Russia has agreed to shut down Allofmp3.com, the music website singled out by the United States as an obstacle to its support for Russian membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The pledge is part of a wider promise by Russia to clamp down on internet piracy and other intellectual property violations, in return for US support for its accession to the trade body.

Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative, had made the closure of Allofmp3.com, which America regards as one of the world’s largest online repositories of pirated music, a non-negotiable issue in the two countries’ dealings.

The company has attracted more than 5 million users by undercutting rivals. It sells tracks for between 10 and 20 US cents each, compared with 99 cents at Apple’s American iTunes store and 79p in the UK.

The rest of the article is here… And here is Allofmp3.com’s FAQ regarding the legality of their downloads. After quoting lots of statutes, their stance is basically “We’re following the rules here. Whether or not it’s alright in your country is up to you, and you are taking the risk, not us.” It is humorous to read more of it. When asked whether or not it is fair that Russia has laws that support their activities, their response was “Although fairness is a difficult and very subjective issue, we believe, yes, it is fair.”

I came across a site with similar ideas as mine regarding the social networking sites out there like MySpace, Orkut, Facebook, etc… Really, these are self-assembling groups of cliques. I can imagine the CIA being “We’ll create this site where people can communicate only after they’ve established a link between each other, and the gross aggregate of this is that we’ll know how everyone is connected socially.” Do I think the CIA started MySpace? No. But if I were them, I would certainly crawl that data. I don’t mind it right now, but what if at some point they are instituting a “Everyone within two degrees of the suspected terrorist is heavily watched, or even arrested.” Maybe my friend is friends with a terrorist, but should I get in trouble? This is data the government shouldn’t have. But I guarantee they do.

I’ve been listening to lots of Grateful Dead this year, from the archive (www.archive.org). They have maybe 1500 different shows up there. Well until maybe two years ago, you were allowed to download the soundboards (SDBs) of the shows, which are the band’s official copy for their vault. The archive also hosts multiple audience-recorded copies (AUDs), and each one sounds a little bit different. Anyway, Bob Weir pulled all of the SDBs which sucks because they are of a much higher audio quality than the AUDs. This also means that all the Matrixes are gone. [A Matrix is when you mix a SBD and an AUD copy, so that you get the good music quality, but you get more audience claps and screams and stuff. Makes you feel like you are there. You can hardly hear the audience in SBDs, which is because the monitors and mics are faced away from the crowd.] You can still stream the SBDs, but not download them. Anyway it pisses me off, and I’m pissed because of the reason Bobby gave for it all: They played lots of covers, and they are afraid of being sued. After 40 years of playing, grow some fucking nuts and admit that you want to SELL the SBDs for additional revenue, like Phish is doing. They started it. Anyway, we all know the real reason, Bobby. Just ADMIT it. No one is making any money off the archive’s collection, so how could you be sued over allowing downloads of covers of other people’s music? Don’t they have to make money off something in order for you to be sued for it? Here is the quote:

“We had to cover our asses. What they’re doing is illegal, unless there are arrangements made… particularly in the case of covers – other people’s material.

“If we’re perceived to be distributing their songs without their agreenent, they have every right, and really and every obligation, to sue us…

“We had to take it down. We had no choice. It’s archive.com’s [sic] job to make arrangements with the other people whose material… we’re playing, and then everything’s good….

“Probably a lot of it is stuff that we intend to release in the future anyway.

“We need revenue. Our music division needs revnue so we can digitize all of that stuff.

“The ‘information wants to be free, man’ – those folks… this is not information, this is music. It’s kind of value-added information. Some people prefer to call it art….

“We had to go ahead and do the right thing, and it upset some folks. I’m really sorry about that. So they started up a petition, a boycott, and all that kind of stuff. I really hope they can stick to their guns, and boycott us, and… seeya….”

Again, Bob Weir is a dick. Check it out, you can hear him say this.

Dick Proenneke retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin on the shore of Twin Lakes. The first summer he scouted for the best cabin site, and cut and peeled the logs he would need for his cabin. Dick Proenneke returned the next summer to finish the cabin where he lived for over 30 years. Dick filmed his adventures, and Bob Swerer later turned the film into a video.  I’ve seen it aired on PBS and it is pretty inspirational.  When I get done watching it I always question why I am living in the city and working behind a computer all day.  I saw a torrent floating around of the video for those who don’t want to buy it or wait for another PBS airing.

Anyone else seen this?  This made his own tools, and then used them to build his own cain, he hunted, he trekked, etc…  Ridiculous.

Saw this today on /.  Most of you won’t care, but a few of you are into the whole open source thing so figured I’d comment.  This doesn’t bode well for my opinion of Patrick as he begins his governorship.  I personally use lots of open office products from a few sources, and couldn’t be happier.  Saves me tons of money I’d never spend on the real products (I’d just make do without them).  From Microsoft’s standpoint this must be great news. If they can reassert themselves in MA’s IT world, it will greatly help their cause in the half dozen or so other states that had been following MA’s lead.

map_test.swf

The mail man that delivers mail to my office is a nice guy and we’ve gotten to know each other a little bit.  He sent me this little test.  Do you know all fifty states?  It times you, and though it is a good test, when you drag the name of the state onto the state you think it is, if you are wrong, it gives you an X and you can try again.  Basically, if you are quick enough, you can do all the easy states, and then brute-force the rest of them in the given time.  Kind of a fun test, though.

… at least a few of these. Some of these are pretty interesting, and each listing has its own page. Hours of fun if you’re a nerd!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Anyone care to comment on one of them?  For example, I think I’m often guilty of having a clustering illusion (seeing patterns where none exist), or sometimes (actually, probably quite often, unfortunately) illusory correlation, where I draw connections between things, and the connections just aren’t true.  Thank you psilocin.  Really helped me out on that one.

Well its back in the news, though admittdly in the UK.  Slashdot has the link and ensuing conversation about a recent decision in the UK to NOT extend copyright for the first time in half a century.  50 year old copyrights will begin expiring at the end of the year, meaning works from 1955 and onward will begin entering the public domian  

The short of it is basically that the length of the copyright term in the UK is 50 years.  As in the US, the major media companies and artists lobbied to get it extended to 75 years, so as to prevent works from entering the public domain.  Parlaiment put the ax to this one, and for the first time in 25 years or so (since the last extension) works will begin entering the public domain again. 

I can only hope for the day that half the lawmakers in this country get the same clue.

I’ve always been told i should start a cult or a church.  What ever happened to Bennettism?

Anyway, for shits and giggles it would be funny as hell if we bought one of these and started a congregation of some sort.

Don’t know if you’ve guys have seen this already, but it looks pretty sweet.

BumpTop

http://www.grimmemennesker.dk/

In 1994, an athletic man we’ll call John was involved in a car crash. He was uninjured, and X-rays of his spine showed no fractures. They did, however, reveal unusually dense bones. John’s radiologist referred him to Karl Insogna, the director of the Yale Bone Center. “His bone density was eight times higher than average for a man his age,” Insogna recalls. This fact may not have surprised John, who used to sink like a stone when he tried to swim.

Six years later, Insogna heard a fellow physician mention he’d seen a family with very high bone mass. Together they traced the family tree, linking John to an extended kin group sprinkled up and down the Eastern seaboard. The affected kin all had very dense bones and unusually square jaws, but otherwise normal skeletons. One of the affected family members is a physician in Alabama. “He’s had several failed hip replacements because they can’t screw the prosthesis into his bone,” Insogna says. “It’s too hard.” Studying the family, Insogna’s team zeroed in on a region of chromosome 11 likely linked to the unusual trait. But at the time, he says, the region was just too long to sequence.

From The Scientist via Neatorama.

image: Torus palatinus, a bony, lobulated outgrowth typically found in the hard palate of people with a particular LRP5 mutation.

Brian, you gotta love this! It’s based on the logo of the band The Misfits. Josh, i’ll definitely give you an IPA to ask this kid about his motivations.

Correction:  the artist says its not based on the Misfits logo, its just the first step in a complete body skeleton, complete with maggots, cockroaches, and spiderwebs.

It’s caused huge rallying on the UCLA campus.  Use the links provided in the original post, and then change the date day by day to see the development.  The kid is suing the officers involved for excessive brutal force.  Independent investigations are occuring.  It’s just great.  This pissed off alot of people.  The video isn’t good enough to stand up in court, really, but if you watched it, it is obvious that there at least 50 witnesses.

Here is the latest article naming the police involved:

“Monday, Nov. 20, 2006

University police identified the officers involved in a Nov. 14 Taser incident on Monday, naming an officer who has been implicated in prior cases of police misconduct and use of excessive force.

Terrence Duren, a UCPD officer of 20 years who was not convicted in any of the cases, was one of four officers who dealt with Mostafa Tabatabainejad on Tuesday. The student was hit five times with a Taser after he refused to leave the library after being asked to do so and resisting the officers when they attempted to escort him out.

Nancy Greenstein, UCPD director of police community services, confirmed Duren was among the officers, who included Alexis Bickamong, Kevin Kilgore and Andrew Ikeda.

In a video taken by a student, Duren was shown using a Taser on Tabatabainejad, who was stunned with a Taser five times.

This is not the first time Duren, the UCLA Officer of the Year in 2001, has come into the public eye.

In 2003, Duren shot Willie Davis Frazier Jr., a homeless man Duren encountered in a Kerckhoff study lounge, following a physical and verbal altercation.