I never seem to get these out on time - 24 March 2011

[silveradept]

Greetings, everyone. We start with a reminder that while you can hope for the best, sometimes people will defy expectations. For example, when Mr. Samuel Clemens gave a honest and unflinching review of a book of a friend of his, leaving the people who had hoped to generate a positive blurb from a well-known author without a quote they could use.

Also, have a look at Historically Hardcore posters, designed to make the audience that needs to learn their history the most get more interested in it. It's too bad the Smithsonain chose to ask for them to be taken down rather than to ask to buy their copyright and print lots of them for themselves.

Out in the world today, the struggles of the disenfranchised and the people that government and the white, male, able-bodied majority desperately wants to continue ignoring and marginalizing.

Speculation about the content of a conversation between the assistant Secretary of State of the United States and Libya's top foreign official.

The situation in Yemen leaves the United States in an unenviable position of having supported the government the protests want to topple, while also trying to make sure that it supports the people who want to topple the government. It's the Egypt situation once again, and we can expect pressure from all sides to pick theirs.

Domestically, yet another reminder that the conservative candidates and appointees in government, for however much they would like you to believe they're focusing on jobs, are really using their time in office to push for their social agenda. the appointee to a panel that reviews judicial nominees expressed that he would like to see the government prosecute anyone who has sex outside of a legally-recognized marriage. Among other standard social conservative, anti-"activist liberal" positions. He claims that his beliefs will not influence his decisions on who is advanced judgeship. Forgive me if I expect him to prove such a thing before I believe him.

The national Republican Party has a different thing in mind, however - they want to make it so that if one person in a family goes on strike, the entire family is not eligible for food stamps for as long as the person strikes. As if it wasn't already hard enough to have to make that decision, the Corporate Lackeys want the federal and state government to actively punish you for exercising your strike rights. In those states that don't already do so, anyway.

An interview with the author of the various Gor novels, by which it becomes fairly clear that the book is less science fiction writing and more in the vein of Tolkein - a world constructed to fit a philosophy. Although significantly less well-regarded as Tolkein, for reasons that most people who come across Gor have very little trouble discerning.

Additionally, handwritten notes by one of the architects of the torture program undertaken by the last administration (and likely continued by the current one) indicate that it was designed to be used for coercion and compliance, rather than intelligence-gathering, and that it was prone to eliciting false confessions.

Finally, despite having obtained uniforms of the Marine Corps of the United States, persons attempting to immigrate across the border illegally were captured when their vehicle didn't look right and the men could not answer the most basic of basic questions. Once again, law enforcement wins the day without the need to do anything drastic. Not that it would have been that hard - after all, the cover was paper-thin.

Of course, the high-terror, high-suspicion syndrome isn't always on - it took a few weeks before someone thought to screen a suspicious package and found out it was an explosive device, because they were used to things just being lost, so they dumped it in the lost and found. Had it exploded and hurt people, that would have been a tragedy, but it would have also been understandable - being on red alert all the time is incredibly stressful and draining. It leads to decisions like running someone off the road and shooting them because their family called and indicated they might be going into insulin shock or affected by a sleeping pill.

In technology, the use of mobile robots to provide cameras and eyes inside the various parts of the Fukushima nuclear power plants.

Also, the construction of a machine based on the Turing machine out of wood and scrap metal.

Finally, the use of stolen credit cards to hire a hit man from his website through the use of Paypal. Despite all that, the person responsible was still caught and arrested.

Into opinions, where Mr. Stossel opens by singing the first creed of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) - The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) is perfect when left entirely to itself, without subsidy or interference from government. He's a little short with his condemnation of various conservative corporate welfare clauses, while a little long in the liberal ones, but it basically boils down to that. It also has the second creed of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) - government has no wealth, and can only redirect and steal resources from the private sector to achieve its ends, ends that are Inherently Inferior to The Market (A.P.T.I.N.). And interconnected infrastructure that everyone can use be damned - unless, of course, it makes sense for the private sector to share, which the private sector rarely does. Mr. Stossel might have to work out a problem with Mr. Williams, who says that disasters are not economically stimulative, because the destruction of the property sucks resources that could have been used elsewhere, rather than being economically stimulative during the process of rebuilding because thoes resources move and buy products and pay wages. How does The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) rule when you have the possiblity of more things being bought and created versus those things still being there and the money that could have been circulated simply sitting somewhere, maybe earning interest, maybe not? And does It care about the dimensinos of people's lives being impacted, or is It only looking at the numbers?

Ms. Coulter claims that liberals have no respect at all for science, despite their proclaimed position of being the people of science in opposition to the moralist conservatives. Her examples? Hormesis - the idea that certain radiation exposures are beneficial, the ban on the use of alar because of its effects multiplied on rats, her certainty that HIV/AIDS should still be called Gay-Related Immune Disorder based on exposure rates still being predominantly among gay men, the general stall of nuclear power following incidents like Three Mile Island, "cancer clusters", and climate change. Apparently, celebrities who have no actual experience are the liberals' gold standard for most of their "science", and government agencies, who are involved in a conspiracy, along with mainstream media, to lie to the population about things like Gay-Related Immune Disorder's prevalence among other people in the country, are the others. Ms. Coulter also believes that because she was the only one who cited sources, her argument must be valid. Of which the scientific community opens an eye, stares at her, and laughs. Credibility matters, too, and Ms. Coulter and the people she cites are lacking.

Last for tonight, on the centennial anniverary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where exits were sealed to prevent workers from exiting the building before their workday was done, recall just how much we owe our current workplace regulations, wages, and hours, to the ceaseless struggle of unions and working people against corporations, and what is at stake when Republican governors and legislators rubber-stamp their Corporate Overlords' desire to return us to a time where child labor and the Triangle Shirtwaist's conditions were considered legal working conditions.

Comments

[justplainbob.livejournal.com]

I take a moment to note that radiation hormesis is actually a potentially-valid theory, and that research into the matter is taking place at this time to determine if the effects are as-indicated or if linear-no-threshold is still valid.

In other words, there is insufficient data, but the peer-reviewed studies are there. However, to 'fail safe,' LNT is still the dominant theory and will likely remain dominant until there is more data on RH.

[silveradept]

Fair enough. It does those researchers no help in the eyes of the public to be associated with persons such as Ms. Coulter, but if radiation hormesis turns out to be a valid theory, we will watch and see whether she stays there or latches onto something further afield.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) ((Pseudo-random question: given publishers' behaviour in other contexts, one would predict them and libraries to be embroiled in all-out war; why is this not evidently the case? *ponders the otherwise-predictable dearth of books younger than 70 (?) years, or else media attention and flurries of cease-and-desist demands*))

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) (The assassination case: I may be overlooking it, but does it indicate what evidence there is that the person in question in fact did what is claimed? If all that is stated is that measures were taken to prevent the person taking action from being traced, and nothing is mentioned about means that were used to discover the person taking action despite these, then the simplest (I think?) conclusion is that the measures taken were effective. This then raises the question of who the person charged for it is.

Turning the question around, if one claims that someone did something without an explanation for how one found out about it, then even if there's corroborating evidence found later that could have been planted, the person who knew it would be there before there was anything to suggest it would be is significantly suspicious.

Most likely, the simplest explanation is in fact that the information is either overlooked or missing. If one curiously goes to find out how such a person was caught despite going to such plausibly-effective extremes, though, and finds no explanation whatosever, it is nevertheless irritating and unsatisfying. *wonders*)

[silveradept]

Copyright law explicitly allows libraries to do what they do in the United States according to first-sale doctrine. What that basically does is says once an entity has bought a physical book, they are allowed to do whatever they damn well please with it, whether that's re-sell it, lend it out, mark it, deface it, turn it into an art project, or make copies of it (which they will then be in violation of copyright should they attempt to distribute those copies - for personal, non-profit, non-distrubted use and other exceptions, copying some amount of a work is allowed. Fair use is Woe and Spiders, however, and I am not a lawyer.)

Things get trickier with items on discs or electronic books, as more often than not, those works are considered licensed, not bought, and so there are even bigger amounts of Woe And Spiders when it comes to fair use, lending, or circumvention of copy protection on those items. That's where the wars are being fought right now.

[silveradept]

More often than not, those methods are not disclosed because doing so would allow persons engaged in those activities to avoid them, and thus avoid detection. So all we are allowed to know is that the person was caught attempting to do something through some manner of investigation and/or interception techniques, whose details will be left out.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Ahh. Is that that they can lend out a bought book and make copies of a bought book, but cannot lend out copies of a bought book?
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Hmm... what about the hypothetical case where they prop the book open in front of a live webcam and set the pages to automatically turn at a set rate while lots of people watch online?
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(Or by contrast through periscopes with half-silvered mirrors sending images to different locations?)
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(If allowed, would a watcher then be in violation of copyright law if, say, a physical camera were used to take a picture of a computer screen on which the live webcam feed was showing a display of a book's pages...?)

Curious that paper and silicon are not treated as equivalent examples of physical media.

Is Woe And/and Spiders a specific reference (e.g. to a W&S case with different words for the same initials), or else a conceptual indication of the unpleasantness/difficulty associated with such things?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Such obscurity is somewhat frightening. Do they silence the attempers as well, or not tell them either?

...I have a (rather warped) mental image of standing in front of a jury, knowing that I didn't commit something, demanding that the evidence be declared so that my lawyers may tear into the prosecution with all the studies on how the method used is prone to failure to an unacceptable degree--and having the information withheld, left only to know that others have used unrevealed methods to determine my guilt that I can't even challenge because they won't tell anyone what they are...

The darker mental image, of course, involves a government pulling such a thing in order to arrest someone they want to arrest without in fact having any plausible charges, instead declaring the discovery of wrongdoing and in such a way withholding evidence which in fact does not exist.

Relatively disturbing.

(...'security through obscurity' I think the phrase is called...)

[silveradept]

Precisely, N. Lend a bought book, copy parts of a bought book for certain purposes, but complete copying and/or lending complete copies of a bought book is considered copyright infringement.

On the hypothetical involving cameras, such material may be governed by the rules regarding "public performance" of a work, which generally requires a license and the payment of royalties. The further hypothetical about the cameras would be considered a violation of the copyright, probably both of the work being shown and of the specific performance.

Curious, indeed, and you can thank software companies for it, as they are long in the practice of saying that a person does not own the code to the program they are running, but are merely licensed to use it.

W&S is a concept, as far as I know (I believe I picked it up from rimspace, and that he may have better provenance for the phrase.)

[silveradept]

In courtrooms, the rules are different - because the prosecution must successfully build a case, they must reveal their methods in open court...unless they can convince a judge that those methods are so vitally important that they must be kept secret. Even in such a case, the prosecution is required to allow the defense access to all of their evidence submitted in court - withholding such is grounds for dismissal of the case and the declaration of a mistrial. Possibly with prejudice. Again, I am not a lawyer, so my understanding may be incomplete or incorrect.

That darker mental image, however, is not inaccurate. What usually happens is the sudden appearance of fabricated evidence once the demands for it get loud enough. Depending on the complicity of the judge, such fabrications may be sufficient to proceed and convict an innocent person.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Paragraph 1: 'In courtrooms, the rules are different': is that to say that this case was allowed to proceed without a courtroom, the accusers acting as judge and jury both? Or that a judge was convinced that the methods must be kept secret?

--

Paragraph 2: ((Whee.))

[silveradept]

Not that, N. Those are called military tribunals, usually. What I meant was that the accusers are allowed to not tell members of the public much more when making press releases than they are when prosecuting someone in court. Accusers can still not tell the public certain things in court if they can get the judge to agree that telling the public would be more harm than it's worth, but even if they convince the judge of that, they still have to tell the defense attorney(s) everything so the defense attorney(s) can do their jobs properly. Not telling a defense attorney evidence, testimony, or other parts is improper, and possibly illegal, and should result in dismissal or declatarion of mistrial of a case, as far as I know.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Hmm. Is there anything preventing defense attorneys or other witnesses selling such details to the media (or other means of the media learning such so others may read about them and be reassured)?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Ahh. Injunctions against complete copying do somewhat clarify the distinction held.

Broadcasting: Amusing and also interesting.
Cameras: Ahh.

Extended to books, that might be 'The person does not own the story, the person is only licensed to read the story'... hmm, that would have inconvenient implications regarding not being allowed to read a book that one came across... and likewise not being allowed to use a computer installed as a public facility.... hrm.
(For those who have not entered into any EULA-like contracts, what could be done to one who reads a book without a license or uses a piece of software without a license? *mental 'License to Read' image*)

W&S: Ahh.

[silveradept]

Prosecution and/or disbarment for the lawyers, contempt of court for the defendants or other penalties can be assessed.

[silveradept]

Those without a license are generally assumed to be pirating and accused/prosecuted/attacked in that manner.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Civil rather than criminal?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Hmm. Who are the people who make sketches of the people present and report what they say?

[silveradept]

Those are court employees, professional artists for the sketches, and newspaper persons (when allowed into the trial) who create the reports of what happens in court that day.

[silveradept]

Depends. Civil cases tend to go after end users, criminal tends to go after those making the copies that those end-users can find. It depends entirely on whether or not the copyright agents feel there's enough to make a criminal case stick. If not, civil it is, and usually trying for some significant amounts of fines and fees to make an example of pirates.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) For the newspaper persons allowed into the trial, for whom disbarment or the court's contempt are presumably not significant concerns, what prevents them from revealing such things?

[silveradept]

Theoretically, the freedom of the press should make it so they can reveal it. However, in the current climate, doing so might mean some visits from governmental sources about revealing items of national security, or the news outlet may suddenly find out that nobody wants to talk to them, so they can't get any information from government sources at all - there are more obvious and more subtle ways of exacting revenge on a paper that doesn't toe the governmental line.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N)

Who do the professional artists (for the sketches) work for? (If newspaper employees then straightforward; if for the court, for what purpose?)

If perhaps there were a news outlet that specialised in full court-proceedings reports only, so they couldn't be cut off in other areas then... hmm... what determines whether newspaper persons are allowed into a trial or not?

[silveradept]

I forget whether the sketchers work for the papers or the court. You can probably look that up.

As for who gets in, that's often up to the temper of the judge. Some judges won't want anybody in there, some will want a few, others will start with some and then order the place cleared once it becomes obvious there will be a circus.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Ahh. Thank you very much for the information!