Some of the entries on a legal blog by a practicing lawyer and former student of Professor Nesson's and an article about Nesson in the NY Times are not very flattering. I wonder why Tenenbaum picked this guy to "defend" him? He sounds as crazy as a waltzing pissant.

If Robert Johnson Died In 1938... Why Is His Music Still Covered By Copyright?

This is the kind of absurd situation copyright law was originally intended to prevent. But leave it to Big Media and their bought-and-paid-for whores in congress to circumvent that outcome every time. Money talks.

TechDirt.com blog post here.

I found this news item at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website about a survey of doctors at a medical convention about some of the things their patients do that piss 'em off. Hint: Don't call 'em by their first name unless they are friends of yours outside the office. The article w/the list is found here.

Psychology Today has an article by a practicing journalist about why journalists tend to be left of center politically.

"Journalism," the PT article says, "like social work, tends to attract individuals with a keen interest in bettering the world. In other words, journalists self-select based on a desire to help others. Socialism, with its 'spread the wealth' mentality intended to help society's underdogs, sounds ideal."

I found this article to be pretty persuasive and its evidence while anecdotal seem to have a large degree of verisimilitude and it would be worthwhile for some empirical evidence sifting to find out how true it all it is. I found it interesting anyhow.

From CNet comes news that an engineered fabric that neutralizes the effect of tasers has been developed. Too bad only cops can buy it though.

"Thor Shield is a polyester fabric bonded to a conducted material that effectively loops the electricity coming from a nonlethal electricity weapon back to the weapon.

'If you are hit, the Taser gun won't work,' said Greg Schultz, co-owner of G2 Consulting in Tucson, Ariz., which invented Thor Shield. 'We return the voltage back to the gun.'

Tasers and other electricity weapons work by jolting a person's body with enough electricity to overwhelm their neuromuscular system. When fired, a Taser launches two probes, connected to the gun by wires. When the probes hit a person's body, they create a circuit and 50,000 volts that pass through an individual's system." link here

Go figure?

The "victim" here is an unknown quantity. He seems to be agitated and is clearly a religious nut, and I have no info about what he did to attract police attention either. The thing to note here is that he is being tased while being held down by two police officers to no effect and then pushes them off and escapes on foot! I guess this is the one in a million scenario where the taser seems not to work. I remember the same thing happened in the Rodney King situation too if I recall correctly. video link here

The story complete with a color pic found here.

"Because the distance to the supernova remnant is about 7,000 light-years, that explosion actually happened 7,000 years before the light reached Earth in 1006. Shockwaves in the remnant accelerate particles to extreme energies and are thought to be a source of the mysterious cosmic rays."

Better to blow up than to fade away...

It weighs a mere 1.3 kg, assembles/disassembles in under a minute, shoots inexpensive .22 ammo and it floats! The Armalite/Charter Arms/Henry Repeating Arms AR-7 Survival Rifle that is. And to further endear it to geeky gun owners it is also customizable as hell too. See a short homemade video about the AR-7 here. If a geek likes guns at all this is one they'll like for sure.

EscapePod.org has a short story podcast commenting on that very theme. Hmm...

This /. post about tracking sex offenders by their cellphones should remind one and all that anybody else can track you too by the same means. If you truly want privacy (or what passes for privacy these days) you really have to make more of an effort. I am as conflicted as anyone else about this too. Some days..I just don't give a shit; other days I do. My laziness mode says "who really cares about your whereabouts 24/7 anyhow?" But the thought of it being possible still bugs me. That movie Enemy of the State kinda made me into a permanent paranoiac.

In doing some research on the subject of ceramic knife blades versus steel blades I discovered that most manufacturers add powdered metal to the ceramic mix solely for the purpose of making ceramic blades able to be discovered by metal detecting security devices most commonly found at airports and government buildings. Hmm.... go figure.

The principal ceramic blade ingredient is zirconium oxide which isn't detected by most of these devices. It makes me wonder if these knife makers are doing this are just being civic minded or are quaking with fear at the thought of being subject to lawsuits and/or being fearful of having their products being made illegal.

Wow. That frickin' putz should talk. He banned me from the Secular Right blog for making comments that he didn't like. Not vulgar, rude, or otherwise trolly kinda stuff mine you, just stuff he didn't agree with. Upshot: If he doesn't like what you have to say, well... tough shit! Go start your own damn blog then Mofo! And it wasn't even his post I was responding to. Called me a moron and then blocks me from the site. What a guy. What an ass. Oh, well that blog is pretty much toast anyhow. When the owners act that way it's pretty easy to see why. Stringent moderation is one thing but how someone can act so heavy handed and then bitch about other people being dictatorial is pretty ironic.

From a link @ Ars Technica comes this story about *cloaking* technology. Except it doesn't really cloak though (as in render invisible), but ahh...it's a start anyhow. Link here.

I saw this review for a outdoor/hunting/whatever general purpose knife on the Wired.com gear review page and was immediately shocked to see it referred to as a *Bowie Knife*. WTF? Originally Jim Bowie developed and made famous (or infamous) a large bladed hybrid dagger/short-sword combination specifically for use as a combat weapon. Bowie died at the Alamo presumably trying to cut & stab at the Mexican soldiers overrunning the place with one (or so the legend goes). And so it's hard for me to imagine Bowie thinking this little outdoorsman wannabe string-cutter qualifying as as even a belt knife let alone a Bowie. America today is overrun with marketing BS as history and with Americans who are sissified nimrods who don't know any better. Sheesh.

Not that anyone would really need a Bowie Knife for actual combat purposes these days, but dammit that is what they were designed for.

Intel seems to think so. I found this headline at the Ars Technica website today: Intel tells EU court antitrust fine violated its *human rights*.

Wherever does such bullsh*t notions of the personhood of a business enterprise come from? Rather than go into great length on this subject myself I recommend you read this link: Why Corporations Are Not People, And The Unsavory Consequences of Pretending That They Are by Mike Hoy. Hoy explains it better than I could.