Slashdot Mirror

sbma44 followed up to the recent news that jailbreaking iPhones is now legal with an article about DMCA exemptions. He says "The American Prospect has an article up that argues that focus on specific DMCA exemptions is silly, the practical upshot is about zero, and the underlying law remains as rotten as ever."

Timothy found a profile of Carl Malamud up at The American Prospect, characterizing it thus: "Carl Malamud — underrated work shedding sunshine on the sort of things that 'sunshine laws' may make legally accessible, but that often are not practically accessible. The man should be up there on the list with Wikipedia, Wikileaks, the big Free Software projects, and the Creative Commons."

jamie tipped us to Dean Baker's Beat the Press blog, where Baker comments on a followup to Circuit City's firing of all its highest-paid salespeople last March (Slashdot discussion here). Circuit City's stock has cratered in the meanwhile, and their response has been to offer $1 million retention bonuses to executive VPs. Baker points out that each one of these bonuses represents 35 years' salary for one of the fired salespeople.

ras_b asks: "I don't pay attention to politics at all, and so I will not be voting in today's elections. My family has been telling me that this is a mistake and I should vote anyway, partly because I have slightly conservative views which agrees with their political outlook. My reasoning is that since I am totally uninformed, I shouldn't vote. I don't want to vote Republican or Democrat, only to find out later I totally disagree with something a candidate stands for. So, here's my dilemma and my question: Is an uninformed vote better than no vote?" This issue is touched upon in a posting by Ezra Klein, of the The American Prospect, who disagrees, arguing against a similar assertion by Greg Mankiw, from a suppressed Fortune article. Greg says: "Sometimes...the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home ... If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision." What do you think?

MarkusQ writes, "The NY Times among others is reporting that Google is ramping up its lobbying clout (registration or bugmenot required). The 'Don't be evil' search engine company has hired the infamous astroturfing and dirty tricks firm Direct Connect, Inc. You may remember DCI from their recent attempts to pass off their 'Penguin Army' video as a product of some lone wit, unconnected with their client, Exxon. Or their involvement in Microsoft's 'even dead voters love Microsoft' campaign. With a staff of veterans in the biz (such as Chris 'Swiftboat' LaCivita and Jim 'Electioneering' Tobin), led by Tom 'Big Tobacco on the Dole' Synhorst, I'm sure DCI will be able to give Google whatever they're paying them for. The question is, what are they paying them for? And does 'Don't be evil' imply 'Don't pay professionals to be evil for you?' Or could there possibly be a non-evil reason to hire these clowns?"

mrbill writes "Interesting take on the Eminent Domain case now before the Supreme Court. Could the same logic behind using Eminent Domain to take real property be used to take a Patent? Apparently some states are contemplating taking drug company patents to force lower drug prices." From the article: "Patents are the key to huge drug-company profits. The industry will fight vociferously to protect them. In West Virginia, where the issue came up last summer, industry lawyers warned a legislative advisory council away from proposing such action on patents, claiming it would be unconstitutional. "

Marxist Hacker 42 writes "Now that the Politics section is up and running, I can submit this story. Back in February, The American Prospect ran a speculative article on The Danger of NeoConservative One Party Rule. A quote: 'Benjamin Franklin, leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, was asked by a bystander what kind of government the Founders had bestowed. "A republic," he famously replied, "if you can keep it." There have been moments in American history when we kept our republic only by the slenderest of margins. This year is one of those times.'"

gessel writes "Have you ever used the word "ironic?" Do you know what it really means? If not, is that ironic? Was Seinfeld's "irony" really the cause of the utter collapse of civil society as we knew it? How ironic was it for the CEO of MTV to declare irony a victim of 9/11? The Guardian is running a brilliant article that clears the confusion around a culturally critical and chronically misused word."

Iambic Pentametor writes "Back in April, Slashdot had a story covering the first two rounds of a forum at The American Prospect between Eric S. Raymond, Lawrence Lessig, Nathan Newman, Jeff A. Taylor, and Jonathan Band. The third round is here. ESR's latest is pretty inspiring and despite some squabbling, each of the combatants make some good points."

Iambic Pentametor writes "Back in April, Slashdot had a story covering the first two rounds of a forum at The American Prospect between Eric S. Raymond, Lawrence Lessig, Nathan Newman, Jeff A. Taylor, and Jonathan Band. The third round is here. ESR's latest is pretty inspiring and despite some squabbling, each of the combatants make some good points."

Lindsay Sobel writes: "Eric Raymond and former Microsoft case advisor Larry Lessig have been cutting each other down in The American Prospect Online's roundtable on open-source software. Lessig calls Raymond's philosophy nothing more than Ayn Rand warmed-over, while Raymond calls the regulation Lessig endorses 'one-size-fits-all pseudo-cooperation enforced at the point of government guns.' " The discussion is pretty interesting with great points on both sides.

Lindsay Sobel writes: "Eric Raymond and former Microsoft case advisor Larry Lessig have been cutting each other down in The American Prospect Online's roundtable on open-source software. Lessig calls Raymond's philosophy nothing more than Ayn Rand warmed-over, while Raymond calls the regulation Lessig endorses 'one-size-fits-all pseudo-cooperation enforced at the point of government guns.' " The discussion is pretty interesting with great points on both sides.

Thanks to Lawrence Lessig for pointing the online version of his latest piece. It's entitled "Innovation, Regulation, and The Internet". As always, the piece is well thought, this time dealing with issues of regulation (duh) over the Internet. But the position is tricky than one would think -give it a full read, and add your thoughts below.