but how much do you want to bet that while they will produce nothing without this bit, nothing we buy at "normal consumer prices" will be able to produce this bit? A little unfair to make this accusation since it hasn't happened yet, but history is quite on my side; see DAT copy protection.