Spamicles writes "Maine has become the first state in the US to pass legislation on net neutrality. The resolution, LD 1675, recognizes the importance of 'full, fair and non-discriminatory access to the Internet' and instructs the Public Advocate to study what can be done to protect the rights of Maine Internet users. A 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission put in jeopardy net neutrality principles that had been in place since the inception of the Internet." Maine's resolution may be more symbolic than effective. This isn't the first time Maine has been out in front of other states on a controversial issue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

christian.einfeldt writes "The Venezuelan Government announced the roll-out of four different models of Linux-powered consumer computers, three desktop models and one notebook. Branded 'Bolivarian Computers,' they will be will be produced by a joint venture of the Venezuelan Ministry of Light Industry and Commerce and a Chinese company named Lang Chao. The goal of the project is to jump-start a domestic IT industry and become an IT exporter to the rest of Latin America. At the ceremony introducing the program, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez claimed that the Bolivarian Computers cost 40% less than other commercially available models and come with a 3-year warranty."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

pete314 writes "A Vnunet.com article claims that European mobile operators are unwilling to concede to Apple iPhone partnership demands. Several operators went as far as to say they 'will never offer the iPhone.' In the US, Verizon reportedly passed on the device, and AT&T is rumored to have engaged in a revenue-sharing deal that includes monthly payments to Cupertino." In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes to tell us about Yaman Salahi, a UC Berkeley student and blogger, who lost a lawsuit brought against him by Lee Kaplan, a journalist for FrontPageMag.com. Kaplan had sued Salahi in California small claims court for tortious business interference and libel, in response to a blog Salahi had set up about him called "Lee Kaplan Watch." Salahi lost in small claims court and then lost an "appeal" — which is essentially a retrial by another small-claims judge. No written opinion was offered with either decision, though all other court filings are available. From Salahi's update on his blog: "...because [Kaplan] sued me in small claims court, I did not have the protections of the anti-SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Policy] statute... I will never know why I lost the initial hearing, or why I lost the appeal, because small claims judges are not obligated to release written opinions with their rulings.... I will never have the opportunity to take this to a real appellate court where my first amendment rights might be protected."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

christian.einfeldt writes "The FOSS press has speculated for some time now that Mark Shuttleworth would probably not agree to any patent 'protection' deals with Microsoft, but blogger Steven Rosenberg has found a page on Shuttleworth's personal blog ('Here Be Dragons') that unambiguously sets out Shuttleworth's opposition to Canonical's participation in any such deal. Rosenberg summarizes Shuttleworth's position in these terms: 'So there you have it — Canonical welcomes any efforts by Microsoft to improve "interoperability," isn't a fan of OpenXML, doesn't want to infringe on anybody's patents or trademarks, thinks Microsoft's threats are ill-advised, and would like to actually deal with the issue rather than respond out of fear.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

cyclop writes "I am coding a data analysis application in my laboratory that I would like to release as free (as in freedom) software. Moreover I am going to begin a small OSS game that will be based, in part, on GPLv2 libraries. Problem is: in both cases, I'd like to be able to exchange code both with GPLv2 and (future) GPLv3 projects. I have no particular passions about either license — only thing is I don't want BSD-style 'do anything you want' licensing but a copyleft license. I know that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are not compatible. What can I do? Double licensing? Is there a compatible-with-both license? Adding exceptions? What do you think is the best way to address the GPLv2-to-GPLv3 transition without ending up on one or the other side of the barricade?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cory Doctorow: Badass ninja science fiction writer Charlie Stross has just posted a killer essay on the futility of space explorationcolonization. Nutshell: it's far and hostile, and we can't even figure out how to live in the Gobi desert or the ocean's floor, infinitely closer and more hospitable.

Here's a handy metaphor: let's approximate one astronomical unit — the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon — to one centimetre. Got that? 1AU = 1cm. (You may want to get hold of a ruler to follow through with this one.)

The solar system is conveniently small. Neptune, the outermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at a distance of almost exactly 30AU, or 30 centimetres — one foot (in imperial units). Giant Jupiter is 5.46 AU out from the sun, almost exactly two inches (in old money).

We've sent space probes to Jupiter; they take five and a half years to get there if we send them on a straight Hohmann transfer orbit, but we can get there quite a bit faster using some fancy orbital mechanics. Neptune is still a stretch — only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has made it out there so far. Its journey time was 12 years, and it wasn't stopping. (It's now on its way out into interstellar space, having passed the heliopause some years ago.)

The Kuiper belt, domain of icy wandering dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris, extends perhaps another 30AU, before merging into the much more tenuous Hills cloud and Oort cloud, domain of loosely coupled long-period comets.

Now for the first scale shock: using our handy metaphor the Kuiper belt is perhaps a metre in diameter. The Oort cloud, in contrast, is as much as 50,000 AU in radius — its outer edge lies half a kilometre away.

Link

Cory Doctorow: Badass ninja science fiction writer Charlie Stross has just posted a killer essay on the futility of space exploration. Nutshell: it's far and hostile, and we can't even figure out how to live in the Gobi desert or the ocean's floor, infinitely closer and more hospitable.

Here's a handy metaphor: let's approximate one astronomical unit — the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon — to one centimetre. Got that? 1AU = 1cm. (You may want to get hold of a ruler to follow through with this one.)

The solar system is conveniently small. Neptune, the outermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at a distance of almost exactly 30AU, or 30 centimetres — one foot (in imperial units). Giant Jupiter is 5.46 AU out from the sun, almost exactly two inches (in old money).

We've sent space probes to Jupiter; they take five and a half years to get there if we send them on a straight Hohmann transfer orbit, but we can get there quite a bit faster using some fancy orbital mechanics. Neptune is still a stretch — only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has made it out there so far. Its journey time was 12 years, and it wasn't stopping. (It's now on its way out into interstellar space, having passed the heliopause some years ago.)

The Kuiper belt, domain of icy wandering dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris, extends perhaps another 30AU, before merging into the much more tenuous Hills cloud and Oort cloud, domain of loosely coupled long-period comets.

Now for the first scale shock: using our handy metaphor the Kuiper belt is perhaps a metre in diameter. The Oort cloud, in contrast, is as much as 50,000 AU in radius — its outer edge lies half a kilometre away.

Link

The QuikScat satellite used for predicting the intensity and path of hurricanes could fail at any time (it's already past its designed lifetime). Without this satellite, the accuracy of US forecasters' predictions could be degraded by up to 16% — and there are no plans for any replacement. Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center, has been outspokenly critical of his superiors on this situation, but he has been warned to stop commenting on it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Blahbooboo3 writes "After many delays and missed promises, the Smart Car is finally coming to the US in January 2008. Smart Car uses a specially designed crash cage to protect the driver and gets upwards of 40 miles per gallon. Crash tests are very positive. The car is deceptively large inside, as showcased by this great ad from the Smart USA site. The second-generation Fortwo will be offered first, starting around $14,000. Unfortunately the slick roadster isn't coming any time soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fred Wilson says that kids are net natives, and that people over 30 don't invent new paradigms. To say that ticks me off is an understatement.

I've been a net native since before I was 20. Yes, I read newspapers growing up, but I also blogged before it was called blogging, and created a lot of the technology that the kids are developing now. Yet I've had arrogant idiotic asshole kids tell me I don't understand the net. Yeah sure.

At this point in my career I'm ready to do the really big ideas, and it sucks that attitudes like the one exemplified by Wilson are in my way. Stop thinking about who can't do what, and start paying attention to who actually does it.

I listened to an interview on public radio with one of the founders of YouTube, a young guy. The things he says were new 20 years ago. He's a good marketer, and no doubt has attracted the people he needs to build a wonderful system. But he doesn't have all the answers. Sometimes a bit of experience can help, not hinder, progress.

In every other creative field people are active into their sixties, seventies or eighties. For some reason in tech we assume people are washed up at 30? Based on what? Marc Andreessen's experience. Hmm.

BTW, when I was a kid, the VCs had reasons why I couldn't do it then. I did it anyway.

Spamicles writes "A judge has ordered the FBI to release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans' personal information. The ruling came just a day after the EFF urged the judge to immediately respond in its lawsuit over agency delays. This is the same case in which an internal FBI audit found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gary writes "Talking on your cellphone while driving isn't a crime in most states, but it should be. Studies have shown that people who drive and talk are many times more likely to have an accident. A new company is releasing a device to automatically detect drivers talking on their cell phones. Instead of police officers needing to observe a cellphone in use, the system automatically detects a cell phone call and records which car was making the call." The article is fairly light on details, but it would be interesting to see how the system differentiates from a driver talking on a cell phone versus a mere passenger.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin:

Patrick "Bad News" Hughes has a book out now which amounts to a more portable version of his blog that you can leave unlimited comments on with a ballpoint pen. In other words, I love it.

Hughes is best known for humorous, sometimes vulgar first-person essays on everyday indignities suffered in life, and that's what you find here. "Whimsical stories of soul-melting shame."

The "key phrases" Amazon associates with this book should give you a better idea of the flavor: "poo water, ass blood, saltwater catfish, florida, skinhead katrina, Burger King, Four Horsemen, Downs Syndrome, Bob Seger." There's also a passage in here about a guy who set his dick on fire at Sean Bonner's wedding, many years before Jackass.

Link. The book cover is so awesome. Let's hope he doesn't get in Jill Greenbergian hot water over the baby torture photo at the top of this post. (thx Sean!)

Previous posts about Patrick Hughes on BB:

Great food-review prose from folks who aren't food critics

Reader comment: dr.hypercube says,

I've been a Bad News fan for a while - a few days ago I was looking at some bad album covers (Link, via), saw an awful mustache and was inspired to set up a Chile D. mustache Flickr group.

From Uncle Patrick's advice to Children: "Burt Reynolds? Nope. Tom Selleck? Uh uh. Try Chile D. Molester. Shave that fucking mustache." Just a few participants so far, but i know there are some great molestaches out there.

ClaraBow writes "Apple reports that it took Apple just two days to reach 1 million downloads of its newest Safari Web browser for Windows. If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users, then we just might have a third major browser on the Windows platform. If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE's position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin:

Video Link. This horrible, blurry mashup of Spock lipsynching to the Bad Brains is hilarious if you grew up on DC hardcore, otherwise just skip this post.

Here's the Bad Brains performing the song live in 1982. They were one of the first bands I ever saw live, and they changed my life and defined punk rock for me. These equally-shitty quality YouTube uploads might give you an idea why: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Just pure, crazy speed. (thanks, Sean Bonner)

Mark Frauenfelder: Richard Berry says:

The Tweety popsicle entry was hilarious and alarming at the same time. Here in Australia I've highlighted a similar serious problem we have encountered on my blog: Sticks & Stones.

The Bubble 'O Bill ice cream bears absolutely no resemblance to what's promised on the packet. But that's the least of our worries. The main problem is, the popsicle is the spitting image of Australia's most nortorious murderer, Ivan Milat.

Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Ice cream patent wars in the 1930s
• Expertly produced Korean red bean ice cream fish
• Tweety Bird popsicle doesn't look like Tweety Bird
• Bugs Bunny popsicle
• Turtle popsicle reflects pride in workmanship
• Popsicle parody ad