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Bruce Sterling

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gave a very interesting speech last week, which has (of course) been published on his site: Viridian Note 00325: Open Source Speech. Very interesting, particularly the following passage: “The result is 95% market domination by Microsoft. But that’s not a market economy. That’s not even capitalism. That is a state-capitalist, state-sanctioned monopoly that Mussolini would have smiled on. Mussolini used to give the people of Italy free radios. But they would only tune in to the fascist station. This was supposed to be the only kind of radio that people in Italy understood. This was the entirety of Italian radio as a medium. Mussolini’s radio had just one big dial on the front that said ‘Radio Zone.'”

Things I learned on my summer vacation

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  1. The depth of field of photographs I take with my old digital camera sucks
  2. It takes but a few days to bond with a puppy, but it takes two weeks to really develop a relationship
  3. I can live without blogging just fine. I knew that already, but taking a week off confirmed it. I don’t want to or intend to stop, though
  4. Aaron, with a beard and pilot’s glasses, bears some resemblance to the old unabomber sketch that they circulated a few years ago
  5. Jish is still Jish. This is unquestionably a good thing, and it was nice to have a quick visit with the man while he was here
  6. BBQs are great cooking devices
  7. Vacations are, in general, wonderful things.

Declan McCullagh

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, now at CNET, has the story on the pro-corporate-hacking bill that Congresscritters Berman and Coble are introducing to Congress in coming days. This bill would allow corporations (or their agents) to hack into personal computers without a court order or any due process at all. As McCullagh writes: “Sponsored by Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and Howard Coble, R-N.C., the measure would permit copyright holders to perform nearly unchecked electronic hacking if they have a “reasonable basis” to believe that piracy is taking place. Berman and Coble plan to introduce the 10-page bill this week.” Note that “reasonable basis” is not just the language they happened to choose – it’s legal language that basically gives companies the ability to give themselves permission to do this on a whim.

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