End the War on Freedom

The Australian state of Western Australia has a population of 2.2 million people, and occupies an area of just over 2.6 million square kilometres. Just for reference, that is seven and a half times the size of Germany or alternatively ten times the size of Texas. However, average house prices are amongst the highest in the world, as there is a shortage of land. It rather boggles the mind....

As modern DRM schemes get more annoying and invasive, the common wisdom is to vote with your wallet and avoid supporting developers and publishers who include such schemes with their games. Or, if you simply must play it, wait a while until outcry and complaints have caused the DRM restrictions to be loosened. But will any of that make game creators rethink their stance? An article at CNet argues that gamers are, in general, an impatient bunch, and that trait combined with the nature of the games industry means that progress fighting DRM will be slow or nonexistent. Quoting: "Increasingly so, the joke seems to be on the customers who end up buying this software when it first comes out. A simple look back at some controversial titles has shown us that after the initial sales come, the publisher later removes the vast majority of the DRM, leaving gamers to enjoy the software with fewer restrictions. ... Still, [waiting until later to purchase the game] isn't a good long-term solution. Early sales are often one of the big quantifiers in whether a studio will start working on a sequel, and if everyone were to wait to buy games once they hit the bargain price, publishers would simply stop making PC versions. There's also no promise that the really heavy bits of DRM will be stripped out at a later date, except for the fact that most publishers are unlikely to want to maintain the cost of running the activation, and/or online verification servers for older software." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nieriko writes After three years of arduous litigation, Jesus Guerra Calderon, owner of both a small bar and the P2P link webpage 'elrincondejesus.com' has beaten the SGAE (something like the Spanish version of the RIAA). The historic ruling states not only the legality of link webpages, but also the legality of P2P file-sharing networks. Quoting the judge: 'P2P Networks as mere data transmision networks between individual internet users, do not breach any rights protected by the Intellectual Property Law.' Downloading a file (from a P2P network) for private use is perfectly legal as long as there is no lucrative or collective use of the downloaded copy." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

McBacon writes with this excerpt from Wired.co.uk: "Often dismissed as a failed venture, the Xbox Indie Games programme has earned successful man-and-his-dog developers tens of thousands of pounds from sales of their homebrew games. Wired explores the success stories of this hidden marketplace. ... now, more than a year since its launch, the Xbox Indie Games are seeing something of a revival. Microsoft has made huge strides to improve the service, games are beginning to be taken more seriously and success stories are becoming more and more common. Especially for [James] Silva, a New York-based developer, who became an impromptu Indie celebrity after his game The Dishwasher won Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play competition. He says he's 'absolutely thrilled' to have seen I Maed a Gam3 w1th Zomb1es!!!1 — his latest game — become a cult hit, for gamers to flock to it in record numbers and to have sold over 200,000 copies." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My sleep schedule is once again, seriously screwed. I hate feeling like this. Like a particularly dumb and indecisive zombie.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on have released research detailing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs. The researchers have developed a technique in which polymers automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stay in touch with what's happening in terms of solidarity economy

[from a email note from Marc Battyani] There are some positions for Common Lisp internships at HPC Platform in Boston and Paris. Some full time positions will be available in Boston in the next months. HPC Platform makes the fastest hardware (FPGA) based processing systems on the planet and for that we develop domain specific compilers and other tools written in Common Lisp (Lispworks on Linux). We are looking for people knowing Common Lisp and preferably topics like compilation, code generation, VHDL, FPGA, networking, optimization, statistics and more. http://www.hpcplatform.com is rather outdated but gives an idea of what we do. Contact marc.battyani@hpcplatform.com for more details. Thanks, Marc

Kilrah_il writes "The linked article provides a short summary of the problems scientists have with statistics. As an intern, I see it many times: Doctors do lots of research but don't have a clue when it comes to statistics — and in the social science area, it's even worse. From the article: 'Even when performed correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments are often contradictory and confusing.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34582.html Another Paul Nettles GOP by Jonathan Martin "Recognizing the threat, a well-connected former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convened a conference call last week between Grayson and a group of leading national security conservatives to sound the alarm about Paul. “On foreign policy, [global war on terror], Gitmo, Afghanistan, Rand Paul is NOT one of us,” Cesar Conda wrote in an e-mail to figures such as Liz Cheney, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor and Marc Thiessen. With an attached memo on Paul’s noninterventionist positions, Conda concluded: “It is our hope that you can help us get the word out about Rand Paul’s troubling and dangerous views on foreign policy.” In an interview, Conda noted that Paul once advocated for closing down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and sending some suspected terrorists to the front lines in Afghanistan." Rand Paul is a MAJOR THREAT to the system. Now theyre going into smear mode Dick Cheney Liz Cheney Bill Kristol all of them and now his opponent Tray Greyson is again leading in fundraising!!! Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34582.html#ixzz0iT...Read more...

ByronScott writes "Want eyesight that could put your neighborhood cyborg to shame? Well, University of Washington professor Babak Amir Parviz and his students are working on solar-powered contact lenses embedded with hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, letting wearers experience augmented reality right through their eyes. If their research proves successful, the applications — from health monitoring to gameplay to just plain bionic sight — could be endless." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anarplex.net is hosting a new essay in the veign of A Declaration of Separation. We can talk and theorize forever, and nothing will change. We can beg and plead and run candidates and vote forever, and nothing will change. If we want a new world, a world where individual liberty is central, we have to build it. Mirrored here. Quote:Read carefully - if you do not act, nothing will be. If you do not implement your dreams, if you do not work for your goals, they will never come true. And even if they would - you would have no say in them, you would not own them. You would just be a free rider - and we despise free riders.

http://restoretherepublic...Read more...

hansamurai writes "Over one hundred cars equipped with a Webtech Plus blackbox were remotely disabled when a former employee of dealership Texas Auto Center got hold of his employer's database of users. Webtech Plus is repossession software that allows the dealership to disable a car's ignition or trigger the horn to honk when a payment is due. Owners had to remove the battery to stop the incessant honking. After the dealership began fielding an unusually high number of calls from upset car owners, they changed the passwords to the Webtech Plus software and then traced the IP address used to access the client to its former employee." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kucinich drops opposition to health-care bill (Washington Post). Well, so much for conscience. The other day here, we had kind words for the stand taken by Dennis Kucinich against the boardroom-backroom boondoggle known as the health care bill. The main thrust of that post was not meant to be the innate wonderfulness of St. Dennis but the hypocrisy of the "Fightin' Progressives," such as Commander Kos and Alex Koppelman, who had launched a vituperative attack on Kucinich for daring to oppose the bill -- a measure which not only represents a complete and craven surrender of even the smallest crumbs of the progressives' original hopes for health care reform, but was also fatally tainted by the brazen bribe Obama took from the gorging, gouging drug and insurance cartels to make sure their destructive sway over American health care remains unbroken. Still, I admit I was pleasantly surprised to see Kucinich stand up against the health care bill, apparently on principle, especially as he was also sponsoring a bill to end the Afghanistan War at the same time. (I realize the latter was a wholly symbolic act -- then again, all acts are symbolic to one degree or another; that is, they symbolize the moral stance behind the act, whether it is effective or not. Thus, "savvy" compromises on, say, appropriations for the Terror War or detainee policy or illegal surveillance symbolize an underlying acceptance of atrocity, tyranny and war crime.) But I suspected the fix was in when I saw reports that Kucinich was flying with Obama for a presidential appearance in Ohio. There was little or no chance that Kucinich would have been engaged in such high-profile hitchhiking if he was not already in the bag for Barack. And so it proved. Kucinich's cave-in did win him a respectful nod from the New York Times, which featured his turn-around in a front-page web story that had none of the usual snide asides about his "kooky" ideas that normally accompany any mainstream mention of him. The Washington Post kept the wonted snark, however, noting in its lede that: ...Kucinich, often a proponent of very liberal, unlikely ideas such as the creation of a "Department of Peace" and the impeachment of then-Vice President Cheney, has found his pragmatic streak. Impeaching Dick Cheney! Gawd, what a loon, eh? And peace? We don't need no stinkin' peace. Anyway, in the end, Dennis proved to be no menace at all to the Boondoggle Express. He got on board offering the same lame justification for junking his principles that a plethora of progressives have served up: the idea that passing the current HCR (High Corporate Returns) bill is somehow a step forward toward real reform somewhere down the road someday. The usual line is something like, "If we don't pass this horrible bill, we won't get another shot at real health care reform for 20 years." Or as Kucinich himself put it (somewhat inelegantly): "This is a defining moment for if we will have any opportunity to move off square one on health care." This seems to me to be the exact opposite of the truth. In reality, if this horrible bill passes, we will be stuck with it for 20 years, because no Democratic politician -- "progressive," "pragmatist," or otherwise -- will want to go near the issue again.  You can already hear the "savvy" counsel party bigwigs will dispense if anyone tries to "move off square one" on health care in the foreseeable future: "For God's sake, don't rake all that up again! Don't you remember the hell we went through getting that damn thing passed in 2010? You want to give the Republicans another club to beat us over the head with? We've done 'reform.' Leave it alone." However, if this bill (which almost every "progressive" has declared is a misbegotten, corruption-ridden, botulistic glop of indigestible legislative sausage -- even as they threaten to wage holy war against anyone who votes against it) is defeated, then the ground will be cleared for genuine reform. A real leader could then say: "OK, we tried it your way. We brought in the corporations. We courted the Republicans shamelessly. We gave away the game on day one, took all our cards off the table, compromised every value we profess to hold. We backed down, we turned tail, we sold out. And it didn't work. Now, we're going to do it for real. Single-payer, universal: that's where we start, and by God, that's where we finish, or somewhere damn near to it. And if you don't like it -- well, let us refer you to the famous words uttered by Dick Cheney to Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate on that historic day in 2004." If the bad bill is defeated, you can bring up a good bill in every Congressional session -- yes, for the next 20 years, if need be. Hell, you can bring it up every week. And if you beat the drums for genuine health care reform with even one-tenth of the strength and fervor that the Obama team lavishes on demonizing Iran, protecting torturers and enriching the criminal rich, then you wouldn't need 20 years -- or 20 weeks -- or 20 days -- to get it passed. That's what a real leader could do. But of course, there is not even the shadow of a semblance of a real leader within 500 miles of the festering core of the Potomac Empire.  

Lanxon writes "The guy behind Ultima Online once bought an old Russian rover, despite it being lost on the moon somewhere. And now, using images released by NASA, it has been located on the moon's surface after nearly four decades of being MIA, reports Wired. Richard Garriott, who created the Ultima Online multiplayer game, bought the Lunokhod 2 in a Sotheby's auction in New York in 1998. And so new was the discovery of his lost possession, he hadn't even heard that the craft had been discovered when Wired spoke to him." (Richard Garriott is also well known as Lord British.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chroniton writes "NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish 'frolicking' beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live. The odds of finding two complex lifeforms after drilling only an 8-inch-wide hole suggests there may be much more. And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

""If you throw a frog into boiling water it will immediately jump out but if you put him in cool water and gradually turn up the heat, he will stay in until he dies." This analogy can be applied to the good ole US of A as well. "For the most part we still have this inalienable right [First Amendment]. Except for illegal, supposed, DUI Checkpoints, roving wiretaps, and the fact that now it is illegal in Oklahoma to put bars on your windows because they might be "preventing or delaying entry or access by a law enforcement officer." read more

An anonymous reader writes "The Open Video Alliance is launching a campaign today called Let's Get Video on Wikipedia, asking people to create and post videos to Wikipedia articles. (Good, encyclopedia-style videos only!) Because all video must be in patent-free codecs (theora for now), this will make Wikipedia by far the most likely site for an average internet user to have a truly free and open video experience. The campaign seeks to 'strike a blow for freedom' against a wave of h.264 adoption in otherwise open HTML5 video implementations." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“The controversy over guns and Starbucks provides us with an opportunity to understand the relationship between gun rights and property rights. The gun-control crowd is upset with Starbucks because the chain is permitting people to openly carry firearms into its stores. They say that this is carrying the right to keep and bear arms too [...]