Senator Franken Defends Censoring The Internet Because He Doesn't Think Hollywood Should Have To Change Biz Models?

We were a bit surprised late last year to see that Senator Al Franken was supporting censoring the internet via COICA (which, yes, is about censoring the internet). After all, Franken has positioned himself as the "internet freedom" politician, and has spoken out repeatedly against attempts to limit speech on the internet. Ars Technica has an interview with Franken, where he delves into his support for COICA, noting that he's heard from those who worry about censoring the internet, but in the end, he thinks it's okay, because he's from the movie/entertainment world, and he doesn't seem to think they should have to adapt to the changing internet:

The other side of this, of course, is that this is about, essentially, stealing copyrighted material and selling counterfeit goods. This goes to tens of billions of dollars in theft. Some of the supporters of this were after the American Federation of TV and Radio Artists, the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild... I happen to belong to all three of those unions. This doesn't just affect the jobs of writers and directors and producers; when they're free to steal all this intellectual material, it changes the business model of a movie. So it really costs the jobs of the technicians and the crew and the craft services people. It changes the entire business model for the industry. It's not just movies and TV, it's everything.

This is pretty disappointing, on any number of levels. First of all, his repeated use of the technically and legally incorrect words "stealing" and "theft" are troubling. Second, his repeating the totally debunked claims that this is somehow costing "tens of billions of dollars." The GAO has already debunked those numbers as having little to no basis, and it's disappointing that Franken would repeat them. But the key point is that yes, of course it changes the entire business model for the industry. But that's what new technologies do. They change the business models for legacy companies and it's not our government's job to protect those legacy companies and their business models, even if our elected officials used to work for those companies.

That said, Franken does suggest that he's heard many of the concerns about COICA and is focused on narrowing its focus significantly, saying that he has "tried to tighten the definition of who could be targeted under the bill" and in the recent hearing on COICA asked a series of questions to make sure that the bill "is narrowly tailored and will not unwittingly lead to the blocking of legitimate speech that is protected by the First Amendment." The problem is that I'm not really sure there's a way to do that effectively -- especially when, prior to COICA passing, Homeland Security already seems to think it can seize domains without any First Amendment considerations, leading to plenty of perfectly legal speech being suppressed. Franken should know better than to think that a bill allowing internet censorship can be crafted to only take down speech of one kind.

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Video: What's it Like Playing DS Games on 3DS?

1UP's 3DS came in from Japan today. While we don't yet have our hands on any 3DS games, that didn't stop Jeremy Parish from unboxing it and running us through its initial start up. He also put the system through a number of tests involving original DS games, including Dragon Quest IX and Contra 4.

Although it might be somewhat difficult to see in video form, the video upscaling that the 3DS enables by default tends to make DS games look pretty bad. Alternatively, you can enable a 1:1 mode that doesn't upscale (thereby avoiding unnecessarily-bad-looking DS games). On the downside, the amount of screen real estate that's used in 1:1 mode is fairly small -- noticeably smaller than the size of the screens on a DSi.

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Blog Post: A febbraio la famiglia Explorer torna a crescere

Puntuali come sempre i dati NetApplications sul mercato dei browser del mese appena trascorso. A febbraio però ci sono stati dei segnali in controtendenza rispetto ai mesi precedenti. La notizia più evidente è che la famiglia Internet Explorer sale dal 56 al 56,77 per cento, arrestando il declino costante degli ultimi sei mesi, mentre scende dell'un per cento quella di Firefox (da 22,7 a 21,8 per cento). Rallentano la propria crescita sia il browser di Google (+0,23 contro il +0,72 del mese precedente) che quello di Safari (+ 0,06) e Opera mette a segno un lieve ribasso (- 0,13 per cento).

All'interno della famiglia Internet Explorer, IE8 continua a crescere e arriva a sfiorare quota 35 per cento (34,95) e confermandosi di gran lunga il browser più usato al mondo (due volte tanto il secondo in classifica, Firefox 3.6). Ma il dato forse più attraente per Microsoft è quello relativo a IE9, che è stato scaricato 11 milioni di volte dalla distribuzione della release candidate (36 milioni i download complessivi da quando è stata resa disponibile la Beta a metà settembre). Prima della versione definitiva (la Rtw) annunciata per metà marzo, IE9 rappresenta già lo 0,6 per cento di mercato e il più del 2 per cento di chi ha macchine che usano Windows7. resta purtroppo ancora alta la quota di mercato di IE6, che perde poco rispetto al mese precedente, e resta sopra l'11 per cento.

In casa Google invece Chrome9 ruba tutti gli utenti a Chrome8, 'furto' scontato visto l'aggiornamento automatico del browser di Brin e Page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Blog Post: New High Availability Feature Article and Updated Support Guidance for Exchange 2010

Another big post by Scott Schnoll :

A database availability group (DAG), together with mailbox database copies, can provide automatic recovery from a variety of server, storage, network, and other hardware failures. A DAG can also provide a site resilience solution so that you can perform a datacenter switchover in the event of a site-level disaster. But even a comprehensive, intelligent, and robust solution such as a DAG can't protect you from all possible disasters, including disasters that affect an entire DAG. For example, consider a two-member DAG deployed in a single datacenter. If the datacenter experiences a flood, fire, or other cataclysmic event that destroys the DAG, the entire DAG will need to be rebuilt from scratch. How do you do that?

A few days ago, we published a new Feature Article on TechNet, by Tim McMichael, called Rebuild an Entire Database Availability Group. In this article, Tim describes how to rebuild a DAG that has been completely lost. He walks you through the entire process, step-by-step, including examples along with way. For details, check out this excellent article.

We also published some updated guidance around required network latency between Mailbox servers that are members of a DAG. Our old guidance was as follows:

• Regardless of their geographic location relative to other DAG members, each member of the DAG must have round trip network latency no greater than 250 milliseconds (ms) between each other member.

Our new guidance is now:

• Regardless of their geographic location relative to other DAG members, each member of the DAG must have round trip network latency no greater than 500 milliseconds (ms) between each other member. As the round trip latency between two mailbox servers hosting copies of a database increases, the potential for replication being not up-to-date also increases. Regardless of the latency of the solution, customers should validate that the network(s) between all DAG members is capable of satisfying the data protection and availability goals of the deployment. Configurations with higher latency values may require special tuning of DAG, replication and network parameters, such as increasing the number of databases or decreasing the number of mailboxes per database, to achieve the desired goals.

And of course, as we stated previously and continue to state, round trip latency requirements may not be the most stringent network bandwidth and latency requirement for a multi-datacenter configuration. You must evaluate the total network load, which includes client access, Active Directory, transport, continuous replication, and other application traffic, to determine the necessary network requirements for your environment.

There is another support change that we made recently (although the documentation has not been updated because the support change occurred after this last document refresh) with respect to using Bitlocker on DAG members. Our old guidance (which will remain on TechNet until our next document refresh, even though the new guidance now applies) was as follows:

• Windows failover clusters can't have BitLocker enabled.

Our new guidance (and what the updated article will say when published), is as follows:

• Windows failover clusters require Windows 2008 R2 and the following hotfix: KB2446607 (or subsequent service pack). BitLockered Exchange volumes are not supported on Windows failover clusters running earlier versions of Windows.

This means that if your DAG is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or later, once you download and install the QFE from 2446607, it is supported to use BitLocker for Exchange database and log file volumes in the DAG.

-- Scott Schnoll

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Asteroids could have delivered ammonia to the early Earth

In the wake of Stanley Miller's classic experiments, it seemed that one aspect of the origin of life was sorted out: the Earth's early atmosphere could easily produce some of the chemicals that are typical of modern life, providing a healthy supply of building blocks for the first pre-biotic chemistry. One of the components of Miller's experiments, however, was ammonia, a nitrogen bonded with three hydrogens; since his time, questions have been raised as to whether the early atmosphere could have contained any ammonia whatsoever. Now, an analysis of material in an Antarctic meteorite suggests that ammonia could have been delivered to the Earth from outer space.

Nitrogen makes up the largest fraction of the Earth's atmosphere, but it's largely present as the unreactive N₂ molecule. To participate in most biochemical processes, that molecule has to be reduced, which typically involves bonding to hydrogen or carbon. In Miller's time, the newly formed Earth's atmosphere was thought to promote chemical reduction, and thus would provide a healthy supply of ammonia. In more recent decades, however, views on the early Earth have shifted, and it's now thought to have been chemically neutral, and might even have a tendency towards oxidation, the opposite reaction. That has left researchers considering alternate sources for biochemical precursors.

One possible source includes extraplanetary delivery, with organic molecules arriving from space. Abundant organic materials have been found on some comets and a few types of meteors, but many of these are complex, stable end products, not the simple precursor molecules that could feed into early biochemistry. This is especially true of the most famous carbon-rich meteorite, the Murchison.

In the new paper, the authors look at a different class of meteorites found in Antarctica. These contain a collection of accessible components that include ammonia and amino acids, but also a large mix of insoluble organic molecules that have been tough to characterize. To get around this, the authors put the material in water, and then treated it with heat and high pressures, which released a great deal of ammonia. This suggests that the potential contribution of these meteorites to the early Earth's biochemistry is much larger than earlier work would have shown.

"An abundant exogenous delivery of ammonia, therefore, might have been significant in aiding early Earth’s molecular evolution toward prebiotic syntheses," the authors conclude, saying it "would make a reasonable case for exobiology." That's a pretty loose definition of exobiology, which generally refers to the process of life forming somewhere other than the Earth. But it does place an emphasis on the potential role of materials and processes that aren't inherent to our planet. This isn't the first paper to point that out; another recent study indicates that the impact of a comet on the atmosphere can produce lots of reduced nitrogen. It seems possible that life originated on Earth, but may have needed an assist from the rest of our solar system.

PNAS, 2011. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014961108  (About DOIs).

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Merger Arbitrage Mondays: February 28, 2011

Asif Suria submits:

Merger activity increased last week with six new deals announced and five deals closing.

You can find all the deals listed below in our Merger Arbitrage Tool that automatically updates itself during market hours.

Deal Statistics:

Total Number of Deals Closed in 2011	29
Total Number of Deals Not Completed in 2011	1
Total Number of Pending Deals
Cash Deals	44
Stock Deals	23
Stock & Cash Deals	12
Total Number of Pending Deals	79

New Deals:

1. The acquisition of Zoran Corporation (ZRAN) by CSR.PLC for $679 million or ADRs equivalent to 1.85 shares of CSR common stock per Zoran share held in an all stock deal.
2. The acquisition of Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories (CPD) by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries for $5.25 per share in cash.
3. The acquisition of Tollgrade Communications (TLGD) by Golden Gate Capital for $137 million or $10.10 per share in cash.
4. The acquisition of Clinical Data (CLDA) by

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Feds Got Reporter's Phone, Credit Card & Bank Records In Trying To Track Leaker

Back in January, when I saw Daniel Ellsberg speak, one of the things he noted was how much more aggressive the Obama administration appeared to be in going after leakers than any previous administration. Ellsberg's theory -- which he admitted was based on just his intuition -- was that President Obama is actually quite embarrassed by some of the things he's doing and is, thus, more aggressive in trying to stop leaks, knowing that his actions are damaging his reputation. I don't know if that's true, but there is growing evidence of the level of questionable activities from the Obama administration even in going after leakers. Ellsberg noted at the time that the Obama administration has brought more indictments for leaking than all other presidents combined before him.

The latest is the report that came out late last week that the government, in going after leakers, got access to reporter James Risen's phone records, bank details and credit card statements. As the report notes, this is pretty extreme:

Although there have been other public controversies over subpoenas -- real and threatened -- to reporters in recent years, there have been few, if any, cases in which it has been documented that federal prosecutors obtained the bank records and credit reports of journalists.

It's not entirely clear if all of these activities took place under the Obama administration or previous administrations, but multiple people quoted in the article say this kind of activity has been much more common in the Obama Justice Department. For a President who has positioned himself as being a big supporter of press freedoms, this looks really hypocritical. Spying on reporters is bad. As the report notes, Risen was subpoenaed directly twice, but both times a judge reasonably quashed the subpoenas. So, for the administration to basically go around all that and get records from others is pretty bad.

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