Month: August 2008
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Lenz Ruling Raises Epistemological Questions
Stephanie Lenz’s case will be familiar to many of you: After publishing a 29-second video on YouTube that shows her toddler dancing to the Prince song “Let’s Go Crazy,” Ms. Lenz received email from YouTube, informing her that the video was being taken down at Universal Music’s request. She filed a DMCA counter-notification claiming the…
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Gymnastics Scores and Grade Inflation
The gymnastics scoring in this year’s Olympics has generated some controversy, as usual. Some of the controversy feel manufactured: NBC tried to create a hubbub over Nastia Liukin losing the uneven bars gold medal on the Nth tiebreaker; but top-level sporting events whose rules do not admit ties must sometimes decide contests by tiny margins.…
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How do you compare security across voting systems?
It’s a curious problem: how do you compare two completely unrelated voting systems and say that one is more or less secure than the other? How can you meaningfully compare the security of paper ballots tabulated by optical scan systems with DRE systems (with or without VVPAT attachments)? There’s a clear disconnect on this issue. …
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Is the New York Times a Confused Company?
Over lunch I did something old-fashioned—I picked up and read a print copy of the New York Times. I was startled to find, on the front of the business section, a large, colorfully decorated feature headlined “Is Google a Media Company?” The graphic accompanying the story shows a newspaper masthead titled “Google Today,” followed by…
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Comcast Gets Slapped, But the FCC Wisely Leaves its Options Open
The FCC’s recent Comcast action—whose full text is unavailable as yet, though it was described in a press release and statements from each comissioner—is a lesson in the importance of technological literacy for policymaking. The five commissioners’ views, as reflected in their statements, are strongly correlated to the degree of understanding of the fact pattern…
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iPhone Apps Show Industry the Benefits of Openness
Today’s New York Times reports on the impact of Apple’s decision to allow third-party application software on the iPhone: In the first 10 days after Apple opened its App Store for the iPhone, consumers downloaded more than 25 million applications, ranging from games like Super Monkey Ball to tools like New York City subway maps.…