Mix a social hack with technology and more people can park with less hassle.

That is awesome!

Dr. Block made an argument in which, according to Silverman, he "cites a few studies to support his theory."

Silverman did not address those studies, nor did he actually address Dr. Block's point. He simply engaged in an ad hominem attack.

Xeni to her discredit, than echoed that vile ad hominem attack by saying Dr. Block was 'busted' because the press didn't emphasize his founding of a company, which was properly disclosed in the editorial.

I mean, WTF here?

As a technophile I would prefer Dr. Block to be wrong, but Silverman did absolutely nothing to discredit Dr. Block's points. And Xeni did even less than Silverman, except that she managed to bring discredit to herself in the process.

We do not advance our knowledge of the world by engaging in vile ad hominem attacks against the people with whom we disagree.

Take on the substance of Dr. Block's argument, or go home.

The reality is that at least at a layman's anecdotal level it seems self evident that net addiction exists.

I would prefer that to not be the case, but come on...take a look at boingboing's logs. Look at the ip addresses of your readers and the frequency with which some of them reload the page. Do some math to throw out the timed RSS requests and tell me with a straight face that the people reloading boing boing every few minutes are not engaged in a form of obsessive behavior.

OMFG, this is possibly the best thing I have ever read on Boing Boing.

I watched them with my 9 and 11 year old. They laughed at Ginsberg's 'Go Fuck yourself with your atom bomb.'

They got to learn about Ginsberg and Keroauc, and Nixon...and laugh and enjoy the presentation.

Totally freaking brilliant. Wow.

I don't doubt that Air Canada is particularly bad.

It may once have been "common for big North American carriers to go out of their way to help inconvenienced or stranded customers – free." But that was also when airline fares were regulated at a much higher level than now.

It has been deeply painful for me to live here for the past few months as petitions and emails opposing wifi have flown about.

It serves as a litmus test of sorts. The petition list is public and it serves as a cautionary list of people with whom one must be careful while moving sharp or shiny objects.

Matt Dols needs to basically just STFU. Dols does not own public spaces, and does not get to dictate how other people show respect for public spaces, of even _if_ they want to show respect.

"I find it incredibly disrespectful, not only to the artist, but to the Pedestrian Art program and the city," said [Matt] Dols,

Maybe, just maybe, Matt Dols and the Pedestrian Art program, are not blessed sacred objects handed down to us and requiring our respect.

"But, that's just how they treated me and it’s just not right.”

They are a corporation. They are incapable of treating you 'right' or 'not right.' They are simply able to do things which they think will maximize their profits in the short or long term.

We all need to stop thinking in terms of right and wrong in our dealings with corporations, and stop getting our little feelings hurt because the corporation doesn't validate our particular closed minded anti sex view of the world.

The case sounds absurd, and Don't tase me Bro looks interesting, but the story source appears to be an astroturf organization...

"The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices."

Their current op ed "Preserve right to eat without guilt: Don't post calories of fast-food dishes
Americans should still have a right to guilt-free eating."

ie. The Center for Consumer Freedom is populated by that strange product which results when extremely stupid people mate with extreme self interest to produce extremely stupid self interested cretins.

This is clearly an horrific case, and in my view she deserves substantial monetary compensation, and they need to revamp their procedures to avoid this problem in the future. But the bailiff did not do anything criminal. When a broken system fails we need to fix the system, not make a scapegoat out of some poor undertrained, and likely underbrained, functionary.

@MOMUS_98 I'm not arguing we 'stick it to the man' (that is another topic :-) Simply that we can't use our tools of 'morality' when dealing with an entity that has no mechanism capable of making moral choices.

@Jeff - No, I absolutely do not think there is a moral issue in a legal contract between an individual and a corporation.

It is very important that we stop believing that individuals have moral duties to corporations.

The idea that you have moral obligations to an entity that is incapable of having moral obligations back towards you is incredibly destructive. It is like bringing a knife to a gun fight and saying 'hey, that is no fair, the corporation brought a gun.'

@JDHARPER How is Joe Lents a thief or a liar? And why are you so emotionally worked up about the case?

As near as I can tell, from reading this article (http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-note-affidavits-skeletons-in.html), Lents attempted to work out his case, but Washington Mutual ignored him.

There is little doubt that he agreed to pay his loan, but there is also reasonable doubt as to who actually holds his loan.

And in our system it is not a crime to not pay a loan. You are not a 'thief and a liar' because you use the legal system in your defense.

It is amusing that Washington Mutual committed perjury when they filed a Lost Note Affidavit, but for good or bad that appears to be a somewhat standard practice. (read that whole calculated risk article - it provides a lot of interesting perspectives).

I strongly object to people, like you, attempting to impose a moral duty for individuals in their relationship with corporations.

Lents may, or may not, have a legal duty to Washington Mutual, but he has no moral duty to that entity.

Corporations are not moral actors. That is the fundamental genius, and evil, of their existence. They do what they do out of a 'pre-conventional' morality. They work to avoid punishment and seek their own self interest.

A contract with a corporation is a legal agreement, not a moral agreement. That contract comes with its own rewards and punishments, but it is vital that we kill the myth that contracts impose upon an individual a moral duty.

@DRAGONFROG

Why would you think RRSAFETY was trolling? The profit motive is a powerful tool, and it doesn't seem like trolling to argue that more people would be served by market forces.

The market may or may not be the most effective tool to use for any given situation, but it isn't a troll argument.

@manicbassman "pray tell me what constitutes a "malicious" operating system??? "

In this case it is the operating system run by the attacker for the purpose of copying an image of RAM.

RRSafety,

Well you are wrong about the Constitution and how it protects 'unlawful combatants'

You are deeply and horribly wrong in your reading of our noble founding document.

Sorry, but you are probably a righteous dude when it comes to your positions on unicorn porn and social networking.

Rich

Jeff wrote "My rights of free speech (in this case a work of fiction) are predecated on my respect for copyright law. "

With respect, I think that is just wrong. Free speech comes first. Copyright law is a distant second to free speech.

Our founding model of freedom in the US is that people have rights to free speech. Personally I think that there should be no restriction on derivative works. You don't get to own a universe, sorry.

The staff at Gitmo can 'take exception to the myth' once they stop being party to their assault on our Constitution.

Until then they are amonth the most evil enemies of our Republic that currently exist in the world.

Yes, I include that 'innocent' 19 year old serving food in my charge.

On 9/11 Americans, and others, were murdered by terrorists. But it took our own president to attempt to destroy our Constitution.

I believe in that document. Bush is an enemy of the Constitution, and of America.

Jeff,

Of course you can put it up on a site so everyone can read it.

That is what the First Amendment is all about.

There is some legal argument that Congress has the power to violate the First Amendment by extending copyright to derivative works, but that is just a bat shit crazy argument.

Article 1, Section 8, powers of congress
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

That whole First Amendment thing does and must trump the copyright power hidden in a laundry list of other powers.

MKULTRA,

The filtering software is being used in the 'free' wifi provided at the Denver Airport. The city of Denver has control of basically all aspects of operations at the airport, and so their decision to filter is a question of official government censorship.

This is not a reasonable 'time place or manner' restriction, it is a blatant government violation of the First Amendment.

I have spent more time laughing at people who think that a CRT is a computer than laughing at people who don't realize that an iMac has the computer built into the CRT case...

Access points should be open. It should be legally mandated: if you want to use the public airwaves you need to run an open AP.

The only real downside is total traffic leaching, but that is rare even now on open networks, and can be handled by the router if it does occur.

Brian Damage,

At least so far Google does not have a proven history of illegal behavior in support of a monopoly.

There is a deep difference between buying Blogger or Writely, or even YouTube and buying Yahoo.

I watched the demolition demo episode and did not see what Johannm saw. The 'junk yard partners' didn't look angry to me-not even a bit. But I agree, it was a funny episode.

BillCunningham - I guess you are right, no one has ever been improved by a close association with Islam.

Except, I don't know, that whole ability to count with reasonable numbers thing. And maybe the whole 'Western Civilization' which, if one is honest, is actually Eastern Civilization which thankfully the 'East' preserved while we in the west were busy living through the dark ages.

But I guess it is okay because after we pulled ourselves up with their boot straps we went to freaking war against them, and had inquisitions and shit.

Bah. Fundamentalist Christianity sucks rocks.

Islam is not a threat to civilization.

Fundamentalist freaks are the problem, but even they don't 'threaten civilization.' For f*ck's sake: sentencing someone to death for free speech is f'd up, of course, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't threaten civilization.

Our screwed up military under the command of the most evil person in the world today has murdered many many many people in Iraq. It is screwed up, but even that doesn't 'threaten civilization.'

Screw Sharia, of course, but in pure evil it is a step or three behind American Fundamentalist 'Christians.'

I just saw a couple of these boards at the Maker Town Hall - they are pretty bad ass.

It is clear that San Francisco has entered the top tier of World Cities in proper recognition of the contributions of artists, musicians, visionaries, and those few, those Falcos, who combine all three characteristics into being artists and musicians and visionaries, along with being dead.

Thank you San Francisco.

Epicanis argues that Robert Smithson wasn't the artist because he paid someone else to make the piece.

That is a deep and complicated question which has a ...no, actually, it is not complicated at all. Of course he is the artist. Of course it is his creation. Even in the classic and traditional arts much of the 'work' was done by apprentices and members of the artist's workshop.

Modern large scale art is as much about pulling together a collective vision as anything else. We credit the conductor of the orchestra, the director of the film, the architect of the monument.

We need to clearly establish that owning and using sensors is a basic element of the First Amendment.

The ability to capture information about our world, whether in audio, photographs, video, or via sensors, is fundamental to the ability to exercise freedom of speech.

I can theoretically (under protest) accept 'reasonable time place and manner' restrictions, but the clear assumption must be that we can photograph and take sensor readings at will.

Including using remote sensing technology to capture information which 'They' don't want us to have.

@ployntabs Art is more important than hungry children and health care.

It sounds insensitive, but looking at history things that inspire are more important to our humanity than empty bellies and suppurating wounds.

I like the tv b gone a lot, and I like Mitch a lot, but I strongly disagree that it is 'no biggie' to shut someone's display off in the middle of a presentation.

In a civil society you don't substitute your sense of right and wrong, and of what is, or is not a 'big deal' for that of someone else.

It may be no big deal for you to deal with arbitrary vandalism, but that doesn't mean it isn't a big deal for someone else.

This is almost scary. It only takes a tiny developer community to make something like this real.

And if sufficiently motivated, or amused, small groups of fanatics can take over the development landscape.

I mean, for example, look at Lisp, the lisp community is impassioned and ...

Oh, right, they have absolutely no power or influence. Never mind the false alarm.

BigPaul

I don't at all accept as a general premise that 'dumping' is unfair, nor that it should be illegal. This is not nearly as settled a point of social, economic, or political policy which you seem to think it to be.

But aside from that, you seem to be saying that hiring someone to do work for less money than someone in the US wants for that same work is akin to dumping, and so is unfair and should be illegal.

I argue the opposite. Paying someone more strictly because they are in America is racist, anti environment, anti-human, and immoral.

I wonder at the language here...isn't the whole point that luxury, especially fashion, is illusion, even smoke and mirrors?

It is all a particular consensual hallucination. A bag is worth $1,200 because you pay $1,200 for it. Someone who pays $20 for the bag that was made right after it on the assembly line doesn't actually have a $1,200 bag.

They may be visually indistinguishable, but they are not the same. They are of course physical objects, but their value is in their essence as social signifiers, and a $1,200 bag is not the same, no matter it is identical in appearance, as a $20 bag.

We are on the edge of a precipice. So much of our economy, and the world economy, and the hopes and dreams of literally billions of people that they can get out of abject poverty, rest on a faith in the value of inexpensive manufactured goods.

At a utilitarian base level that 'can't' go away. If you want a spoon or a pot and other things being equal you'll go for the least expensive item. All hail the effectiveness of market capitalism at lowering manufacturing costs (said in a mix of snark and reverent awe).

But most of 'our' consumption is not at anything like a utilitarian base level. It is almost all style, and flash, and self actualization, and self expression.

We buy and consume because we can. Because it is fun. Because it is an expression of who we are, or who we want to project that we are.

The word 'discretionary' while true misses the point. We buy and consume because we are defined by our patterns of consumption. Because we define ourselves with our patterns of consumption.

BTW I don't mean this in any particular way as an indictment. It is just how we are. But what happens if we change? Not all at once, and not all of us, and not completely.

But what happens if a few of us spend a bit more of our time making things rather than buying them? If we engage in the leisure of personal production rather than the leisure of personal consumption?

From a personal perspective I believe that leads to more fulfilling lives, but what else happens?

Does the economy collapse? Consumer confidence in Chinese goods is in a tailspin...see this article from today: http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2007/10/23/D8SEUQS80_paulson_china/index.html

Don't buy that, it is dangerous...buy a mig welder and make it yourself...

(sorry to rant...well, not that sorry :-)

"it's a shame but the varied attempts at censorship are fascinating."

Just to pedantically get this out there...it is a far far far stretch to assert that private collectors engage in censorship when they modify their own books.

At first it seems like an absurd 'oh what naive fools they were back then' ad. Sort of like cigarette ads featuring doctors, but I'm now with Elayne. Sugar is okay. 16 or 18 calories per teaspoon is reasonable for the taste of sweet.

Our modern Mary still gets all the calories she got in the 50's from sugar, but now she also gets a big shot of high fructose corn syrup...

btw: it sure _seems_ that the 'bedazzled' link is to a spam blog. I'm not sure if that is important or not :-/

The 'special process' is to heat the material in the absence of oxygen (or minimal oxygen) to drive off the volatile components and make charcoal.

The volatile components can then be fed into a totally stock gasoline engine and burned to produce energy.

That reaction does produce CO2, but as long as you don't burn the charcoal you have a net reduction in carbon.

This is the 'gasification'/syngas/wood gas/city gas process...see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas

It works, and is a proven technology. Early street lights burned 'city gas,' and a million cars ran on it during WWII...

Jim Mason and friends have been doing a lot with this:
http://www.whatiamupto.com/gasification/index.html
and
http://www.whatiamupto.com/mechabolic/index.html

Chicken John is running his truck on it (at least some of the time :-) during his mayoral campaign
http://voteforchicken.com/

It is all stunningly cool stuff.