That governs best which governs least

Music Industry in Global Fight on Web Copies

The people responsible for KaZaA, the file-trading software network, are trying to stay one step ahead of the entertainment industry’s lawyers. Two of it’s principals are being sought in Europe, and no one will admit to having a copy of the source code. It’s an interesting twist in the bits vs atoms debate.

The Sharman case may well raise again the unsettled question of whether Internet companies should be forced to adhere to the laws of every country whose citizens have access to their Web sites.

Some copyright experts object to that notion, on pragmatic grounds and because they say it contradicts the Jeffersonian principle that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. But the alternative, for a company to be bound only by the laws of the country where it is headquartered, could lead to a race to incorporate in countries whose laws are the most lax.

Well, of course: why are most corporations registered in Delaware? Why are most merchant ships registered in places like Liberia? It’s not like software developers are the first to want to minimize the friction of business laws.

On the other hand, do I think people should be able to give away copies of copyrighted works? No, I don’t. But at the same time, I would like to see the industries who claim injury here to innovate, instead of litigating (I hope Microsoft hasn’t copyrighted that phrase from the browser wars). Here’s a brand-new distribution channel that offers all kinds of possibilities to generate revenue and capture mindshare, but they don’t want to take advantage of it. They’re still thinking in atoms, not bits.

fink’s “Jaguar Compatibility Release” notes

On this
page I read the following — If you have upgraded to Mac OS
X 10.2 on a machine with a pre-existing Fink installation, then
this document will provide step-by-step instructions for upgrading
Fink as providing the details for upgrading fink to run with
10.2. But then on this
page, I read this: This is the last release for Mac OS X
10.1. Future versions of Fink will not officially support Mac OS X
10.1 anymore, we are gearing all our efforts towards 10.2. At the
same time, this release is not meant for Mac OS X 10.2. Fink 0.5.0.
which is targeted for October, will be geared towards 10.2. In the
meantime refer to the news item below on how to upgrade Fink for
10.2. As far as I can tell, fink 0.4.x runs with OS X 10.2.
That’s why I call this the “Jaguar Compatibility Release.” However,
I never saw the note about 0.4.1 being the last 10.1 release before
I started down this road. Read on for details. Continue reading “fink’s “Jaguar Compatibility Release” notes”

if it smells like payola

CNN.com – Has rock & roll become irrelevant? – Oct. 3, 2002

No, I don’t think so, but the industries that have both fostered its growth and stifled its creativity have made themselves irrelevant.

In a development that can only be described as farcical in its labyrinthine logic, Clear Channel (the nation’s foremost owner of radio stations) announced that it would be dealing exclusively with a pre-selected set of indie promoters, who will pay the corporation for the rights to their internal research while being paid by the labels. If you’re wondering how that differs from payola — or indeed, why Clear Channel and other radio operators can’t just hire programmers who are smart enough to pick hit singles on their own, sans all this shady promotional influence — well, you won’t find an answer here.

This article has the first use of the word narrowcasting I have seen in a while. In the early days of the Internet, it was tossed around pretty frequently: there would be customized broadcasts and one-to-one interaction between media entities and consumers. The weblog is evidence that it’s possible, but not necessarily viable. Internet radio stations (like Radio Paradise) offer a varied playlist, much more diverse and interesting than commercial radio stations offer. The fact that these stations exist demonstrates a need that commercial radio and perhaps the labels themselves won’t address.

If the Internet broadcasters take to satellite transmission (as Radio Paradise hopes to do), it will be interesting to see if some guy sharing his record collection can do a more entertaining job that professional program directors. The premise of the Tom Petty song featured in the article above is that conservative program directors and large broadcasters have made the DJ who knew his music an artifact. Now his every move is planned for him, every song, every announcement, every segue. No more sharing that great sound he found over the weekend or on a trip: it doesn’t fit the format.

C++ closure

Took my final exam in C++ and object-oriented design today, after tossing the final project over the transom 2 days ago. The final was quite challenging: even open book/open notes, it was tough.

I find I like the design questions and problems better than the ones that rely on syntax retention. The one I found most interesting was the design of a metering/analysis tool for a freeway onramp. The object was to design the data structure to hold the information about all the cars that passed through the ramp on to a motorway, recording the time spent waiting and the number of cars.

As I saw the problem, what was needed was a structure for each car with its time in and out the ramp, any wait time, and as the car left the ramp, the object holding its information would be collected and summarized by an onRamp object.

The Car object could be a simple typedef, a struct or a methodless class.

The questions I liked least were, to my mind, quite vague: one dealt with Polygons as a class, but the class constructor seemed to use just two points — X and Y — to define a polygon. My memory of coordinate geometry is weak, but I seem to recall that a point has no dimensions, the smallest/simplest thing that can have dimensions being a line. I suspect I didn’t do too well on that one.