Excellent thoughts on the developing lawsuit in Kansas over digital cable boxes and the rent-only option:

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2008/08/the-time-warner.html

Going to let the ‘money quote’ intro the article.

The real answer to online piracy problems will be a market answer; if content creators want to succeed online, they need to focus even more on “seducing” consumers than on pistol-whipping them.

Article: Functionally voluntary” music may lead to blanket licenses [Ars Technica]

Here’s a pile o’ news for your discerning palate.

• Whistleblower DANIEL ELLSBERG, the 2007-2008 Distinguished Lecturer, January 28th, 7:30 pm, Hancher Auditorium. He’s the Pentagon Papers guy.
• AT&T: Pair Bonded DSL ‘Late 2008’ and Qwest Testing Line Bonded DSL. Both companies decided it was better to milk the copper they had instead of laying new fiber optics [a la Fiber to the Home], and this is about the only way they would be able to deliver television signals, especially HD signals, over their existing copper lines.
• Cable Cos are challenging the recent FCC decision to regulate exclusive contracts between Cable Cos and MDUs (multiple dwelling units). With the market deregulation of both phone and cable and the upcoming ‘format war’ over how you receive your communications (fiber, coax, or copper?), these exclusive agreements are some prized possessions.
• Immigration officials detaining, deporting American citizens, reads the headline. The choice quote:
  

  “The burden of proof is on the individual to show they’re legally entitled to be in the United States,” said ICE spokeswoman Kice.

  [Via DKos]

• Dominique Douglas [Iowa Footballer] gets a deferred judgement
• A cute picture [it’s Alicia’s cousin’s son]

Good to be back, more as I find it

Sorry I haven’t been around, but we’ll always have NEWSISH:

• How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook – more and more I hate Facebook. Did you know this?
• Court orders Bush administration to disclose telecom lobbying ties. What about senators? – Good news for Law and order types.
• Leahy takes next step toward holding White House in contempt – It must be ‘grow a pair’ day…
• Venus: Earth’s twin planet? – Cool pictures to boot.
• No Hoff, and now this? – I guess not all remakes can be as good as Battlestar.
• Feds pushing states on gun database – ‘there is no guarantee that the information wouldn’t be used for other purposes‘. You mean the gov’t isn’t completely trustworthy? I would add the question of competency to that as well…nothing like losing 4 million persons mental health records. But its for our own protection, of course…
• This could never be abused either…
• VA GOP will demand ‘oath’ of February primary voters – I can smell the ’08 confidence…
• And if you screen wasn’t cluttered with enough ads…

This one’s gonna be lame as I have work to do…

• Ric Flair Finance – Speakers/headphones required for full effect [ht Shane->Kevin]
• The Sadistic Wi-Fi Detector – Some people are odd.
• Someone killed Bangladesh’s internet – And you thought your internet service was sketchy.
• Fox Says Mandated PSAs Would Be Illegal – Interesting debate on educating the public about the upcoming digital television switchover.
• On a related spur from the previous item, we continue thinking about digital TV and the issue of multicast must-carry.
• 100Gbps copper – for short distances, so not applicable to most, but the problems of it are interesting…to me at least.
• From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm – via /.
• Uh-oh. It’s Enron all over again – delving headlong into the similarities of the Enron & Mortgage scandals
• And last but definately not least, a single picture editorial:
  Foxnews.com “Most Read” Stories at 1:50 PM CST, on November 14, 2007
  

Today’s Vocab words: arbitrage, eleemosynary

LATE ADDITION: Important though: Broadband data collection bill passes full House – This will hopefully give Congress reason to pressure broadband providers [telcos & cable] to get their butts in gear.

Another Late Addition: Cowbell Hero…

¡Noviembre newsish, ahora mismo!

• No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims – Of course, Big Brother has your best interests at heart. Expect an email encryption tutorial in the near future. Via ./
• Picketing begins in NY in writers strike – Beware the rabid Reality shows, they are a-comin’
• Season 1 of The Jubi Show is in the can! Well, maybe not ‘the can’, but it is grouped together on a magnetic storage medium, as well as an array of DVD discs.
• More Wreck and Salvage available. I’ll need 7 wheel chocks [octogonal], 73 left handed garden trowels, 3 dry erase markers, 1 gallon of kerosene, and 6 packs of Doublemint [Plent-T-Pak]. Place your orders now.
• Verizon DNS Redirection ‘Service’ Spreads – When you have a captive audience due to a mono/duopoly, you can do pretty much whatever you want.
• Senate Committee Approves Broadband Bill – You have to follow the links in the article to get the whole picture, but at first glance this seems like a great step forward for local responsiveness and control over broadband offerings.

maybe some more later. maybe not.

Better plump up those brains…do it with NEWSISH:

• UI police will be armed – I agree with most of Nick Johnson’s thoughts on the subject.
• Regents ok corporate naming – Again, see Nick Johnson for more insight
• Cinematic Titanic – This is extremely welcome news. I signed up for the newsletter.
• Do Not Track List – Everywhere you go online means money for someone, whether you know it or not.
• Internet access tax moratorium extended another seven years – followup from previous newsish
• There’s a city election coming. – Remember that you can vote early at these locations.
• Iowa City Council Candidates Consider Impact of 21 Bar Referendum – Mr. Deeth takes stock of the 21@10 situation.
• Evolving clocks – via HogBlog
• 720p? 1080i? OU812? – Wired does the new TV formats.

Today’s vocab word: plenipotentiary

Some local, some telco, somebody put together some newsish:

• New development beginning to transform block hit hard by tornado – I’ve been wondering what the deal was with that building. Also in the article is info on Hieronymous Square and the Tim Dwight/Three Bulls project, now named “301” as opposed to the poor choice of “The Vu”, a moniker also belonging to a chain of strip clubs. Click here to see the area they are talking about.
• Bread Garden to move into Tait’s
• Aussie Claims Copper Broadband now 200x Faster
• Verizon discovers symmetry, offers 20/20 symmetrical FiOS service
• Comcast shooting itself in the foot with traffic shaping “explanations”
• Meet Your Future Employee– Supposedly, I belong to the group they are talking about in this article.
• Tancredo Calls ICE Against Durbin Press Conference
• ICANN probing “insider trading” allegations with domain name registrations – a follow up from a previous link about Verisign
• No Joke: Colbert’s Campaign May Run Afoul of Law – And this would be different than whose candidacy?
• Stupid stupid stupid. To reiterate: The current FCC Commisioners are either completely clueless or quite fond of fucking things up. Think I’m blowing up your ass? A small-time ISP employee puts it this way in a Fark comment:
  

  verizon and the other telco’s have no interest in playing ball with the small ISP’s they never have. The only reason they “allowed” us to use their last mile was because the Gov. told them to.

  They have been whittling away at the service offers to ISP’s since day 1. It first started when they stop allowing us to buy in to different markets, they grandfathered you in if you were already there but no longer allow companies to buy new latas. Then when FIOS started they began removing all the copper to the home so their customers had no choice who they would get phone service from because Verizon doesn’t have to share the FIBER network with anyone. So no copper = no phone service from anyone but Verizon, unless you go VOIP. Now they have just been told thatthey no longer need to share anything. This is waht they are going to do.

  They will no longer provide service to independent ISP’s, they will then fire all of the folks they have working at Verizon who deal exclusively with ISP’s (which they have been slowing cutting already anyway). So they will save $ on their employment costs and they will gain a bunch of customers simply by making a software switch in their systems which will point them from their existing ISP to Verizon.

  In our area, resellers would include X-Wires (Qwest) and quite a few of the smaller town cooperatives.

Today’s Vocab Word: noumenon

We start the day with the IM buffer regreaser left me over the weekend:

• France’s new answer to youth crime: the building-less entry-hall
• McCain: Eats hot dogs, loves ABBA. Wants desperately to be cool?
• Good Dog, Bad Cat

Here’s some more:

• I Was a Hacker for the MPAA – not me personally, just the title of the article 😉
• Slideshow: Instant Housing and Designing for Disaster
• Russia’s Space City Frozen in Time
• Some of the students in my office made a Youtube video advertisement.
• After fight, airport embraces SUX code
• Waxman Accuses Blackwater of Millions in Tax Fraud, Cover-Up
• How to Make a Robotic Dalek Pumpkin – via HogBlog
  
  This thing looks awesome:
  
• Think Tank Recommends Broadband Regulation – First of most likely many links to Broadband Reports
• Comcast traffic blocking: even more apps, groupware clients affected

Today’s vocab words: phenomenology, flocking