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Boyle gave a lunchtime lecture, those are open to everyone, a few weeks ago on musical borrowing and the birth of soul. Duke makes those lectures available online.

His lectures are as amusing as his writings.

You know they'll also hire an engineering, physics, or math major who evidently knows how to program over your computer science major.

BTW, I'll see your article and raise you one: http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html

... must just be some crackpots from Duke...

"Study does not discount the suspected contributions of 'greenhouse gases' in elevating surface temperatures"

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

and Columbia

"That does not mean industrial pollution has not been a significant factor, Willson cautioned."

... and .. well, I could go on with several dozen other links, but who what's the point. Google it yourself if you want. If we're all gonna die, I have better things to do. Come to think if it, I do even if we aren't all gonna die.

And you would still end up with man made global warming.

BTW, I notice that the professor of heliophysics quoted says there is no relation between sunspots and solar output. Goes a long way to make that point.

Okay, but that's not the theory that is argued. It's not whether solar spots are related to output, but whether the sun's total output rises and falls. And in fact, it does. It also coincides nicely with earthside temperature variations. BTW, I'll see your article and raise you one: http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html

... must just be some crackpots from Duke... http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

and Columbia ... and .. well, I could go on with several dozen other links, but who what's the point. Google it yourself if you want. If we're all gonna die, I have better things to do. Come to think if it, I do even if we aren't all gonna die.

Not if it's necessary (or at least very useful) for various classes.

(See Duke's take on things [PDF warning], for example.)

Personally, I think it could be extremely useful for teaching coding, nontraditional photography, etc. Besides which: a growing number of private schools are already requiring standardized laptops for ease of pushing out course content and regularizing CS/ECE hands-on curriculum. This is just the next (inevitable?) step.

I'd be interested in hearing how you've come to know that America is a socially inept country beyond your own observation. If that's all you have, my observations differ.

It's based on the observations of many people - including American friends living in or visiting South America, reporters, and journalists with extensive knowledge of other countries. It's also based on my own experiences living in various cities throughout the U.S., as well as the experiences of other people who have similarly moved around the country in various locations.

Obviously experiences vary from place to place and person to person, but that doesn't mean general observations cannot be made or are of little value. For instance, Icelanders are known for being difficult to get to know initially, whereas many South American countries are both social and physically demonstrative even with platonic new acquaintances. America has been around long enough - and with only one in five Americans being first or second generation - that there are general observations to be made about American social interactions and relationships, albeit (again) varying by region, age, individual, etcetera. There is, for instance, the social phenomenon of the Seattle Chill aka Seattle Freeze.

I don't mean to imply that we're completely inept or that people need to always be social, however things aren't so great for us. Americans are becoming increasingly socially isolated:

Americansâ(TM) circle of confidants has shrunk dramatically in the past two decades and the number of people who say they have no one with whom to discuss important matters has more than doubled, according to a new study by sociologists at DukeUniversity and the University of Arizona. ...The percentage of people who talk only to family members about important matters increased from about 57 percent to about 80 percent...

Worse, technology seems only to be exacerbating the problem:

They found a direct correlation between participants? level of Internet use and their reports of social activity and happiness. As their use of the Internet increased, the participants reported a decrease in the amount of social support they felt and in the number of social activities they were involved in. They also reported being more depressed and lonely.

Having an occasional good discussion on slashdot is cool, but it is not an adequate substitute for having a close group of friends or face-to-face interaction. While technology can, and in some cases does, help to bring people together - I have a second date tomorrow with a girl I met online who resembles Ally Sheedy in Wargames, but curvier in a very good way - so far it seems like overall it's hurting us more than it's helping us and we were already having problems.

Your note about less trees is interesting--large parts of the world (South American rain forests, Indonesian jungle, etc) are being rapidly deforested, but on the other hand, large parts of Europe and North America (and China) are rapidly RE-foresting. I read an article which I unfortunately can't find now that suggested that tree cover in the united states was probably at its greatest extent since the arrival of Europeans. The state where I'm living now--North Carolina around the civil war era to ~1920 was virtually one big field. The Great Depression and the slow switch from an agricultural economy (and the lessening importance of the prime crop--tobacco) meant that there are huge young growth forests that are ~80 years old and still rapidly growing. It's an interesting phenomenon. Might find this link interesting--a university in the state has been experimenting with subjecting trees to much higher levels of CO2 to see how it affects their growth: http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/08/carbonadd._print.ht with, results that are in my view hopeful.

With regards to your second point--"I think we should be polluting less anyway." I'm totally with you on this one. I just don't think that Carbon dioxide is our greatest concern, yet because its the "sexy" pollutant, its the only thing people focus on because of scary global climate change, while much else gets ignored. I personally am far more worried about pesticides and carcinogens and sulfur dioxide from china, etc etc.

I mean, CO2 doesn't cause cancer, or kill animals, or cause acid rain, blacken the skies, etc--the opposite in fact, in some situations it can AID plant growth. In my view, at the very worst, human CO2 emissions play some role in the global carbon cycle that I don't think we fully understand, while the global carbon cycle plays some role in global climate, that I don't think we fully understand. But you know, I hope to be around at least another 50 years or so, so I guess by then we should all know!

Oh really! Are you certain? Scientific justification seem plentiful to me. Maybe your emotions are clouding you judgment?

There are
many known examples of superluminal motion, yet explaining, in simple terms,
why such motions do not violate the special theory or allow for superluminal
communication can be exceedingly diïfcult.

There is an excellent research paper on the vulnerabilities in software updaters available at: http://www.cs.duke.edu/usenix/06hotsec/tech/bellissimo.html

You forgot one: assorgy

Florida License

The videos are also on Youtube:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/donaldlab/research_mems.php

Doing you a favor.
\
A Power Point Presentation

Digest until slide 13.

Notice what happens as size of input increases in magnitude for the O(log n) algorithms.
Compare with what happens when the size of the input increases in magnitude for the O(n) algorithms.

There must exist an N where O(log n) blows O(n) out of the water, no matter what per-iteration constants are in play.

We have a good idea what size N must be for a raytracer to begin to blow a raterizer out of the water, given the observed per-iteration constants of each algorithm. Its somewhere between 1 million (ideal conditions for the raytracer) and 10 million (doesnt matter how poor the conditions are for the raytracer.)

Put another way, if a rasterizer can render a scene with 1,000,000 primitives in DT time, then if we double N to 2,000,000 then it takes 2*DT time.

But if we consider the same problem for a raytracer.. if a raytracer can render 1,000,000 primitives in DT time then doubling N to 2,000,000 only takes 1.05*DT time.

With large N, doubling the input size is practically free for a raytracer but is always a linear double-the-time-for-double-the-input for the rasterizer.

Rasterization cannot compete for large N. Its a certainty.

The formula for Coca Cola is a trade secret, and yet you can get a can of it just about anytime from the soda machine. Just because you ship an embodiment of a trade secret doesn't mean you ship the sufficient details to reproduce it.

Furthermore, the protocol itself may have corner conditions or situations that make it difficult to implement unless you know the "tricks" of the implementation. These too can be trade secrets.

Here's a nice, concise explanation.

I suppose it might work that way if the large businesses weren't able to both write legislation and prevent fair enforcement of existing laws.

There's a reason that current legislative reform and recent changes in patent jurisprudence in the US is greatly reducing the power conferred by a patent.

Assuming that the big business doesn't already hold a patent on something the small company needs, and form a patent consortium with other large businesses to ensure no newcomers can get a toehold in the market.

Patent pooling is heavily regulated by the FTC and DOJ. If you're bothered by a patent pool operating as a legal apparatus for promoting cartel formation and enforcement, that's a problem with antitrust law, not patent law. http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2006dltr0007.html

If a small player that actually produces products were to assert a patent against one of the oligarchy members, it will most get countersued for patents in the big guy's portfolio.

What reason would a company have for litigating under the same corporate umbrella that he does business? Patents not being licensed or litigated yield the holder no benefit and filing suit as anything more than a patent holding company exposes the patent holder to frivolous countersuits from his target. (Such "defensive" uses of patents cause far more problems with the economics of patents and technology than offensive "trolls")

The party with the most lawyers and financial resources will be the one most likely to prevail.

Decreasing the power granted by the patent only increases the relative importance of legal fees in patent litigation, enforcement, and settlement.

In the software industry, patents are nothing more than an unpredictable minefield that can pop up anywhere to threaten any small company's survival, and patent trolls can pop up do do significant financial damage even to large companies.

First off, I don't believe there's anything special about software patents in this regard. Patent trolls pose a threat to every industry, and the harm they cause has nothing to do with the subject matter of the patent they abuse.

Second, can you name a single patent "troll" who ended a small company's existence by successfully asserting a patent against it in court? True patent trolls bring suits for nuisance value and settle for something less than the $3-5M it takes to prove their patent is invalid/is inapplicable/is not infringed/etc. Weakening patents would not reduce the impact of these "trolls" as they profit from defense costs, not the anticipated cost of an adverse verdict.

Software and (more importantly, though not yet apparent) financial services patents are a special problem because of how they were managed early on. Very little prior art (within the PTO's definition) existed when many of these problem patents came through, which made the PTO's tests for obviousness and anticipation less useful for denying patent applications. Specifically, the lack of printed publications and prior patents/patent applications covering much of the art claimed in the bad software/financial services patents probably led to the issuance of patents that would likely not have issued in another art. As more of this background art makes it into the record searchable by patent examiners, though, we'll have fewer and fewer bad patents in these fields. Many of the problems associated with software patents (i.e. obviousness) thus have little to do with software patents and a great deal to do with the transition of software from unpatentable subject matter to patentable subject matter.

If you want to reduce the number of software patents that can be enforced against you in the future, publish early and often (websites don

For your edification and amusement, a video where REM's manager describes how U2 got their hands on "U2"

Link to the video with REM's manager

http://realserver.law.duke.edu/ramgen/spring04/framedafternoon2.rm On this is the video where REM's (road?) manager tells how he inadvertently caused Negativland's ruin. I don't recall where the discussion starts but it's pretty enlightening to those turds'(that's U2 for those not keeping score) attitudes.

Agreed. Anyone who doesnt get it should reiterate over the perils of making a documentary in this day and age.

Here is the old theoretical paperOne path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics, v. 9, 45, 2007. [pdf reprint] The Science Daily article is just a reprint of the Duke press release. Steven A. Cummer seems to provide PDF "reprints" of all his papers but the new one isn't in that list. Nor can it be found on David Smith' page, David Schurig's old Duke page, or his new NC State page, Sir John Pendry's page, or Anthony Starr's page.

Here is the old theoretical paperOne path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics, v. 9, 45, 2007. [pdf reprint] The Science Daily article is just a reprint of the Duke press release. Steven A. Cummer seems to provide PDF "reprints" of all his papers but the new one isn't in that list. Nor can it be found on David Smith' page, David Schurig's old Duke page, or his new NC State page, Sir John Pendry's page, or Anthony Starr's page.

Here is the old theoretical paperOne path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics, v. 9, 45, 2007. [pdf reprint] The Science Daily article is just a reprint of the Duke press release. Steven A. Cummer seems to provide PDF "reprints" of all his papers but the new one isn't in that list. Nor can it be found on David Smith' page, David Schurig's old Duke page, or his new NC State page, Sir John Pendry's page, or Anthony Starr's page.

Here is the old theoretical paperOne path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics, v. 9, 45, 2007. [pdf reprint] The Science Daily article is just a reprint of the Duke press release. Steven A. Cummer seems to provide PDF "reprints" of all his papers but the new one isn't in that list. Nor can it be found on David Smith' page, David Schurig's old Duke page, or his new NC State page, Sir John Pendry's page, or Anthony Starr's page.

Here is the old theoretical paperOne path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics, v. 9, 45, 2007. [pdf reprint] The Science Daily article is just a reprint of the Duke press release. Steven A. Cummer seems to provide PDF "reprints" of all his papers but the new one isn't in that list. Nor can it be found on David Smith' page, David Schurig's old Duke page, or his new NC State page, Sir John Pendry's page, or Anthony Starr's page.

Here is the old theoretical paperOne path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics, v. 9, 45, 2007. [pdf reprint] The Science Daily article is just a reprint of the Duke press release. Steven A. Cummer seems to provide PDF "reprints" of all his papers but the new one isn't in that list. Nor can it be found on David Smith' page, David Schurig's old Duke page, or his new NC State page, Sir John Pendry's page, or Anthony Starr's page.

DRM'd to the eyeballs compact discs are NOT Redbook audio.

Just for grins, vist the music section of your local Wal*Mart or Best Buy and look at a few of the offerings. Grab 100 and then look for the official Compact Disc logo. Did you find it on over 5% of the disks? Consumers quit looking for the official product. They associate the packaging with a Compact Disc recording in a form of false advertising. Those who were paying the royalty for the official Compact Disc logo simply quit as the product sold just fine without it. Now that Defective by Design product is everywhere, it's time to let the labels know they have to be off the RIAA Radar and proudly display the official Compact Disc logo to boost their sales.
http://www.riaaradar.com/
http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/spring05/cps182s/assign/project/fall03/mjt14_2/CDcopy.pdf

Copy Protected music should have the Worldwide Copy Control Icon, but many labels know this kills sales and don't bother including the warning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/25/1048354575685.html

Sure don't you know that C++ was just a cruel joke by the creators. ;)

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Beowulf/c++_interview/c++_interview.html

On the Duke news site they give more information about how they came to their findings. They mention that they fed data about the sequences of genes known to be imprinted, and likely to be non-imprinted genes into a computer to check for differences. Based on that, they searched for other sequences that resembled the imprinted ones. That's why the results are just good guesses and more research need to be done to determine if they are true positives.

Any wonder that the author of the Article Vivek Wadhwa has authored multiple papers on offshoring and outsourcing.

He wrote a similar rant in bweek about 2 years ago.

Any wonder that the author of the Article Vivek Wadhwa has authored multiple papers on offshoring and outsourcing.

He wrote a similar rant in bweek about 2 years ago.

by which I can assume there is still a lot of money to be made from music that is clearly beyond copyright?

What's really needed is a Gutenberg-like project just for music. Right now the way most old music is stored is a raw scan, just like when Project Gutenberg makes raw scans of the text in books. We need some sort of OCR software and human eyeballs (and fingers) to look over those scans and encode them in a way that's open and freely available for anyone or anything to use. Something like an enhanced MIDI format which allows you to add various notations you normally see in printed music. Unfortunately the population that's capable of doing this with music is markedly smaller than the population who can do this with books (which is basically anyone who can read text).

This seems like it there may be a precedent for this case already:

http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2006dltr0019.html

I appreciate that you say that you haven't used an RPM based distro for several years. I think you'd find if you tried one now that the tools (such as YUM and PUP and SMART) simplify package managament greatly. When you add to this that the quality and quantity of RPM packaging (now 5000 packages for Fedora) is going up there really isn't much of a case to make for debs and distros based on them being superior. Add to this that there are examples of "Deb-hell" if you look for them.

The reason that debs used to be superior was because of the Debian community working together to package Free software according to agreed high standards. It's a pity that more people don't explicitly acknowledge that Ubuntu is just a slightly tweaked distro sitting on top of all this work done by the Debian community.

Hmm ... Audio Home Recording Act :

"The AHRA also provides for a royalty tax of up to $8 per new digital recording machine and 3 percent of the price of all digital audiotapes or discs. This tax is paid by the manufacturers of digital media devices and distributed to the copyright owners whose music is presumably being copied. In consideration of this tax, copyright owners agree to forever waive the right to claim copyright infringement against consumers using audio recording devices in their homes.

Article

"Education does not promise you money"

http://www.nd.edu/prospective-students/

and scroll down to "find your path". You tell me what they are selling undergraduates.

or, look here and tell me what these institutions are really interested in:

http://www.duke.edu/about.html#Giving%20to%20Duke

You're right thought... it doesn't promise the students money, it's about getting money to the University. It's all about that.

Many US Universities (Including MIT) are happy with grades from those exams. So happy that you are not asked to pay school fees if you can run or jump.

I don't know what MIT is doing, and I'm not contradicting you about wherever you went, but I don't think that's typical. At least at my alma mater, they don't care where you came from, but they want to see some sort of standardized test score. In fact, they tend to rely on them more heavily for foreign students, who typically don't get an opportunity to interview in-person, and who may be coming from a radically different educational background than a U.S. student. (Which means the admissions officer can't look at their transcript and really know what it means, in the same way someone very familiar with high schools in a particular region of the U.S. can.) Foreign students usually also have to take the TOEFL and get some minimum score.

I also distinctly recall that there was no financial aid offered to foreign students; it was a strictly cash-on-the-barrel-head operation (in some cases, literally *cash*, although I don't expect that happens anymore).

I think that the extent to which universities roll out the red carpet to foreigners is usually overestimated by many U.S. students; coming here to study ain't no picnic.

Picking a few schools more or less at random, I see that testing for non-U.S. students is de rigueur at William and Mary, Caltech (which offers some financial aid to foreign students, but admission is not need-blind), and Duke. They seem to vary a little on whether the TOEFL is required or just encouraged, but except for a short note on Duke's page about an exemption from the SAT for students coming from countries where it isn't offered, there's no acceptance of alternative national tests in lieu of the usual SAT/ACT. I think that's more an exception than a rule.

"Last time I checked we did still have free speech,"

Oh, what is the DMCA? The truth is people are BUYING laws, to limit 'free speech' under the false pretense of "copyright". The whole idea of copyrighting and propertizing information is one of the FEATURES of a modern police state. By turning information into property someone owns you thereby limit freedom of speech. Youtube regularly pulls videos of anti-consumerist writers that are overly critical of consumer culture and money culture in general.

The only one with a serious MOUTH (power) in America is MONEY, where are the networks that cater to actual news and real people? I forgot... they are mostly UNprofitable.

Time to go read some Oswald Spengler.

Some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West
http://www.duke.edu/~aparks/Spengler.html

(1) It is possible to 'build' on somebody else's content. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, involving a parody of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman. Your example is probably not a parody, and I'm not even sure you can play the result for yourself -- it's an unauthorized derivative work.

(2) EULAs are not automatically unenforceable, but are still subject to principles of contract law. In recent months, portions of two different EULAs have been struck down. Check out this Wired Article.

There is certainly fair use in redistribution. For example, the McDonald's logo is protected by both Copyright and Trademark. Yet, if somebody makes a movie that happens to contain the McDonald's logo, that person does not have to get permission. (Do you really believe that the producers of "Supersize Me" got permission??) Documentary creators generally clear rights because their insurance carriers require it, or because they're worried that even a non-meritorious suit would be expensive, not because the are legally obligated to. The Center for the study of the public domain publishes a Comic Book (?!) about this (see page 13 of that book.)

Dieharder http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/dieharder.php is what I used.

I learned a heck of a lot working with dieharder especially considering my lack of mathematical acumen. The author and friends were unbelievably patient and helpful. In my book it's the best tool ever.

Debian package too!

The true Alien, alien...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronima
http://www.biology.duke.edu/johnsenlab/images/gall ery/Phronima-w-barrel.jpg

I'm all for standing up for your rights, but the guy in this case was an idiot.

Most importantly, he picked two fights at once, and one was with the wrong people. If he wanted to show the store manager a lesson, he should have given the cop is drivers license. Did he have to? No, however he wanted the cop to help him. Cops spend so much time dealing every day with lying scumbags they have a very short fuse for people they feel are playing games with him. Had he just coughed up his license he probably could have got the store manager at least a ticket.

Also, the guy in this case wasn't completely right. For some interesting recent commentary there's this supreme court case http://freetotravel.org/hiibel.html, http://www.papersplease.org/hiibel/, http://www.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/supremecourtonli ne/commentary/hiivsix

At a minimum, if you do not provide a government issued ID they police can detain you until they are sure you are who you say you are. You don't get to just tell the cop "I'm George Bush" and expect him to take your word for it.

So in his effort to make a point about circuit city, he called the cops on the emergency line. Rather than sticking to the issue of being prevented from leaving (his entire family, no less, so multiple counts) he pissed off the one guy who could have written a ticket and arrested people to try and make a second point that he may have been technically correct about, but not in principal.

In short, this is one of the worst examples of how to "fight the system" I have ever seen.

Deliberately dumb? Not really, just baiting. Don't think the Xerox copier hasn't been considered in copyright infringement litigation. The main point is the MPAA and RIAA are so bent on driving a crowbar between the consumer and the media they control, they'll do anything necessary to limit our historical rights. Part of this is threatening manufacturers with litigation if they don't apply copy protection systems to ordinary items under threat of violating some imaginary clause of the DMCA. Unfortunately, the DMCA is being used to drive out all notions of "fair use" and the eventual "public domain" status of any copyrighted work. Fortunately, the public can supply feedback to the Government on how the DMCA is going.

The granddaddy of this litigation in the modern age was the Betamax Case where Universal and others accused VCR makers of being part of a copyright infringement mechanism. That was struck down and the ruling was later challenged by MGM v. Grokster. That allowed the Betamax ruling to stand but failed to define the limits of what is legal or illegal in the Internet age.

Meanwhile, the MPAA and RIAA were very busy trying to lock down all technical avenues of distribution. They even tried to get copy protection applied to analog audio systems (apply a phase rotation at several frequencies which triggers copy inhibit). I can't find a current link to that but the RIAA gave demonstrations to Congress on how this would reduce the problem of tape copying and off-air recording. Artists countered with their own demonstrations to Congress on how it trashed the audio. The goal was to enact a law to make copying music illegal under any circumstances, including "fair use". The INDUCE Act proposed by Orrin Hatch gives a glimpse into how far this could go.

I have no idea how they let the CD slip out the door without protections but the content controllers (I hesitate to call them providers) have been trying to retrofit restrictions to the CD ever since the CD-R came about for consumers. The MPAA made sure the DVD wouldn't be in the same boat as the CD or the Betamax. The DVD, obviously designed for recording movies, was not to be released in any form without controls approved by the MPAA members. I work with some of the people who were in the room when the first DVD was made in the U.S. What a mess - the MPAA had teams of lawyers ready to sue you for trying to create a mechanism to pirate movies. That's how the DVD was viewed.

Now, there's no shortage of ways to recognize content and disable equipment from use which displeases the MPAA or RIAA. Fortunately, several watchdog groups are pushing back on the laws just as hard to keep some of these historical freedoms and "fair use" alive. Otherwise, we'd get sued for copyright infringement by walking down the street and whistling a song.

Here are a few other things worth reading:

• The MPAA's attempts to lock down media and eliminate our legal rights.
• Janis Ian's excellent view from the other side of the RIAA.
• How the RIAA is using technology to limit rights.

My estimate is based on direct experience using Neuron:
http://neuron.duke.edu/

And attempting to model everything we know about the chemical processes. That said, there are 2 dimensions of performance issues:

1) Neuron is not as fast as it could be, because a lot of the work being done is at an interpretive level.
2) It's likely we don't know all we need to about the chemistry.

I assume those 2 issues are roughly a draw, and that in order to eventually simulate a human brain, there will be improvements in the simulator software eventually, but those will trade off against the necessity of more detailed simulations.

In any case, 50 years for the computer power to simulate a human brain is a decent bet.

I am sure that academics traveling to the US generally realize what visa they will need. For example here is a web page provided by Duke Unversity that describes what is needed for visiting professors.

http://www.internationaloffice.duke.edu/int_visa_c lass.html

The fact is this guy didn't do his homework, and was was caught up. He screwed up.

Yeah, I can see how you're confused, because all the news outlets reporting about how the iPhone destroyed Duke's network did not bother to report that it was all made-up crap.

Last week:

"I don't believe it's a Cisco problem in any way, shape or form."

This week:

Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue. Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and there have been no recurrences of the problem since.

Maybe at least /. could bother to retract the story?

Nah, who cares, it's just your usualy weekly Apple bashing.

Flatly incorrect. It's not a myth, it's the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which modified the U.S. Code with regard to copyright law to specifically give consumers the right to make copies for themselves (and even give away a very limited number of copies to friends and / or family). Here's an analysis from Duke law school: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/200 2dltr0023.html

In general, your liability only exists when you *share* items. That is, all the legal actions by the RIAA / MPAA have alleged illegal distribution. Essentially, your behavior exposes you to legal action only when your behavior might negatively impact the market for an item. Arguably making yourself a copy of an item can deprive the owner of the item income, thus negatively impacting intellectual property owner. However, one can argue that in fact you would have never paid for the single copy, and therefore you haven't negatively impacted the IP owner at all. That's why photocopy machines / VCRs, etc. can exist. It's not because the IP owners don't mind, it's that they've (thus far) been unable to convince the courts that such copying negatively impacts their market.

Giving away copies, however, is a very different matter. No matter how "non-commercial" your activity is, if you give away enough of a product, you'll reduce the amount of money the IP owner can charge for the item, or put the IP owner out of business. So distribution gets you at the top of legal liability list.

Now that would be something Nifong could use to stop Duke's character assassination cold. There's something about a pardon that humbles the recipient and tells some affluent people to back off.

This was suggesting that Nifong could use the same kind of deal Libby got (if not a full pardon) to clean things off. The other purpose would be to signify that further demonization is going overboard(that is, rabid bloggers and Duke Elois to back off).

With "lacrosse-does-no-wrong" Duke, seems that their "honor" stops well before they get attacked - given the dirt on them as well.

As for Libby and his case, we'll probably have to have an Administration and Congress clean of those connected before there's any definite answer. At least if Nifong gets a crack at the Federal level, he'd better take good notes on how to keep Duke from being a thorn in his side.

I was also curious about the comment mentioning the Audio Home Recording Act. It looks like that would still probably not make this mix CD legal (but then IANAL). The text of the relevant portion of the U.S.C. is here. The apparently revelant portion of the statue (Sect 1008) says:

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

An analysis from what looks to be a University law journal is available here. From that piece (under the section on the Audio Home Recording Act):

In 1992, Congress passed the Audio Home Recording Act ("AHRA"), an amendment to the federal copyright law. Under the AHRA, all digital recording devices must incorporate a Serial Copy Management System ("SCMS"). This system allows digital recorders to make a first-generation copy of a digitally recorded work, but does not allow a second-generation copy to be made from the first copy... The AHRA also provides for a royalty tax...This tax is paid by the manufacturers of digital media devices...The SCMS and royalty requirements apply only to digital audio recording devices. Because computers are not digital audio recording devices, they are not required to comply with Serial Copy Management System requirement.

So apparently, at least in that author's opinion, PCs don't qualify as digital audio devices (and if you read Sect. 1001 of the statue you'll see that indeed seems to be the case) and hence are not covered on the exemption given by the AHRA. I'm not offering an opinion on the law, because I don't know enough about copyright law (especially case law), but it looks like based on this other source that commentor's assertion that the AHRA protects the mix CD is questionable at best.

To belabor the point, I'm saying that extra-universal hypotheses that explicitly define the extra-universal as undetectable are epistemologically worthless.