links for 2009-09-24

"It's tempting to count coup here and write Allen off as a hypocrite, but there's a more important story here. Allen just hasn't thought this through. Copyright is problematic for everyone: musicians, fans, bloggers. The absence of clear affirmative rights to make personal copies, to share with your friends, to copy for the purposes of discussion and commentary (as opposed to the fuzzy and difficult-to-interpret fair use guidelines, which have been further confused by the entertainment industry's bold attempts to convince us all that they don't matter and can't be relied upon) means that we're all in a state of constant infringement. "

"But the feature, called Sidewiki, may anger some online publishers who have commenting systems of their own that they’d prefer visitors continue to use. Google is walking a fine line in its efforts to innovate in some areas that have long been the domain of traditional publishers, while not alienating them." I don't like the idea.

"Kris looked flustered and mumbled that “this is surreal,” apparently referring to having to respond to Franken’s question." Seriously, can't answer a question with Franken merely quoting the 4th Amedment.

"But several weeks ago, a new step was added to that routine: trying to prove to suddenly skeptical security agents that he actually was the person his boarding pass and photo ID said he was." This is going to be a stupid rule.

"Typically, a fresh design will be a worse design simply because it's new and thus breaks user expectations. A better strategy is to play up familiarity and build on users' existing knowledge of how a system works."

"We wrote about Music-Rules! and similar industry propaganda efforts in May, outlining some of their falsehoods and biases. For instance, the RIAA tells kids, "Never copy someone else's creative work without permission from the copyright holder" — omitting the important right to make creative fair use of existing content. It also coins a misleading term, "songlifting," (which the curriculum says is "just as bad as shoplifting"). Perhaps most disturbing of all given that the curriculum is supposed to be adopted by schools, it teaches kids bad math as part of its lessons on peer to peer file-sharing."

"Earlier this week, a federal court in Los Angeles ruled that Veoh, an online video hosting service similar to YouTube, qualifies for a DMCA safe harbor that protects the service from monetary damages for copyright infringements committed by its users. The plaintiff, Universal Music Group (UMG), alleged that many videos uploaded to Veoh included copyrighted sound recordings owned by UMG. The ruling represents a big win for all online services that host "user-generated content," including other video hosting sites (like YouTube), music lockering sites (like MP3tunes.com), photo hosting sites (like Flickr), and document-hosting sites (like Scribd). The Court rejected a variety of theories that copyright owners have been pressing in several cases."

"Two standards, separate and unequal, for the health of property and the health of people, are un-American. This bias in favor of property over people should be ended with all deliberate speed by raising the standard for people to that of property. A public option would be one small step in that direction."

"The irony here, as I see it, is that an old, insecure feature Microsoft built to try to beat Netscape is now being used by Microsoft’s biggest current rival to patch IE. The upside for developers is that Microsoft is going to have a hard time killing Chrome Frame because it actually does the right thing — it’s not hacking IE via undocumented APIs or unscrupulous haxie-like code injection. They used Microsoft’s own well-documented and fully supported platform to do this. Bravo indeed, Google."

"Music is exquisitely emotionally evocative, which is why a touch of happy music makes even unrelated pictures seem more pleasant. In light of the above, then, we are led to the conclusion that the artifact of music should contain some distinctly human elements."

"The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest."

"In a chapter in his new book purporting to explain to "idiots" what "our Founding Fathers really intended," Glenn Beck praises an obsolete provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibited Congress from outlawing the slave trade before 1808 and capped taxes on the slave trade at $10 per slave. In his explanation of the provision, Beck does not mention slavery, saying instead that the provision means that the Founders apparently "felt like there was a value to being able to live here" and lamenting: "Not anymore. These days we can't ask anything of immigrants — including that they abide by our laws."" Ok that was dumb.

"Now, choice is of course a good thing, but the problem is that each of these services don’t really offer much choice. If you want a complete way to get movies over the web, you almost have to have all of these boxes. That’s because the movie studios form partnerships and alliances with various services and not with others. And they have silly rules about who can stream/download what, when, and how. It’s a mess. And Hollywood really needs to sort it out soon, or they are just asking for trouble as broadband continues to improve." I want Hulu to be this.

"Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking."

"What follows are quotations taken from inmates’ last statements in Texas. The statements, delivered before family members, relatives of victims, friends and the press, are compiled out of chronological order." Really interesting.

"This graph fascinated us and so we wanted to share. It shows the number of videos that receive specific star ratings: one star for when you loathe something, five for when you love it. Judging from this chart, it looks like some of you are moved to rate videos when you don't like them, but the overwhelming majority of videos on YouTube have a stellar five-star rating:" Another data point to eliminate five star rating systems.

"Even if it were the only one of its kind, Mike Estes’s brand-new, energy-efficient, wind-powered, water-conserving, environmentally sensitive John Deere dealership here would attract considerable attention in Kansas. This is a state that consistently ranks among the top 10 in oil and natural gas production, and routinely elects to Congress skeptics on matters of energy conservation and environmental regulation. But in July, Mr. Estes’s 28,500-square-foot, $3 million BTI Greensburg dealership (BTI stands for Bucklin Tractor and Implement, the name of the original store, which has since expanded to four locations) earned the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certification, the highest designation, Six other buildings anticipate LEED certification."

"Pacific Gas and Electric announced today it is leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the organization's opposition to climate change legislation."

"Under a new and expanding program for offsetting emissions, United Nations administrators calculated that the meeting would generate the equivalent of 461 tons of carbon dioxide, with air travel being the single largest component. They offset those emissions by directing money to a power project in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, through which agricultural leftovers like rice husks and sunflower stalks are turned into electricity for the local grid."

"US officials have ordered workers to stop the construction of a tent for Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi near New York, a local attorney says. The erection of the tent "violated several codes and laws of the town of Bedford", attorney Joel Sachs says. It also emerged the Bedouin-style tent was being set up on property rented from real estate mogul Donald Trump."

"Social Security checks have gone up automatically every year since 1975, when the first automatic cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) took effect. Prior to that, a separate act of Congress was required to grant any adjustment to compensate for inflation. But this January, there won’t be any COLA, for the first time in the 35 years the system has been in operation. The reason is simple: The official measure of the cost of living has gone down, not up. And the major reason for that is that oil prices plunged from the peaks of the previous year."

"On Wednesday, the group replied to the letter, dismissing Palm’s assertion that Apple was in violation of its policies. It also said that Palm’s strategy of having its Pre phone masquerade as an iPod so it would work with iTunes was a violation of the group’s membership agreement." Totally agree.

"Turns out, though, it's a lot more fun when you imagine these guys are helping you plan a… slightly different party." So childish, but you know what it's funny.

"Researchers have long puzzled over the relatively poor health and education outcomes for babies born in the winter months. Past explanations have focused on school attendance laws, vitamin D exposure, and other environmental factors, but economists Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman have found an overlooked explanation. They argue that less-educated women seem to have their children in winter, a fact that may explain some of the phenomenon."

"In fact, in a digital world where everything can be measured, we all work on commission. And why not? If you do great work and it works, you should get rewarded. And if you don't, it's hard to see why a rational organization would keep you on. You don't have to like the coming era of hyper-measurement, but that doesn't mean it's not here."

"Twitter’s new geolocation support was supposed to launch for developers at today’s Twitter Conference in LA (which I’m attending), but it wasn’t quite ready yet. Still, Twitter’s platform lead Ryan Sarver announced several details about how it will work, at least initially, in a developer session." Couple interesting things, completely opt-in, deleted by Twitter post-14 days, though in the future may be stored longer in a "safe" version.

"Health authorities, meanwhile, have urged people with asthma or breathing difficulties to stay indoors. The official air quality index for New South Wales recorded pollutant levels as high as 4,164 in Sydney. A level above 200 is considered hazardous. In Sydney's central business district the dust has even begun to set off smoke alarms."

"Nokia has been on an acquisition tear lately, albeit mostly small deals (Plum, Cellity and Bit-Side all this year). A source close to the deal says that they’ve just made one more acquisition: boutique travel social network Dopplr, headquartered in London." Good job Dopplr, really like the service.

"We love finding ways to serve you better. Like helping you enjoy your coffee even more. Or making your life a little easier. And with our two free new apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, weʼve managed to do both." Starbucks built some iPhone apps.