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Category: Society

Jon Stewart, the Media and the NYTimes

By Phil Mayes Posted on November 1, 2010 Posted in Media

In today’s NYTimes, David Carr critiques Jon Stewart’s attack on the media as insignificant because “In even a good news night, about five million people take a seat on the cable wars, which is less than 2 percent of all …

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Conservatives and Boundaries

By Phil Mayes Posted on October 26, 2010 Posted in Politics, Society

I have pondered the psychology of politics for many years.  I first concluded that fear was the defining difference: conservatives carry guns, live in gated communities, want controlled borders, support law and order and drive SUVs that feel safer.  But …

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Three Arguments against Copyrights

By Phil Mayes Posted on June 22, 2010 Posted in Intellectual Property, Law

1 Let’s start with the delightful video Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (10:48) that says that when performing mechanical tasks, an incentive such as money improves performance, but when the task is intellectual, it doesn’t!  In fact, …

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The Logic of Prop. 8 Supporters

By Phil Mayes Posted on January 27, 2010 Posted in Law, Religion, Society

From Tuesday’s NYT: The defense sought to show that claims of bias against gay men and lesbians were overblown. In particular, Dr. Miller testified, gay men and lesbians in California could count on a deep and varied contingent of allies, …

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Supreme Court Goes Rogue Again

By Phil Mayes Posted on January 14, 2010 Posted in Law, Politics

Emily Bazelon has an excellent post highlighting the contradictions in yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to block video streaming of the CA gay marriage trial, e.g. The problem, the majority says, is that in his haste, Judge Walker changed a federal …

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The equivalence of patents and source code

By Phil Mayes Posted on October 4, 2009 Posted in Intellectual Property, Law, Programming

The Software Freedom Law Center has filed a Supreme Court brief re Bilski, and I loved this idea within it: “The source code of a program which performs the steps described in a software patent is distinguishable from the literal …

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Health Care Premiums

By Phil Mayes Posted on September 16, 2009 Posted in Health care

I see nothing in the current health care proposals that limit the premiums insurance companies can charge.  Yes, they may be subject to premium ratios, but their plaint will be that to cover the burden of insuring everyone, all premiums …

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Google vs. Newspapers

By Phil Mayes Posted on April 9, 2009 Posted in Intellectual Property, Law, Media Tagged with AP, Google

There is an excellent analysis of the plight of newspapers on Groklaw, and PJ ends by pointing out that Groklaw itself is an example of what the newspapers have not been providing, and what will arise in the wake of …

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Frying Pan to Fire?

By Phil Mayes Posted on February 17, 2009 Posted in Religion, Society Tagged with Creationism

A new Louisiana law that could lead to teaching Creationism in schools has caused a leading scientific group to boycott the State for its 2011 annual meeting, reports the  NYTimes. So guess where they’ll hold it instead?  That bastion of …

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Lawyers Shut Down Internet

By Phil Mayes Posted on February 13, 2009 Posted in Computers, Intellectual Property, Law Tagged with html linking

I exaggerate, but check out this Slate post about a law firm that successfully objected to someone linking to their website.

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