Archive for January, 2006
The Old Man’s iPod
Via BoingBoing, I love to see metion of recent discussions on the hill about the broadcast and audio flags. To sum it up, the 80-plus year-old senator Ted Stevens (R - Alaska) got an iPod for Christmas and discovered the joy of time-shifting some of his favorite radio programs. Armed with this simple experience, he asked the RIAA if the legistlation being proposed would make this illegal: would it make the senator a criminal? How about that! The RIAA lawyer had to answer truthfully that, yes, this would become illegal. Or at least manufacturers of these devices would have to make such activity impossible.
This is great stuff. Maybe they’ll finally realize that this isn’t a war on pirates. It’s simply an industry that doesn’t know how to handle an evolving world trying to hide behind laws. I hope the Senate figures it out and becomes actually insulted by what the RIAA is trying to do to normal citizens.
Update (February 1st, 2006): Sometimes I love the internet. Think maybe more senators could learn the same lesson? Well, heck, why not buy them all an iPod?!
The Open Source vote
Wow. This has got to be one of the most progressive things I’ve seen in a while. Wisconsin has signed into law that the source code used in touch-screen voting machines must be available to the public upon request. Wonderful! It really does make sense: democracy is supposed to be a fairly transparent process. Althought some of the rules (like the Electoral College) are complex, we can all find out how they work. The rules surrounding how a polling place works are matters of public record. Why wouldn’t the code being trusted to implement these rules also be public?
Kudos to the cheese-heads.