"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Hot Coffee Lawsuit

I call bullshit.

The City of LA is suing Take Two Interactive, parent of Rockstar Games and publisher of Grand Theft Auto, after a sexy easter egg was uncovered in San Andreas. Here's the bit that threatens our children's sanity. It's not even titilating, and I like that it includes the message "Nice guys finish second," which is a good idea to spread among the gaming youth, and IT'S TOTALLY RIDICULOUS THAT THIS SOMEHOW REPRESENTS A CRIME.

The game is already faimously violent. It carries a M rating for Mature. You shouldn't let your 10 year old play it, probably. But this "porn" scene isn't going to warp the mind of any child.

Oh, and Rockey is running for State Attorney General. Coincidence?

And he's a Democrat. Nice work picking up Joementum's methodology. Way to dump on the future of your party, guys (see below).

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Great Moment From BarCamp

Aaron and I were just talking about this from BarCamp a couple weeks ago. There was one session which was a "realtime Ruby on Rails development demo" where the crowd would give a task and the coder would make it happen in Ruby on Rails (with his workspace on the projector) while we all ate lunch. Interesting idea.

The coolest part wasn't just that the guy did the task (he did; Ruby is cool), but that there were two other kids off on the side who sort of announced as the end of lunch drew near, "hey are you done yet? Team JavaScript is almost ready."

JavaScript, for non-nerds, is the redheaded stepchild of web-programming languages. But they made it happen in the same time as the Ruby on Rails (the flashy new thing) developer did. Granted these guys were serious JavaScripters, but nevertheless, it was a great moment.

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Stanford iTunes U

Pretty interesting: Apple and Stanford teaming up to put lectures, symposeums, etc online for audio consumption.

On the one hand this is great because it open sources knowledge. Good move by Standforf. Hopefully other universities follow suit, and someone sets up an independent service to aggregate and rate the content so that people can skim the cream for distance learning. Dunno how Apple's DRM would affect these kinds of second-generation uses, but hopefully people will hack around it where needed.

More colleges and educational institutions should get on this bandwaggon. I could see some really interesting educational work being done here. By the time I have adolescent kids it could be a whole new ballgame. Pretty exciting.

On the other hand, the marketing edge is pretty consumer-elitist. "Your classes are iPod ready!" Though I suppose anyone who's going to Stanford probably has a computer and probably an iPod too.

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Today in Information Freedom

Bumped, because someone did something awesome:

Bert Gonzo Protest

Well, like I say, the kids are allright. CNN story. Link via Zack.

Now for some unhappy news. Google KowTows to the Great Firewall of China, taking steps to censor its search results (and presumably all it's other services) for it's Chinese-language version. Leading american corporations continue to prop up a repressive regime in the name of profit.

In light of the fact that China's Communist Party maintains control through a stranglehold on information as much as through brute force (they're a very 21st-Century autocracy), this is also worth noting: the White House is witholding any documentaion of its response to Hurricane Katrina, and will not make time for any staff to testify before Congress. Yeah, because, you know, what your King President did in response to a cataclysmic natural disaster is, like, none of your business. He has the divine right executive priviledge.

Oh well, it's not the end of the world. I was reading last night about young reform-minded people in Iran, how far up shit creek they are. These are people who are my age and younger, being followed around by paramilitary police, getting dragged out of their houses at night and tortured in secret prisons, all just for wanting to be journalists and maybe question the the unquestionability of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Poor bastards.

Though on the other hand: T-Franks says WMD attack == Military Government, which would probably suck ass. That link goes to the wingnuttarific NewsMax, so be forewarned.

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Today in Information Freedom

Bumped, because someone did something awesome:

Bert Gonzo Protest

Well, like I say, the kids are allright. CNN story. Link via Zack.

Now for some unhappy news. Google KowTows to the Great Firewall of China, taking steps to censor its search results (and presumably all it's other services) for it's Chinese-language version. Leading american corporations continue to prop up a repressive regime in the name of profit.

In light of the fact that China's Communist Party maintains control through a stranglehold on information as much as through brute force (they're a very 21st-Century autocracy), this is also worth noting: the White House is witholding any documentaion of its response to Hurricane Katrina, and will not make time for any staff to testify before Congress. Yeah, because, you know, what your King President did in response to a cataclysmic natural disaster is, like, none of your business. He has the divine right executive priviledge.

Oh well, it's not the end of the world. I was reading last night about young reform-minded people in Iran, how far up shit creek they are. These are people who are my age and younger, being followed around by paramilitary police, getting dragged out of their houses at night and tortured in secret prisons, all just for wanting to be journalists and maybe question the the unquestionability of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Poor bastards.

Though on the other hand: T-Franks says WMD attack == Military Government, which would probably suck ass. That link goes to the wingnuttarific NewsMax, so be forewarned.

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9 days to internet at home

Well, it only took me 4 hours on the phone and a faxed utility bill, but Time Warner and Earthlink will soon be feeding my info-jonze.

This will be good news for my productivity, espeically on side-projects. I have a hard time getting any real work done without being online, and having the ability to hang out at home and do that will be nice again. As it is, once I'm done with Trellon work I'm generally so fed up with wherever it is I'm hanging out that I go straight home.

Plus I've calculated I can save about $40 a month by not buying coffee and bagels at various cafes every day (I'm avging close to $10/day in food and tips!). Even if I only work at home 3 days a week, the cost savings on food alone will offset the cost of data.

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Hack the Vote -- Diebold's Response

As I noted below, a security researcher in Florida did a proof of concept hack on a Diebold voting box. Diebold's response:

Diebold has publicly denounced the Leon County tests as being invalid. In fact, the vendor contended that Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho's decision to sponsor the hacking attempts were potential violations of licensing agreements and intellectual property rights. In a letter to Sancho on June 8, Diebold said Sancho had committed a "very foolish and irresponsible act."

This is fucking rediculous. The integrity of a democracy cannot be the "intellectual property" of a private corporation.

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Hack the Vote -- Diebold's Response

As I noted below, a security researcher in Florida did a proof of concept hack on a Diebold voting box. Diebold's response:

Diebold has publicly denounced the Leon County tests as being invalid. In fact, the vendor contended that Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho's decision to sponsor the hacking attempts were potential violations of licensing agreements and intellectual property rights. In a letter to Sancho on June 8, Diebold said Sancho had committed a "very foolish and irresponsible act."

This is fucking rediculous. The integrity of a democracy cannot be the "intellectual property" of a private corporation.

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Hack The Vote -- Florida Does It

The WaPo Reports:

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.

This is the work of a state employee who's tasked with maintaining ballot security. He's showing that vote-hacking is emminantly possible. Maybe if enough of these sorts of stories get out, election officials will fix their systems before this fall's balloting. However, I still think the threat of a widespread "hack the vote" activist effort would spur them to get their rears in gear.

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Hack The Vote -- Florida Does It

The WaPo Reports:

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.

This is the work of a state employee who's tasked with maintaining ballot security. He's showing that vote-hacking is emminantly possible. Maybe if enough of these sorts of stories get out, election officials will fix their systems before this fall's balloting. However, I still think the threat of a widespread "hack the vote" activist effort would spur them to get their rears in gear.

Read More

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