Category: Politics & Law

Commentary and criticism of political and legal news and events.

Getting the British Harry Potter eBooks and Audiobooks

With the launch of the store at Pottermore.com, it’s now possible to get digital versions of all seven Harry Potter novels.

Pottermore Shop

I own all of the audiobooks twice over, and several of the printed books, but the eBooks represent something new: the chance to read the British version of the novels. Alas, due to insanely complicated–and stupid–international publication rights and restrictions, and my credit card’s USA billing address, the Pottermore.com store did not want to allow me to buy the UK version of the books.

Here’s how I bought them anyway. (You can do the same for the audiobooks, too.)
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Barack Obama for President

I’ve had 3-4 anti-McCain blog posts in draft status for weeks now, and have wanted to pull the trigger and publish them, sometimes coming within a button press of doing so. But I kept hesitating, and finally tonight decided to dump them, including those already published.

Partly because it’s too late, I doubt there are many true undecideds on the Internet, and none of them visiting here. But mostly because it’s just not Senator Obama’s message. While the other side can only speak terrible untruths, the Obama campaign has been about change, progress, and hope. It’s a message that is deeply patriotic, and for me personally, deeply moving. Getting off that train to take shots at the other guys is just about being sad. Mr. Obama is more positive, and that’s where I want to be.

What’s happening in your neighborhood? EveryBlock.com can tell you!

There’s a new web site launched this week, EveryBlock, that aggregates together all of the “news” and makes it available on a very geographically-specific basis — that is, specifically for your block. They launched covering only three cities, but San Francisco is one of them.

My block on EveryBlock.com

Want crime reports for your neighborhood? Got ’em. Want restaurant inspection reports? Got ’em. Want reviews of local establishments on Yelp? Got ’em. They compile standard news outlets, public records, other local sites, and even geo-tagged Flickr photos.

Go to the site, type in your street address, and then spend the next hour (or more) browsing the different pieces of information available. This is seriously interesting. I think in the long run it’ll be as influential as craigslist.

(I have no affiliation with EveryBlock, I just figure that everyone has an interest in what’s happening in their neighborhood, and this looks like a compelling way to find out.)

More dumbing down of America

Some visual analysis at The Daily Kos vividly illustrates just how little news is being presented on the CNN home page. It’s not clear to me whether this is worse than deliberately false and biased news. Indeed, as the writer points out Xinhua, one of China’s top news sites, does not suffer from the dumbing down that entombs CNN.

In any event, your best bet for getting actual news of what’s going on in America will be from NPR or the international edition of the BBC.

How to steal an election? Or how the election was stolen?

I present without comment two articles. One comes complete with a video that should chill your bones.

Thinking “no, it couldn’t possibly have happened, they’re not criminals, just stupid.” Yeah. Right.

Hmmm, I guess this wasn’t entirely without comment. ;-)

Get on the Global Frequency

You are being asked to do something and make a difference.

You are asked to do the following:

More Neat Stuff: Google Maps API

A couple of days ago I saw an eloquent “4,000 word” essay (4 photos) about “the impact of clear cutting”:http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/04/07/google_maps_/index.php, written with the new “Google Maps”:http://maps.google.com/ feature, showing satellite photos of the map area, allowing you to zoom in and out using the same controls as the street map version.

A couple of days ago I saw an eloquent “4,000 word” essay (4 photos) about the impact of clear cutting, written with the new Google Maps feature, which shows satellite photos of the map area, and allows you to zoom in and out using the same controls as the street map version.

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Not Feeling Sorry for Think Secret

There’s been a lot of press recently about Apple’s lawsuit against the Think Secret website, and virtually all of them assert that Think Secret has a First Amendment right to publish as they have been doing. Finally, someone has written — and done the research to back it up — what I had been thinking for a while: that “it’s not unreasonable for Apple to sue people who publish their trade secrets”:http://daringfireball.net/2005/03/new_york_times.

There’s been a lot of press recently about Apple’s lawsuit against the Think Secret website, and virtually all of them assert that Think Secret has a First Amendment right to publish as they have been doing. Finally, someone has written — and done the research to back it up — what I had been thinking for a while: that it’s not unreasonable for Apple to sue people who publish their trade secrets.

It’s one thing to suppress protected speech; if Apple was suing to make the guy stop writing about how much he hates Steve’s black turtlenecks, or something else that was a matter of opinion or public fact, that would be one thing. But Think Secret is publishing commercial trade secrets, or at least trying to, and that runs into other laws besides the First Amendment.

Now, the court may eventually find in favor of Think Secret. And that would be OK. But it’s a complicated issue that deserves debate and deliberation, and the courts are the right place for that. So I’m not at all feeling like Apple is out of line for initiating the lawsuit.

Spam Counts for 2004

2004 was a big year for spam, after “Congress voted to make it legal”:http://www.spamhaus.org/position/CAN-SPAM_Act_2003.html at the end of 2003. The result: “spam increased sharply in 2004”:http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/business/can-spam-act-40216.html. But in my own, more personal battles with spam I’ve been more successful at holding back the tide.

2004 was a big year for spam, after Congress voted to make it legal at the end of 2003. The result: spam increased sharply in 2004.

But in my own, more personal battles with spam I’ve been more successful at holding back the tide. My stats for 2004:

Filtered Mail

36278 Good Messages
72239 Spam Messages (67%)
197 Spam Messages Per Day

SpamSieve Accuracy

135 False Positives
451 False Negatives (77%)
99.5% Correct

Nearly seventy five thousand spam messages came at me, but thanks to SpamSieve a mere 451 made it into my Inbox. That’s less than two spams a day. Simply amazing.

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