Wild Webmink

• Sony asks gamers to sign new terms or face PSN ban
  Sony demonstrates it still has no respect for its customers. This is the same company that installed an exploitable rootkit on its customers computers. Surely the ability to force your customers to surrender their recourse against you has to be a signal that you have monopoly power or something very close to it? I can’t help thinking that rights to remedy your supplier’s negligence should be inalienable.
• Orin Kerr: Should Faking a Name on Facebook Be a Felony?
  This is what happens when you allow lobbyists for oh-so-trustworthy companies (like Sony) to dominate the framing of law. In this case it’s obvious and explainable what the problem is, but the opportunity for overreach and abuse of laws like this – especially as regulatory creep makes them broader and more severe – is huge. Just look at what happened to badly-framed wiretap laws from a previous era, allowing recording of police outside the context of the original law to be interpreted as criminal by those wishing to escape scrutiny.
• No, Faking Your Name On Facebook Will Not Be A Felony
  Good job someone is paying attention this time. All the same, the way the overall law is shaped is very worrying, as is the mere fact there are people in the process who believe that breach of Terms of Service should be a felony. Seriously, what planet does that come from?
• Ford’s auto tech will accept open source modules
  Very interesting move to offer a standard and open way to add features to cars.
• Sleepbox, a Tiny Sleeping Capsule
  I’d probably rent one of these at a transit stop. It would also be interesting to be able to check in for a morning flight the night before and sleep over at the gate…

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Corporate Actions

• Facebook and Cisco back IT skills drive for kids

  RIM has started up BlackBerry Hands-On Workshops, in which students will take apart BlackBerry smartphones to see how they work.”

  Free hoodie with every class?  Seriously, we would do far better teaching kids to program and to solder using open source software and hardware than letting major brands teach them how to be respectful consumers. Yet another problem when technological philistines attempt to legislate in areas they don’t respect, let alone understand.

• Orphan works stunt European digitisation push
  A problem Cliff Richard and his friends just made worse. Legislators have completely lost sight of the “social contract” behind copyright and are letting the elimination of the cultural commons by the lucky rich few copyright mediators run amok.
• Depression, and the fight of my life
  Wonderful, warm, honest, inspiring and brave posting by Jeff Waugh, who I proud to count as a friend.
• LibreOffice 3.4.3 running on Windows 8
  While it’s not a surprise it works, it’s good to see proof.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Government In Action

• UK business and government dangerously out of tune with cyber threats
  Interesting how the government is keen to protect Cliff Richard’s pension (by criminalising his fans) and to protect celebrities against hacking yet has no policy to pursue scammers or protect against criminal hacking. Instead they prefer to allow the public domain to be eroded and to follow the advice of lobbyists representing outdated monopolistic business, creating dangerously broad laws that are just waiting to be abused.
  Think I’m extreme? That’s how US police forces are using poorly-drafted wiretap laws from a previous era to persecute citizens who try to video police misbehaviour, and in the US the same malign process is running again.
• Computer-Generated Articles Are Gaining Traction
  Still not very compelling writing, and for longer articles it’s definitely the work of a very junior reporter, but you can see the direction this is taking.
• Oblomovka – Found Haiku

  When we speak of free
  software, we are referring
  to freedom, not price.

  I stumbled across this almost-decade-old posting from Danny’s site after being reminded of it by his new postings.

• Latest US news, sport and comment from the Guardian
  Interesting move by the venerable and progressive Guardian newspaper from the UK – this is their new US-focussed home page on a new .com domain. About time the US had a new and independent voice…

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Poetic Justice?

• The Great Copyright Conspiracy Laid Bare
  It will come as no surprise to anyone reading here regularly, but there may be some that still don’t realise their political “representatives” have so little grasp of the dynamics of copyright and patent laws that they are willing to trade your cultural inheritance for short-term political advantage.
• Microsoft meeting with US Ambassador to Brazil regarding politics of Open Document Format (ODF) proposal to ISO
  This fits with the rest of the disgraceful behaviour by Microsoft in the same period, discrediting both themselves and the ISO standards process. Microsoft Brazil has a track record of heavy-handed politics too.
• LibreOffice Conference Programme
  Initial programme for the conference in Paris in October. I’m delighted to have been invited to give the closing address.
• Get rid of heartburn and GERD forever in three simple steps
  Interesting series of articles that suggests proton pump inhibitors (acid reducers) like omeprazole may actually make things worse. Is this for real, or is it just the drug industry softening us up for something new now PPIs are cheap?

Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »

• Don’t Suspend Scout Finch, Mr. Schmidt. It’s Wrong and It’s Bad for Business.
  Very sensible commentary on Google’s misjudged “real names” strategy. I still have no idea why Google thinks its approach is worth burning vast tanks of karma to secure.
• Thank You, United Airlines
  A heart-warming thank-you letter to United after a warm web experience that takes every opportunity to trick customers into over-spending.
• Google Bringing Back Offline Access to Gmail, Docs and Calendar
  If it’s just using HTML5 it’s not obvious to me why it needs a browser-specific plug-in to work. Seems to have gone astray – pity.
• The “Holy Shit!” Rule
  While funny, this also contains an essential truth about power and responsibility.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Credit Where It’s Due

• Software Freedom Day
  It’s just two weeks away, get ready to join in!
• open80211s
  Meshed WiFi in every Linux device? Yes please!
• Eagles singer Don Henley: EFF, Google “aid and abet” criminals

  Listening to the “special interests” who worry about freedom of speech and breaking the Internet? Well, that makes you just as much a criminal as they are.

  Don Henley of The Eagles really does need to think more deeply about this and recognise that the 20th century’s music business winners are the problem that needs solving, not the solution that needs defending.

• H-P’s One-Year Plan
  There’s a depressing ring of truth about this WSJ article. Hopefully it will turn out that there is indeed adult supervision at HP, but since the only corrective they appear to have taken is to reorganise the PR team, maybe not.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Freedoms