27 November 2002

Give Publishing Power to the Masses Brewster Kahle -- He's scavenging the Internet Library because he knows you can't tell in advance what will be important. "The Web is the people's medium, it's not elitist. Anyone can publish there, so you've got the good, the bad, the ugly, the profane. It's just us, that's the amazing thing." We owe it to our citizenry to train articulate bloggers.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

One Reason I Miss Thanksgiving Garringreen Hotspot -- Thanksgiving in Europe means a workday without turkey, no pumpkin pie, no NFL doubleheader and no end-to-end kids' movies. Add a dose of Irish rain on top of it all and you know why I'm depressed.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

RSS Validation in Ireland Mark Pilgrim -- Both Mark and Sam Ruby have underscored the need for RSS Validation. Now the issue kicks into high gear in Ireland, as Brian Greene is sniffing around for the perfect RSS validator.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Why Did RIAA Target USNA? Andrew Orlowski -- RIAA targeted the US Naval Academy because they could, according to The Register. I read the original article, thought that its headline told a different angle on the story than the text, and moved on. The RIAA read the story, didn't like either the headline or the text, and demanded that it be removed. That impertinent demand caused more of a flap than the original story.  The real story might be to explore the port-hopping and file masking techniques used by students who cut a different music CD every week. I was amazed at what some enterprising teenagers showed me in Tipperary Institute. Give them bandwidth and they will hoover. I graduated from the USAF Academy in 1976. Like many of my instructors, I copied cassette tapes for my personal use. I fail to see where that practise differs from cultivating a personal MP3 collection. It would be dead-easy to decimate the officer corps in three of the uniformed services by trawling for deviants who copy music for pleasure. I don't think the military academies should demean their Honor Codes or misuse my tax money through this kind of enforcement practice. [Washington Post and The Register and Wired and Cory Doctorow and Dave Winer and John Dowdell]   [Comment on Shoptalk]