According to the suit, Load 'N Go sells both DVDs and iPods and loads the former onto the latter for customers who purchase both. The company then sends the iPod and the original DVDs to the customer. So the customer has purchased every DVD, and Load 'N Go just saves them the trouble of ripping the DVD. The movie studios' suit claims that this is illegal, because ripping a DVD (i.e., decrypting it and making a copy) is illegal under the DMCA. The suit also claims that this constitutes copyright infringement.

predictable, but still bullshit.

Boing Boing: Paramount/MPAA: it's illegal to put DVDs on iPods

How obscenely rich is the U.S. We don't riot over food or water or government atrocities, but the most overpriced, overhyped game system in history? Oh yeah, I'll fucking kill you for your PS3.

PS3 crime spree! - Engadget

Park said sending DSCOVR to the L1 gravitational balance point is "the most important thing we could be doing in space right now."

Park pressed for the mission to proceed in a New York Times op-ed piece earlier this year, and several other articles have bemoaned DSCOVR's descent into limbo.

LAUNCH IT!

The entire approach america takes to space research needs to be retooled. It's broken. NASA's broken. The appropriations process is broken.

I'd say the private sector offers some hope of salvation, but it's minimal... there's not much value in sending up climate satellites to a private firm.

And reading some of these articles, even advancements in launch technology that reduce it's cost tremendously wouldn't really mean much. We won't even let other countries launch the thing for FREE.

Granted, the last 6 years, under W and a Republican't controlled congress with a bullshit war on, have been among the worst for anything to do with basic science and far more so if there's a hint of politicality to it. Has "global warming" ever shown up in any document discussing this project? Scrap it.

I'm so used to it, even the outrage has dimmed.

Cosmic Log : 'Lost in Space' missions

Wow that's freaking trippy.

Boing Boing: Room looks like it's in a toon

The 2008 Presidential campaign began yesterday. Whatever the Democrats do with their new-found congressional power over the next two years, it will be with the big 2008 prize in mind.

Some Democrats want to expose the malfeasance and nonfeasance of the Bush Administration -- find out who really knew what and when with regard to weapons of mass destruction, Abu Graahb, Katrina, payoffs to Abramoff, and all the other rot. That’s understandable, but it would be far better if Democrats used their new-found power to lay out a new agenda for America.

There’s no point digging up more dirt. Bush isn’t running again. John McCain, the Republican’s most likely choice to replace him, has distanced himself so far from the administration that no amount of dirt will soil him. Besides, the public and the media are already suffering from outrage fatigue. And the Democrats wouldn’t be credible, anyway. It will be easy for Republicans to dismiss their efforts as more of the same old partisan bickering. The fact is, the public is sick of mud-slinging.

Instead of dwelling on what’s gone wrong, Democrats should focus on what to do right.

Which is pretty much what I've been saying, I think. Payback would feel good, but I think ultimately focusing on a Bush takedown attempt would hurt absolutely everyone.

American Prospect Online - What the Dems Should Do Now

Hoo boy. Wow.

Insert tasteless joke about Daddy’s little girl at Pandagon

Decius wrote:
One Democratic win that I think folks on MemeStreams might think twice about cheering is the close Senate race in Montana which gave Republican Conrad Burns the boot. Burns has been a leader in Telecommunications and Internet Policy for many years. I don't agree with everything that he has done in the space, but there is a lot this community would thank him for. Most importantly, I think, is his successful effort to liberalize Crypto export controls. I'm linking a speech he gave on the subject in 1996:

American businesses and computer users face a threat _ and it's a threat from their own government _ because the current administration won't let American companies export encryption at a level higher than 40 bits....

What this means is that commerce and communication on computer networks including the Internet is not reaching its full potential.

While certainly there is a lot of potentially valid criticism of Burns out there, the Internet probably won't be better off for having him out of office.

But will it be better protected by a Democratic majority is the more crucial question.

Liking Burns -- or anyone else -- individually wasn't the point of this election. The point was to overturn the *culture* of executive authoritarianism and a rubberstamp legislative branch. I pretty much couldn't care less if Burns singlehandedly made the internet safe from every threat if every other vote he cast was morally and philosophically repellent to me. I'm not saying that's the case, mind you, but I am arguing that there are bigger issues at stake than what a single politician might or might not have done. We need a sea change, and while I'm not convinced that everything's gonna be super henceforth, I'm glad the tables are turned. If a few not-so bad republicans (i'm looking at Chafee too) lost in order to change the course of the remainder of Bush's presidency, then so be it.

And before the barrage starts, I'm aware that the Democrats might well fuck us on internet issues, censorship and DRM, but compared with a republican party that has ceaselessly undermined the very foundations upon which the nation was built in pursuit of unchecked power and a president who has fucked up every single thing he's touched, well, I'll take that risk.

I'd let the internet die and change professions before I'd abet this president or any other national candidate for the party that allowed him to behave as he has.

RE: One Democratic win I'm not happy about...

Rumsfeld resignation summarized in Mac OSX screenshot

heh. nice.

Boing Boing: Rumsfeld resignation summarized in Mac OSX screenshot

Reasons to vote:

1) Iraq

2) Fear is not motive, it's a flavor enhancer (and now trans-fat free).

3) Your [I Voted] sticker is your ticket into my kegger.

4) Yelling at FNC doesn't actually accomplish anything.

5) Everytime a vote is supressed Lee Atwater eats another baby.

6) Democracy is only for the people that show up.

7) The time spent in the voting booth will be time not spend huffing glue.

8) All your base.

9) You goto vote w/ the electorate you have, not the electorate you want.

10) Everyone that doesn't vote gets a dick cheney facial.

Vote!

Decius wrote:

adam wrote:
I, although I'm English, believe in a decent America, a moderate America that speaks at the ballot box but is generally quiet and modest.

...
I hope you're right, that there is this great, silent, moderate America, but it has no voice, and its hard to beleive that its real when you never hear from it...

But where would you hear it? What outlets will amplify the voice of anyone in the group you describe?

The media won't do it because it's not good business and for all the vaunted power of the internet, it's become dominated by shrill partisans or complete nobodies without clout or trustworthiness.

You want a return to civilized dialogue and respectful disagreement, but you'll have to forgive my cynical laughter. It ain't happening this cycle or the next. In the most crucial battle of all, the far right has won -- they've equated politics with morality. They've created a link between your political opinions and your essential human goodness. There is no respectful disagreement with people who are evil, with your enemy, and I see the problem getting worse before it gets better.

The democrats, some of them, still want to have a discussion that's founded on logic; but they get drowned out by the rhetoric of emotion or ignored by a media they can't buy. I'd like to believe a straight democratic ticket would edge us back in the right direction, but I fear a sense of entitlement will vindicate the kind of democrats who just borrowed from the republican playbook and turned the debate into a battle of good and evil.

Religosity -- and i DON'T mean Faith -- is the greatest threat to the United States since the civil war. It has infected every debate, every issue. What used to require reason and analysis now requires only that one view the issue through the lens of whatever ideology they've adopted. What was once called a nuanced opinion is now called "elitist" or "weak" when it's even noticed at all by a populace who's less and less interested in or capable of bothering with the intellectual exercise of finding truth.

The system has been poisoned. Poisoned by absolutism. By intolerance. By moral superiority. By money. I no longer see a way out. Only a vague hope in the cyclical nature of everything... a hope that the pendulum will swing back. I have almost no faith in the proposition that I can do anything to help it. Even after all this, I myself am too angry to be objective, too demoralized to be fair minded and far too frustrated to believe anyone, ANYONE can be convinced of anything through reason or analysis.

And I'm too emotionally exhausted to even really care.

RE: Media Matters - Media uncritically reported Bush's false claim