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Wednesday, June 19, 2002

NPR deep-link comedy

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This is a tax-supported, non-profit organization. Just where do they get off thinking anyone needs permission to link to their site? Oops! Sorry, I must have hit this deep-link to an article on mental health by accident.

Thanks to Ernie the Attorney for the tip on this silliness.

XML Security for Demand-driven Print

Why is this important to next wave publishing? Business transaction systems in the printing industry are, as a rule, pathetic. Miserable. Virtually non-existent. For a printer to respond dynamically to book sales and requirements there must be a business transaction infrastructure that can carry all the necessary info in a compact form, parse it automatically, and provide at least rudimentary instructions for manufacturing, packaging, and logistics.

What is emerging is a production control and business system based XML. The production standard is called JDF and it is being used as the core architecture in print industry portal services such as Heidelberg's HeiPort and Creo, Inc.'s InSite, as well as industry exchanges like PrintTalk.

Until now there hasn't been an easy, standard way to address security in these and similar applications. This article discusses the first wave of some XML encryption appliances that could eventually solve this problem. While still pricey, the cost of such units is sure to come down, and their "plug and play" operation is a good fit for the sort of blackbox units that are common in print and publishing workflows.

Forum Systems unveils XML security appliance. Vordel offers product sneak-peek for developers [InfoWorld]

Every Revolution has its Heros

Today I saw this link posted on TSL:

Spreading the meme:
Why You Should Fall to Your Knees and Worship a Librarian.

Wow, we're talking Xena, Warrior Princess here. I had no idea...

Insured for Stupidity

"Vital to the economy," they say. "Get us moving forward," they say. Please, there has to be a better way to address this than give yet one more bloated, overwrought industry billions in guarantees. There is already a system that provides industry guaranteed returns and freedom from risk -- it's called communism.

The Free Market means freedom to win and freedom to lose. You can't have one without the other. If you don't want the risk then don't take the profits. This is severely broken.

Senate Passes Aid to Insurers on Terrorism. The Senate passed legislation requiring the government to pay the overwhelming majority of financial losses in a major terrorist attack. By Joseph B. Treaster.

Tired of copyright abuse...

Frivolous or not, we need more people to stand up to the obnoxious, brain-dead, user-hostile copy-protection schemes being foisted on the public by the music industry. The DMCA has given these jerks the idea that they own, outright and without limit, in perpetuity, every available access, route, application, derivation, and compilation of any and all materials, however so presented, to which they may have held, or had designs to hold, copyright.

Wholesale theft of copyrighted works is wrong. But property rights do not extend to unilateral control over every aspect of your property. The music industry (and to a large extent both the broadcast and publishing industries) has forgotten this.

Big five labels sued over copy-protected CDs. Lawsuit alleges CDs were defective [InfoWorld: Top News]

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