Archive for June, 2005

Patriot Act under fire

Thursday, June 16th, 2005

The NYT online [is reporting](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Patriot-Act-Libraries.html) that the house voted this morning to limit the scope of some of the Patriot Act’s provisions regarding access to library and bookstore records. Apparently, certain members of Congress are figuring out that using what people read against them, or investigating them based on what they read is an affront […]

Swift Boat Veterans for the MPAA?

Wednesday, June 15th, 2005

It’s official, the political spammers have found me. It was only a matter of time, I suppose.
In the last two days I’ve received comments to two of my previous posts [[1](http://www.engatiki.org/2005/05/20/32) [2](http://www.engatiki.org/2005/05/26/41)] from “readers” identifying themselves as “jake@yahoo.com” and “geist@yahoo.com” (no relation to [Michael](http://www.michaelgeist.ca), I presume) telling me that [Jorge Cortell](http://jorge.cortell.net/) has been completely discredited […]

Blogging

Friday, June 10th, 2005

I know it’s been a slow week around here, but I have an excuse: I’ve been invited to blog at [The Unofficial Apple Weblog](http://www.tuaw.com), and three posts a day over there is taking a lot more time and energy than I would have thought, at least while I’m getting settled in.
No worries, though, I’ll still […]

HR 550 Lobbying

Friday, June 10th, 2005

For those who missed the announcement, the EFF has been [blogging](http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/cat_evoting_lobby_days.php) a two-day lobbyathon in Washington, D.C., in support of HR550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. Among other things, the bill would require paper trails that could be verified but voters and challengers. The event, which was organized by a […]

OpenNTPD 3.7 Released

Wednesday, June 8th, 2005

Just received from Henning Brauer on openbsd-announce:
>OpenNTPD 3.7 has just been released. It will be available from the mirrors listed at http://www.openntpd.org/ shortly. This is our third formal release.
>
> OpenNTPD is a FREE, easy to use implementation of the Network Time Protocol. It provides the ability to sync the local clock to remote NTP servers […]

Education for sale to buyers other than the MPAA

Tuesday, June 7th, 2005

From today’s Toronto Star:
> For the past several months, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., one of the country’s largest publishers of university textbooks, has been quietly trying to coax companies into buying advertising space in their texts.
>
> “Reach a hard to get target group where they spend all their parents’ money,” says a McGraw-Hill brochure touting its […]

Buy Unamerican; Buy Ford

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

I knew there had to be a reason I’ve always driven Fords. Well, actually the main reason is that growing up in Dearborn, MI–the homeotwn of–it was simply de riguer. [http://www.boycottford.com/](http://www.boycottford.com/), though, gives some pretty compelling reasons for continuing to do so. If Ford Motor Company is only half as evil as the […]

Smile! You’re on MPAAPD Camera!

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

Not sure how I missed this, but John Borland at c|net posted an article Tuesday about the MPAA’s plan to buy surveillance cameras for downtown LA. First they tried buying public schools, now they’re trying to buy the municipal police:
> The Motion Picture Association of America said Tuesday that it will fund the installation […]

DRM: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Part II

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

In a previous post, I suggested that people who don’t like DRM (or a particular DRM model) stop buying music with a DRM implementation they don’t like. I’d just like to reiterate that point. Whining alone isn’t going to win this battle. Even court battles aren’t going to help much if it’s […]

Waiting for whitehouse.xxx

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

Yesterday, [ICANN](http://www.icann.org) announced the [approval](http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-01jun05.htm) of a new sTLD, .xxx. the .xxx TLD is being sponsored by the International Foundation for Online Responsibility [[IFFOR](http://www.iffor.org/)], and wil by adminstered by contract with [ICM Registry](http://icmregistry.com/).
This is an interesting reversal for ICANN, which rejected .xxx TLD proposals in 2000 and 2001.
No word yet on when […]

July 11th is International Fair Use Day

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

Kudos to the guys at [fairuseday.com](http://www.fairuseday.com/)(why not .org?) for a great idea. There don’t seem to be any plans yet, but make your own plans to raise awareness. At least call, fax, or write the appropriate federal, state, and local officials.
> Fair use rights have been under siege for a long time and […]

OpenSource for the Masses: Clip Art

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

A bit a follow-up to the earlier discussion of [opensource word processors](http://www.engatiki.org/2005/04/29/6): If one of the things that’s held you back from finally giving up on Office is the clip art–and lets face it, corny as it is, we all use it, and lack of it has been one of OpenOffice’s failings–help is here. […]

Programmer’s Toolkit: newpl

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

Taking another little break to talk about scripting: `newpl` is a script to write perl script templates. Why? Because most text editors choose the mode to use on a file based on the extension. Some of the good ones (we all have our favorites, I’m a habitual `emacs` user, personally) parse […]