ACCU meeting
San Jose Mercury News columnist
Dan Gillmor
spoke to a small crowd tonight at the meeting of the
local Silicon Valley ACCU (Association of C/C++ Users).
Very interesting and scary talk, the way he correlated points about the
erosion of our rights due to the combination of power- and money-hungry
behemoths from Hollywood, Redmond, and Washington DC.
DRM, DMCA, CBDTPA, CARP, .NET, Windows XP (phone home),
CIA, NRO, and a congress, "president" and supreme court already sold
to the highest bidder.
Yecch, it's enough to make you want to move to Canada.
(See http://www.cpsr.org/program/ip/ for the explanation/expansion of
a few of these acronyms.)
I wonder what forms the backlash will take.
An "alternet" -- a reinvention of UUCP -- in case the NSA gets its
way and manages to route all Internet traffic through their set of
servers?
A flow of creative talent out of the US, towards places where there
are stronger alternatives to the RIAA and the equivalent film organizations?
Too bad so few attendees showed up. The turnout may have been partially
affected by the
spicy noodles get-together in Palo Alto, for
Webloggers attending
O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference.
Or maybe ACCU needs a catchier name.
Meetings are on the second Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm in San Jose
(in what they used to call "the Golden Triangle" near North 1st Street).
Next month's talk will feature Larry ?, giving a talk about C#.
11:53:35 PM
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