Monthly Archives: January 2004

Reality by Agreement

Posted on January 5, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

A short excerpt doesn’t do it justice. Have a look at I’m not Toto, and this isn’t Kansas, a funny and also thought-provoking entry to an otherwise not-that-interesting Slashdot thread about taboo subjects:

…One of the base rules of the game was “If you’re out of your tent, you’re in character”.

…a couple of wedding party members wandered into the game space….it took less than 2 hours to convince two sane, intelligent, and reasonably successful (possibly mildly inebriated) people that they had been magically transported into another world. All it took was a few score people with absolutely no willingness to admit that any other truth was possible or to act like there was anything wrong with this world.

Read the full original, or see the duplicated version in the extended.

Continue reading →

Posted in Readings | 1 Comment

GNU Project is 20 Today!

Posted on January 5, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

The GNU (“GNU's not Unix”) Project turns 20 today. (The Initial Announcement – GNU Project is actually a few weeks older than that).

Call it what you will, Richard Stallman, and GNU and the copyleft idea, are important to our long-run wealth and freedom (as in 'freedom of choice' and 'freedom of action' at least and, it increasingly appears, also as in 'liberty'). Read all about it.

Update: Here are Richard Stallman's thoughts on the occasion.

Posted in Software | Comments Off on GNU Project is 20 Today!

Another Sign the Internet is Growing Up: The Jennicam is Dead

Posted on January 4, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Via the BBC, I learn the (not especially recent, see CNN in December!) news that Jennicam is dead.

OK, I live a sheltered life, but I recall being amazed that anyone, except maybe a performance artist, would want to have a webcam on them 24/7 or even a substantial fraction of that. Or that people would pay to watch basically nothing. But of course that was before they invented “Reality” TV. (That professional porn would move into the webcam biz and that people would pay for it was just sad, not surprising.)

What's especially ironic is that the proximate cause of the demise seems to be paypal's refusal to process payments to Jennicam, on the grounds that it broadcast nudity.

The Register commemorated the occasion with a Jennicam haiku or limerick contest, and they're mostly pretty awful, which seems fitting somehow.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Another Sign the Internet is Growing Up: The Jennicam is Dead

NYT Gives Reasons to Believe Capt. Yee Is a Victim

Posted on January 4, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Missteps Seen in Muslim Chaplain's Spy Case. This New York Times story doesn't actually say much that is new (cf. Case Against Capt. Yee Starts to Smell Like a Train Wreck almost a month ago), but it's nice to see it on the front page.

The only things in the article that I hadn't heard before are (1) that the regulars are pointing the finger at the reservists as the cause of the erroneous and/or botched prosecution: “Reservists serving as counterintelligence officers at the camp were apprehensive that they might miss some sign of infiltration of the base but were relatively inexperienced in how to handle such matters” and (2) the lurid details of just how nasty the conditions of confinement were when Capt. Yee was in solitary.

Even if all the charges against Capt. Yee are dismissed, his marriage has been perhaps irretrievably damaged, he spent weeks in solitiary in shackles, treated worse than the inmantes in Gitmo (who are at least told the direction of Mecca), and his career as an officer—probably not irrelevant to a West Point graduate?—is presumably finished. And it's hard to see how he'll get out of the adultury charge in light of the testimony (put into public evidence first in order to cause him the maximum personal damage). Ok, this isn't the modern Dreyfus Affair, but it's not a good advertisement for US military justice either.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | Comments Off on NYT Gives Reasons to Believe Capt. Yee Is a Victim

Shorter George Will

Posted on January 4, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Shorter George Will

Now that Clinton is safely out of office even I agree that Robert Rubin is a good economist, so if Rubin says that economic predictions can never be certain it follows that we cannot be certain that the Bush deficit is really as bad as people say, and therefore it's ok to ignore everything I said in the past about deficits and continue to support Bush and bash his deficit hawk critics, especially if they are Democrats.

Posted in Econ & Money | 1 Comment

Mail Down, Again

Posted on January 4, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

My UM mail host is down again. I've called it in, but fixes tend to be slower on Sunday. Please be patient if you are trying to contact me, and send again tomorrow if you expected a reply but didn't get one.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Mail Down, Again