Tales of the Sausage Factory:
If I Love The FCC's Comcast-BitTorrent Order So Much, Why Did I Appeal It?

So last Friday, Media Access Project filed 3 Petitions for Review asking the federal courts to order the FCC to order Comcast to stop blocking p-2-p immediately. None of this wait until the end of the year crap. We filed on behalf of Vuze.com (in the Ninth Circuit), Consumers Union (Second Circuit), and PennPirg (a member of Consumer Federation of America) (Third Circuit).

Comcast, for its part, filed in the D.C. Circuit. I have not heard of any other filings, but it is possible.

More details, and what comes next, below . . .

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
I Guess Republicans Think Community Organizing Is Funny.

Well, things were pretty depressed at the Republican convention over the last few days. But now we can begin a rollicking good time mocking the very idea that community organizing has value.

Of all the things that both Gulliani and Palin could have fixed on as a line of attack, the idea of community organizing as work for pussies is not what I would have expected, and Lord knows my expectations after Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are prety low. But what amazed me was how many folks on the floor of the RNC Convention actually laughed and whooped it up at the very mention of being a community organizer, before even getting to the supposed punchline about how it doesn’t give you any “real” experience.

Hee hee hee. Those whacky Democrats! They think that if someone goes out into a local poverty striken neighborhood, inspires people to believe that participating in the political process can change things and make their lives better, gets wildly diverse and often fractious interest groups focusing on a common goal, against industry interests backed by an entrenched political power structure, all on a shoe-string budget is something that matters! Ha ha ha! What a ma-roon! What a joke! People matter? They can make a difference? And inspiring them and organizing them to believe that qualifies you for something other than a beating by the cops? What a joke!

Voters who think they want to have beer with these people better think again. They will be happy to pat you on the head and drink your beer — especially if they can stick you with the tab. But if you would like people who actually give a crap about your lives, you’re coming to the wrong store.

As for community organizing, we actually have another name for it over here. We call it “voter registration.”

Laugh away chuckles. See you in Novemember when the rabble turn out to vote.

Stay tuned . . . .

Inventing the Future:
What's a Server?

I was taught that science is all about managing complexity by creating abstractions over different domains. A common layman’s mistake is to anecdotally observe or hear that something is true at some level, somewhere, and assume that this fact or definition applies throughout every discussion. For example:
One hears that computers are “programmed in binary,” or that they “understand binary,” but in fact, programmers don’t write in binary. Programmers work at a higher level of abstraction than binary encoding.
One hears that computers use “digital circuits,” that are simply “on” or “off”, but in fact, the physics of each electronic component is continuously variable. Device physics is at a lower level of abstraction than digital electronics.

So, what’s a server and what is peer-to-peer? It depends on what ‘s being discussed?

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Inventing the Future:
Computer-Generated News

<%image(20080830-abc-news.jpg|427|316|ABC News Story)%>

I’m old enough to vaguely remember Walter Cronkite forty years ago showing us hand painted “NASA Simulation” video of the Apollo spacecraft maneuvering in space. There simply was no way to position a news camera outside the Lunar and Command Modules to get the shot.

Now we have computer generated movies and commercials. I’ve seen computer simulations of plane crashes and of presidential candidates. But yesterday morning was the first time I’d seen computer-generated pictures of human participants in breaking news. I’m not sure I approve of the concept altogether, but given it’s existence I do like the editorial decision to render the named humans in untextured solid red.

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Rarely Do I Catch The Daily Show In A Factual Error . . .

So I will crow over this silly little mistake. The normally excellent Indecision2008 Blog has misidentified Senator Ben Cardin as the Senator from Maine in this blog post. He is, in fact, the Senator from Maryland.

This is important since Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, the Senators from Maine, (a) are women, (b) are Republicans, and (c) voted in favor of the FISA “compromise,” whereas Cardin voted against it. I shall leave it as an exercise to the reader which they think is the most important difference and whether either Cardin, Collins, or Snowe should feel offended that Indecision08 got them confused. Although I do agree with the main thrust of the blog entry that Ben Cardin is not nearly as sexy as Charlize Theron no matter what state he is from or his political party.

But in any event, I do think Indecision08 should run a correction.

(I promise to do real blogging again soon, just a bit busy at the moment.)

stay tuned . . .

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Blogging Live From Denver: The Quest To Actually Get Into Big Tent.

Well, my usual level of organization pays off.

Due to an annoying computer crash, I failed to get my application to get into Big Tent Denver. My pass as a speaker for Common Cause only covers me for tomorrow. My alternate arrangement has run into a bit of difficulty. And, of course, such is my fame among the progressive blogger community that no one here knows who the $@! I am or why they should care.

I had hoped to take Henry Cohen up on his offer to see the wireless microphones for the convention in action. Alas, the DNC convention is locked down like a drum, and Henry — despite massive efforts — could not get me in today to see the tech operations. The DNC and RNC conventions have got to be like the superbowl for wireless microphones, so this is also rather disappointing.

So I am sitting in a delightful bookstore/coffee house down the block from Big Tent, contemplating wandering over to the main convention to see if protesters are using sophisticated technologies to outwit security –or not. I will confess that despite news stories of tight security, I was able to drive past the convention center this morning no problem.

If all else fails, I will spend a pleasant day in Denver and can catch up on some other work and various blog things.

UPDATE: Thanks to the amazing work of Katie Flemming at Common Cause Colorodo, I am now inside with a pass.

Stay tuned . . . .