Supremes decline to kill Cable DVRs

Television and movie companies have always been nervous about consumer recording systems. There was a huge fight over the VCR - which the studios lost. Then, a battle over putting television shows online. Now, the studios are trying to kill network cable DVRs. But the Supreme Court has refused to hear a case that could have shut them down entirely.

The justices declined to hear arguments on whether Cablevision Systems Corp.'s remote-storage DVR system would violate copyright laws. The end to the closely watched case allows the Bethpage, N.Y.-based company to proceed with plans to start deploying the technology this summer.

With remote storage, TV shows are kept on the cable operator's servers instead of a machine inside the customer's home, as systems offered by TiVo Inc. and cable operators currently do.

The distinction is important because a remote system essentially transforms every digital set-top box in the home into a DVR, allowing customers to sign up instantly, without the need to pick up a DVR from the nearest cable office or wait for a technician to visit.

It is always a bad thing to fight the future, because it is coming whether you like it or not. Here's hoping this decision - or lack thereof - forces television and movie studios to engage digital device makers to bring about the best experience for consumers, while keeping things profitable for artists.

Not a Coup in Honduras

I was discussing the situation in Honduras with Nomad yesterday and like many Americans he hadn't been following it much before the President was removed from office. Unfortunately, the American news media and our government aren't giving us the whole story either. For a good summary of what led up to the removal of the President click here to see a summary by Neal Boortz. The few sentence summary is this:

The President wanted to hold a constitutional referendum to rewrite the constitution to abolish term limits. The Congress had to agree to the referendum and didn't, so the President printed his own ballots. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum unconstitutional. The President planned to go ahead with the referendum anyway, so the Army arrested the President and pushed him into exile.

So he was removed from office for defying a Supreme Court order and trying to circumvent his country's constitution. That is a lot different from him having suffered through a coup.

Connecticut Weirdness: The Ballroom Polka

I remember with dismay my elementary school years when my teachers tried to get me to memorize such trivia as the state bird, state flower, and state instrument. How, I wondered, could anyone care about this kind of stuff? It must be a relic of a bygone age, right? Not so much - apparently, some Connecticut residents are trying to get the state government to designate a "state polka". The supporters seem quite passionate about it. Personally, I never knew "passionate" and "polka" could be placed in the same sentence. The candidate polka is in the YouTube video below. And I will grudgingly admit it is impressive, and somewhat catchy.

Stacks for iPhone

For now, this is jailbreak-only software. But I honestly hope we see it in iPhone 3.1's firmware! This would be very useful for apps I want to use often, but don't want to keep on the front page.

Comic Book writer detained for a Script

My father was a lawyer and had one piece of advice that was ALWAYS depressing to me as a writer: "Don't write anything down." He said this because more people have been rightly and wrongly prosecuted over something they wrote in a letter to a friend or family member than almost anything else. And once something is written down, it can never be taken back.

Well, it appears that my father was even more correct in the "Age of Terror" as a comic-book writer was detained by homeland security for having a script to a new comic which included fictional acts of terrorism.

http://sfscope.com/2009/05/comics-artist-mark-sable-detai.html

I am sympathetic to the security screeners here. They had no immediate way to differentiate between an artist and a crank. But this really paints up the problem with the current security screening method. It is possible to smuggle in a gun or bomb, but not a piece of writing which is protected under the First Amendment.

Turning things on their head

It's All About Priorities...

From Townhall.com.