mallumax writes "Hans Reiser was today handed a prison sentence of 15-to-life for murdering his wife. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty and led police to his wife's body. His jury trial concluded in April with Reiser's first-degree murder conviction. That carries a 25-to-life term, but the authorities, in a backroom deal, later offered him 15-to-life if he produced his wife's body and waived any rights to appeal his conviction." Several other readers contributed coverage at SFGate.

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Photographer Clayton Cubitt updated his "Operation Eden" blog today to mark the third year since Hurricane Katrina. He grew up in and around New Orleans. That's his mom on the far left. Here was his first post on that blog. She lost their (very modest) family home in the storm, as did many thousands of other moms, many thousands of other families. Clayton's mother is doing okay, but in spite of -- not thanks to -- the systems we're supposed to rely on in America, the systems created to help the helpless in greatest time of need. New Orleans -- and all the other poor communities nearby, all hard hit by Katrina -- never mended. Snip from Clayton's post today:

She recently received a creepy pre-recorded phone warning from Governor Haley Barbour telling her to evacuate in the path of Gustav, as if she wasn't planning on it already.

That's her on the left in the above picture. Next to her is her childhood friend Russell. Next to him is her sister, my aunt Lorraine, who's self conscious about her down-turned smile since the stroke, but who I think is just as beautiful and beaming as she's always been. The three of them grew up together first on Piety Street, then on McKain Street, in New Orleans.

Their dads worked together in the junkyard, chopping up cars for scrap using big hand axes. Russell had nineteen brothers and sisters, in a family poorer even than mine. Now he lives in a FEMA trailer on an abandoned lot with two dogs, a bunch of Katrina junk, a statue of the Virgin Mary he hand painted, and an old school bus backed up to a canal cruised by alligators, which he fishes out of for meals.

His sister was murdered in New Orleans last week. The New York Times wrote a piece about the crime in New Orleans, the crime that took Russell's sister.

Three Years On (Operation Eden)

Earlier this summer, a musician named Indiana Gregg made the mistake of demanding The Pirate Bay stop allowing people to find her music. The Pirate Bay responds publicly to such letters and doesn't take down the torrent links, so it tends to not do anything good to send such a letter. Gregg made things worse by arguing with the folks at The Pirate Bay, showing little command for the subject matter. Later, she wrote a long, rambling post for TorrentFreak warning people that "the police were coming" to the "wild west" of the internet, and basically dismissing out of hand any new business model that turns any kind of "piracy" into an advantage, claiming that its the users, not the musicians, who need to change how they deal with music.

You can certainly understand where she's coming from, as a musician who's traditional business model is under threat. However, contrary to the opinion of some, it's the consumers who eventually determine how a market works -- and treating consumers as criminals tends to backfire in a big way -- especially when other artists are figuring out ways to create business models that work without treating fans as criminals.

The good news is that Gregg seems to be willing to try out new ideas. Her and her producer (who's also her husband) are apparently planning to launch an ad supported music site that will allow musicians to upload their music and receive a cut of any advertising revenue associated with each stream or download. The details aren't entirely clear, but I don't think this plan is going to work all that well. While it is good that she's trying out new models that end up being free to the end user, ad-supported revenue models are going to be tough -- and it seems a bit extreme to claim, as Gregg has, that this is a way to "beat piracy."

Ad-supported websites are already having enough trouble making enough money to survive online, so Gregg's going to quickly discover that the ad money won't flow as quickly as she expects. Is she going to claim that the police are coming after the folks using ad-blockers as well? Also, given the convenience of other sites where music is available, expecting them to go to a different site to get their music may not be very convincing. The problem with an ad-supported music site is that it doesn't add any value to the end user. Trent Reznor's business model worked by providing more value to the end-user. Jill Sobule's business model worked by providing more value to the end-user. Gregg's solution doesn't add more value to the end user, and for that reason is going to have a difficult time succeeding, let alone "beating" piracy.

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NBC apparently got about 72 million video streams during this Olympics season, and is touting this as a great success. It's true that this is a lot more than any previous Olympics, but I don't think NBC has anything to crow about. Remember, this is the most famous sporting event in the world, and it got non-stop media coverage for close to a month. Yet in a country with 300 million people, they only got a total of 72 million streams? That's less than one stream for every 4 Americans. And as Ben Worthen points out, YouTube streamed 4.2 billion videos—60 times as many—in the month of May. So people are clearly watching a lot of videos. Most of them just aren't NBC's Olympics videos.

Amazingly, NBC is "using the Olympics to assert that TV is the preferred medium of consumers," with 93 percent of all viewing. I think this says less about consumers than about NBC's own marketing decisions. The problem is that despite its protests to the contrary, NBC wasn't serious about web-based coverage of the Olympics. They held back the most popular coverage for television audiences, forcing online viewers to wait until later (sometimes much later due to a desire for tape delays) to watch the stuff they were really interested in. It looks like they also forced anyone who wanted to watch the video to download and install Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. And of course they've gone out of their way to make embedding impossible, cutting off one of the most popular ways of expanding the reach of content. Not surprisingly, when NBC makes the Internet a second-class medium for Olympics coverage, most people watch TV instead.

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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Edge Magazine is running a piece by Brad Wardell, CEO of game developer Stardock, in which he presents a "Gamer's Bill of Rights." Stardock teamed up with Gas Powered Games to develop a list of ideals they think all game publishers should follow. Some are rather basic operational guidelines (not requiring a disc to play, minimum requirements that make sense), and some are aimed at repairing the damaged relationship between game companies and customers ("Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers"). Wishful thinking or not, it will be interesting to see if they manage to get other publishers to sign on.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apparently, the head of the British Cartographic Society is no fan of Google Maps. She's complaining that Google Maps doesn't include the additional geographic information that makes maps so great, claiming:

"We're in real danger of losing what makes maps so unique, giving us a feel for a place even if we've never been there."

Except, that's not quite true. After all, Google Maps allows all sorts of overlays and additional info. With Google Maps you can also get the satellite view, which is likely to give you a much greater feel for a place than a map. And, of course, many areas have the "Street View" feature as well -- again, providing a much greater feel for a place you've never been. As for certain landmarks and such not being added to Google Maps, more seem to be added every day, and with Google letting people add their own information to maps as well, it's only going to get better and better.

If anything, it seems like this guy is complaining not because Google Maps isn't useful, but because she's afraid that the need for traditional cartographers may not be as strong (which I doubt will actually be the case). Besides, if she's so worried that certain information isn't included on Google Maps, why not create a mashup overlaying all the info she feels has been left out -- because that's rather easy to do with Google Maps.

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Barence takes us to PCPro for a look at the failures of DRM and a discussion of its impending death. Quoting: "Luckily, DRM is dying, at least in the download sphere. Napster's Dan Nash believes that DRM-free is 'the general way things are going.' In his opinion, record companies 'have no choice but to adapt;' those that 'stick to DRM on a pay-per-download basis will not remain competitive.' In the US, Napster has joined Amazon in selling DRM-free content in MP3 format from all the major labels. ... Going DRM-free makes sense not just for consumers, but for the industry. Deutche Telekom says three out of four technical support calls its Musicload service had to deal with were the result of DRM. And when it offered a DRM-free option to artists they saw a 40% increase in sales."

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My soon-to-be colleague David Robinson has a great post about the recent dancing toddler copyright story, in which he tries to puzzle out the DMCA's implications for automated takedown programs. The DMCA provides copyright holders with a remedy for online materials they believe to be infringing: they may send a notice to a relevant ISP demanding that the materials be removed. ISPs have a strong incentive to comply with such requests, because doing so gives them immunity from liability for the copyright-infringing activities of their customers. Hollywood has used this process aggressively, sending thousands of takedown notices to companies like YouTube. To prevent abuse of the takedown power, the DMCA also provides that anyone who "knowingly materially misrepresents" the copyright status of a work is liable to the target for damages and attorney's fees.

One interesting question is whether the DMCA allows fully automated takedown requests, or whether the law requires that a human being review each takedown notice before it is sent. The law requires copyright holders to state that "the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." The key phrase here is "good faith belief." In order to state that one has a good-faith belief, one presumably has to form a good-faith belief in the first place. And obviously, an automated script is incapable of forming a good-faith belief about anything, so any takedown sent by an automated script would be a lie.

David suggests that copyright holders could form "good faith beliefs" in a statistical sense—that if their script were accurate enough, they could form a "good faith belief" that the vast majority of materials identified by the script was infringing, even if they hadn't identified each one individually. But I don't think this line of reasoning works. As EFF's Fred Von Lohmann notes in the comments, the liability provision isn't an aggregate inquiry. It asks, for each takedown, whether the copyright holder had misrepresented the copyright status of the work in question. If a copyright holder sends an erroneous takedown notice, it is of no comfort to the recipient—and of no relevance to the law—that the copyright holder also sent a number of valid takedown notices the same day. For each mistaken takedown notice, the question the courts must ask is whether the misrepresentation was "knowing" and "material."

One plausible interpretation of this language would be that since no human being reviewed the takedown notice, the mistake couldn't have been "knowing," and therefore the sender of an automated takedown could never be liable. This, however, would make a mockery of the purpose of the statute, which was to deter reckless or malicious use of the takedown power. If failing to examine material at all before issuing a takedown were sufficient to confer immunity, that would totally undermine the purpose of the statute. For this reason, I think the test put forward by EFF in the dancing toddler case—whether a copyright holder exercising reasonable care should have known the material was not infringing—makes more sense. And on this reading, companies would likely be free to issue automated takedowns, but they would be liable for any takedowns that were clearly erroneous. As Fred points out, this gets the incentives right, because it gives Hollywood a strong incentive to use automated takedown scripts judiciously.

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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1. It certainly was creative and thought-stimulating.

2. However... it shows McCain thought he was losing to Obama and needed to do something bold that would stir things up. And he certainly did that.

3. However... no matter how well they vetted her, even if nothing terrible shows up, she has no experience in the world, and virtually no experience in the United States. What does she know about American cities? Our industries and businesses? Economic issues? Balance of trade? The military? Katrina? He picked her because she was the governor from the state that was furthest away from Washington. Point made. But despite what the Republicans say about her qualifications, she has no grounding to run this country. Might as well pick someone from another country.

4. They say she's as qualified as Obama, but that's wrong. They should get to know Obama's background and how intelligent and studious and thoughtful he is. Read his books. He's incredibly well educated, and I'm sorry running a successful campaign for the Democratic nomination for President is much more experience than being the governor of a very small state with no budget problems (they have a built-in surplus because of tax revenue from their natural resources and a very small population to spread it out over -- Alaska is a very strange state, unlike any of the other 49).

5. The decision certainly was creative, but it won't age well. It will look like a desperate dumb move a couple of weeks from now. As stupid as trying to take and control Iraq without enough troops, without a plan for the occupation. It's the Republican approach to problems, shoot from the hip without thinking things through. The invasion of Iraq was certainly a "wow" event -- like the choice of Palin -- but it didn't age well. This is another of those.

6. They can't get Hillary voters with this VP candidate -- Hillary is a progressive, and even most Republican women are pro-choice. Americans are pro-choice. A woman candidate who is pro-choice, no matter how attractive, doesn't have much appeal in this country, another tone-deaf decision by McCain, the kind of decision you don't want a President making. Sure Hillary got some votes from Republicans who crossed over during the primaries, because the Republican primary was decided early, and Rush Limbaugh urged them to interfere. But those people were always going to vote for McCain. This decision shows total disrespect for the American electorate as if they only vote based on symbolism.

7. Net-net -- it's a PR stunt designed to draw attention from the press away from Obama. It will do that, but not for very long. Obama is a fantastic organizer. They will get the votes, and gimmicks won't convince very many people to vote Republican even if it does fuel punditry and political blogging. But even the pundits will decide at some point, finally, that this country needs leadership more than gimmicks. She's not a serious candidate for vice-president. Choosing a president is a serious thing. That's the only point the Democrats have to make to dispose of this.

CWmike writes "As Hurricane Gustav approaches the US Gulf Coast, IT lessons learned from the devastating Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that smashed New Orleans and other areas in 2005 are on the minds of many worried IT managers. David Avgikos, president of Digimation Inc., a 3-D digital animation software company in St. Rose, Louisiana, said, 'We don't have to be told twice.' Meanwhile, the nation's major cellular network providers say that they too are prepared, having learned from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Still, they offer some helpful tips for dealing with what is expected to be a category-three hurricane when it hits: use text vs. calling on your cell phone, and if you use a cordless for your landline, ditch it for a corded model so that it will still work if there are power outages."

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An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at MIT have created a method for analyzing networks to detect exploitable vulnerabilities using attack graph analysis which can be done in near real time. The new Lincoln Labs tool will allow admins of large networks to detect their most vulnerable areas and also model zero day attacks. 'NetSPA (for Network Security Planning Architecture) uses information about networks and the individual machines and programs running on them to create a graph that shows how hackers could infiltrate them. System administrators can examine visualizations of the graph themselves to decide what action to take, but NetSPA also analyzes the graph and offers recommendations about how to quickly fix the most important weaknesses. NetSPA relies on vulnerability scanners to identify known weaknesses in network-accessible programs that might allow an unauthorized person access to a machine. But simply being aware of vulnerabilities is not sufficient; NetSPA also has to analyze complex firewall and router rules to determine which vulnerabilities can actually be reached and exploited by attackers and how attackers can spread through a network by jumping from one vulnerable host to another.'"

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Earlier this year, we wrote about Verizon suing Time Warner Cable over a misleading advertisement, where Time Warner Cable claims that Verizon is "catching up" to Time Warner Cable in offering fiber optics. This is misleading, at best. Verizon is installing fiber to the home with its FiOS service, providing significantly faster connections. What Time Warner Cable is claiming is that it uses fiber in its network, not to the home. It's true that TWC and plenty of other broadband providers have used hybrid fiber solutions at the network level for many years, but that's totally different than connecting all the way to the home with a fiber optic connection.

Now it turns out that TWC is hardly the only broadband provider doing this. Apparently lots of broadband providers are now running ads against Verizon where they claim that they've offered fiber for longer than Verizon. That's totally misleading. Having fiber somewhere in the network is not at all an equal comparison to running fiber all the way to the home. As Broadband Reports asks, it's difficult to see how these claims from others isn't false advertising. They're clearly implying that their fiber is the same thing as FiOS when that's not true at all.

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We've featured the exquisite work of Jessica Joslin on Boing Boing a few times. It turns out her husband, Jared Joslin, is a terrific artist, too. He has a show currently running in Los Angeles.

Solo Exhibition of paintings by Jared Joslin.
August 14- September 13, 2008.
YARGER/STRAUSS Fine Art
354 N Bedford Drive
Beverly Hills, CA
August 14- September 13, 2008

Jared Joslin -- Shadow of the Silver Moon

In the early 1990s cyberculture, Morph's Outpost on the Digital Frontier was a hip multimedia technical magazine inspired in design (and consciousness) by 60s underground newspapers. This month is the 15th anniversary of the first issue. To celebrate, co-founders Jody Radzik (Art Director), Doug Millison (Editor), and Dave Pola (Ad Developer), have made the magazine's signature comic strip, Morph's Outpost On The Digital Frontier, by Fred "Sundance" Gromadski, available online. Millison has also launched an online Morph's retrospective. Dig that logo treatment by Kai "Power Tools" Krause!
Morph's Outpost comic, Morph's Outpost site (Thanks, Jody Radzik!)

Esther Schindler writes to tell us that Lynn Greiner has another look at the state of the scripting universe as a follow on to the same topic three years ago. Greiner talks to major players from each of the main scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Tcl, Python, Ruby, and Javascript) to find out the current status and where they are headed in the future. "The biggest change since 2005 has been the growth of richer Web applications that perform more of their computations in the browser using JavaScript. The demand for these applications has forced developers to learn and use JavaScript much more than before. There's also been a lot of interest in Ruby, another dynamic language, spurred by the release and growth of Ruby on Rails. As a result of these changes, many developers are becoming more comfortable with dynamic languages."

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Toren Altair mentions that the Rocket Racing League has video and pictures available from their recent flight tests of new Armadillo Aerospace liquid oxygen-alcohol engines. "Founded in 2005 by two-time Indianapolis 500 winning team partner Granger Whitelaw and X PRIZE Chairman and CEO Peter H. Diamandis, MD, the Rocket Racing League (RRL) is a new entertainment sports league that combines the exhilaration of racing with the power of rocket engines. To be held at venues across the country, the Rocket Racing League will feature multiple races pitting up to 10 Rocket Racers going head to head in a 4-lap, multiple elimination heat format on a 5-mile 'Formula One'-like closed circuit raceway in the sky."

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We were pretty surprised a few weeks back when the European Commission