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May 14, 2003
Ernie the Attorney reminds us that DRM isn’t the only place we’re seeing a clamping down on leeway, as my Wired article argues. No, Ernie says, it’s the big trend in law. For example, judges are given “sentencing guidelines” to constrain them. Not to mention the Three Strikes abomination recently upheld by our highly respected Supreme Court.
May 13, 2003
The new issue of Wired has a column I wrote on why leeway is more fundamental than rules. Conclusion: DRM really sucks. No, really.
Plus, you get to see an artist’s rendition of my “face.”
Jonathon blogs about a PBS Frontline piece on how systemic Wall Street investment corruption is. In an email, he writes “This research from PBS is the reason “real” journalism is important…”. Sure, it could be done by a blogger, but it’s important to have institutions set up that take doing this as their charge.
Some pointers to articles about Leo Strauss’ effect on politics at One Father for Dean. The Asia Times article actually mentions Heidegger. Wow! Are my seven years of grad school becoming relevant? Can I use this to bootstrap myself into a senior policy advisor position? Let’s all hope not! (Thanks to Robert Walikis for the link.)
Jaime Weinman has an unfortunately trenchant analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spike, he contends, has ruined Buffy. Spike is the sort of cool guy who used to push around the geeks and outsiders the series used to celebrate. The show was better, Weinman says
when the focus was on four uncool people and their quest to rid the world of … well, of characters like Spike.
Since I’ve been rooting for Spike ever since the shocking conclusion of last year’s episodes (no, I’m not being snarky), and since I have a teenage daughter who roots for Spike for somewhat different reasons, I don’t like having these particular scales pulled from my eyes. But I’m afraid he’s right.
What’s worse: I’m going to be on a plane during the series finale.
[Note: The Salon article is “premium”, i.e., for-pay, content. Why not subscribe?]
May 12, 2003
Lawrence Lessig reminds us all to register our opinion about the upcoming rule change that will allow US media to be rolled up into a small ball that fits conveniently in Rupert Murdoch’s pocket.
I blogged about this a few days ago, but it’s important enough to nag y’all about.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea – a country he now regards as part of the “axis of evil” and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.
The Guardian, May 9
I did this. I don’t know why. I actually like Renee Zellweger. It’s mean. I’m not proud of myself.
May 11, 2003
WordWays, the increasingly odd journal of recreational linguistics, has an article by ANIL that consists of anagrams of words that define the words. He covers A-C in the current issue. Here are a few:
Abandon = A and no BAmbidextrously = mix at L/R body use
Amphitheatre = a hear-them pit
Astuteness = taut senses
Awakened = a dawn “Eek!”
Billiards = I rid balls
Capture = crate up
Circular = I curl arc
Cogito ego sum = micro ego gusto
Cough medicine = Chug, I’m codeine
No, none match the classic “Astronomers = moon starers.”
Have any favorites of your own?
At the WordWays site are some samples from the magazine, including some clever “word palindromes” collected by Will Shortz.
My mother was the life of the party. Here’s a casual joke she liked. When a friend of hers was asked how many people his cabin cruiser slept, he repllied: “Sleeps four. Fucks eight.”
Mom taught folk guitar starting in the late ’50s, back when Alan Lomax and The Weavers were big and before anything was blowing in the wind. When folk music went mainstream and everyone was learning how to Carter pick, our house became the locus of hootenannies: teenagers singing “The Cat Came Back,” accompanying themselves on guitars and banjos.
Mom was hooked into the Left politics of the War years and late ’40s, and got a job at the center of the action, The New Republic. She would have worked her way up and threaded her way through that crowd, except she was randomly chosen as my father’s war-time penpal, and they got married a couple of weeks after meeting in person. Never underestimate the power of hot sex. She eventually realized that she didn’t like my father very much.
She was pretty much a conspiratorial pan-theologist, believing whatever the Establishiment didn’t want us to believe, including that we are responsible for our own luck and health. She died about ten years ago of lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking Luckies.
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