RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC
Hacking & Cracking
'Look out, music pirates: The recording industry wants the right to hack into your computer and delete your stolen MP3s.'

I'm not sure where Wired is getting this. If you read the actual amendment, namely this part:

'No action may be brought under this subsection arising out of any impairment of the availability of data, a program, a system or information, resulting from measures taken by an owner of copyright in a work of authorship, or any person authorized by such owner to act on its behalf, that are intended to impede or prevent the infringement of copyright in such work by wire or electronic communication; provided that the use of the work that the owner is intending to impede or prevent is an infringing use.

Not a good time to have a cold
Personal Commentary
Over the past couple of days, I've had a bad cold, so bad that I couldn't hardly sit up straight long enough to check my email. This basically the one time in my life where I actually expect the TV to entertain me to some extent. Fortunately, my effective IQ drops the requisite 30 or 40 points necessary for being able to watch TV that much. (Thank goodness I feel well enough to use the laptop to post this today. Still can't sit up straight for very long, but at least I can read & write today.)

How the terror trail went unseen
Misc.
"Events have vindicated our position", adds Ian Miller, a computer security specialist and one of the experts whom Mr Straw has accused of being "naïve". The attacks, he said, worked because they had "none of the hallmarks of clandestine activity the intelligence agencies normally look for. They did nothing suspicious - until they did something abominable".

 

Joining the Chomsky-Bashing Bandwagon Personal Commentary 'If I ever hear from that effete, boorish, pseudo-intellectual rectocranial inversion again, it'll be too soon. It's like listening to George Bush's ineffectual, bookish cousin, minus the charm.'

I first heard of Chomsky in computer science class. He discovered/outlined/defined the Chomsky language hierarchy (do you "discover" or "invent" math concepts?). For a while after I heard about his more mainstream fame, I had a hard time believing the two were the same person... not that the personas were contradictory, I just didn't expect them to be the same.

Scripting News
Personal Commentary
'"One man in Florida is dead. Another was found to have anthrax in his nose. They worked in the same office. Stevens lived within a mile of an airport that one of the Sept 11 terrorists flew out of. Is this a coincidence or terrorism?"'

If it's terrorism, then so far it's a horribly botched job. 5000 people dead, not to diminish the tragedy of the WTC, was a blip. Two doesn't even rate that.

Scripting News
Personal Commentary
'"One man in Florida is dead. Another was found to have anthrax in his nose. They worked in the same office. Stevens lived within a mile of an airport that one of the Sept 11 terrorists flew out of. Is this a coincidence or terrorism?"'

If it's terrorism, then so far it's a horribly botched job. 5000 people dead, not to diminish the tragedy of the WTC, was a blip. Two doesn't even rate that.

blackholebrain - Freedom First, Justice Will Follow
Personal Commentary

Don't get me wrong -- it all sounds good. But there will never [ever] be any globally-implemented, man-made political, legislative, technological, or militaristic remedy that actually puts an end to terrorism. Period. Why? Because something as completely permeative of the human soul as religious belief is --no matter how radical the belief system-- it's really just part of being human. And beliefs won't just disappear with a UN mandate and some bullets, especially when dealing with belief systems that compel believers to sacrifice themselves in order to destroy those who believe differently. It's true.

Opportunists use crisis to push agendas
Misc.
'Yet amid the chorus of draconian proposals and McCarthyite threats, one voice of opportunism still stands out. That voice belongs to Robyn Mazer, who is using September 11 to call for an international crackdown on counterfeit T-shirts.'

Is there no cause that can't be twisted to be related to terrorism? We're finding out. The more time goes by, the closer we get to "no"...

The 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
Patents
'TECHNOLOGY IG-NOBLE AWARD:
Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.'

What are the Ig Noble awards?

 

A rant against bad patents
Patents
'Looking at patent US5379129 itself, I see that it contains no new intellectual content. Usually, when I see a claim that Company X has patented Obvious Technique Y, I'm skeptical. Whether you agree with the patent system or not, in many cases the actual patent contains claims that show that Company X has at least used Obvious Technique Y in a new context, or figured out an implementation trick.'