Category Archives: Administrivia

Administrivia

Um, is it bad when you see leaves falling up?

We just had a hellacious thunderstorm here in Baltimore–walnut-sized hail, sheets of rain, and–gulp–some cyclonic activity, including leaves falling upward, then drifitng down like so much tickertape. And now it's quiet again. God, the weather has been wacky here; La Plata had an F4 tornado a few weeks ago, so when a big thunderhead rolls through now, my fight/flight instincts keep tugging me toward my basement.

My kids ran out afterward and started scooping up the hailstones–they were still grape-sized by the time they got to them, and it's (now) 77 degrees outside. No dents in my cars, as far as I can tell (at least no new ones).

Update: It's official — a twister overflew us and touched down out east of the city. There were a few tornado touchdowns southwest of the city as well.

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Administrivia, General Chaos

Know your (digital) rights

A group called DigitalConsumer.org, headed up by a collection of the digerati, is leading a campaign to stop the “Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act” (CBDTP), sponsored by Fritz “Media Monopoly Whore” Hollings. They've published a proposed bill of rights for digital consumers.

While I'm somewhat circumspect about their self-interest here (I see a lot of venture capitalists on the list of “endorsements”), the cause itself is worth supporting. Somehow, I don't see a bill that ensures the continued padding of Michael Eisner's wallet as a good thing, and what DigitalConsumer.org proposes is merely the status quo (well, maybe the status quo pre-DCMA) of consumer fair use.

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