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Boing Boing Blog
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| 1. |
Popping water balloons in zero gravity. I love these quicktime movies of water balloons being popped in space. Link (via Good Morning Silicon Valley) |
| 2. |
Down and Out relicensed today. Just over a year ago, I released my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as an experiment in what would happen if I allowed my precious copyright to be slightly eroded by one of the Creative Commons licenses. I chose the most restrictive CC license available to me, staying cautious, and I waited to see if the sky would fall.
It didn't.
So here we are, just a little over a year later, and I am currently, at this moment, standing on a stage at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, delivering a talk called Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books, in which I lay out the case for what I've done and explain the myraid ways in which the sky has not fallen on me, and just about now, I'm announcing what' sin this blog post:
That I am re-licensing Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, effective today, under the terms of one of the least restrictive Creative Commons licenses, the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, which explicitly allows anyone in the world to make any non-commercial adaptation of my book s/he can think of: translations, radio plays, movies, sequels, fanfic, slashfic...you get the picture.
I can't wait to see what you-all make of this. Surprise me, please!
Link |
| 3. |
My ETCON talk, in the Public Domain. I have just given a talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Confernece called Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books, which is something of an anomaly for me in three ways:
- I wrote out this talk, word for word, in advance of the presentation
- I am releasing that written text as a free, public domain file, right now, moments before I get off the stage
So here's the text of that talk, dedicated to the Public Domain, for you to do with what you will.
This isn't to say that copyright is bad, but that there's such a thing as good copyright and bad copyright, and that sometimes, too much good copyright is a bad thing. It's like chilis in soup: a little goes a long way, and too much spoils the broth.
From the Luther Bible to the first phonorecords, from radio to the pulps, from cable to MP3, the world has shown that its first preference for new media is its "democratic-ness" -- the ease with which it can reproduced.
(And please, before we get any farther, forget all that business about how the Internet's copying model is more disruptive than the technologies that proceeded it. For Christ's sake, the Vaudeville performers who sued Marconi for inventing the radio had to go from a regime where they had *one hundred percent* control over who could get into the theater and hear them perform to a regime where they had *zero* percent control over who could build or acquire a radio and tune into a recording of them performing. For that matter, look at the difference between a monkish Bible and a Luther Bible -- next to that phase-change, Napster is peanuts)
Link |
| 4. |
CAPPSII report ships, head of program resigns. The General Accounting Office has released a report on the CAPPSII airline-profiling system that is so damning, the head of the program resigned before the report shipped.
The Supreme Court decided in Bowsher v. Synar that the GAO is part of the legislative branch, not the executive,1 and therefore Presidents and their legal advisors consistently maintain that the GAO can have no role in executing the laws. That conclusion follows naturally from the earlier Chadha decision, which held that the only way in which the legislative branch may affect the legal rights duties or responsibilities of persons outside the legislative branch is by legislation—passage in both houses (bicameralism) followed by presentment of the act to the President (presentment) for signature or veto (which can then be overridden).2
In light of these very clear precedents, the White House announced at the time GW Bush signed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2004 that it would treat the report as advisory only. This is a reasonable legal position, and probably the one a court would adopt, although one could also argue that the favorable report requirement can't be severed from the appropriation and that therefore the unconstitutionality of the one implies the invalidity of the other.
Link
(Thanks, Pat!) |
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CNET News.com - Front Door
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| 5. |
Nachi variant sends a political message. Nachi.B comes with an HTML document titled, "Let History Tell Future," and is aimed at computers running Japanese versions of Windows. |
| 6. |
Dell beats estimates by a penny. The PC maker's fourth-quarter revenue rises 18 percent compared with a year earlier, as it continues to increase its product shipments. |
| 7. |
Novell offers absolution to IBM in SCO spat. The tag-team wrestling match among software makers SCO Group, IBM and Novell has entered another round, with Novell invoking its presumed right to clear IBM of any contract violations. |
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New York Times: Technology
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| 8. |
F.C.C. Begins Rewriting Rules on Delivery of the Internet. The new rules are expected to profoundly alter both the way the Internet is delivered and used in homes and businesses. By Stephen Labaton. |
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Yahoo! News - Technology
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| 9. |
Dell Net Up 24% on Demand for Servers, Storage Products (Dow Jones). Dow Jones - ROUND ROCK, Texas -- Dell Inc. (NasdaqNM:DELL - News)'s fiscal fourth-quarter net income
climbed 24% and revenue climbed 18% on strong demand for servers and storage
products. |
| 10. |
AP: 60,000 Let Home Numbers Go Wireless (AP). AP - To cut the cord, or not to cut? That is the question a growing number of people are asking themselves now that they're free to switch their home phone number to a cell phone. |
| 11. |
RadioShack to Sell Satellite Radios (AP). AP - RadioShack Corp. Thursday said it will start selling radios for Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. at its 7,000 stores this summer, prompting the satellite broadcaster to raise its subscriber forecast. |
| 12. |
'Do Not E-Mail' Site a Scam, U.S. Officials Say (Reuters). Reuters - Consumers should not submit their
e-mail addresses to a Web site that promises to reduce unwanted
"spam" because it is fraudulent, the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission said on Thursday. |
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SecurityFocus Vulnerabilities
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| 13. |
BugTraq: Cross Site Scripting in VBulletin forum software. Sender: Jamie Fisher [contact_jamie_fisher at yahoo dot co dot uk] |
| 14. |
Vulnerabilities: Nadeo Game Engine Remote Denial of Service Vulnerability. Nadeo Game Engine is a multiplayer game engine used in several Nadeo titles.
A vulnerability has been reported to exist in the software that may allow a remote attacker ... |
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The Register
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| 15. |
BT Yahoo! ate my email. Mighty powerful spam filters |
| 16. |
Lastminute narrows loss. Outlook good |
| 17. |
Veritas intros midmarket backup software. Eat your porridge |
| 18. |
Novell offers SCO last drink at System V saloon. Call it quits |
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NewsIsFree: Security
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| 19. |
CA Response: eTrust InoculateIT/Antivirus 6.0 for Linux vulnerability |
| 20. |
Re: Apache Http Server Reveals Script Source Code to Remote Users AndAny Users Can Access The Forbidden Directory ("/WEB-INF/") |
| 21. |
Re: Update - CheckPoint Vulnerabilities |
| 22. |
Re: Round One: "DLL Proxy" Attack Easily Hijacks SSL from Internet Explorer |
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Yesterday's keynote by Nokia CTO Pertti Korhonen at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference confirmed that we would be seeing Python rolling on Series 60 handsets (specifically the 6600 and family) via Forum Nokia.
Deranged X-rated toy fanfic. Wayward Barbies doing bestiality threeways, bookshelf quickies, BDSM, homoerotic roleplaying, and other activities so hot they melt plastic: "silver plastic molded Terminator Arnie and big-armed Last Action Hero Arnie get to know each other. Terminator is just two molded pieces of thin silver plastic, but Last Action Hero is a high quality articulated doll, with holes through his clenched hands which once clearly locked into something; a car, perhaps, or one of his enormous weapons." 
