Category Archives: Opinion/Blogs
The Alan Lomax Collection
NPR: “Folklorist Alan Lomax spent his career documenting folk music traditions from around the world.” Now, nearly ten years after his death, thousands of the songs and interviews he recorded are available for free online, many for the first time. ”It’s part of what Lomax envisioned for [his] collection — long before the age of the Internet.” (Mr. Lomax, Previously on MeFi) […]
Christine Assange’s Talking Points
[WL Central] Christine Assange, mother of WikiLeaks founder and Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, has spent many long months reaching out to supporters and urging them to contact their local political representatives. Recognising that many politicians do not even know the true story behind WikiLeaks and her son’s legal battles, she asks supporters to give them the facts […]
On pirates and piracy
[O'Reilly Radar - Mike Loukides] [...] Even more fundamentally, there is no such thing as creativity that doesn’t rely on the past. Sometimes the links are very subtle and hidden; sometimes they’re out in the open, and we don’t notice them only because we’ve declared Bach and Beethoven “great composers” and forgotten the popular music of […]
3 Thoughts on the MegaUpload Bust | A.C.
[Adam Curry] Reading legal documents is a hobby of mine. I just finished reading the 72 page indictment of the ‘Mega Conspiracy’, as the feds call it, and have 3 thoughts: 1. Megaupload was a pirate site and everyone knows it. 2. The Dutch guy is an idiot for sending so much confidential information on email. What was […]
We are the lobbyists | Jeff Jarvis
[Buzz Machine - Jeff Jarvis] The internet has helped untold publics to form. Yesterday, the internet became a public. Or rather, millions of people who care about internet freedom used the net to organize and defend it against efforts to control and harm it. The SOPA-PIPA blackout got attention in media that previously all but ignored the issue, whether out […]
SOPA is a Red Herring
[Adam Curry] As usual, the bought and paid for self-fulfilling tech press is missing the elephant in the room. The blogosphere discussion surrounding a self-imposed ‘blackout’ of “key” websites and services that we apparently can’t live without, is scheduled for this wednesday. All in protest of proposed legislation in the house and senate. I submit this is a […]
Bank of America ATMs In San Francisco Turned Into Truth Machines
Rainforest Action Network activists took to the streets of San Francisco and turned 85 Bank of America ATM’s in the city into “Automated Truth Machines”.
Before Solving a Problem, Make Sure You’ve Got the Right Problem
Tim O’Reilly responds to the White House response to the citizen petition about #SOPA and #PIPA…. Tim found himself profoundly disturbed by something that seems to him to go to the root of the problem in Washington: the failure to correctly diagnose the problem we are trying to solve, but instead to accept, seemingly uncritically, the claims of various interest groups.
The Flip Side of a Big Audience | Smarterware
Everyone thinks they want a million Twitter followers and a million pageviews a day on their blog and the incredible high that it must be to walk around in the world knowing you’re “internet famous.” Yes, being famous among dozens has its privileges, but it also has a flip side netizens rarely discuss.
Don’t Be Afraid of The Art of Noise | MeFi
Ladies and Gentlemen… a definitive look at The Art Of Noise.
What Would a European Tobin Tax Really Mean? | Spiegel
The idea is age-old, but its time may soon be coming. A tax on financial transactions could help to stem short-term speculation on the markets.
Doctorow’s Omen Shows Why We Need To Ban DRM
[TorrentFreak - Rick Falkvinge] Doctorow’s presentation is here. It is time well spent — Cory Doctorow is also quite the entertainer, even with a very serious message. If you want to speedread a transcript instead, you can do so here. In short, Doctorow argues that the copyright industry’s fight isn’t against copying, but against general-purpose computers. As more […]
Aum Shinrikyo fugitive surrenders after 16 years
[MeFi] Makoto Hirata, a senior member of doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo and one of three remaining fugitives from the group, has turned himself in to police after more than sixteen years on the run, leading to questions about the timing of his surrender now, after all these years. While Aum is best known as the group responsible for thedeadly […]
The Big Organ and Other Nightmares
[MeFi] The cautionary tale of the shiny new device that’s smarter than its users and ends up taking over is pretty much cliché… but it took Australian pop musicker Gotye (pronounced like Gaultier, if that helps) to apply it to a Lowrey Organ (the Cotillion D575, a vintage model he acquired for $100 and uses both in his recordings and […]
Pfizered
[MetaFilter] Generic sales of Lipitor, the world’s number 1 selling pharmaceutical drug, start today. (via) Accounting approximately one fifth of Pfizer’s revenue over the last few years, Atorvastatin was originally discovered in 1995 by Bruce Roth at Warner-Lambert’s Ann Arbor facility. Warner-Lambert teamed up with Pfizer to market the drug, and at the end of its first years of sales […]
