The purpose of the intellectual property system that we have is to promote the progress. When there is strong evidence that certain elements of it hold back the progress, it seems like something that should be explored. Glyn recently wrote about the plans to make 3D object plan files available on the Pirate Bay. In that post, he pointed to a great interview with M... (more)
A few weeks ago, I was walking the streets of Washington, D.C. when I happened to look up and catch the eye of a red-faced young man wearing the two things which cause me dread -- the naive optimism of youth and a shirt that read "Go Green!"
He had a clipboard, too. Never a good sign. Nor was he alone -- his green-shirted cohorts swarmed the sidewalk, accosting every passersby whose attention they could capture with: "Do you have a moment for the environment?"
GoDaddy.com, one of the largest domain registrars on the Internet, stands to potentially lose thousands of customers on Thursday, Dec. 29, after the company gave and then repealed its support for a controversial bill before Congress that many fear could heavily restrict the web.
On the eve of what has been dubbed "Dump Go Daddy Day," imgur.com -- pronounced "imager," it's one of the largest image hosting sites in the world, ... (more)
While we're not going to pay money to switch all 26 or so of our domains, all our future domains will certainly be purchased through other providers. - Chris, InfoLib
Are your tax dollars helping hide global warming data from the public? Internal emails leaked as part of “Climategate 2.0” indicate the answer may be "Yes."
The original Climategate emails -- correspondence stolen from servers at a research facility in the U.K. and released on the Internet in late 2009 -- shook up the field of climate research. Now a new batch posted in late November to a Russian server shows that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Cli... (more)
One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won’t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products.
Switzerland, just as in dozens of other countri... (more)
We've written a few times about how columnists at various mainstream press outlets have been speaking out against SOPA and PIPA, showing that the story is catching on in the mainstream media. However, some of our critics have complained that since these are just writers for those publications, it's unfair to suggest that the publication itself has come out. Okay... if that's the way you want it. Let's try this one on for size: the New York Times has officially come out against SOPA and PIPA... (more)
Want to know when a bit of news has really hit the mainstream? It's when the Taiwanese company Next Media Animation does a computer generated animation of the story. These videos have become a media sensation. Guess what they just took on? Yup, the battle over SOPA, which they animate by showing Hollywood lobbyists seeking to attack the internet, and... (more)
The European Union on Monday prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners [1] in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which has deployed hundreds of the scanners as a way to screen millions of airline passengers for explosives hidden under clothing.
This is a really great interview with Steve Jobs, he talks about the beginning of computing and where he sees it going in the future, I found it quite entertaining.
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