He sure knew what he was talking about!



Hope he didn't get into too much trouble.

Broadband Reports highlights a new research report out of the University of Colorado suggesting that Comcast has changed its traffic shaping system such that it's sending RST packets for any kind of TCP traffic at times, rather than just for BitTorrent traffic. Comcast has responded saying that this is not the planned change it had announced a couple weeks ago. In fact, the company itself seems confused about the report -- but given the company's own unwillingness to admit to what it was doing in the past, it's hard to know how honest the company is being. Of course, it could just be a technical error. Considering that Comcast's earlier efforts included an accidental jamming of Lotus Notes, a technical mistake might make the most sense.

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My favorite rock and roll high schoolers The Audiophiles have released a new EP, Run Away. These four new tunes are fresh indy pop but still informed by the musicians' deeply eclectic influences, from folk to nerd rock, bluegrass to pure punk. For more than a year, the Audiophiles have been tearing up Bay Area bars, including ones they're not old enough to get into. This is their tightest, best produced, and most, er, mature recording to date. Check out the new sound of young America.
Link

Previously on BB:
• The Audiophiles: live from the teenage angstland Link
• Greg Fleischut's teenage folktronica and bluegrass Link

fm6 writes "According to guardian.co.uk, George Lucas is suing the designer of the Imperial Stormtrooper armor. Andrew Ainsworth took the original molds he used to make the props for the movies, and has been using them to make outfits that sell for up to £1,800 (US$3,600) apiece. Ainsworth has countersued for a share of the $12 billion that Star Wars merchandise has generated since the first movie."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last summer, Congress debated legislation that would have required a voter-verified paper trail on all e-voting machines. I supported the legislation and co-authored an op-ed saying so. That legislation didn't pass, but Joe Hall points out that Iowa is the latest state to switch back to paper ballots in its election system. He points out that thirty states now have rules requiring a voter-verified paper trail, with another 8 states using voter-verified paper trails without a specific state law requiring that they do so. Iowa looks to be even better than some of these other states because it's moving to an almost entirely paper-based voting system. Voting machines will only be used to help voters (especially disabled voters) mark their ballots. This approach is ideal because it ensures that the paper trail won't become an afterthought, as it often does when the "paper trail" is a roll of cash register tape that no one ever looks at.

Thanks to the hard work of voting activists, it appears that state legislatures are doing the job at the state level that Congress couldn't get done last year. In some ways, this is actually a better way of doing things. Last year's debate in Congress was very helpful in raising the profile of the issue, but even most supporters of last year's legislation recognized that some states wouldn't be able to revamp their election processes in time for the 2008 elections. More importantly, if Congress screws up -- as it did when it pushed e-voting on the states with the 2002 Help America Vote Act -- it's much harder to recover than if an individual state screws up. With 50 state legislatures looking at these issues independently, states can try a variety of different approaches tailored to the needs of their individual election systems and adopt the ones that prove most successful. The momentum for verifiable elections continues to grow; hopefully the 12 states that are still conducting elections without a paper trail will get on board in time for the 2010 elections.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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As Xeni posted earlier, pro-Tibet protesters climbed San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge today to hang a banner reading "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet '08." BB pal Jason Weisberger took this beautiful photo from his car's sunroof while crossing the bridge. (Fortunately, he wasn't driving.) Link to Happy Exposure post, Link to BB post with more background

mikkl666 writes "In response to an open letter from Steve Ballmer, Yahoo! posted a press release claiming that Microsoft's offer 'substantially undervalues Yahoo!' and is therefore not in the best interest of the company. They also bemoan that the letter 'mischaracterizes the nature of our discussions' and that the threat to make an offer directly to the shareholders is 'counterproductive and inconsistent with the stated objective of a friendly transaction'. Nevertheless, they explicitly point out that a transaction with Microsoft is still an option, but only if they are willing to pay 'a price that fully recognizes the value of Yahoo!'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Max Mosley, big boss of Grand Prix motor racing, is hit with calls to resign because of an internet video that appeared to show him participating in an S&M orgy with five presumed prostitutes, in a London dungeon:

The tabloid newspaper that broke the story of Mr. Mosley’s Chelsea session, The News of the World, described it as “a depraved Nazi sadomasochistic orgy,” and said Mr. Mosley had paid the equivalent of $5,000 in cash for the five-hour session.

In a video the paper posted on the Internet but later removed, two of the women wore black-and-white striped robes in the style of prisoners’ uniforms. The video showed Mr. Mosley counting in German — “Eins! Zwei! Drei! Vier! Funf!” — as he used a leather strap to lash one of the women.

“She needs more of ze punishment!” he cried in German-accented English. One woman appeared to search his hair for lice while another called off items on an inspection list. Mr. Mosley, naked, was bound face-down and lashed more than 20 times.

Link to NYT story; Jalopnik has pix and video.

In the ongoing saga of Scrabulous, the unauthorized online version of Scrabble that has found many fans on Facebook but has upset Mattel and Hasbro (who own the rights to Scrabble), it appears that RealNetworks and Mattel have finally put out an official version of Scrabble for Facebook -- but the problem is that it's terrible. As the NY Times reports, "Facebook Scrabble takes a long time to load, does not always quickly update to show recent moves, and the words the game will accept do not reflect standard Scrabble dictionaries, or even the English language." While it's nice to see that Scrabulous still hasn't been forced offline, it seems odd that the authorized version is so terrible. It still probably would have made the most sense to just do a deal with the brothers who created Scrabulous (and there are still rumors that a deal has been discussed, but without a decent resolution), but if that doesn't work, the way to compete is with a better product. Putting out a product that's not very good isn't likely to win over many fans.

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kaufmanmoore writes "The Commonwealth of Virginia has become the first state in the nation to require that students in all grade levels receive a form of internet safety lessons. The story is scant on details about the lessons, but describes one recently at a high school where the presenter showed a social-networking profile of a convicted sex offender posing as a 15 year-old girl. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last year, in the midst of various claims from multiple different people that Mark Zuckerberg somehow "stole" the idea for Facebook from other Harvard students, we noted that it really didn't matter. After all, the basic concepts behind Facebook were hardly new when Zuckerberg started it. There had been sites like SixDegrees, Ryze and Friendster long before Facebook came along. What mattered wasn't the idea, but the execution -- and for whatever reason, what Zuckerberg did with Facebook got traction while the others did not. That's called competition, and we generally think that leads to a healthy economy. Yet, the founders of ConnectU, the competing site that went nowhere, sued Zuckerberg and Facebook over this, and both sides were pushed by a judge to settle out of court -- and that appears to be exactly what's happening. The NY Times is reporting that Facebook has reached some sort of settlement with ConnectU's founders.

This sort of thing was inevitable, but it's still problematic. With Facebook generating so much publicity lately, and potentially gearing up for an IPO, it doesn't want these types of lawsuits hanging over it. So it's worth more to just settle and pay up, even if the claim itself is bogus. Yet, all this really does is encourage more similar lawsuits from companies that lost in the marketplace whining about competitors who did a better job executing. While some may say the ConnectU case is different because Zuckerberg worked with ConnectU for a few months, that hardly changes the basic facts of the case. This wasn't a new idea, and it's unlikely that ConnectU had done anything remarkably different than other competitors out there. In fact, it seems clear that it did not, since the site never went anywhere. Yet, because it's cheaper for Facebook to pay out and keep this quiet, ConnectU's founders get paid for failing in the marketplace. That's a bad precedent no matter how you look at it.

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Rob O'Neill writes "A Kiwi open source developer is working on a self-replicating 3D printer, RepRap, to be made available under the GNU license. 'The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can't copy themselves, and they can't be manipulated by users, says Vik Olliver. RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody — including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver. Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public License).'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Seven pro-Tibetan sovereignty activists were detained by police in San Francisco this afternoon after 3 of the protesters climbed the Golden Gate Bridge, unfurling a banner that read "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet '08."

The three climbers remained on the bridge for about 2 hours before coming down voluntarily. Upon their descent they were met and arrested by officers of the California Highway Patrol.

Link, full res photos and HD video here.

This action takes place two days before scheduled protests of China's Olympic torch relay in SF, which are expected to draw thousands of participants. (thanks Nathan)

Global Voices co-founder Rebecca McKinnon has an article in this month's Far Eastern Economic Review which, she explains, takes a look at...

[H]ow Yahoo! went from assisting in the imprisonment of four dissidents in 2003 and 2004, to being yelled at in Congress in 2006 and 2007, to Jerry Yang's apology and recent establishment of a human rights fund administered by human rights activist Harry Wu.

The article also examines how at least some other companies are trying to learn from Yahoo!'s early mistakes. It explores the different approaches and disagreements over how (or whether) Internet and telecommunications companies are capable of respecting their users' rights to free expression and privacy in markets like China - or in any market for that matter.

Respecting users' rights to free expression and privacy, I argue, should be an integral part of corporate social responsibility - along with respect for the environment, sustainable development, and humane labor practices. But don't sit around waiting for your rights to get respected...

Link.

SpuriousLogic writes "Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own. They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun. Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Deeming the possible loss of foreign grads with technical bachelor's degrees a serious threat to the U.S. requiring immediate action on its part, the Department of Homeland Security changed immigration rules without notice or comment Friday to allow foreign students to stay on to work in the States for two-and-a-half years after graduation without needing an H-1B visa."

To clarify a bit, DHS has basically realized that the H-1B visas were quickly used up almost immediately again, and that would cause problems for students who have been here on F-1 student visas, and have recently received jobs in the US. DHS's extension here makes a lot of sense. It only applies to students who recently graduated with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (i.e., skilled individuals) who are employed by companies that already review the eligibility of employees electronically with the DHS. Since it's become increasingly difficult to get an H-1B visa, these recent skilled college grads would lose their jobs and get sent out of the country. That wouldn't do anyone any good. It would hurt US companies by forcing them to lose recently hired skilled employees, and it would hurt US competitiveness by having those same students return to their home countries, where they're more likely to work for foreign companies competing against US companies.

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