Category: Things that matter

RIAA gets $115 million from Sharman Networks, Ltd.

(via boingboing)

Ending a years-long legal battle, the recording industry has settled with Sharman Networks, Ltd., operator of popular Kazaa peer-to-peer software.  Naturally, my first question is “How much of that money is going to the artists that the RIAA told us they were suing to protect?”

Record labels and movie studios won their long fight against one of the most notorious networks for online piracy Thursday, but the deal is unlikely to slow the worldwide trade in bootlegged songs, movies and television shows.

The entertainment industry’s settlement with the operator of Kazaa was hailed as a milestone because it ends an era in which backers of file-sharing networks could make millions of dollars a month luring people to their services with pirated goods.

. . .

Online piracy, meanwhile, continues.

“I don’t think anything has been accomplished here,” said Michael Goodman, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group in Boston. “From a legal perspective, this is a yawner. They won the battle, but the battlefront moved on about three years ago. That’s the problem with court systems. Technology and markets move way faster than courts can typically keep up with them. By the time you win that battle, who cares?”

Kazaa once accounted for nearly half of all online file-sharing, but its popularity has plummeted in the five years since its owners were sued for encouraging piracy.

. . .

Under the terms of the settlement, Kazaa will introduce filtering technologies to ensure that users can no longer share copyrighted music, film or software files. Sharman has paid $115 million to the recording industry, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. Studios received a separate undisclosed sum, reported to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

Sharman Networks issued a statement, saying the agreement cleared the way for Kazaa to offer licensed content.

“The settlement marks the dawn of a new age of cooperation between peer-to-peer technology and content industries which will promise an exciting future for online distribution in general and Kazaa users in particular,” said Nikki Hemming, chief executive of Sharman Networks.

Here’s what that all means

  • Sharman Networks, Ltd. promises to stop people from sharing coprighted material on the Kazaa network (impossible, by the way)
  • The recording industry get $115 to pay lawyers to continue going after music fans who like to hear music before buying (which we all know is illegal, but hard to stop in this age of 98% crap music)
  • Sharman Networks, Ltd. has aspirations to fail in the legal music download business the same way Napster has (with the extra burden of competing against Apple and iTunes)
  • The recording industry and Sharman Networks management types tell people that a new age in licensed digital music distribution is upon us (the same new age that has successfully been built up and practically controlled by the iTunes marketplace)

So we’ll see what happens from here.  Somehow, I doubt anyone on the consumer end will notice.

[tags]RIAA, Kazaa, Sharman Networks, Recording industry, Peer-to-peer[/tags]

Popcorn workers’ lung

While visiting Mental Floss, I read about the public health blog Effect Measure. Since I’m a big geeky science-loving dork, I started reading Effect Measure. Today, I read one of the more interesting science stories I’d seen lately and just had to pass it on.

The article in question, title Popcorn worker’s lung, is about a recently identified disease known as bronchiolitis obliterans. The first cases identified by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) were back in 1999, although there is evidence some popcorn manufacturers knew of the health problem as early as 1993. As the disease name suggests, this is a problem seen in workers from microwave popcorn manufacturing facilities.

You’ve probably never heard of bronchiolitis obliterans and you certainly don’t want to have it. The name tells the story. The bronchioles are the smaller airway tubes that transport oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the portions of your lungs where the gases are exchanged in the blood. If you obliterate those small tubes, well, you figure it out. The condition is debilitating and sometimes fatal. As I said, you don’t want it.

Want it or not, that’s the fate of dozens of workers in factories that make manufacture microwave popcorn or the artificial butter flavor that goes into the popcorn. One has already died and several are on lists awaiting lung transplants. This is a newly discovered condition in some ways — we’ve known about it for a little more than five years (see this NIOSH Alert; .pdf)– but in other ways we’ve known about it for too long without doing anything about it. Anything like what? Like OSHA issuing recommendations or protections to safeguard workers. OSHA has in fact done almost nothing.

. . .

OSHA’s response was perfunctory. NIOSH took it more seriously (NIOSH is the chronically underfunded occupational health federal research agency as opposed to OSHA, which is the regulatory agency). They quickly identified high levels of diacetyl in the plant and found high rates of chronic cough, shortness of breath, asthma or chronic bronchitis, compared to the general population. Pulmonary function tests verified the existence of some kind of respiratory risk in the workforce. NIOSH issued interim recommendations and advised the workers to wear respirators because the actions taken by the company were not sufficient to protect them.

. . .

In contrast to the NIOSH scientists’ efforts to identify the hazard and the prevalence of disease, OSHA’s response has been trivial. When faced with a hazard for which no standard has been set, OSHA has the authority to issue an emergency temporary standard or to invoke the “general duty clause” and require employers to reduce or eliminate clear hazards. OSHA selected neither of these options. Despite significant “bodies in the morgue” evidence, OSHA maintains that “a cause-effect relationship between diacetyl and bronchiolitis obliterans has not been established, as food-processing workers with this lung disease were also exposed to other flavoring agents.”

. . .

If you don’t work in a popcorn factory you may be tempted to shake your head about the lack of care for worker health and go on about your business. There is a lot of bad stuff in the world today and this is another example. But there is suspicion the problem is wider than just “popcorn workers’ lung,” as the condition is coming to be called. Many other food industry workers may also be at risk because diacetyl is used to make artifical flavors in candy, pastries, frozen foods and pet foods. More and more cases are being identified now that there is recognition of the problem. The big question is whether it is just diacetyl or other ingredients are involved. Of over 1000 flavoring ingredients used in food manufacture thought to represent a respiratory hazard , NIOSH has established recommended limits and OSHA permissible limits in a total of only 46. Whether there is a hazard when you make microwave popcorn at home is unknown.

That’s a majority of the article, but there are some important sections I’ve left out.  It ends by noting that people affected by this new disease have gone the route of suing.  While I rarely feel is the right response, I think in this case, lawsuits are going to be necessary to get prompt action on protecting workers.  Go visit Effect Measure for the full story.  And be careful when you make microwave popcorn now, just in case.
[tags]Popcorn workers’ lung, OSHA, NIOSH, Food industry, Microwave popcorn[/tags]

Question for my visitors – Do you want to be sent away?

Main question below in bolded paragraph. Thoughts/why post and ask lead up to that:

In all my recent surfing, I’ve been checking in on what others say about running a blog. I’m far from being happy with what I do on this site, as there is more I want to post, more original content I want to produce, and more features I’d like to get working. As my spare time allows, I do these things. But when I have limited time, I just work on keeping interesting (to me) things going out on the site every day (although I know I fail that often).

So in my reading about being a better blogger, I find this article (quoted in large part below) in which the author says links from a site should remain in their own window/tab, and most certainly not open a new window or tab. When I surf, I much prefer staying on a page and having extra links open in a new window or tab, so that is how I’ve set up my site. Apparently, that is considered bad form.

This brings me to my question then – when I link to other sites in my posts, should I make the links open new browser windows and tabs (as happens now), or should I leave them in the same window and make visitors open up in new windows/tabs any links they want to see without leaving my site?

Please take the time to make a brief comment on this post and say which you prefer. I’m already considering changing to no-new windows posting, but I’m not yet decided.

Want to tick people off? Have your links open new windows. Have users click to a number of links on your blog so they now have 8 or 9 windows open. Make it difficult to browse because the back button can’t be used to browse because every link is a new window. You’ll have people unsubscribing from your blog in a New York minute.

Your blog is not going to become all things to all people on a niche topic. If that’s your goal, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Be a success by sending your audience to what’s of value to them. That’ll guaranty they’ll keep coming back to you for more.

[tags]Send visitors away, Blog link practices[/tags]

PVRs good for networks

(via PVR Wire)
Some foolish CBS researcher went and did the unthinkable – he looked into the claim that PVRs (Personal Video Recorders – think Tivo and ReplayTV) are bad for the networks.  Upon conducting this study, he found out that PVRs are good for the networks.  Of course, much like the reality that downloaders are the biggest purchasers of music, this fact won’t sway the fear-mongers who are trying to prevent good technology from making the lives of consumers better.

It seems like the most obvious thing in the world that digital video recorders are bad news for TV networks. DVRs make it easier for viewers to record a show tonight and watch it four days down the road — or to capture it tonight after it ran four days ago. Some of them even enable viewers to save an entire season of a series to the DVR’s hard drive with one click of a button.

By further distorting the TV schedule, these VCRs in overdrive would appear to diminish the value of the advertising on which television networks rely. After all, many ads are time-sensitive. What’s the point of touting tomorrow’s release of a Hollywood blockbuster if people won’t see the tout until after the all-important first weekend?

And so, during a recent lunch hour, in a meeting room in Pasadena, the chief research officer of CBS presented TV critics with the other side of the story. And according to David Poltrack’s statistics, DVRs are just dandy for big networks like his.

Why?  Well, let’s look at some of the realities he found:

  • DVR penetration in the United States is at 12% to 15% of households, versus 8% last year
  • the public is adopting DVRs at a slower rate than some observers predicted, and the idea that a DVR revolution would sweep away the networks’ scheduling power has “been thoroughly discredited.”
  • DVR-equipped viewers of the big four U.S. networks still watch 90% of their shows live, although this figure drops to 82% for prime time
  • Sixty-six per cent of viewers who have recorded a show on DVR watch it by 6 a.m. the next morning, Mr. Poltrack said, and 80% watch within two days
  • DVRs will increase the total audience. Case in point: On U.S. television this autumn, two very popular shows, Grey’s Anatomy on ABC and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS, are going toe-to-toe at 9 p.m. on Tuesdays (this scheduling conflict does not occur in Canada)

Less PVRs (I call them PVRs, he says DVRs) than expected, slower growth, high same day/next-day viewing, extremely high live-TV viewership?  All kinds of crazy stuff.  The end result is for the vast majority of PVR owners, the devices have changed very little in peoples’ actual viewing habits.   Mr. Poltrak (the CBS researcher) also notes that people already skip commercials on VCRs, so PVRs won’t change that.  Plus, people “get” the ads, even at high speed or with only limited exposure.

His argument is that people get the point of ads even at a higher rate of speed (indeed, that kind of absorption of information is the underpinning of the roadside billboard industry). Mr. Poltrack observed that many commercials are now designed to remain comprehensible in fast-forward.

The end of the world does not appear to be imminent for the networks now.  But I’m sure someone will come along, brush the facts under a rug, and work on getting our wonderful congress to pass laws restricting the grand timesaving devices we call PVRs.

[tags]PVRs, network television, PVRs good for networks[/tags]

Sky marshals name innocents to meet quota?

(via Schneier’s Security Blog)
This is a story so absurd it’s hard to believe. On the other hand, this is a government organization we’re talking about, so who knows?

You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they’re reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.

“Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft … and they did nothing wrong,” said one federal air marshal.

These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR. Air marshals told 7NEWS that managers in Las Vegas created and continue to maintain this potentially dangerous quota system. “Do these reports have real life impacts on the people who are identified as potential terrorists?” 7NEWS Investigator Tony Kovaleski asked.

“Absolutely,” a federal air marshal replied.

. . .

Another federal air marshal said that not only is there a quota in Las Vegas for SDRs, but that “it directly reflects on (their) performance evaluations” and on how much money they make.

The director of the Air Marshal Service, Dana Brown, declined 7NEWS’ request for an interview on the quota system. But the agency points to a memo from August 2004 that said there is not a quota for submitting SDRs and which goes on to say, “I do not expect reports that are inaccurate or frivolous.” But, Las Vegas-based air marshals say the quota system remains in force, now more than two years after managers sent the original memos, and that it’s a mandate from management that impacts annual raises, bonuses, awards and special assignments.

. . .

One example, according to air marshals, occurred on one flight leaving Las Vegas, when an unknowing passenger, most likely a tourist, was identified in an SDR for doing nothing more than taking a photo of the Las Vegas skyline as his plane rolled down the runway.

. . .

Strange and other air marshals said the quota allows the government to fill a database with bad information.

A Las Vegas air marshal said he didn’t write an SDR every month for exactly that reason.

“Well, it’s intelligence information, and like any system, if you put garbage in, you get garbage out,” the air marshal said.

“I would like to see an investigation — a real investigation conducted into the ways things are done here,” the air marshal in Las Vegas said.

Although the agency strongly denies any presence of a quota system, Las Vegas-based air marshals have produced documents that show their performance review is directly linked to producing SDRs.

I have to agree with Schneier here, really, though.  This seems too insane to be real.  But with the Department of Homeland Security, stupidity seems to know no bounds.  I hope it’s not real.  I think it’s not real.  But I just can’t be certain.
[tags]Sky marshals, Department of Homeland Security, Government stupidity[/tags]

Sex good for men, women should sleep alone

The results of a study have come out that is sure to be a disappoint for men and good news for women.

A new study out of the University of Vienna concludes that men recall their dreams best after sex, while women have the best recollection if they’ve slept alone. The results come in the context of a larger study on sleep, where a subject pool of eight unmarried couples slept 10 nights together and 10 nights apart while scientists observed their rest patterns and tested their cognitive skills

[tags]Science, Sex, Another reason for women to fake a headache[/tags]

DHS releases top terrorist targets list

(via Schneier’s security blog)
Our government has wisely used our tax money to carefully analyze potential terrorist targets, narrowing the list from 160 targets a few years ago to a mere 77,000 targets now.  In case you are wondering if you are near a top terrorist target site, here are a few details from the linked article.

When it comes to homeland security, I give up.

I’ve tried to highlight the absurdity of trying to protect every cranny of our country from al-Qaida attack. I’ve critiqued everything from the waste of buying anti-terrorist locks for Sammamish City Hall to the illogic of not having security cameras outside our airport. And yes, I’ve resorted to that columnist stock-in-trade: mocking and satirizing.

. . .

And on that list of national assets are … 1,305 casinos! No doubt Muckleshoot made the cut (along with every other casino in our state).

The list has 234 restaurants. I have no idea if Dick’s made it. The particulars are classified. But you have to figure it did.

Why? Because here’s more of what the inspector general found passes for “critical infrastructure.” An ice-cream parlor. A tackle shop. A flea market. An Amish popcorn factory.

. . .

And yet … there is one more thing that’s got me wondering. The report says our state boasts 65 “national monuments and icons” — somehow twice as many as Washington, D.C.

There you have it.  Washington state has twice as many national monuments and icons as Washington, D.C.  I left out mention of the 700 critical mortuaries that are top terrorist targets, by the way.  I wonder if this list is an accurate view of what the federal government truly views as hot spots for terrorist attack, or just a big list of places where our congress-critters feel money needs to be spent on influential voters?

[tags]Top terrorist targets, Idiocy in government, OMGWTFBBG?!!1?![/tags]

Ooops! State department pwnz0rr3d.

(via boingboing)

Some days, things just don’t go your way. For the people responsible for US State Department computer and network security, it looks like that day was at least one day last month.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is recovering from large-scale computer break-ins worldwide over the past several weeks that appeared to target its headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, The Associated Press has learned.

I’ve worked computer security at government sites before.  This is the nightmare I think everyone at those sites has at least some times.

Investigators believe hackers stole sensitive U.S. information and passwords and implanted backdoors in unclassified government computers to allow them to return at will, said U.S. officials familiar with the hacking.

. . .

“The department did detect anomalies in network traffic, and we thought it prudent to ensure our system’s integrity,” department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said. Asked what information was stolen by the hackers, Cooper said, “Because the investigation is continuing, I don’t think we even know.” Continue reading “Ooops! State department pwnz0rr3d.”

Linux Read/Write NTFS driver

(via OSNews)

This is practically old news now, but the Linux NTFS team announced last Friday, July 14th, that a public release of the NTFS for Linux driver is now available.

Hello,

As part of the Linux-NTFS project, I’m happy to announce my contribution to ntfsmount and libntfs which resulted ntfs-3g, a read-write ntfs driver, capable for unlimited file creation and deletion.

The driver was successfully tested very exhaustively for a longer period of time by many ways and methods, creating and destroying millions of files and directories on newly created images, and on over 40 real, very diverse NTFS images collected over the last four years.

[tags]Linux NTFS driver, Linux, NTFS[/tags]

FDA likely to say no to bionic eye

LiveScience.com recently posted this article about the FDA’s refusal to approve a bionic eye. I changed the headline to indicate the FDA is likely to say no. Here’s why:

In the 1970s TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man,” the strapping young astronaut got a bionic eye. A U.S. company had hoped that next year that might be your grandmother. Not so fast, a federal advisory panel said Friday.

A tiny telescope designed to be implanted in the eyes of some elderly patients should not receive Food and Drug Administration approval, the panel recommended on a 10-3 vote.

Later in the article:

The FDA typically follows the recommendations of its outside panels of experts, but isn’t required to do so.

So it is likely the bionic eye will be rejected, but it isn’t a final decision yet. Now, on to the story of the eye.

The first-of-its-kind device is called the Implantable Miniature Telescope. The telephoto lens could enable some patients to do away with the special glasses and handheld telescopes they now use to compensate for the loss in central vision caused by age-related macular degeneration, according to VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies Inc., its manufacturer.

. . .

The device is designed to be implanted only in one eye, which would provide central vision. The other eye, left untouched, would be responsible for peripheral vision, leaving the brain to combine the two views to form a single image. Getting used to that could require patients to undergo professional rehabilitation, the FDA said.

The surgery to implant the telescope is more difficult than conventional cataract surgery and can lead to damage to the inside of the cornea, according to the company. Patients also may experience a higher rate of loss of cells lining the cornea, which can require removal of the device and a cornea transplant.

In clinical trials, 141 of 193 patients implanted with the device showed after a year improved distance and near visual acuity, defined as the sharpness of vision in reading an eye chart, according to FDA documents. Ten patients reported a loss in acuity in either distance or near vision. Doctors removed eight of the devices, four of them from patients dissatisfied with how they worked, FDA documents show.

And more at the above link. And as a co-worker pointed out, that annoying sound whenever you use the bionics would probably drive people crazy. More so than everything slowing down around you when using a bionic leg.

[tags]Bionic eye, FDA[/tags]

Bush’s threat to veto stem cell funding is morally bankrupt?

(via boingboing)
Let me start by saying that I am not linking to this article because I agree nor because I disagree. I simply don’t know enough about the stem cell research debate to judge whether or not it is good or bad to perform the research or limit money for doing so. I am linking to this article that is critical of Bush because I find the argument put forth compelling and intelligent, and it shows a view of the situation that I had not considered before.

Over at Salon.com, Scott Rosenberg makes a good case for the claims behind the stem cell research veto being bogus. I’m still thinking about this and trying to decide how I feel about the whole issue. I need to learn more about stem cell research and what limits, if any, the 2001 funding stops caused, as well as what gains we can realistically expect if stem cell research is increased.

President Bush appears poised for the first veto of his presidency. The cause that has finally pushed him to reject Congressional legislation? An attempt to expand funding for stem cell research that Bush hobbled back in 2001.

For millions of Americans, the potential fruits of stem cell research — in the form of cures to dangerous diseases — are a serious matter with grave personal import. For President Bush, the issue has always served as a political football.

On the one hand, Bush argues that the destruction of human embryos (microscopic organisms made up of a few cells) is a kind of killing. His press spokesman, Tony Snow, adopting the supercharged cant of anti-abortion activists, referred to it recently as “murder.” In order to stop such “murder,” Bush agreed in 2001 to limit all federal funding of stem cell research to a handful of pre-existing “lines” of cells — cells that had been created specifically for research. His argument was, let’s not use tax dollars to pay for the destruction of more embryos for the sake of research.

Here is why Bush’s position is a joke: Thousands and thousands of embryos are destroyed every year in fertility clinics. They are created in petri dishes as part of fertility treatments like IVF; then they are discarded.

Hmmmmm. To my eye, this is a well written article. I think it’s worth reading, regardless of which side of the issue you fall on. The above snip is substantial and informative, but not all of the article. Follow the link and read for yourself.
[tags]Stem cell research, Bush veto[/tags]

CinemaNow to Offer Burnable Film Downloads

I’ll be watching this to see how it works out. I’m interested in the limitations put on the burned discs.

CinemaNow will soon start selling downloads of popular films that can be transferred, or “burned,” to blank DVDs for use with home DVD players, and such Hollywood heavies as Walt Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have already signed on to provide content, the Associated Press reports via the New York Post.

. . .

In the past, CinemaNow users couldn’t watch film downloads on their televisions unless they connected them to computers, the AP reports.

. . .

Hollywood studios have been hesitant to adopt the online download sales medium for films due to piracy concerns and the possible cannibalization of retail stores sales, but advances in encryption and additional digital rights protection technologies have led them to experiment with the concept.

. . .

Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony’s home entertainment division, told the AP, “It’s a test of the distribution and security architecture,” and he agreed that studios would license more content once the system is vetted.

The company will offer films starting at $8.99 each, and they’ll include all the features that a DVD purchased in a retail store would, according to the AP, though once a copy is burned, its quality will be slightly lower than an official studio DVD. CinemaNow’s film downloads will also be able to be transferred to DVD only once, but customers will be able to repeatedly watch the movies on their computers, according to the AP.

I’m interested in what DRM protections they’ll be using, and whether the burned discs can be backed up. I know there are piracy issues here, but there are also issues of me being able to keep a movie I’ve paid for and should legally be allowed to watch whenever I want. At least, if I understand what they are doing, that seems to be an issue to me.

[tags]CinemaNow, Legally downloadable movies[/tags]