Are you a techie in need of a horoscope tailored for you? Then go check out the September IT Horoscopes. Aries begins:
Work harder than ever — and whenever possible, try to troubleshoot your own problems. This is not a good time to ask others for favors.
Your mileage may vary.
Via The Gamer’s Nook.
Well, he said this 2 1/2 years ago:
And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.
As The Slactivist points out:
A year later, when the administration’s goal was no longer merely maintaining sanctions, but a full-scale invasion of Iraq, they argued precisely the opposite. Saddam has WMDs. He poses a threat.
Go read the Slactivist’s report and analysis.
Update: This is getting a bit old in blogosphere time. Walter noted early this morning that others like Kevin Drum, Atrios and Lean Left were hitting on this yesterday. Go over to idols of the marketplace to get those links.
The RIAA at least has some moral justification for their position vis-a-vis unauthorized downloading and sharing.
The Direct Marketing Assocation has none vis-a-vis their clients harrassing us in our homes. This federal court should be overruled and this attitude:
“The Direct Marketing Association and its fellow plaintiffs are grateful that the federal District Court in Oklahoma City understood and upheld the industry’s belief that the Federal Trade Commission does not have authority to implement and enforce a national do-not-call list,”
is not echoed by the 50,000,000 households eagerly awaiting October 1.
Via Dohiyi Mir.
Update 9/24: BHW explains many of our thoughts on this explicitly.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: all those folks downloading/exhanging unauthorized copies af an artist’s work are stealing. Their parent’s should have taught them better.
The RIAA, though, represents an obsolete industry and much of their current battle is last gasp stuff.
Which is probably why the RIAA appears to have violated the same ethical/legal standard they are trying to enforce:
Makers of the most popular online file-sharing network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement, alleging the companies used unauthorized versions of its software to snoop on users in their efforts to battle piracy.
Hoist with their own petard?!
Via Legal Memo-random.
You’ll probably see discussion of Neal Stephenson’s new novel Quicksilver all over the blogosphere for a while. It’s thick, it’s supposed to be complex. I’m looking forward to my copy arriving real soon and expect a serious downturn in blogging for however many days it will take me to finish.
To help out folks who want to dig deeper or want to clarify a confusing point Stephenson has created a web site full of annotations. It is based on Wiki and Stephenson has a bunch of annotations already up and is planning more:
In our first phase, we are annotating the ideas and historical period explored in Neal Stephenson’s novel Quicksilver, seeding the Metaweb with an initial base of information. We are currently working on 106 articles, and hope you will expand and relate these and many other entries.
Read and annotate!
Via Boing Boing.