I’m no slashdot knee jerk (well, maybe a little), but Lawrence Lessig is really cool. IBM and HP aren’t going to be able to hold out forever, and when the money’s gone all that’s left is the Bill of Rights.
Read more, or ask me.

Leverage the knowledge of technical community
by 2Bits

A lot of obscure laws have been passed, and the majority of the population
are not even aware of their existence. However, the technical community is
watching the legislation quite closely. And we seem to understand the
potential impact and risk on freedom and privacy. But the technical
community has a very small influence on politics, and seems almost
clueless in “playing political games.”

How can we leverage the knowledge of the community to help educate
politicians and the general population in terms of technologies, and the
impact of the proposed bills? Briefly, how can we help better, not just
sending letters to congress people or senators?

LL:

This
is a great question. We need translators. We need to translate the values of the network
into terms that nontechnical people get. And we need to watch for changes in the
architecture or mix of technologies layered into the network, and raise warnings about how
those changes will alter the environment for innovation and creativity. As one of my heroes
in the law, James Boyle, puts it, we need an
environmentalism for the Internet. You are the environmental experts. You can credibly show
the world how changes in the ecology of the Internet will destroy the environment for
creativity, innovation, and freedom that it produced.

Will you do that? Again, I am
skeptical. Rather than trying to focus this debate, or agree on ways to make others
understand, you guys immediately turn these questions into irrelevant bickerings. When
someone reported that I had written a book described as the “Silent Spring” of the Internet,
that opened up a thread about whether in fact DDT had harmed the environment. Someday, when
freedom is gone, and all we’ve got is the right to whisper our thoughts to those closest to
us, our children will look back and ask, why did we think we had the luxury to quibble?

But if you don’t want to become translators, if you don’t want to write
environmental impact statements, if you don’t want to try to convince the North in
California that if it gets taken over by the South, freedom and innovation ends, then you
could do as Torvalds has recommended: give money to those who are fighting the battle, in
particular, EFF. I’m on the board of EFF, so
blissfully biased about to whom. But whether EFF or someone else, follow Torvalds and the
other christ-figures in history: Tithe. Take the cost of Internet access (whether you pay it
or not) for one year; send 10% to an organization fighting for your freedom.

Original

You open one of the 1007 boxes on this floor and find…

A chain. Pulling on it creates a flushing sound, but nothing more.

Open Another Box

Original

It ALMOST fits:

I managed to talk the nice man on the street down to $20 from the original $5 he wanted.

But he carried it home for us…

Original

I’m bored with that. You can do better.

Original

4. “Something Vague”

Now and again it seems worse than it is
But mostly the view is accurate
You see your breath in the air as you climb up the stairs
To that coffin you call your apartment
And you sink in the chair, brush the snow from your hair
And [dream] the cold away
And you’re not really sure what you’re doing this for
But you need something to fill up the days
A few more hours
There’s a dream in my brain that just won’t go away
It’s been stuck there since it came a few nights ago
I’m standing on a bridge in the town where I lived
As [your] kid with my mom and my brothers
And then the bridge disappears and I’m standing on air
with nothing holding me
And I hang like a star, fucking glow in the dark
For all their starving eyes to see
Like the ones we’ve wished on, but now I’m confused
Is this death really you?
Do these dreams have any meaning?
No, no, I think it’s more like a ghost
That’s been following us both
Something vague that we’re not seeing
Something more like a feeling

Connor Oberst

What?

Original

So I’ve been screwing around with an idea lately (I know, cheating on my normal lack of thoughts..), and I’ve never heard it summed up as well as I did here

 
 If you want to operate an internet radio station legally,
   you need to do these things:
  
 Follow the play limits and other restrictions on content
     mentioned in the DMCA, and summarized above;
   
 Fill out the licensing forms from 
     ASCAP,
     BMI, and
     SESAC,
     and send each of them at least a couple hundred dollars a year;
   
 Fill out the webcasting licensing 
     form for
     RIAA,
     and expect them to start hitting you with a large bill some time
     next year.
 
 If you want to do something different, for example, if you want
   to let users choose the songs to download, or you want to archive dj
   sets, or you want to allow the world at large to collaboratively dj
   by voting on what song to play next, or anything at all
   interactive that actually takes advantage of the power of the
   internet: well... you're fucked.  When you go into that world, you
   are out of the ``compulsory license'' territory, and must negotiate
   with all of the copyright holders individually, which is
   prohibitively complicated, since there are so many of them.
 
 

Added at *unbreakable numeric code-time* by dave:

One addition to the linked info: BMI statistically samples your station rather than figures it out on their own- you have to fill out a log over a 72-hour period at least twice a year. Kind of fun if you work at a station, since you get to decide who gets paid.

Don’t even get me started about “fair use.”

Original

I HATE TICKETMASTER. I’m sure I’m not alone, but I can’t believe these guys can still get away with their shit. Buying spring training tickets today, I got assessed at total of $21 in “order processing charge” OVER the $40 “convenience charge.” What makes me unable to control my temper is there’s no way to avoid an order charge per event- even if you call on the phone, they’ll apply an order charge for each set of tickets you ask for in the same call.

How can this continue?

I can’t believe I’m playing Arctic again.

Added at Stardate 75864.5 by Dave.

Matt:
I’ve missed S-K, GBV, Wilco, Jay, and probably more others than I’d care to recall because I’m always going to walk down to Irving Plaza to pick up tickets and avoid the service charge – only to get there (or not) and find out that TBastard has all (or none) of the remaining tickets. Having only one large good venue in town has been a pain in my ass for 5+ years.
I always counted myself lucky that the bowery ballroom used Ticketweb, and figured that if I was stupid enough to miss someone when they played there, before moving up to IP, I deserved to miss them. That was before my latest Death Cab purchase, when I found out that TW had, also, decided that it was fair to start charging 20+%.

Maybe I can get folks to start playing my fire escape, if they wouldn’t mind the subway ride

What’s your character’s name?

Original