Kabur Naj: According to their announcement, they will be releasing one page a day of the titles they've started with, and they will continue doing this for the rest of this year. So the comics they've started will be complete, and a lot of others too.

But no, they're not taking the plunge the way Cory doeas with his own books - that would mean PDF downloads of whole books. Maybe they need to dip their toes and assure their stakeholders and retailers it's OK before they go further in. If so, I think the one-page-a-day approach is fine.

Maybe Google should not have been obliged to hand over these data, but the ruling points at a more fundamental problem: Google should never have kept all these data in the first place.

I mean: A complete log of all film requests, comments, views, etc. on YouTube EVAH, complete with IP address login name and all? Why do they keep this information if not to invade people's privacy?

I could understand it if they had been able to give their log information a week back, or so. The log information Viacom has requested ought to have been deleted a long time ago.

I agree that too little is known of the many kinds of funny animal comics created in the 40s and 50s.

Apart from Barks, there's Duck artists like Taliaferro, Mouse artists like Manuel Gonzalez, Floyd Gottfredson and Paul Murrey, and Li'l Bad Wolf artists like Carl von Buettner. And that's just in the Disney department!

Which also goes some way towards saying that I don't think it's entirely fair to say that Carl Barks is the only one people know about. Mike Barrier and Funnyworld (and other fanzines) have done a great job publicizing the work of other, less-known funny animal artists. In Holland, there's Tom Roep and his "Tom Puss", e.g.

Also I think Bark's work is mainly great if judged as an OEUVRE, i.e., in its entirety, and in his very best periods in the late 40s and early 50s. Judging from the page reproduced here, Milt Stein's work looks very interesting but I don't see any justification for the claim it's better than Carl Barks' work.

Vade101: The problem (from the point of view of persons and businesses outside the US wishing to make payments to another country outside the US) is the SWIFT system, it appears.

One of the Danish newspapers today carry a story that some Danish businesses are taking steps to avoid SWIFT to avoid the risk of having their money frozen with the risk og possible damage to themselves and third parties.

Like someone said, it would appear the US govt (and SWIFT) are working hard to make themselves irrelevant.

In other news, there's a place called Lolland! Sweet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolland

Yes, that's where Christa's shop is :-)

... in the city of Maribo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maribo

rather provincial, 6000 inhabitants, hardly a terrorist stronghold :-)

So long as you're fairly prompt supplying the information they tend to release them quickly enough.

Well, in this case it's been four months now. And, as it's asked in the article: What if the order had been for $20,500 and not $205? The victim's shop might have been closed, then. And still, the US government's ability and will to interfere arbitrarily like that simply defies every notion I ever had of "free trade" - and all this just to fight off "terrorism", harassing peaceful business people who in 99,9999% of the cases will have nothing whatsoever to do with "terrorism"?

I mean, it just seems like, completely unacceptable - and the fact that it happens all the time serves to make things worse, not better, IMO. To be fair, government surveillance of nickel-and-dime money transfers like $205 between small businesses is simply over the top.

Still: What on Earth does the US government have to do with a money transfer between Pakistan and Denmark?

And how satisfactory is a situation where interception and seizure of money transfers between two parties "happen all the time"?

Of course, my own answers to these question tend to be "nothing at all" and "not very", respectively.

IANAL, but I don't think this one will wash in court:

"And we shall not be liable to any reader or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the Websites’ information or for any damages resulting therefrom."

I think if you transmit information which later turns out to be false, said information purporting to derive from an authorative or otherwise reliable source, and somebody acts upon this in good faith, OR you publish a story which contains inaccuracies which may harm some people or businesses, then you might be held legally responsible regardless of this notice - exactly the same way people may sue traditional newspapers for slander, misrepresentation etc.

So I don't think it is legally possible to limit your liability by a policy notice - just as draconian copyright notices cannot be imposed by EULA. You might consider editing this paragraph to reflect the actual legal situation. (Anyway: I hope these statements will never be put to the test, of course).

Which is why truly open portable devices like the OpenMoko (a truly GSM phone running GNU/Linux and with wireless Internet enabled) may bring the real innovation in this camp. Privacy?

With WiFi enabled, people could speak to each other over encrypted VoIP instead of using GSM. Need to get off a bus? Have the phone ring when the GPS sensor registers you're within 500 meters from the bs stop. Not happy about this or that? Download the source code and roll your own.

OpenMoko is not quite there yet, but it's coming. Check this link for the slides from a great presentation of thus device:

http://www.ukuug.org/events/openmoko/openmoko-london-en.pdf

Is this good news?

yes, it's great news, and I'm glad it seems to be over, BUT!

Charges should never have been made in the first place. Gratuitous and arbitrary prosecutions like this one are definitely not without cost to their victims and might have a tremendous chilling effect on public life. Something really needs to be done with the American legal system to make it less hamfisted.

Fck Wndws Mbl

Just a technical note: The Map-It link works fine with Firefox in Ubuntu. Obviously, it ought to work in Safari as well.

OK, I deservedly had my two rather unarticulate previous comments devowelized, so I think I might try to post a rather more lengthy explanation of what might have been going through my mind.

Other posters here as well as in other blogs have seen this as the contrary to what I and other commenters have raised concern about: Not as Boing Boing "losing it" or selling out, but as Honda getting it, enrolling a major blog with very savvy, uncompromising and controversial stances on a lot of things; people propose we could see this, not as Boing Boing going "their way", but as Honda - a large, rather well-behaved automotive player courting a rather "progressive" image - going "our" way.

And this is well and good, and this might be the end of it, and nothing to be concerned about.

There's just still a little nagging feeling, though - which is mostly to do with the form of this deal. Honda is sponsoring three new sections, "Innovation", "Environment" and "Safety". Advertising is a very well-known

A very well-known ethical safe-guard in traditional media is the separation between advertising and editorial matters. I see the introduction of sponsored sections as a violation of this separation; the New York Times may come in several sections, but how would you feel about suddenly getting a new section, the Environment section "sponsored by General Motors"?

The New York Times may remain exactly what it always was, but there would always be some nagging feeling of queeziness about this new section; the newspaper's or at least that section's credibility would have become slightly tainted, nothing more, nothing less.

And then there's the slight Orwellian touch to the names of the new sections. Not to say working with the automotive industry is in any way evil, but we are speaking of a corporate player whose products are necessarily responsible for the deaths of a lot of people and also take a huge toll on the environment. This does not call for shunning or demonization, but it does call for due consideration - which is not exactly present in tag names like "Safety" and "Environment". I rather think the choice is a bit tactless, one of the reasons some people feel icky, no doubt.

I has been countered, that Honda actually do have a vested interest in safety and do want to be seen as doing something for the environment. And yes, this is true, but ... Philip Morris also has a vested interes in people staying healthy; after all, if their customers remain healthy, they will likely live longer and smoke more cigarettes.

Now, am I the only one who could see a problem in having a tag called "Health", sponsored by Philip Morris? Now, this could never happen of course, because tobacco smoking is marginalized and Big Tobacco widely condemned in the US - but there's some of the same Orwellian uneasiness about Honda's choice of tags.

So, I'm not saying this deal should not have been done at all (Boing Boing is, of course, a rather big and costly operation and should be able to make money on its trademark and visitors), but I believe it could and should have been done better.

Nxt n ln: "Hlth", spnsrd by Phlp Mrrs?

K, cngrts wth th dl. Nw thr's n thng lwys wndrd - hw d y spll SLLT?

Wll, nthng wrng wth gd ld dgh, spps - nxt p wll b spnsrshps frm Mcrsft, MP nd th R?