A rather scary look at what happens when people can't throw things out. I tend in this direction, so it's a little close to home. This sort of stuff is often a medical issue, but is more often treated as a personal failing in my experience. The fact that the people can rationally talk about their disorder but are still unable to stop - it's intense.

Thanks to The Old New Thing for posting this.

Labels: science

John McCain's presidential campaign has discovered the remix-unfriendly aspects of American copyright law, after several of the candidate's campaign videos were pulled from YouTube.

McCain has now discovered the rights holder friendly nature of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forces remixers to fight an uphill battle to prove that their work is a "fair use."

However, instead of calling for an overhaul of the much hated law, McCain is calling for VIP treatment for the remixes made by political campaigns.

One law for the rulers, another for the plebes. Why not?

Labels: computers, politics, technology

I know it's not related to 99% of what this blog is about. But I can't resist a good article about my favorite browser.

Labels: computers

CANBERRA, Australia, October 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Thanks to a legal loophole, Australian mothers who abort their child in late pregnancy can collect a $5,000 bonus designed to turn around the country's plummeting birthrate, reports Australia Associated Press (AAP).

The law allows the payment - normally reserved for mothers who successfully give birth - to be awarded on compassionate grounds to women whose baby is stillborn. But because late-term abortions are registered as stillbirths, the "compassionate" payment is available to women who choose to abort as well.

Labels: politics, prolife

A sad story.

(Crain’s) — An S&P 500 futures trader died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound just hours after losing several million dollars Wednesday, one of Wall Street’s most volatile days.

Joseph Anthony Luizzi, 44, of Oak Brook, died in west suburban Berwyn, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. He left a note.

“He explained to his wife that he had made a substantial loss and was despondent that he could never regain that loss,” said Berwyn Police Chief William Kushner.

Thx to NYSE Exchanges commenter for the link.

Labels: economics, religion

A day after the chief rabbi of Haifa-- a special guest at the Synod of Bishops-- urged Church leaders not to beatify Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, defended the wartime pontiff’s reputation in an article in L’Osservatore Romano. ‘It is profoundly unjust to extend a veil of prejudice on the work of Pius XII during the war,’ wrote Cardinal Bertone. ‘If he had made a public intervention, he would have endangered the lives of thousands of Jews, who, upon his directive, were hidden in 155 convents and monasteries in Rome alone.’

This dude has to be the only Righteous among the Nations who's also accused of anti-Semitism.

Labels: catholic, jewish

Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner

My thoughts exactly.

Labels: computers

Labels: news

A smart ex-IBMer on why things that sound too good to be true usually are.

Labels: economics