Copyrighteous

The Digital Disobedience event that I helped organize on December 1st went (IMHO) very well. If you missed it, you can check out this video (MP4) that the Berkman Center has recently posted.

I was particularly impressed with Stanford's Fred Turner whose work I was not familiar with before. I haven't had a chance to check out From Counterculture to Cyberculture but I am looking forward to doing so soon.

Is Mika's new shirt meaningless engrish drivel or a statement against the violence of DRM? Or both?

I managed to find the futon we sleep on for $20 (USD) in Harlem. When that mattress got a little compressed and hard, I managed to get my friend Shekhar to loan us his futon and frame for the year. I also found and dragged in a decent fold out bed in New York that we keep in our living room for guests. Last night, I managed to procure a very nice mattress pad for free.

Some might call me the bed winner of the Acetarium household.

I went to buy some pseudoephedrine yesterday because we ran out at home. A sign on the shelf prompted me to ask for it at the pharmacy. They would only sell it to me in small blister-packs and in order to buy any, they wanted to transcribe all of the information on my driver's license.

A little bit of research reveals that this is roughly connected to the national Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005, signed into law earlier this year as part of the PATRIOT act extension. Apparently, pseudoephedrine is used to created (illegal) methamphetamine and meth chemists qualify as terrorists under PATRIOT.

States, however, have gone even further. Oregon has gone so far as to make pseudoephedrine a Schedule III controlled substance that requires a prescription. Many other states, like Massachusetts have made pseudoephedrine a over-the-counter drug that's kept, well, on the other side of the counter. It was, I think, the first I ever had to buy an over-the-counter drug over a counter. Usually, I just pick it off the shelf myself.

I find that fact slightly humorous. But it hardly seems worth collecting and recording a pile of personal information on every person who wants to buy a weeks worth of cold medicine -- particularly when the largest producers of U.S. meth remain outside of the country.

I'm going to be in Seattle between December 16-19 and 26-31 and in Tokyo between December 19-26. I know it's around the holidays but if there are folks in either place that want to meet up for a keysigning or a caffeinated/alcoholic beverage, or even have me give a quick talk at a LUG or something, it might be a lot of fun. Please don't hesitate to get in contact.

I am excited to see that a number of local hackers have organized the first Dev House Boston for this coming Saturday. There are many projects I'm interested in but I might try to take the opportunity to work on my iRony Rockbox Installer because it's likely that there will be many people there with different types of iPods.

If you're going, I look forward to seeing you there, although I might not show up until a little later in the afternoon.

I recently found out that Simon and Schuster (and some other publishers) have been publishing books under an MTV imprint. In a way that is slightly reminiscent of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, MTV has given their project the obvious name: MTV Books. That is to say, Music ... Television ... Books.

Of course, MTV Books is hardly constrained to traditional book media and been proactive in releasing MTV Books eBooks (including the intriguingly titled Oh My Goth! and Life as a Poser). Additionally, they have published an MTV Photobooth -- a Music Television photography book.

While they've published Sing Like the Stars! (quite a few of their titles are exclamations), a paperback accompanied by an audio CD, they do not seem to have published an audio book. I am looking forward to the day when they do so and finish the process of coming full circle.