] The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that
] Grokster (along with other vendors of decentralized P2P
] systems) is not liable for the copyright infringement of
] its users. Today's decision upholds a lower court
] decision, which had been appealed by a group of music and
] movie companies.
]
] The Court largely accepted Grokster's arguments, finding
] that although the vast majority of Grokster users are
] infringers, Grokster itself cannot be held liable for
] that infringement.

About damn time, because this lawsuit was bogus. It would be like the suing the Dept of Transit, because stolen goods are transported on their roads.

P2P is not a crime. Piracy is a crime. Don't stop emerging technology because some people might use it for crime, and its nice to see the courts agreeing with that. We have come along way since 2600 -vs- MPAA.

Freedom to Tinker: Grokster Wins in Appeals Court

A song about the band's struggle with drugs from the drug's point of view.

] I am bad, I am evil,
] I am winter, I am pain.
] I'll mess up your life,
] I'll beat up your wife,
] I'll lose all your friends,
] And I'll win in the end.
]
] So you play the joker,
] And I'll play the clown,
] And I'll laugh while you're up there,
] And I'll laugh when you're down.
] Though your screams break the silence,
] Oh, they won't make a sound.
] Na na na na na na na na
]
] I will rise, I will take you,
] I will break you, never let you go.
] I'll shoot through your veins,
] I'll drive you insane,
] I'll poison your breath,
] And I'll love you to death.
]
] So you be the joker,
] And I'll be the clown,
] And you'll laugh when you're up there,
] But you'll cry when you're down.
] Though your screams break the silence,
] Oh, they won't make a sound.
] Na na na na na na na na
] Na na na na na na na na

Def Leppard - From The Inside

] We've invited about 150 Friends Of O'Reilly, people
] who're doing interesting work in fields such as web
] services, data visualization and search, open source
] programming, computer security, hardware hacking, GPS,
] and all manner of emerging technologies to share their
] work-in-progess, show off the latest tech toys and
] hardware hacks, and tackle challenging problems together.
] We'll have some planned activities, but much of the
] agenda will be determined by you. We'll provide space,
] electricity, a wireless network, and a wiki. You bring
] your ideas, enthusiasms, and projects. We all get to know
] each other better, and hopefully come up with some cool
] ideas about how to change the world.

After all the press Stripe Snoop got from the Slashdot exposure, I got an email from Time O'Reilly inviting me to this. [does happy dance].

I'm hitting the books to broaden my knowledge, because amongst all these well known people, I feel like the smallest fish in the pond.

Acidus @ Foo Camp

] "It's not silly at all," LaBonge told reporters.

"You damn kids" Get Off My Lawn!"

L.A. takes silly string seriously

] The Suns came up with the idea when their son was leaving
] for college at Princeton University. After realizing how
] difficult it would be to send what he needed with him on
] a plane and how expensive it would be to ship things to
] New Jersey, DormRoomExpress was born. The Suns began
] selling packages late this spring. "We thought, you know,
] he can't be the only one having to trudge all these
] things across the country," Susan Sun said.
]
] Lauren Schrader, an incoming freshman at the University
] of Colorado at Boulder, was an early recipient of
] DormRoomExpress' best-selling item -- the Dean's List DR
] Express Kit. This package includes a pillow, sheets,
] comforter, fan and desk lamp. It cost about $30 less than
] buying piecemeal what she needed for school, Schrader
] said. "It's just really easy and it was free shipping.
] That's always a bonus."

A cool concept, but a little thin on the details. Regardless of whether your are pulling necessities out of a uhaul or or from a fedex box at the campus post office, move-in is teh suck.

If colleges were smart, they would bundle this stuff themselves. Allow someone to pick out a swatch of carpet for the dorm, sheets for the bed, extra shelves, etc, online. Then, you charge the people for already having it in the room when the student arrives on move in! Colleges can buy in bulk that so that the price, even with the added cost of having it in the the room already, would be competitve with your local Target or Walmart.

Setting Up the Dorm Remotely

] Most university course books now include at least a few
] related classes. For example, students at the University
] of Richmond can enroll in Rhetorics of Terror/ism,
] Homeland (In)Security, and the State, which examines the
] root causes of terrorism and current United States
] security concerns. Rice University offers Jihad and the
] End of the World, a religion class that explores the
] concept of holy war in the Islamic world.
]
] Students taking the Urban Security course, at Cooper
] Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, analyze
] blast loads and explosion mitigation in order to learn
] how to design buildings that can withstand acts of
] terrorism.

The engineer in me think this kicks ass!

Homeland Security 101

] The Pull, co-founder of the online political action group
] Hacktivismo, wrote in an e-mail. "People can not condemn
] censorship and then embrace it."

That just about says everything that needs to be said.

Wired News: Hackers Take Aim at GOP

] Divided We Stand
]
] The division between left and right remains strong -- the
] political food fight continues. Network metrics, as well
] as the visuals, show two dense clusters with high
] preference for homogeneous choices. Echo chambers, on the
] right and left, remain amongst book readers in America.

Decius mentioned this on Binrev tonight. A neat view of social networks as they apply to book buyibg. More people need to do graphs.

Political Books -- Polarized Readers

I cohost Binary Revolution Radio tuesday night at 9:30PM. The show has actually already been recorded. I hope it turned out well. We shall see. I spend a lot of time talking about memes and MemeStreams. Let me know what you think. If you aren't able to catch it live, they will have MP3s available on the website for download at any time.

Decius is on Binrev right now talking about Memestreams

MemeStreams on BinRev Radio

So where is the justice when no one is at fault
and a human life is tragically wasted?
How fragile is the flame that burns within us all
to light each passing day?

Billy, Bad Religion