The first direct legal challenge to the DMCA was filed at 9 a.m. EDT today by EFF-sponsored attorneys at the United States District Court in Trenton, New Jersey on behalf of Princeton Professor Edward W. Felten and others who helped crack a series of digital watermarking schemes as part of an SDMI Challenge sponsored by the RIAA. Named defendents include the RIAA, SDMI, Verance Corporation (producer of one of the cracked watermarked schemes) and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

What can you really say about Steven Seagal's Exit Wounds that everybody doesn't already know? It's genial, and horrendously-acted (cept for DMX); the story line is absurd; the writing is mindless. It's also fun. There's no point in wasting much time discussing this predictable action film, except that it does suggest something far more interesting: the exit of the Hollywood Superhero. Technology is the Superhero now. (Read more.)

Yes ladies and gentleman, its Rob's favorite time of year: No not the seasons with the fat red-suited man, or the candle thing, or that manger thing, but rather the time when the new Disney flick hits theaters. Its been a long time since Tarzan, and I've watched around 250 hours of anime since then, so click on to read my full review of the flick. (The short spoiler free version: its fun, but its very kid oriented.)

Thursday, I flew to Charlotte to ask executives of the Pinkerton Special Services Group to scrap or modify WAVE America, a "school safety" Web site that encourages schoolkids to anonymously turn in classmates they consider dangerous. We brawled politely for hours over chicken salad, iced tea and fries about school safety, oddball profiling, privacy and reality. Although righteously armed with some amazing and eloquent e-mailed screeds, reports, quotes, studies and pleas from Slashdotters, my expectations were low. I returned with a penetrating glimpse into the corporatist soul. (Read more).

Matthew Mastracci has sent in the first in a series of features comparing the various productivity type apps under Linux. This week is an application I haven't used since college: Word Processors. Specifically he looks KOffice's KWord and Applixware's ApplixWords. Other word processors (including StarOffice Writer, Corel's WordPerfect 8, AbiWord and KLyX will follow).

"Man In The Moon" may be the best holiday movie of the year so far, even though Jim Carrey is already much more of a comedic legend than Andy Kaufman, the man he portrays.

You may remember a few weeks ago when we posed the question What is the greatest hacks. Well Derek Glidden has compiled the most popular selections from that discussion, and he presents below the winners. I was pretty surprised by some of the choices, but I think its a great list, with hacks spanning all sorts of areas of human creativity. Enjoy.

The news from the Yuppie capitol wasn't nearly as anarchic or confusing as much of the media has suggested (not surprisingly, they are already blaming the Net). In fact, it was angry, focused, and overdue. The big battle of the 21st century - corporatism vs. the individual - is now officially underway.

Thanks to the many geeks and nerds who answered my SOS the other day about how to use Orlando as a way to write about technology and the future. One of the many standout e-mails was from a genuine Disney Imagineer, with whom I had a clandestine and revealing meeting last night on a deserted EPCOT bench. This was only one of several mystical and powerful encounters with pilgrims flocking to the world's new techno-mecca. Next: Disney's Carousel of Progress and the lost model of his dream city of tomorrow.

Apple's G4, launched in a blizzard of savvy hype, heralds the second Age of Apple. Although this one is very different from the first (for one thing, Apple is a lot greedier), Apple's string of successes says a lot about the fact that individual creativity will beat out corporate marketers every single time.

Weblogs -- described by one of their creators as the "pirate radio stations" of the Web, are a new, personal, and determinedly non-hostile evolution of the electric community. They are also the freshest example of how people use the Net to make their own, radically different new media. A look at Weblogs plus a list of a few identifiable existing species in the electric community. Feel free, of course, to add your own.

I've seen it. A gang of LinuxExpo attendees and exhibitors ranging from Larry Augustin and Tim O'Reily all the way to Raster and Mandrake and lowly scum like Hemos and I raided a local NC theater. A large number of the people in the group had already seen the movie, but I went in as open minded as I could be. My review will attempt to be as spoiler free as possible, but no guarantees. The short review is that I really liked it, but with a few disclaimers. It is not a perfect movie, but it ain't bad.

Enlightenment Philosophers battled for a revolutionary freedom beyond what they called "The Holy Circle" that dominated their culture. The wall-busting Net, it turns out is also busting up the "Holy Circles" of our time. The Net isn't just one revolution, but a series of social revolutions. More and more, it's beginning to look like the first Enlightenment never ended, but just took a breather until the Digital Age arrived. Second in a series.

Kevin Forge has written in with an interesting piece called Lawyers use WordPerfect. It talks about his view on free software vs. commercial software, and especially commercial software on free Operating Systems. Check it out.

So last night I went and saw Terry Gilliam's latest film- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Simply put, the story follows a couple of guys in the early 70's, who acquire an amazing amount of drugs, and go to Las Vegas for a bit. Hit the link below to read my review.