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Calgary Herald:

Do you see what I see in the new copyright Bill C-32? Amid all the noise about new rights for users, upon closer scrutiny, this bill, rather than granting new rights, can effectively block users from making use of any and all of their rights, even existing ones. It is true that this bill now recognizes rights that we all thought we already had, like viewing our legally purchased Irish video in Canada, or playing our Leonard Cohen song on our CD and copying it to our iPod, or watching Desperate Housewives on Monday instead of Sunday evening. But even the new rights granted to teachers to use excerpts from Catcher in the Rye or clips from the Anne of Green Gables television show are meaningless if vendors choose to use a digital lock.

Globe and Mail:

The problem here is twofold. Practically, it puts all the power in the hands of digital content creators. They can wave a wand and – more or less arbitrarily – declare their content locked and beyond the reach of the hoi polloi and their “fair use.”

But more important, I think, is the fact that giving locks special legal status doesn’t make intuitive sense. If you want people to follow a law in their day-to-day lives, and you don’t want to create a police state to enforce it, you have to meet them halfway on the grounds of moral reasoning. And turning digital locks into unbreakable magic seals – as opposed to judging what the user does after they break a lock – is counterintuitive.

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She states “the Prime Minister’s Office’s position was, move quickly, satisfy the United States.” When Bernier and then-Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda protested, the PMO replied “we don’t care what you do, as long as the U.S. is satisfied.”

[...]

[I]t would appear that the PMO’s decision to side with Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore in requiring strict anti-circumvention rules reflects a long-term decision to prioritize U.S. interests on copyright ahead of the national interest.

With a new copyright bill to be unveiled shortly, all the more reason to keep an eye out and make your voices heard.

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I’ve written a few times before about the controversy over whether cell phones (a.k.a. mobile phones in most of the rest of the world) cause brain cancer, concluding on more than one occasion that the evidence does not support a link. For example, there has not been a large increase in brain cancer or other cancers claimed to be due to cell phone radiation in the 15 to 20 years since the use of cell phones took off back in the 1990s, nor has any study shown a convincing correlation between cell phone use and brain cancer.

Of course, one would not expect a priori, based on what is known about basic science, that cell phone radiation would cause cancer. After all, the development of cancer in general ultimately requires mutations in critical genes regulating cell growth and development. For an outside treatment to cause such mutations, as far as we know, requires the ability to cause DNA damage through the breaking of chemical bonds. Ionizing radiation can do this, as can certain cehmicals and chemotherapeutic agents. Indeed, that’s how these agents work against cancer because cancer cells tend to be more sensitive to DNA damaging agents than normal cells due to defective DNA repair mechanisms. Thus, it is highly implausible based on basic science that cell phone radiation could cause cancer. It’s not homeopathy level-implausible, but it’s pretty implausible.

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I’m going to have to lower the mattress in his crib – he’s making attempts to pull himself upright even as I speak, and although not yet successful, it’s only a matter of time… bless his adventurous little heart!!

Anyway, here are a couple of updates from the web:

• Via BoingBoing: A hilarious chart illustrating one of the problems with the movie industry – the product you pay for is far inferior to the product you can get for free. Obviously, people want the better product, even if it is illegal:
• School in the states gives their students laptops, but doesn’t tell them that they can turn the webcams on at any time. Even when said laptop is at home. In their bedroom. 1984, anyone? (But they only use this feature if the laptop has been stolen. Honest!)
• BoingBoing has a page for ‘Games to Get‘ – a list of their recommended games. Most are small, indie titles that are quite interesting, that you would otherwise never hear about. Check it out!
• CHIP and PIN – used in Europe for a while and being pushed in North America – is totally flawed (at least, the European implementation). What good is relying on the PIN & chip on the card for verification when you can trick the device into thinking it’s checked everything without actually checking? (via Schneier and BoingBoing)

And that’s about all for now… OK, back to work!!

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via Science-Based Medicine » The Early Course of Autism.

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Had a very laid back birthday. Some yummy dinner, and cheesecake. Mmm….

Otherwise, what caught my eye? Well:

• Liquid Glass. Comes as a spray-on can. Apparently, it’s very very awesome.
• Very, very interesting documentary: “digital nation” on PBS. See it online here. (via BoingBoing) (Anyone have a downloadable link?)
• Kids’ Lingerie? Boy, Disney’s expanding their market to child porn, I guess…

And finally, an interesting article on how computing is moving away from being open-ended and tinkerable. This hit home – I have fond memories of playing around with BASIC on our old PC XT computer, and making all kinds of programs. If you can’t do this sort of thing on newer computers, a lot of the mystery & allure that gets kids to really explore and learn computers will be gone – and we’ll be breeding a generation of nothing but lusers.

When DVD Jon was arrested after breaking the CSS encryption algorithm, he was charged with “unauthorized computer trespassing.” That led his lawyers to ask the obvious question, “On whose computer did he trespass?” The prosecutor’s answer: “his own.”

[...]

Once upon a time, Apple made the machines that made me who I am. I became who I am by tinkering. Now it seems they’re doing everything in their power to stop my kids from finding that sense of wonder. Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of “jailbreaks” stop working, and people have to find new ways to break into their own computers.

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The cost of health care around the world Boing Boing.

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We have minority governments in Canada that govern like majorities. Obama had–and still has–a legislature with a rock-solid majority of Democrats in both houses, but he’s governed as though his party were in the minority.

…

Obama was sent an ultimatum by the electors in one of the most liberal states in the union. It wasn’t: please compromise more. It wasn’t: don’t forget to track down all the nuances before you make the slightest move.

We wanted accessible healthcare, they said. You handed the legislative process over to a gaggle of conservatives, and ended up with two patchwork bills that promise a windfall for insurance companies.

We wanted an end to ceaseless war that drains our resources and kills our young men and women, they said. It’s not stopping terrorism. But you sent a whack more troops off to Afghanistan instead–clutching the Nobel Peace Prize as you did so.

We wanted no more torture and extra-Constitutional measures and atrocities, if only because our country is getting a black eye over them. But Guantanamo is still there, a year after you took office. Prisoners may have been murdered there, and the cover-up is happening on your watch. The Blackwater killers in Iraq got off after your Justice Department threw the case. And you have embraced the same notion of Executive privilege that shielded your predecessor from Constitutional restraints.

We wanted a recovering economy and appropriate punishment for the Wall Street malefactors who did our country infinitely more harm than the terrorists. Instead, 2009 was the Year of the Bonus for the very people that got us into the recession in the first place. Bonuses that we effectively paid for ourselves with bailout money.

We wanted change. We got the same old, same old, same old, same old.

Yes, we’re pissed off enough to put a homophobic Cosmo nudie with a taste for waterboarding into the Senate. Did that get your attention?

I think Obama lost his lustre quite a while back. Will he actually do something after this warning shot? Knowing politicians – hell no.

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