"Today, July 1st, the Dutch Parliament has decided to direct Minister Brinkhorst and Secretary of State van Gennip (Economic Affairs) to withdraw the Dutch vote in support of the Council of Ministers' text for the Directive on Software Patents. This is the first time in the history of the EU that such a course of action has been undertaken."

Nice. The voices of reason seem to prevail in the Netherlands; not surprisingly this is also the one spot in Europe with realistic drug laws.
Link to the FFII press release

Their Meerkat Open Wire Service is a pretty cool aggregator of all things news; personally I like channel 916 (O'Reilly Net content, with all their open articles) a lot.

"...But the court found that because the e-mails were already in the random access memory, or RAM, of the defendant's computer system when he copied them, he did not intercept them while they were in transit over wires and therefore did not violate the Wiretap Act, even though he copied the messages before the intended recipients read them."

Hey, great, so the DVD contents you fools want to keep me from copying is also fair game: it's in RAM while I play it, so it's mine now! Thanks for that ruling! HHOS

Link to the wired story

Now where have we seen these kinds of activitites mostly during the last 80 years? This reminds me mostly of the Nazi "Blockwart" sniffing nosy bastardism.

"The truckers, who haul hazardous material across 48 states, explained how easy it is to spot "Islamics" on the road: just look for their turbans. Quite a few of them are truck drivers, says William Westfall of Van Buren, Ark. "I'll be honest. They know they're not welcome at truck stops. There's still a lot of animosity toward Islamics." Eddie Dean of Fort Smith, Ark., also has little doubt about his ability to identify Muslims: "You can tell where they're from. You can hear their accents. They're not real clean people." That kind of prejudice is hard to undo, but it's a shame Beatty's slide show did not mention that in the U.S., it's almost always Sikhs who wear turbans, not Muslims."

Now that's exactly the type of person I'd like to sniff around my affairs.

Link to the Time article

...then I don't know:

Bringing up a new, far-reaching law proposal, having no hearings on it at all for just under 3 months, then getting it passed by senate without a single debate: what's that? democracy? I don't think so.

The target? anybody using P2P sharing systems, not just copyright violators. The name? the PIRATE act. The benficiaries: the Content Cartel.

More on this

The weekend of 12./13.6. we spent at Killarney, camping, freezing a bit in the cold evenings, and as usual flying.
click here for the rest of the story...

Yesterday I added this to my /etc/emacs/site-start.el

(defun browse-url-mozilla-firebird (url arg)
  (shell-command 
   (format "mozilla-firebird -remote 'openURL(%s, new-tab)'" 
           url)))
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-mozilla-firebird)
(global-set-key [S-mouse-3] 'browse-url)

and wohee, no more cut-n-mispaste. All hail emacs. Now where do I find something similar for trn (/me can't stand gnus)...

As mentioned in my other posting there's this absolutely insidious law proposal floating around. Ernest Miller haspublished a superb rebuttal.

Link to Ernest's rebuttal

19. Juni 2004 13:24
Kreidefresser
HelpDesk

Der Prozess steht auf des Messers Schneide,
Da frisst der gute Blepp gleich Kreide.
War da was mit Copyright?
Das war doch gar nicht bös gemeint!

Die GPL ist null und nichtig?
Na ja, so ist das nicht ganz richtig!
Man hat SCO bestohlen?
Da sprach man doch nur in Symbolen!

Die freie Welt, sie wird verteidigt?
Nein! McBride war nur beleidigt,
Als IBM nicht wollte kaufen,
Das war natürlich dumm gelaufen.

Und jetzt will man sich besinnen,
Um neue Kunden zu gewinnen,
Doch denk ich, daraus wird nichts werden,
Denn Darl sitzt auf den falschen Pferden!

Schlussbemerkung:
So soll es allen Geiern gehen,
Die nach Belieben Recht verdrehen,
Die auf fetten Ärschen hocken,
Wissen eins nur: abzuzocken.

Link zum heise newsticker

MS is sueing a brasilian government employee who's had the audacity to think that MS is a bunch of evil people, and gasp said so: he's being quoted as saying that MS follows a strategy of sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Well, I say so, too: MS shall roast in hell, they'll be the first against the...nevermind, forget the HHGTTG.

His simple quote is the basis of MS's lawsuit, and this stinks to high heaven. Ah well, I don't buy MS products anyway, and publicity nosedives like that one will make sure that less and less thinking people do.
Link to Lessig's discussion of the issue

/ol recently brought up an ancient argument regarding time metrics and the net which might be a successful compromise for the ugly warts that software patents are.

Postulating the idea of Internet Time, we could look at a term for Internet-relevant patents of about 3 realtime-years. 3 years seem to be suitable: not exactly nothing and thus likely good enough to give the inventor time to exploit his leadership, but not enough to block a competitor forever. Given such a proposal, you wouldn't have to argue that software is a different field of technology where patents do not make sense. The only line of argument to cover is that the rate of development for software and the like is so much faster that a patent term of 20 realtime-years corresponds to over 100 years in other areas. A real-world analogy: should a car maker really need a license to build a diesel engine today?"

(argument translated and paraphrased by me.)

This very idea can also be found here.

...meint zumindest die deutsche Rechtsprechung. Ich bin sicher die Österreichische variante ist genauso hirnrissig und verkneif mir das 'saupreussen, gsöchte!'...

"Der Wertsack ist ein Beutel, der auf Grund seiner besonderen Verwendung im Postbeförderungsdienst nicht Wertbeutel, sondern Wertsack genannt wird, weil sein Inhalt aus mehreren Wertbeuteln besteht, die in dem Wertsack nicht verbeutelt, sondern versackt werden."

Link zu mehr Details

"Five days after arguing that the Eolas browser plug-in patent should be invalidated as obvious, Microsoft pocketed a patent of its own for 'Computer programming language pronouns', which covers the use of ellipses, blanks, and ditto marks as substitutes for names in a computer programming language. Perhaps the USPTO was won over by the patent's eloquent conclusion: 'Eliminating names is a substantial benefit as programmers dislike creating names.'"

Link to this glorious patent

This article on Perl's special variables has reassured my view of the world: all software sucks, plenty. For example, the ".." operator in scalar context is a mighty beast with plenty of tentacles.

But I still like Perl most, compared to all the other scripting languages.

A very interesting speech by Cory Doctorow, given at MS Research a couple of days ago. The boiled-down version:

"Here's what I'm here to convince you of:
1. That DRM systems don't work
2. That DRM systems are bad for society
3. That DRM systems are bad for business
4. That DRM systems are bad for artists
5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT"

Link to the article

Tomorrow, Senator Orrin Hatch (R - UT) will introduce one of the most blatant attempts at copyright maximalization ever attempted - the INDUCE Act.

Now this stinks so badly out of every possible orifice that I don't include anything more here. If you want something to puke, look at the discussion at Corante.

So verislime of recent sitefinder !fame are tasked with running the upcoming RFID register. Time to dig up those Ham-on-steroids plans...
News Link
RMS about zappers

Ha, userfriendly tools start to emerge: c't has plans for an RFID detector online which would cost about e15 to build, and the german FoeBuD is already presenting the betas of its blocker box.

Almost a year after I've moved inty my house, I've finally found the time and willingness to prepare a couple of images.
click here for the rest of the story...

You'd think so. And you'd be wrong.

Case in favour: yesterday the TV news (SBS, my favourite TV broadcaster here) showed the latest, earthshattering, really important piece of Austrian news: that a boat in the Seegrotte had capsized and a couple of tourists had drowned.

The commentator had a slightly hard time pronouncing "Hinterbrühl", but apart from that this is nothing short of amazing (it also tells you something how much interesting Austrian news items there are).

The answer is SEVEN:

• One to deny that a lightbulb needs to be replaced.

• One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who asks questions about the lightbulb.

• One to blame the previous administration for the need of a new lightbulb.

• One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of lightbulbs.

• One to get together with Vice President Cheney and award a one million dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton Industries for supplying a lightbulb.

• One to arrange a photo-op session showing Dubya changing the lightbulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag.

• And finally one to explain to Dubya the difference between screwing a lightbulb and screwing the country.

Source: monochrom bagasch

now with (still) zero net access at home, i'm again caught in one of my addictions: reading. currently i'm mostly reading some e-pulp, baen e-books on the palm.

reading stuff on the palm, with my trusty folding keyboard attached, all that on a comic book on my lap and me lounging in a comfy chair, and life's good - or fair at least.

"And now the weather: Gold Coast 23° with a low of 6°."

Winter's here, indeed. And together with the Gold Coasters' preference for glorified shacks^W^Wbungalows the next some weeks are going to be chilly. I've pulled the space heater from the cupboard this evening.

Somewhere in the privacy news, a couple of days ago:

The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now. The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government. "It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court," Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, said in a statement. "President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it."

Disgusting.
Link to the news article

The rest is german, cause that's the langugage this message pretends to use.
click here for the rest of the story...

Y-que sells t-shirts. Almost-PC t-shirts. Nasty Y-que, bad dog! Cower! Squirm! That's it, good boy...says Big Brother G.

"The following merchandise found on your website constitutes a list of items that must be removed from your site, ads and keywords in order to continue advertising with Google AdWords:

Link to the y-que shop
the whole story
boingboing's coverage

Last weekend was extended because of the ANZAC day public holiday, and the flying was quite good.

Friday we wasted sitting on the wrong hill, hoping for the right kind of wind. Just another case of parawaiting, like in the pic below.

But Saturday and Sunday were quite good for ridge-soaring Tambo, not exactly a common occurrence. A frightening site, low saves guaranteed with "landing" in trees always possible to likely. Had four nice flights, could have toplanded but didn't know we were allowed to again. Anyway, it was quite good - despite sinking out on Sunday when others went over the back or to Canungra.

Me airborne in front of Tambo, one of the very few relaxed moments at that site:

Mark said once about the difference between rock climbing and paragliding:

In rock climbing you spend most of your time in a very safe situation feeling shit-scared whilst in paragliding you spend most of your time in a very dangerous situation feeling quite safe.

We're insane/addicted enough to take to the air in our oversized shopping bags with a couple of strings attached like this:

and then we regularly bunch up parts of our wings while flying to reduce lift. As long as things are bunched up symmetrically on both sides results are benign. However, for my upcoming intermediate license practical I'll have to show that I can deal with asymmetric collapses, too, so I played around a bit with inducing such collapses (you reef in hard on the front riser lines on one side, that half of the wing goes slack and floppy like a real shopping bag and you brace for the more-or-less violent turn and loss of lift). Interesting.

One of the hangies nicknamed "T-Bone" because of his initials has recently switched to paragliders - which immediately got him rechristened "TeaBag", as that's what the other hangies think of what he is flying now :-)

The weather on Monday wasn't too flash so I slept in, but the addiction got the better of me and I drove up the hill, and It was Good. Two nice arvo ridge soaring flights, both with good face landings at the end.

Other People had more interesting landings, as per the picture below: look for the glider in the middle of the road. Its pilot had misjudged his final, bounced off a car's hood (bumping it) and landed on the road. Another reason why only fools park in this particular spot.

After that a few pilots had...interesting launches, too, but I myself had a perfect record for the day.

I thought so. In Europe you'd find these things only in nursery homes for pre-zombies but lots of Aussies (and assorted fools^Wfashionistas elsewhere) find these abominations good enough for public display.

Not all Aussies, though; at least one couple among my friends is split over uggs by gender: he wears them in public, she can't stand them.

Australians have a proper sense of humour and don't take themselves too seriously, so wearing uggs is understandable - they're warm, they do the job. But how the fashion fools would deal with the fact that "uggs" stands for "ugly boots", I wonder.

Driving back from Killarney monday evening I saw:

• one echidna. It walked slowly across the road and I braked and waited until it had finished passing.
• some rabbits
• lots of frogs
• a small roo or wallaby
• and some kind of owl-like bird sitting in the middle of the road. I managed not to hit it.

Backcountry roads here (and about everything 50+k out of Brisbane is backcountry) commonly consist of one single lane of asphalt/bitumen, and a bit of dirt, grass, rocks and/or potholes on both sides. When there is some oncoming traffic, both have to pull aside into the dirt (and hope that there's nothing hidden in the grass that your car can't take at 80+km/h). There's bonus points for doing this during the night.

"Highways" on the other hand, consist of two lanes of bitumen. Often there's a middle line, but not necessarily - and there are some "highways" that have single lane areas as well.

(I love this place. Really. But I'll have to get me a 4WD soon.)

The Easter weekend Andrew ran the Easter Bunnies WE comp at Killarney, 160k west from here. And I got to second place!
click here for the rest of the story...

the upcoming broadcast flag treaty is being discussed; the future looks even worse than usual. those greedy fascists behind the WIPO.
Here's Ed Felten on the insidious thing, and Ed Miller's very good coverage of the poison pills therein.