Hi-Sci-Fi

This image was uploaded with the post Election Canada 2008: Copyright & Bill C61.

by Irma Arkus

Bill C61 is still alive and well, and yet, both the ignorance of politicians on the topic of Copyright issues, and its absence from political platforms is noticeable and disturbing.

Michael Geist stopped calling Bill C61 a Copyright Bill, instead renaming it Canadian DMCA bill, and rightfully so.

It seems that this time around, elections have not produced any momentum discussing issues of privacy, surveillance, and digital rights. Instead, for the most part, we’ve given way to what could only be categorized as raw corporate interests.

Geist notes that despite the absence of Copyright issues from political discussions and platforms, there is an active movement to engage our politicians and affirm their standing on this issue. I present to you the 2008 copyright pledge:

Will you commit to a balanced approach to copyright reform that reflects the views of all Canadians by pledging:

1. To respect the rights of creators and consumers.

2. Not to support any copyright bill that undermines or weakens the Copyright Act’s users rights.

3. To fully consult with Canadians before introducing any copyright reform bill and to conduct inclusive, national hearings on any tabled bill.

While our crazy neighbours to the south are eager to create a Copyright Czar, initiating yet another type of public and law enforcement war, except this time war waged against unruly consumers, teeny boppers and confused grandmas; Canadians are perfectly happy to maintain their already existing Copyright Act without turning their country into an acid version of Big Brother society. Thus the pledge.

NDP and Green Party have thus far signed onto the pledge. No word from Liberal or Conservative camps yet.

For more coverage, visit Michael Geist’s blog here.

This image was uploaded with the post EFF Sues NSA, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush & co..

by Irma Arkus

EFF has filed a lawsuit against NSA and current administration membership, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and others who have participated in an illegal en-masse domestic surveillance.

“In addition to suing AT&T, we’ve now opened a second front in the battle to stop the NSA’s illegal surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and hold personally responsible those who authorized or participated in the spying program,” said Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

The case involves a small room in San Francisco used by NSA to conduct mass surveillance illegally by its direct link to fibre-optic network.

For full coverage of EFF’s case against Bush administration read more here.

Stay tuned for audio coverage - our interview with EFF.

by Irma Arkus

Latest update on Royal Society Identity Crisis involving Reverend Professor Michael Reiss is that he submitted his resignation from his chair as Director of Education of Royal Society.

Reiss’ resignation has a wide political impact as it brought the issue of creationism and education to UK. Reiss apparently, did not necessarily prescribe to the opinion that Creationism should be introduced into the classrooms, however, his statement indicated that teachers should be allowed to discuss concepts of Creationism and Intelligent Design in a classroom environment, which, considering the lack of framework for educational environment, opens to doors to teaching religous concepts instead of evolutionary biology.

Colleagues of Reiss have expressed their concerns when hiring of Reiss, a reverend, took place, describing the situation of handing directorial position of such prestige to a deeply religious man, as “pythonesque.”

Monty Python sketches aside, the resignation of Prof. Reiss may have resulted in a short term appeasement of members of the science community, but has opened the European public to the greater political schism between religious and scientific communities.

Galileo where art thou?!!!

This image was uploaded with the post Royal Society in Crisis.

by Irma Arkus

Reverend / Professor Michael Reiss, the Royal Society’s Director of Education, is also a religious man, one who has declared that Creationism disguised as Intelligent Design is a desirable “theory” to explore in classroom setting. As a result of his statements, the Royal Society is facing a tremendous crisis, one which Richard Dawkins addressed today in his letter to New Scientist:

“Scientists divide into two camps over this issue: the accommodationists, who ‘respect’ creationists while disagreeing with them; and the rest of us, who see no reason to respect ignorance or stupidity,” writes Dawkins.

It seems that the days of languishing in apathy while “respecting” religious fantasies are over.

Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society, has publicly requested Reiss to step down: “Creationism, Intelligent Design etc. have no place in a science classroom discussion and should not be legitimized as acceptable alternative theories to evolution by anyone who claims to be a scientist. Ill-conceived opinions by a representative of the RS will only encourage those teachers, both scientists and otherwise, with a creationist agenda to speak about it to their students in the classroom. We would urge that Professor Reiss step down, or be asked to step down, as soon as possible,” writes Rees.

Now that chicken have come to roost, so the speak, people like Dawkins and P.Z. Myers are becoming faces of both political and scientific leadership. Question begs though, why Reiss attempted to use his position to pursue his own religious beliefs after so many years of being a member in this important professional association?

Read full letter by Dawkins here.

This image was uploaded with the post George Takei’s Wedding Bells.

by Irma Arkus

Congratulations to George Takei, who yesterday married his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman!

by Irma Arkus

Online retailers are awakening to the fact that yes, we do enjoy watching TV, just not necessarily when “they” want us to, rather when we have a chance to squeeze in an hour of fun.

Amazon.com is now joining the ranks of those offering on-demand videos. Kinda like EZTV, but costlier. $2.00 for a TV episode, and $15.00 for a - get a load of this - 24 hour rental of a movie!!! That happens to be a more expensive viewing than purchasing a movie ticket.

The question is whether the catalogue of movies bears any gems. And also, it will be intersting to see how long will it take for the “rental” software to be cracked.

It is important to acknowledge that these services offered by Apple, Netflix and Amazon are but a pale imitation of fan-based sites using p2p technology already in existance.

This image was uploaded with the post The Watchmen Saga Continues.

by Irma Arkus

So we’re really fired up by Snyder’s stab at the Watchmen. Once Kevin Smith stamped the film with his blessings, announcing to the world that all is OK with this film, we felt immediately better about this massive cinematic undertaking.

However, all is not well with the Watchmen. As you recall, we have previously mentioned that Terry Gilliam had the initial impetus to imagine making Alan Moores graphic novel series into a cinematic production. It just never happened. As it turns out, the license to produce the film(s) has been sitting on many production company shelves over the years - 20th Century Fox included.

Currently there is a fierce ongoing legal battle between Warner Brothers, the company that ultimately funded the Zack Snyder’s production, and that of 20th Century Fox. According to NYTimes, Fox is currently after an injunction to stop the movie from being release, as apparently, they still own the production rights.

Warner Brothers on the other hand, stated that Fox has sat on the sidelines for a few years, fully knowing that the production of the film was ongoing. In fact, there is a statement by executive producer Lawrence Gordon, who goes as far as to say that he knocked on Fox’s doors offering the project, and it is only after being rejected by Fox that Warner Brothers took on the film.

Fox’s legal team has stated that they were “unaware” of production of the film, and the whole legality of production rights transfer is at this point murky as hell. My question though is - is there really anyone, apart from maybe Osama Bin Laden, who was unaware that the Watchmen was produced?

Are we really to believe that Fox’s executives were attempting some kind of media blindness test for a few years, and only now they have noticed that there is a film with the exact title as that envelope kept in a dusty safe?

I understand that to assemble a case and a legal team to pursue possible damages or rights takes a bit of time, but at this point, these outrageous allegations by 20th Century Fox are delaying a release of a much awaited film. The Watchmen were supposed to be released in March of 2009, and now we are looking at beginning of July.

July!!!!???? I was kind of personally hoping to see it…tomorrow if possible?

Either way, this spells further delays and the Fox (how appropriate) rubbing its paws, hoping for a piece of this marvelous money-pie funded by Warner’s Brothers.

In other news…MGM is up for sale!

More on the Watchmen to follow.

So, you may have noticed a certain gap - as in, a no show last Friday - to those of you sending concerned emails, do not fret! Irma got a little flu. The kind of annoying flu that makes her cough and sound like she’s been an avid smoker for last 80 years. Will keep you updated on how she’s doing. Meanwhile, we will take care of her, with our invisible super-powers.

Sincerely,
Invisible Care-Taking Superheroes

by Irma Arkus

The latest and greatest news of surveillance totalitarianism that is UK, comes in a form of unabashed request of UK Government to maintain a database “recording every text, email and browsing session.” The reasoning? To curb crime, of course.

Further information of this outrageous new proposal, see Matthew Sparkes at PCProarticle.

The information is to become available to public officials and variety of investigative bodies. Question begs - will these monitor private companies as well? Will the information of private corporations suddenly belong in public domain? All correspondence available for review? This also brings us to yet another question - will they clamp on white collar crime now?!!!

by Irma Arkus

The latest news on the case of the Missouri mother who impersonated a teen on myspace in order to harass her daughter’s friend is the response of EFF, urging the prosecution to drop charges currently based on misrepresentation of her myspace registration.

The idea that Lori Drew registered as “Josh Evans,” a teen boy, according to prosecutors, constitutes fraud and violation of myspace terms of usage.

EFF however, points out that establishing criminal charges for online impersonation would quite likely establish a new set of criminal charges for millions of users, eliminating any shred of anonymity available to users.

Currently, defense is requesting complete dismissal of charges.

This image was uploaded with the post I am Batman.

by Irma Arkus

E. Paul Zehr, a movement researcher, estimated the qualifications of Batman, and stated in his Q&A session on Scientific American, that you too can be Batman…in merely 10 to 15 years time.

Since Batman does not wield any real super powers, rather only years of martial arts training honed by incessant practice, Zehr suggests “decathlon” as a primary training ground for future Batmans: “most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We’re seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics.” Zehr has a point. We’re slobs who “watch” sports, not “do” sports.

In Zehr’s opinion, Bruce Wayne’s physical qualities can be summarized as following:
“Bruce Wayne started off at about six-foot-two and 185 pounds. I gave him a body fat of 20 percent (slightly below average) and a body mass index of 26. Let’s say after 10 or 15 years, after he’s become the Batman, he’s weighing about 210 pounds and has a body fat of 10 percent. He’s probably gained 40 pounds of muscle. His bones will actually be more dense, kind of the opposite of osteoporosis.”

Apart from physical prowlice, there is also the question of gear. Bruce Wayne, as we all know, is a multi-millionnaire. So, technically, in order to become Batman, you too would need gillions of dollars, and a great R&D team.

Wanna become Batman? Your conditioning starts HERE.

by Irma Arkus

Spectrum auctions have resulted in some major cash grabs. Apparently, the CRTC pertains that funds from the auctioning of the wireless spectrum will be reinvested into growth of infrastructure in Canada.

Infrastructure? Excuse me? Hmmm. Is that not why we Canadians have been paying exorbitant amounts for our Telco services? So the Telcos can “reinvest” them into infrastructure? Am I mistaken? Sadly, no.

The infuriating news that have rattled the cages came on the heel of release of Canadian iPhone. Inflated pricing finally became the straw that broke the camel’s back, as most have winced at the opportunity to spend hundreds of dollars more a month for the luxury of having the amazing iPhone. iPhone which, I may add, is neither amazing, nor qualifies for such high fees.

To top it off, text messages, traditionally seen as a viable way of reducing traffic and giving something gratis to customers in most EU, North American and Asian nations, are now to fall play to additional fees.

Interpreted as an unmistakeable cash grab, this move struck a cord with most Canadians. For one, text messaging traffic is so comparativel small to that of voice apps, that its usage does not strain existing infrastructure.

Secondly, it is worthwhile pointing out that the fees indicated for text messaging are incredibly high for no particular reason, except for Telcos wanting to make a higher margin of profit, and possibly recoup funds spent on auctions (and fast!). 15 cents per text message is an incredibly high fee. If fees were to be raised to a flat fee of a few dollars, for unlimited text usage, the news would have gone over comparatively well.

Finally, we are faced with 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, BC. Only a year ago has the Vancouver City Council faced a flabbergasting question - what about availability of WiFi coverage during Olympics?

They had no answers, but everything seems to indicate that WiFi should and will be a public service established across the city, provided as a simple public utility, rather than some fandangled privately-owned enterpreneurial abyss of funds and desperation.

We are stuck a la Groundhog Day with our service providers, because we rely on private companies to provide public services. We keep on paying higher fees because we rely on private corporations to develop for-profit services. We keep on building infrastructure that keeps on being handed over to private companies, instead of building accessible and affordable public services. How is Canada going to build an information society, a nation of professionals and enterpreneurs, if the very access to information is being narrowed and excessively growing in costs? This is what I ask. And I would text our politicos too…if I had the money.

To illustrate the cost analysis of text messages, none is better than this one provided by Globe and Mail’s Sarah Schmidt, which clearly illustrates that 15 cents charges are something we could potentially see if we were to communicate with our loved ones…on Mars:

“The consultant with the Toronto-based firm Heavy Computing said that while 45.3 million text messages sent daily sounds like a lot, the amount of space this takes up on a network and related costs to a telecom company are minuscule.

A text message sent via mobile phone can be no more than 160 characters, and each character is about a byte. If 45 million text messages are sent throughout Canada every day and each message is about 100 characters, this totals 4.5 gigabytes. This amounts to about the same amount of gigabytes required to download two or three high-resolution movies from the Internet.

And in comparison to the cost of transmitting a voice call on cellphones, text messaging chews up far less space on a network. “For most cellphones, a voice call is five kilobytes a second to get an average quality call. That’s the equivalent to 50 or 100 text messages,” said Chase.

Chase pointed to a recent study by University of Leicester space scientist Nigel Bannister as a useful reference to show the proposed 15 cent fee is “absolutely ridiculous.”

Bannister compared the cost of sending a text message with the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from the Hubble Space Telescope. He calculated that if companies charged customers 10 cents per text message, that would translate into a cost of about $734 per megabyte, about 4.4 times higher than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs (of $166 per megabyte).”

“Hubble is by no means a cheap mission, but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical,” Bannister concluded in his study.”

For full Sarah Schmidt article please visit Globe and Mail HERE

This image was uploaded with the post Text Messaging in Canada = Krazy Times in Canada.

by Irma Arkus

The first signs of surveillance to detect “copyright infringement” are showing. A US federal judge recently ruled that Google is to hand over the records of all videos users have watched on YouTube to Viacom, as Viacom is suing Google for failure of censoring posted videos legally owned by Viacom.

In response to this ruling, Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner sent an open letter to Fleischer and Brin of Google. Cavoukian encourages Google to challenge the request, as it advocates surveillance of public in order to enforce copyright laws, chipping away at privacy of its users.

Copyright issues (in Canada - Bill C61, and in US, an already approved Digital Millenium Copyright Act), are very much pertinent to issues of surveillance. As previously mentioned, if Bill C61 is to be approved in Canada, and all these various ways of enjoying, using and exchanging media are to become illegal, the question begs: how are these “illegal activities” to be verified?

In other words, if your computer holds various mp3s suddenly charged to be illegal as of 2008, how are these mp3s to be “found” by authorities in the first place? This implies severe invasion of privacy and increased surveillance of members of public at large.

Most critics have duly pointed out that Bill C61, as frightening and as ridiculous as it may be, is solely serving corporate enterprises rather than the Canadian public. The implementation of the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act seems to already indulge corporate interests at the expense of personal privacy.

What further complicates things, is the undeniable fact that due to blurring of private and public spaces, such as in case of google, myspace, and facebook, our personal information is very much owned by private companies, and thus legally bound by corporate laws and interests.

What about the public Internet spaces? Do we have them? Should we have them?