Of Course Dave Can Modify Cory’s Content

Posted on March 31, 2005 by Brian Carnell

Dave Winer has set up a silly straw-man in his ongoing complaints about utilities like Greasemonkey and the Google Toolbar that let the user modify content that appears in their browser. Dave wonders if he can do the same thing with Cory Doctorow’s CC-licensed books.

And the answer is that, of course he can. If Dave wants to download Cory’s books and edit them so he appears as the author, that’s completely within his rights. He could remove words, add words, do whatever he wants to the text in his browser or text editor, just as users can use Autolink or Greasemonkey to make any sort of modifications they want to text appearing in their browser.

But Dave sets up a straw man when he wonders if he then would be able to set up shop and sell said modified novel. Well, of course not, except within the terms of the CC licenses Cory uses. Reproducing and redistributing said modified content is a completely different issue. Neither Autolink nor Greasemonkey, after all, allow the user to hit a button and publish their modified content to a website. There’s nothing there that says take the content you’ve modified and redistribute it to other users.

Whether or not I should be able to create a filter that replaces all instance of “Dave Winer” with some expletive is a completely separate issue from whether or not I should be able to wholesale copy and paste all the content from Scripting.Com onto my blog and pretend that I wrote it.

It is worth noting, however, that Winer regularly reproduces people’s content in the form of screen shots which he then annotates or otherwise modifies, so its a bit odd to see him suddenly attacking the ability to reproduce, modify and republish content that he doesn’t own. Did he receive permission from Yahoo 360, for example, for reproducing, modifying and redistributing this screen shot? But I thought publishers had absolute rights to never have their content modified by others without their permission?

Powerline Still Sucks

Posted on March 28, 2005 by Brian Carnell

Take it from Powerline’s John Hinderaker — video never lies,

Predictably, mainstream news outlets are trying to defuse the video’s impact. Like this Reuters report: “Schiavo Videotape Misleading, Experts Say”:

Studies of people whose cerebral cortices are damaged in the way Schiavo’s is show that their eyes will respond to stimuli such as movement or a human face, but there is no way for them to be conscious of what they are seeing.

Have you ever noticed how much faith liberals have in “studies”? And I believe it is undisputed that Terri Schiavo has never been given the tests normally used to diagnose a persistent vegetative state, apparently because her husband refuses to allow them.

There may have been a time in my life when I had more faith in experts and studies than in my own eyes. But that was a long time ago.

Who you going to believe — a few second snippet pulled from who knows how many hours of video or experts trained in diagnosing medical conditions such as PVS?

Clearly, the video.

And note that Hindraker is simply wrong about his claim that Terri Schiavo has not “been given the tests normally used to diagnose a persistent vegetative state.” She’s had CT, EEG and CAT scans and all of the usual tests to determine if someone is in a persistent vegetative state. Hindraker’s shot at Michael Schiavo is especially absurd — surely even an idiot like Hindraker has to know that court appointed doctors have performed tests to determine if Terri is in a PVS. It’s not like Michael would be able to step in and say, sorry, I won’t authorize that test Your Honor!

Presumably Hindraker and Powerline might care about the facts if this involved a questionable memo about Bush’s National Guard Service — otherwise, damn the facts and full insinuation and ignorance ahead!

Are Atheist/Agnostic Universities Best?

Posted on March 24, 2005 by Brian Carnell

Another area where you see athesit/agnostic fundies are in university “diversity” efforts. Typically what is meant by diversity is actually just warmed-over conformity to a rigid political ideology. And, frequently, the religious need not apply (especially since most religions are the complete opposite of “diversity’s” sappy relativism — believing that some things are actually right or wrong when everyone knows morality is just about preferences).

I think The Princeton Review accurately reflects this in its contrasting criteria between what it calls “Diversity Univeristy” vs “Monochromatic Institute”.

At Monochromatic Institute, “Students pray on a regular basis.” At Diversity University, however, “Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis.”

That’s diversity — everyone should look different, but think alike.

Source:

Best 357 College Rankings Demographics. Princeton Review, Undated, Accessed: March 24, 2005.

40th Anniversary Spider-Man CDROM Review

Posted on March 23, 2005 by Brian Carnell

Back in September I mentioned the 40th Anniversary Spider-Man CDROM Collection — Amazing Fantasy #15 plus issues 1-500 of The Amazing Spider-Man all in one CD-ROM collection for about $40.

I finally managed to pick up a copy recently. Basically, what we have are 501 PDF files containing relatively high-resolution scans of each comic book. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, everything is included in each book, including inside covers, advertisements, letter pages, etc. If its was in the book, its in the PDF. Unfortunately, many of the comics that were used for the scans are clearly showing their age. Even more recent books tend to show quite a bit of wear. This is in contrast to Topic Entertainment’s previous Marvel Comics CDROM collection which achieved stunning images by scanning the black-and-white original art in Marvel’s archives and then adding a digitally colored layer which could be turned off.

Storing the scans in PDFs creates a number of issues — the most annoying is that the books were scanned in landscape which means each page in the PDF usually represents two comic book pages. I find this a bit annoying. It does preserve the occasional two-page layout, but for the most part I’d have preferred to have my monitor filled with one page rather than two.

The user also has to use Adobe Acrobe 6.0 or later, or a “Marvel” watermark will appear superimposed on the pages. That watermark always appears when you print the page, so if you really want to print anything you’ll need to grab a screenshot. That’s stupid behavior IMO. What’s the point in nerfing printing like that, especially since its trivial to circumvent?

Other than that, the PDFs aren’t DRMed, in that you don’t need to register the Acrobat Reader or anything. I quickly copied all 6+gb of PDFs to my portable hard drive so I can read them on any computer I happen to be using at the moment.

Overall, its not perfect, but at less than a dime per comic, this is the bargain of the century. And coming soon is a Fantastic Four CDROM reproducing the entire 30-year run of that book. It truly is a great time to be alive.

Fundie Atheists

Posted on March 22, 2005 by Brian Carnell

In the spirit of this discussion about atheism, this speech by Natalie Angier is a good example of the sort of nutcases who are representative of “mainstream atheism” (for lack of a better term. Angier is discussing how to raise “100 percent guaranteed god free children” and mentions her daughter, Katherine,

Admittedly, Katherine is lucky. She lives in a very liberal community, Takoma Park, Maryland, which went 91.8% for Kerry; and a lot of other kids, she told me, share her views about god. A couple of times sheÂ’s been told sheÂ’s going to go to hell Â– or, as she phrased it, the opposite of heaven; sheÂ’s remarkably curse-averse Â– but she says she doesnÂ’t care because she doesnÂ’t believe in either destination anyway. But in some places in the United States, itÂ’s extremely tough to be an atheist, even fatal. Last October, in Taylor, Michigan, a former Eagle Scout shot another man to death because, he said, the man was Â“evil; he was not a believer.Â” We all know the sort of tolerance they teach in the Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts of America, of course. No gays allowed Â– guess you donÂ’t expect them to be very good at pitching tents and tying knots, right? Â– and no atheists. They kicked out Darrell Lambert, a model scout if there ever was one, because he refused to say he believed in God, remember? At which point, IÂ’m proud to say, my husband, who was a boy scout and an eagle scout and learned many skills as a scout and had earned many patches and badges, decided to send back his eagle scout medal to the Boy Scouts of America; and he wrote a beautiful essay about his decision for the Washington Post. The director of public affairs at the organization sent him an answer, saying, We accept your decision, but we hope that someday, you will come to be more open-minded in your views.

So, what advice do I have for nonbelievers trying to raise their children in a rigidly religious, small town environment? Move.

I kid you not. I went to high school in a small Michigan town, very religious, lots of baptists, also lots of drunk drivers, and believe me, they were the worst four years of my life. Move to a big city in just about any state, or move to a medium-sized city in a blue state, move to Takoma Park, or move to Canada if you can stay awake. Move to a university town. Because there are plenty of secularists out there, oh yes. Sure, weÂ’ve been told repeatedly, weÂ’ve been beaten practically comatose, with the notion that we live in an extremely religious country.

The shooting Angier mentions was committed by 49-year-old Arthur Shelton. He murdered his 62-year-old roommate, Larry Hooper, in October 2004 after the two had a long argument over religion. Shelton is apparently a very disturbed individual. He told police that his roommate was the “anti-Christ” and his public defender filed a motion saying that Shelton was “delusional” and unable to cooperate in his own defense.

And from this, Angier would actually have us conclude that living in places like Taylor, Michigan, is dangerous if you’re an atheist and that, should you find yourself in such a city, the best option would be to move out. And, on top of that, of course, implies that the Boy Scouts are churning out killers because they exclude gays.

And Angier has the gall to lecture others about the scientific method and rationality?

This view that religion is dangerous because it is irrational is one that is relatively common among nuttier atheists on the web. It makes about as much sense as conservatives such as George Gilder do when they try to link atheism with the crimes of Communist mass murderers of the 20th century. One could make exactly the sort of fallacious argument that Angier does about atheists, noting that from Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot, many of the most prominent mass murderers in history were atheists. What do you do if you find yourself in a country governed by an atheist? Move, ASAP!

Sources:

TAYLOR: Death is result of debate about God. Joel Thurtell, The Detroit Free Press, October 28, 2004.

RAISING CHILDREN WITH SECULAR VALUES IN A RELIGIOUS WORLD. Natalie Angier, December 14, 2004.

Fact vs. Fiction in Terri Schiavo Case

Posted on March 22, 2005 by Brian Carnell

Its interesting to read the crap that people are circulating in e-mails or repeating on Fox News about Terri Schiavo and then compare it to the ruling (PDF) by Judge Greer that affirmed Michael Schiavo’s right to remove his wife’s life support.

Terri Schiavo Is Not Brain Dead

Posted on March 21, 2005 by Brian Carnell

If you’re going to write about something, you should take a minimal amount of time to get the facts right and avoid embarassing yourself. Dave Winer makes the bizarre claim that

Re Terry Shiavo [sic], the woman whose brain is dead, Congress and the President should not have gotten involved. They made a mistake.

Schiavo is definitely not brain dead. Rather she is in a persistent vegetative state. Schiavo suffered apparently severe brain damage, but her brain is currently functioning although not normally.

If you’re brain dead, you’re just plain dead — no one recovers from brain death. People do, rarely, recover from being in a persistent vegetative state, which is why Schiavo’s parents still hold out hope for her.

Regardless of your opinion on whether or not Schiavo should have her feeding tube removed (and I favor letting the state court decisions stand), it doesn’t help to spread misinformation like claiming Schiavo is actually brain dead.

Still Riding High on Netflix

Posted on March 21, 2005 by Brian Carnell

John Robb complains that Netflix is on the skids and he no longer recommends the service to family and friends — though he doesn’t say which service superior to Netflix he does recommend.

Netflix is clearly not as efficient as it was, say, 6 months ago, but its still an amazing value.

In February, Netflix billed me $31.79 for their 5-DVD-at-a-time plan. That same month they shipped a total of 31 DVDs to my house.

I just haven’t come across a rental service yet that can rent me that many movies per month at that low of a cost.

Conservative Atheists on the Net

Posted on March 19, 2005 by Brian Carnell

Ron Battista posted reply to my Hannity/Silverman post.

Battista runs an interesting blog, Suspension of Disbelief which has a tagline of “An Atheist Who Is Tired of Atheist Activists.” Can I get an amen to that?

Anyway, Battista links to a number of atheist conservatives such as The Secular Republican, and there’s even a Yahoo! Groups list, Conservative Atheism.

My wife, who is a pagan, and I often discuss this sort of problem, as she gets a little tired of seeing complete nutcases being represented as spokesmen/women for her religious views. But at least in that case, there’s not nutty American Pagans group that the media always turns to. We poor atheists have for too long had to live in the shadow of Madalyn Murray O’Hair and the American Atheists doing their best to convince the country that every atheist was a stark raving loony nut who stayed awake at night worrying about the horrors of “In God We Trust” on our money.

Plus AA tended to promote crackpot ideas from their obnoxious view that religious people were idiots or worse to lending credence to Holocaust revisionist nonsense. In many ways, the AA paralleled another partially-right but equally nutty group led by a charismatic women, the Objectivists. Did anyone ever see Madalyn Murray O’Hair and Ayn Rand together?

BitTorrent Dr. Demento Download Site