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GeekNights 070129 - Removable Media
Tonight on GeekNights, we talk a bit (in reasonably nontechnical terms) about floppy drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, Cassettes, and more. In the news, Norway finds fault with Apple, and Linux can now be installed with an .exe.
Scott's Thing - Terrible F1 Accident (possibly NSFW)
Rym's Thing - Frank Zappa vs. Censorship
Scott's Thing - Terrible F1 Accident (possibly NSFW)
Rym's Thing - Frank Zappa vs. Censorship
Comments
1) The main force behind the PMRC was Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore, hardly a conservative.
2) Congress was still under Democrat control.
Frank Zappa
Musician and producer Frank Zappa stated that
The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design.
It is my understanding that in law First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.
Zappa also stated his suspicion that the hearings were a front for H.R. 2911, a proposed blank tape tax:
The major record labels need to have H.R. 2911 whiz through a few committees before anybody smells a rat. One of them is chaired by Senator Thurmond. Is it a coincidence that Mrs. Thurmond is affiliated with the PMRC?
Hmmm... yes, piracy and the RIAA was alive back then too...
Dee Snider was also greatly involved back then. He used to host a morning show in Hartford and would occasionally play clips and talk about those Senate hearings.
I have a few comments on the Apple/iTunes Store case: The only new development is that Germany and and France has joined forces with the Norwegian Consumer Council. The council does not have a very strong case against Apple. The only legal power this council has, is to take cases to court on behalf of consumers. Apple's lawyers claims that the laws protecting their business has priority over the laws the consumer council claims they break, and I think Apple has a good chance of winning the case in court. The case against Apple is just a series of minor conflicts with Norwegian law.
It's quite obvious that the consumer council, unlike most other official institutions, have some people with tech insight who understand what is going on with DRM. They see that the current situation is bad, and that no other institution of power will understand the need to do something about it. The council does not have much legal power, but they have a lot of power in the media. They can basically kill a Norwegian company just by saying out loud that the products or services are bad. This is the weapon they are using against Apple.
At the moment Apple don't care much about it. The Apple Store is not a big hit in Norway because there are very few Norwegian artists available there. On top of that, there are only 4.5 million Norwegians in total. Apple won't care if they loose a few customers. But the people at the consumer council are smart. They have made certain that this legal process is slow by giving Apple lots of time to correct the problems. They made the complaint about a year ago, and so far almost nothing has happened apart from a couple of letters back and forth between the lawyers. To the rest of the world this might look like a long battle between Little Norway and Goliath Apple, where Little Norway still hold their ground despite the mighty power of the foe. It's a simple trick, but it has impressed enough people to make bigger forces like Germany and France to dare join the battle. I'm really looking forward to future development.
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As a Norwegian I also feel the need to comment on Norwegian language (there is a funny YouTube link at the end, after stories of priest murders).
Norwegians discuss language almost as often as the weather (and we have a lot of violent weather to discuss). The language situation here is quite unique. With only 4.5 million people we have two official Norwegian languages that everybody learn in school, and we also have an ethnic minority of native Pan-Nordic Sami people with a total of four different languages that are taught in school where needed (I won't write about them now). These are the written languages. The dialects and pronunciation is a whole other matter. Two persons from neighbouring valleys may not understand each other when saying the same words. This is of course a very unpractical situation, but most Norwegians embrace it. It's about local identity. People have been killed for less.
Norway was under Danish rule for several hundred years, with Danish as the official language. That reign ended almost two hundred years ago, but Danish continued to be the official language. The pronunciation was however influenced by the native language. About a hundred years ago the written language was revised a bit and was named "bokmål" (book language), and was no longer considered Danish. For several decades, some enthusiasts had been studying the older, native dialects and synthesized a written, dialect friendly language of this "original Norwegian" that was named "nynorsk" (new norwegian). After many years of heated debate both became official. Also, the use of dialects in media is encouraged. The Nynorsk is much hated by the majority of school children who have Bokmål as native language. On the positive side, this plurality of languages force people to understand the history of, and differences and similarities between, languages. Thus, Norwegians are generally better at understanding and talking Swedish and Danish, than Swedes and Danes are at understanding Norwegian and each other's languages. More different languages like English, German and French are also easier to learn when you have such a background.
I promised stories about priest murders, and we are nearly there. One other factor that explains our love for local dialects (and other strange behaviour) is the fact that traditionally, most of the population owned their own property, unlike most of Europe where farmers worked on the land of rich landlords. Norwegian farmers where kings on their own land. So don't you dare tell a Norwegian farmer how to run the farm, how to behave, dress or speak! If we go back about 300 years, all higher education was done in Denmark. Which meant that any priest, anywhere in Norway, were Danish, or talked Danish, or at least brought with him ideals from this other country that "held Norway in prison". Well, I guess I already spoiled it. As a result, in some remote parts of Norway a lot of priests were killed. When people from different valleys met, they often bragged about which valley had killed more priests. So don't come here and tell us that it is stupid to have two official languages for 4.5 million people! We kill priests for fun, so there!
I also promised a funny YouTube video. In written language, Norwegian and Danish are almost identical. However, the difference in pronunciation is so different that we often have to resolve to English. Yes, really! In Norway we often say that the Danish speak Norwegian with a hot potato stuck in their throat, and that they only understand Norwegians when they are too drunk to speak (which is often the case for Norwegian tourists in Denmark). We don't understand how the Danish understand each other, and from what I hear that has actually become a real problem. Here is a parody made by Norwegian comedians. Most of it is in English, you won't miss much.
Shit, I did'nt get any work done today. Damn you, GeekNights! ;-)
Also thought the joke with the "F-1 accident" was funny. And the Frank Zappa interview was very interesting. I have heard the man's music before, but I didn't know he was involved in such things until I saw the video.
On the Zappa thing, I actually thought he did very well and was quite a good debater, it's just that Lofton was quite the douche, hardly letting Zappa get a word in edgewise and when Zappa actually got a chance to talk, Lofton decided on his own accord that "You've talked for long enough, now I'm going to talk..." o.O The nerve!! And while Zappa was evasive with some questions it's because the question was geared so that agreeing or disagreeing would make his position worse, and to Zappa's credit I think he handled it very well. I was amazed he didn't tell Lofton to shut up... that's some self restraint right there.
Interesting fact Frank Zappa's album "Jazz from hell" is the only TOTALLY instrumental album with the "Explicit" rating, the album also got him his first Grammy ^_^
If you don't believe me, just ask Sen. Ted Stevens. He'll tell you that jury nullification is just a series of tubes brought in on trucks. Sometimes, it falls on the backs of common jurors to abate the idiocy of our elected reps.
He also held his own with the likes of William F. Buckley on his show, though I haven't been able to dig up a video of that interview as of yet.
(1) Many have remarked on the forum, and Rym specifically has observed in the Jury Duty episode that they could not serve on juries or that they were easily excused. Whatever the reason they could not serve or were excused, some if not all of these people have been inspired to speculate that the people who do end up on juries are maybe not so bright. It might not be a good idea to allow the not-so-bright types to nullify legislation.
(2) Even if the nullification works to the public interest, it's a nullification of one particular case. It's not a finding that the legislation is unconstitutional. The legislation still has effect, and it's unlikely the legislators are going to allow some nullifications to persuade them to repeal the legislation. SInce the nullifications occur on a case-by-case basis, the legisalators can always point to specific facts and circumstances to say that the nullification does not represent dissatisfaction with the legislation, but a reaction to the specific facts of specific cases. Even if legislators were inclined to find the nullification to be persuasive, juries don't render opinions, and so there'd be much confusion, dismay, and obfuscation as to what the nullification actually meant and, in complicated cases, what specific legislation was intended to be nullified.
(3) The judge could issue a JNOV. Then where would your nullification be?
It sounded to me like it was a way to nullify jury nullification, is that right? How often are these issued/upheld?
It seems to me like this could be unbalancing to the judicial system, but so can jury nullification, I suppose. Just as long as they aren't overused.
I picked on up and a 512MB SD card to use with my Wii and I can't get the thing to work right. I'm not entirely sure if I'm seating the SD card in correctly as it sits at an angle when the indicator light comes on and when it sits straight the light does not come on... Both of my XP machines see the reader/writer but not the SD card. I have not tried this on my Ubuntu box as there are no audio files on the Ubuntu box and I have not bothered to setup any shares...
Notice the judge can also grant a new trial. I've never seen a JNOV or a new trial granted, but I've also never seen an instance of what I could confidently claim to be jury nullification.