insights from the digital future
Cory Doctorow, author/activist/Canadian extraordinaire (and a fellow this year at the Center on Public Diplomacy) dropped some fire in the pot here at USC with this editorial published in the school paper:
Universities – USC especially – are at a crossroads: Do they exist to promote scholarship, or do they exist to protect the business models of entertainment companies at any cost?
What kind of B.S. copyright hypersensitivity is caging and enraging students at other universities?
Prepare yourself for this one — it’s gonna rock! Scroll down for details on ticket presale. The Inaugural DETOUR Fest will take place downtown on three stages, all day, October 7. Here are my personal highlights within the announced guests, and they’re among the best live acts out there today:
Beck
!!!
Queens of the Stone Age
Basement Jaxx
Blackalicious
Of Montreal
Nortec Collective
The Elected
Oh No! Oh My!
DJ sets by: VHS or Beta, Carlos D./Interpol, James Murphy/LCD Soundsystem, Steve Aoki/Kid Millionaire…
more to be announced.
Your tickets are HERE password DETOUR. reg. on sale Saturday. $35 + $9 ticketbastard surcharge still leaves it reasonably under $50. I can’t wait!
OH YEAH – and before I forget… the great Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings hits the Music Box Sept 22… dance partay!
Culver City is one of many municipalities in metro Los Angeles offering some form of free wifi network. Culver City’s system has been thought of as the first, city-owned free system and other cities including Burbank, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood followed suit by providing free public wireless access in localized areas, primarily to promote tourism and the business districts.
But it turns out Free wireless access doesn’t exactly mean “free access.”
Culver City, which, incidentally, is home to no fewer than three motion picture studios (including — yup — Sony), has implemented filtering that blocks users on its municipal wifi network from accessing p2p sites, porn, and other “questionable content.” The incriminating “nannyware” in this instance is CopySense.
Mack at LAVoice has a bit more on this here.
And Sacha Meinrath at MuniWireless.com warns:
While the telecommunications battle of 2006 has been all about Network Neutrality, a storm is gathering for 2007-8 to be the war over Digital Rights Management.
Originally published August 24 2006 in the Set-Top Cop blog.
Did a double take last night while walking down Vermont and caught an Onion display box in the corner of my p.o.v. Oddly, was in convo with a Chicago friend and was hardly phased by the sight of the tab of ridic hilarity until I was reminded by Metroblogging.LA this morning, that YES, The Onion has finally arrived in Los Angeles.
Thought I was hallucinating for a second as I had just walked by a bizarre gathering of folks outside of Skylight Books where Les Claypool — superstar of satirical music himself — was demonstrating that rock stars can read aloud. Then I remembered reading a column about the Onion debut in the LA Times last week.
Now if only Skylight can get the likes of T. Herman Zweibel to read…