Tag: travel

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U.S. Copyright Office Cuts Into DMCA

The much-vaunted Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF, Wikipedia), passed in 1998, was designed to criminalize the circumvention of copyrighted material, while taking the load off ISP’s and redirecting liability to the “incriminating” individual.

Last week, on Thanksgiving Day!, the AP released this article outlining 6 exemptions written into the DMCA (EFF posted this the day before). Brief summaries of these exemptions can be read at http://www.copyright.gov/1201/. The Copyright Office meets to review the DMCA every three years, and previously approved exemptions in 2000 and in 2003, not all of which have been renewed.

Some of these exemptions reflect a loosening of some of the more constricting titles of the DMCA and most notably, fair-use and accessibility are provided with broader, less limiting definitions.

— Breaking CSS encryption to make excerpts and compilations from DVDs, especially for educational purposes, is now more likely to pass the test for fair use.

— The sight- and hearing-impaired are now allowed to break DRM-locks on eBooks to access reading tools and software.

— It is now legal to unlock cell phones!

— Circumvention is now officially permitted for the testing, researching, or correcting of security flaws from “rootkits” or other access control measures.

Ed Felten goes further into detail on the 6 exemptions in this commentary. Cory also goes more in-depth on the 6 exemptions at BoingBoing as does Karen at KSL News and Bill at PublicKnowledge.

More background: The Evil That is DMCA.

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Would we Tolerate Rockets Fired from Culver City?

venice beach, hezbollah protestersIts true — Lebanon was growing into a jewel of the Mediterranean — apparently hundreds of tourists were airlifted out today by Italian airlines.

But Haifa and Tiberias in Israel hadn’t seen attacks of this sort in over 30 years, probably not since the Yom Kippur war of 1973 when Israel was a wee 25 years young.

This sign was spotted amid several others protesting Hezbollah and questioning global response to this conflict. A group of men who said they were Black Hebrews bandied about Venice Beach boardwalk for about an hour this afternoon, signs raised high.

Miss the news of the past 5 days? BBC News has this comprehensive timeline of the recent conflict.

Ha’aretz has a solid breaking news ticker (Israel time is PDT +10).

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‘Buddha Boy’ has Arrived

The legend of Buddha Boy has made it around the world today thanks to a story in the Telegraph. Ram Bomjon has spent six months wthout food or water, meditating beneath this tree, according to his devotees.

“A snake bit me but I do not need treatment. I need six years of deep meditation,” explains the 15-year old Bomjon, whose mother, Maya Devi, shares the same name as the mother of the original Buddha, born 160 miles from this site around 543 B.C.E.

No report yet on whether President Bush, traveling in nearby Mongolia will make a visit, but if he reads this blog he may think twice about this opportunity to be born again again. USA Today reported last week that “Bush is a Methodist, but he seemed to get into the Buddhist vibe in South Korea.”

stay tuned…

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Hurricane Rita – Reminding us all to live in the moment

Katrina may have provided a lesson, and if you are in the Keys, I hope you have evacuated. Gulf Coast be ready – its always best to hesitate before proliferating panic…. but then I saw this ever-threatening satellite shot from NASA. Rita is forecast to travel west from the keys and into the Gulf of Mexico, now even more cooking than when Katrina passed through.

Reuters reports that another major storm in the Gulf would devastate U.S. energy and oil supplies.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has wisely declared New Orleans uninhabitable as even a glancing blow from this storm would flood the debilitated city once again.

Hurricane Rita Sept 20