Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, following this elegant presentation of three stories and an argument. The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you’ve ever seen.
EDIT — Couple links I thought might be noteworthy in regards to Lessig’s talk: BBC’s “The view from The Pirate Bay” and Boing Boing’s current coverage of the upcoming Draconian copyright laws being pushed forward in Canada (similar to the ones already enacted in the U.S.).
I posted an article about how they’ve got a combo boxing/chess game going on in Germany a few weeks back. I think Kasparov and Putin need to be put in the ring and have it out. How can they call it an “election”, if the people have no choice? Checkmate and down for the count!
“The Russian authorities have charged opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov following clashes with police in Moscow. He and other opposition figures were detained during a rally organised by Mr Kasparov’s Other Russia coalition. Mr Kasparov was charged with resisting arrest and organising an unauthorised protest. In speeches, leaders of the movement bitterly criticised the upcoming parliamentary election, saying there was no choice for voters. The commission has barred Other Russia candidates from the 2 December election. Mr Kasparov was forced to the ground and beaten before being detained, his assistant told AP news agency. He was later charged with organising an illegal protest and resisting arrest.”
Okay, one last post before I go out of town. Why not have a friendly round of chess, and then beat your opponent to a bloody pulp? That’s what they’re doing in Germany.
“But just when you would expect the punches to start flying, something rather odd happens. The two challengers put on headphones, sit down at a table and start playing chess: in the middle of the boxing ring. That is because this is Chess Boxing. A sort of Rocky… with rooks. The rules are simple. There is one round of chess – and then one round of boxing. Punching power alternating with brainpower.”
A small Northern European town will host three days of lectures, discussions, and film showings as the International Midnight Sun Witchcraft Conference descends on Vardo, Norway. The conference is being hosted by universities from the United States and Scandinavia, and will also feature discussions on shamanism and on the issue of cultural persecutions of witchcraft, both in a historical context and in examples from around the world in the modern day.
The original article (complete with stereotype-propagating image and obligatory Harry Potter mention) from BBC News.
The European aerospace giant EADS is going into the space tourism business.
Its Astrium division says it will build a space plane capable of carrying fare-paying passengers on a sub-orbital ride more than 100km above the planet.
[...]
Tickets are expected to cost up to 200,000 euros (?135,000), with flights likely to begin in 2012.
Michael Crichton follows up his foray into anti-evironmentalism with an exploration of the biopunk underground in his new novel Next, which actually sounds pretty interesting.
Early on in Next, a court similarly rules that Burnet does not own his own cells. Unfortunately, however, the cell lines derived from Burnet and now growing in BioGen’s labs have been contaminated. Investments worth billions will be lost unless the cells are replaced from the only known sources – Burnet, his daughter, and his grandson. Given that this is a Crichton novel, the corporation is not overly sensitive about how it replaces what its executives regard as its property.
Crichton similarly fictionalizes reality in a subplot in which shady characters in a pathology lab harvest and sell tissue and bones from cadavers without consent. This sordid activity came to light in real life in 2005, when police discovered that bones were taken from the cancerous cadaver of 95-year-old BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke and sold.
Press Esc talks up a documentary on BBC Two that explores (and brings to the mainstream) the conspiracy theories surrounding America’s wake-up call:
September 11 conspiracies will go mainstream on Sunday as BBC airs an hour long documentary that investigates the growing number of conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks.
9/11: The Conspiracy Files, will try to answer the question that has been doing the rounds on the Internet ever since the hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center: “Is it an inside job?”
According to the BBC, investigators have travelled across the United States speaking to eyewitnesses trying to separate fact from fiction.
The programme produced by Guy Smith raises another important question: “why was America so unprepared when terror attack warnings had been received?”
According to a Scripps Howard poll, 36% of 1,010 Americans believe that the government is responsible for the attacks either by omission or by commission.
The official 9/11 commission report concluded that “there were specific points of vulnerability in the plot and opportunities to disrupt it.
“The outrage caused by September 11th allowed the present administration to instantly implement policies its members have long supported, but which were otherwise infeasible,” according to the main conspiracy website, 911Truth.org, which receives thousands of visitors every day. “9/11 was exploited to launch an open-ended, perpetual “war on terror,” actually a war against any and all enemies the US government may designate. The case of Iraq shows that the target countries of this war need have nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.”
Heh, and Penn & Teller had an episode of Bullshit! that explored 9/11 that, just as with the yoga episode, I found pretty weak and discrediting to their reporting skills.
Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years’ time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said.
Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.
The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said – before a decline due to dependence on technology.
People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
Iranian Sufis say Islamic mysticism has become more and more popular in the country in recent years.
No official statistics are available, but Heshmatollah Riazi, a former professor of philosophy and theology in Iran, believes two to five million Iranians practice Sufism today – compared to only about 100,000 before Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Anyone read R.U. Sirius and St. Jude’s fictional How to Mutate and Take Over the World? In the beginning R.U.’s taking a drug called “forget it” recreationally.
A common blood pressure drug could help people who have witnessed traumatic events, such as the London bombings, to block out their distressing memories. (BBC News).
If is a new docu-drama series from the BBC dedicated to “scenerio planning.” Episodes aired so far include:
If… the lights go out
If… things don’t get better
If… the generations fall out
If… women ruled the world
If… we don’t stop eating
The editor had this to say:
We’re not trying to predict the future, we’re war gaming the future, working out what – based on current trends, technological developments and the decisions of today’s politicians – our world might be like in five, 10 or 20 years time.
The UN University says “extremophiles”, creatures adapted to life in the polar wastes, are being relentlessly hunted in what is virtually a new gold rush.
According to an article on the BBC, the primates from which humans evolved may have originated 85 million years ago – 20 million years earlier than originally estimated and before the extinction of dinosaurs. Link (via Thumbmonkey).
According to the BBC fusion power is “within reach”. Meanwhile, on a smaller scale but still very exciting is the developement of tiny batteries that convert body heat into electrical power. (Links via Slashdot).
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