Archive for the ‘ Technology ’ Category

23andMe Sale!

23andMe offers ridicu­lously low cost, private geno­typing to just about anyone. They take your spit and use it to test your DNA for hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide poly­mor­phisms (SNPs). Many of these SNPs are reliable predictors of gene sequence, and 23andMe can tell you tons of inter­esting stuff about tote traits, disease risk, heredity, and more! I’ve found out all sorts of really inter­esting stuff, like the fact that my father’s father’s mother, who was half Cherokee, could not have actually been my great-​​​​grandmother, or that I have a rela­tively rare inability to produce an enzyme called adenosine monophos­phate deaminase, [ . . . ]

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The Producer, the Librarian, and the Promise-​​Breaker

TLDR: This changes nothing. Today the Librarian of Congress announced new rules promul­gated pursuant to the Librarian’s rule­making authority under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to exempt certain actions from the prohi­bition against circum­vention of copyright protection systems found in 17 U.S.C. §1201. The “anti-​​​​circumvention provision” states: No person shall circumvent a tech­no­logical measure that effec­tively controls access to a work protected under this title. The Librarian is required by §1201 to make a deter­mi­nation every three years as to whether any exemp­tions from this prohi­bition are necessary in order to preserve access to copy­righted works. In the words of the Librarian, his task [ . . . ]

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More Cable Woes

I don’t think I mentioned it, but last August, right after I took the bar exam, I moved out of my law school apartment in Lesser Northeast Key Midwestern Swing State City and (shudder) moved back in with my mother in Greater Key Midwestern Swing State City, because I didn’t have a job. I still don’t have a job, but I do have an interview this week, so that might change. When I was in Lesser Northeast Key Midwestern Swing State City Just 20 Minutes South of Greater Northeast Key Midwestern Swing State City, I had AT&T’s U-​​​​Verse product, which delivered internet and tele­vision over a copper pair. It’s almost exactly [ . . . ]

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FCC Ready to Kill Internet

According to Reuters, FCC commis­sioners voted 5–0 today to proceed with crafting a “net neutrality” rule, sending the current language (which would strip telecom companies of the right to control how they use their own property) to the printing office for public comment. Comments will be accepted until January 14th. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available online here [PDF]. You can upload your comments using ECFS here, using proceeding number 09–191. You can read others’ comments on ECFS here. I’m writing comments to submit right now. I’ll post my comments here when I finish. I encourage everyone who loves the Internet [ . . . ]

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I Love My Toaster

Flibbert blogs about the possi­bility of people in the future marrying robots. I had some thoughts on the topic that were far too long to post in his comments. Here they are. I agree that only things with rights can enter contracts. Marriage, being a constel­lation of legal rela­tion­ships akin to a contract, is only properly available to things with rights. One could not marry one’s toaster. One’s toaster is not a condi­tional, voli­tional consciousness. Its existence is not an end in itself, it does not require sustained action to gain and achieve values in order to continue to exist, it is not required to [ . . . ]

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