http://www.google.com/search?q=broadband+availability

How to be safe(r) online

Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote for my law school's paper about online security w/ some suggestions about passwords. (I doubt there's any interest in the whole article but here's the link if you are for some reason: http://law.gsu.edu/thedocket/node/519 )
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1) Stop using the same password for everything. At a minimum come up with a base password and then append (or prepend) it with something unique for each application. If your base password is "fido" then for Twitter you could use "fidotwit" or "twitfido."

2) Don't use "Fido" as your password. One of the most common passwords is the name of the user's pet (Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked because the cracker knew her dog's name was Tinkerbell). Teenage guys often use the type of car they drive. Parents often use the names of their children. Law geeks often use the name of their favorite Justice.

3) Change your passwords occasionally. Just because you haven't noticed anything amiss doesn't mean that your emails aren't being accessed. If you have a base password of "fido" (which you won't because you're faithfully adhering to #2, you might change it to "fidomarch2010."

4) Avoid dictionary words (even non-English words). One fairly simple technique is to come up with a phrase that has some meaning to you and then use the first letter of each word. "I love taking Fido to the park when it's sunny" becomes "iltfttpwis" which could be used as your base password. Applications that allow you to use upper-case and lower-case characters as well as numbers and symbols exponentially increase the complexity of your password. "I love taking Fido 2 the park when it's sunny!" then becomes "IltF2tpwis!" and you have a fairly robust base password; when combined with a variation for each site and occasional changes you should have a decent password system.

Our corporate overlords will never allow it. Even judges are only as good as the corporations pay for.

Fortunately the Constitution has something to say about copyrights. Check out this Congressionally-mandated report about the feared impact of DMCA on the first sale doctrine.

DMCA Section 104 Report

A plausible argument can be made that section 1201 may have a negative effect on the operation of the first sale doctrine in the context of works tethered to a particular device. In the case of tethered works, even if the work is on removable media, the content cannot be accessed on any device other than the one on which it was originally made. This process effectively prevents disposition of the work. However, the practice of tethering a copy of a work to a particular hardware device does not appear to be widespread at this time, at least outside the context of electronic books. Should this practice become widespread, it could have serious consequences for the operation of the first sale doctrine, although the ultimate effect on consumers is unclear. (emphasis mine)

And here's an interesting law review article about the most significant obstacle to applying first sale to digital rights "digital exhaustion." Digital Exhaustion: UCLA Law Review, Vol. 58

Amazon (and publishers) are much better off if they can keep Congress from either creating legislation or the Courts from creating precedent about the first sale doctrine as it applies to digital media; one or the other is going to happen if they don't treat digital media more like traditional media.
And that's why Amazon is begrudgingly offering this "lending" feature.

If I were Amazon I would be doing more than this because the first-sale doctrine will eventually be held to include digital goods. The more that Amazon does now to treat ebooks like physical goods the longer that they'll be able to continue before they are explicitly required to do so. The fact that their current licensing scheme has lasted as long as it has surprises me; this has to be at the back of their minds.

And FYI, libraries around the world (in countries including the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Mexico) are already offering ebooks online. Check out http://search.overdrive.com/ListLibraries.aspx

If the current network availability is poor and the new network availability is managed by the college then I'm assuming that the issue comes down to preventing the students from access the college's wi-fi during the exam period. The college's network might be able to block access to wi-fi for those students enrolled in your class during that exam period.

To bypass this roadblock your students might "borrow" the credentials of a friend not enrolled in your class to still gain access but this approach might still be fairly effective (and without expense).

In 2007 Verizon blocked text messages from Naral, an abortion rights group claiming they had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages. They reversed position quickly but not before a significant media backlash:

ConsumerAffairs article: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/09/verizon_abortion.html

Although there might be some way of parsing this to make sense to somebody more familiar with Philosophy I'm inclined to think that it could just be a typo. The paragraphs that follow seemed much more approachable. Possibly it should read as:

"So in virtue of that, is it true that there could have been Aliens when in fact there are none, and when, moreover, nothing that exists in fact could have been an Alien?"

Well... maybe this could be the result that Bilski should have been and SCOTUS will hold that software is not patentable subject matter.

(fingers crossed)

The charges have been dropped. "In a brief statement Saturday, chief prosecutor Eva Finne says: 'I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape.'" http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8-DEMtAE9q4i4ySQ0eV_qZefmRQD9HNV4A00

My non-profit has run a contest for the past three years. Maybe I've not been doing things the "right" way but it's only after an entry has actually won a prize that the developer assigns any rights to my organization. If they don't win then I get nothing. If they do win they always have the option of not assigning the rights (and concomitantly not receiving a cash prize!).

I'm not sure why somebody would willingly assign away their rights just for a chance to win and frankly I question the value of what a non-winning developer is receiving in exchange for the rights assignment. A "chance" doesn't seem like it would be adequate consideration.

Interesting - I thought they only lived in gardens and TV commercials.

You're right but Marketing shot down the name "fundamentally flawed."

Didn't test well.

Intent to defraud includes advertising that "fails to reveal facts material in the light of such representations or material with respect to consequences which may result from the use of the commodity to which the advertisement relates under the conditions prescribed in said advertisement, or under such conditions as are customary or usual."
Dissemination of false advertisements http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/15/2/I/52

So is Steve Jobs going to be punished with "imprisonment for not more than six months"?
False advertisements; penalties http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/15/2/I/54

I agree that the question would benefit from some clarification.

The criteria in determining the success of a creative work would depend on one's perspective:

• Artist / Author / "creator": Although each "creator" may have their own, private definition of success, I would imagine that common criteria include an ability to earn a living income through the creative work, the respect of their peers, awards, etc.
• Society: Once society is exposed to any creative work theoretically society has been affected to some degree; it could be plausibly argued that any impact to society is a "success." If so, the only "failure" that comes to mind is a creative work that never saw the light of day and so will never have any impact on society whatsoever.
• RIAA: A successful creative work is that which is profitable. (But is a work still successful if it returns a profit lower than industry standards? How about if it's hugely profitable - breaking every record - but pirating is reducing the potential profits by 20%?)

Here, the question is about creative works that were "a financial failure" with respect to the RIAA and their claims of financial impacts from piracy so we should look to how a success would be defined from RIAA's perspective. Interestingly, a failure in the eyes of the RIAA might still be a success from the viewpoint of both the artists who created that work and from society in general.

This is not like "[...] used book retailers, music traders, software peddlers, refurbished computer sellers."

While concert promoters may have some of the same issues with scalpers that a book publisher has with resale of a book at a used book store their distinctions are far far greater than any commonalities:

1) Supply: books, music, software, and hardware are generally all materials that are in (nearly) unlimited supply, the tickets to a concert that has a finite # of seats and a finite # of performances is by-its-nature limited. When there are shortages of new hardware (e.g. game consoles at launch) that is a more apt analogy but again there is an inherent difference in that although production will ramp up and one can eventually buy a Wii, the same is unlikely true of seeing a specific performer in concert in your city or town; the scarcity of supply is what drives the profits of professional "ticket resellers."

2) Value: whereas a book that's already been read could still have the same amount of value to a second purchaser as did the first, the same is obviously not true of a concert ticket purchaser. Sure, somebody might want a used concert ticket to frame and hang on their wall but this is clearly not the same value as the person using the ticket to attend the concert.

The only thing that I imagine a concert promoter and a book publisher would have in common here is a perceived mentality that "nobody should make money off of this but me." Outside of that how in the world does a concert compare to software or a book? In a world of bad Slashdot analogies this may be the worst I've seen that received a +5 "interesting."