so you think you know how it works?

.org registry vanishes into thin air. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear [The Register] i can here the silence for pir and isoc already, it is immense and foreboding.

Help Restore the Public Domain. Larry Lessig has posted this important plea for your assistance in bringing back a public domain in the face of… [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] I'll be writing my representatives within the next few days.

Browsing at the Art and Culture Automat. Cyberlicious: the Art and Culture Network. In a lo-brow search for “bubblicious”, I happened upon the hi-brow and highly browse-friendly, ACN. Why? Because “bubblicious” is one of its in-site “keyword” searches, describing that quality “shared by champagne, soap foam, hot air balloons, and gum… lighter than air, ephemeral, […]

Psychology has failed?. Psychology has failed. It's not often that an entire academic discipline collapses, but according to Peter Watson, author of A Terrible Beauty, that's what is happening to Psychology. “….it has failed technologically, philosophically and is already in an advanced stage of decomposition.” [more inside] [MetaFilter] I guess you need to look around […]

Today's most buried headline. This week's most buried headline could be a real stinker this week for the Pentagon. Apparently over $1 trillion are missing as well as “dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.” [MetaFilter] sounds to me like someone has been funding worldwide terror campaigns again….. who? those that benefit most, i think.

A Market Solution to the History Job Market Problem?. I am a 33-year-old historian with three monographs (published by Cambridge University Press, Greenwood, and Rowman & Littlefield), a forthcoming six-volume edited series, and scores of book chapters, refereed articles, book reviews, paid speaking appearances, and the like to my… [Invisible Adjunct] where the analysis fails […]

Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. Within minutes, I also signed up with DigitalConsumer.org and faxed a letter of support for the Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. The bill is a simple, positive assertion of the rights that consumers have had until recently. These include: The right to “time-shift” media (recording a TV show and watching […]

Threat Is Seen to Heirloom Software. The personal computer industry began less than three decades ago, but already some of the early software programs that defined the era are an endangered species, the potential victims of “bit rot,” according to a prominent digital archivist. By John Markoff. [New York Times: Technology] hmm, we've know about […]

Torvalds Suggests DiBona for SCO Panel. SCO has offered to document its far-reaching infringement claims against Linux for independent experts. The creator of Linux wants someone believable on the panel. [Linux Journal] I tend to think that it would be good to have a diverse panel of experts. DiBona is a good possibility for this.