'The idea seemed simple: figure out who the good guys are, give them easy-to-recognize and hard-to-counterfeit ID cards and let them breeze past airport security.

'Everybody would win, advocates say. Holders of the "trusted traveler" cards would save time. Screeners would have fewer bodies to inspect — there were 1.8 billion in 2000, according to the Transportation Department — and could concentrate on identifying potential terrorists. And passengers would feel safer.

There's an art to reading reviews. But it's easy to learn. Three simple rules:

1. Ignore all positive opinions. (Listen only to statements of fact.)
2. Ignore flames. Watch for the reviewer with an ulterior motive. (My personal canonical example, a movie reviewer reviewing the movie they would have written, not the one they saw.)
3. The most importent thing to look at is the negative comments, esp. as compared against the positive. Are some people complaining that the software is hard to learn, while others rave about the power? Are there people upset at a movie for being too happy, but you like happy endings? Don't just look at the fact that there are negative reviews, see if you like or dislike their reasons.

Yep, the US has decided it has jurisdiction. What a shock. (I'm deliberately not reporting every time this case twitches; it's not even interesting until it actually gets into court.)

The Register: Windows Messenger 'Trojan update'

[diveintomark]

I feel OK using XP, still; I'm still confident that I can disable this stuff. But I have to admit I'm getting more hesitent to recommend it, the more they do this. Pity.

If it wasn't for Radio Userland, I wouldn't need Windows. If only I could afford a Mac!

I decided against putting my April Fool's page as my homepage; too many interesting people linking to my page to risk a bad impression, IMHO. But you can see what I prepared here.

Interesting. Anyone know if this is any good? It doesn't have to be cool, just funny... I didn't even know this was ever a television series, I just thought it was a radio series.

'Sen. Patrick Leahy says a controversial proposal to embed copy protection in electronics gear will not become law this year.'

'Since Leahy is the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, his opposition instantly boosts the difficulty Hollywood studios will encounter in their attempts to enact sweeping copyright legislation.'

'The Vermont Democrat said through a spokesman that he "does not" support the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), which Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) introduced this month.'

A practical note today: For everyone who has an account with Yahoo, the bastards have reset your marketing preferences to "I beg you to deluge me with crap, including by phone and snail mail." I have confirmed that this includes people like me, who only have Yahoo accounts for yahoo groups.

Please read the Slashdot story and follow the directions on how to undo this. Of course, none of my readers were stupid enough to give their real address or phone number, right? ;-)

I don't like to chime in on a topic unless I have something interesting to say; that's part of the reason I don't add many entries to iRights per day. But a couple nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, and happened to have a thought about the CBDTPA that I think might be very importent to those fighting it. It's a long thought, though, so I'll link you to The CBDPTA is Immune to (Conventional) Criticism. Hopefully, you'll find it not only interesting, but mind expanding.

A new release of the Jabber framework for RU and Frontier. (The prefs page will probably work only in RU.) Info in the title link, and the changes page (if you've installed it).