Monday, July 26, 2010

Hurrah!!

Now legal in the U.S.: Jailbreaking your iPhone, ripping a DVD for educational purposes, article. This is a major victory against the draconian DMCA law.

One of the most surprising and pleasing points now legalized is:
"Having an ebook be read aloud (ie for the blind) even if that book has controls built into it to prevent that sort of thing."
This is so great. If it had become illegal or a grey area to have devices read texts loud to you, that would have been a major blow to the public good, seen against an insignificant win for copyright owners.

11 comments:

ritana said...

In the absence of an anonymous email form on your website (and the hilariously antiquated way of concealing your email from the spambots) I decided on a totally off topic input:

http://tinyurl.com/32opqnb

Hope you have been saving your pocket money. What are you planning to do with all your redundant gear--I could make you a reasonable offer, or are you living in a flat that becomes more like the Apple museum every time they issue new kit?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Pretty much, although I don't update my main computer all that often actually. Like every three years I guess.

The new cinema display sounds interesting. Since it's a bit smaller, it must have some big raison d'etre.

"Hilariously antiquated" is my middle name.

I have a throw-away gmail address I use when I have to give an address to people I don't trust. (Although I'm not sure why you feel the need to be anonymous when emailing me, especially about something as innocent as new Apple gear.)

netedne said...

"Although I'm not sure why you feel the need to be anonymous when emailing me..."

Ya think I want ya dropping my name all over the place the way you do with Pogue and all those other middle tier celebs? You wrote to me once, and now I am trying to give back without generating a shit storm.

Have this fully encoded ready to use Apple Mail format email link on me as a token of friendship and thanks for all you do (I was just teasing with all that other stuff).

service@stobblehouse.com

Just pop it in your HTML--you'll figure it out.

Sincerely,
Steve (oops!)

netedne said...

Dang! I forgot Blogger dumbs everything down. Oh well, back to my next crazy innovation.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thank you.

Just in case there's something serious under this tongue-in-cheek teasing, if anybody writes to me and asks that I don't mention it on any public forum, I will of course honor that.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I looked the html code in your mail link. And though it has a "no follow" rule, which I'm not quite sure what means, I don't see why spammers won't have software which simply collects all the code in web pages and sieves out any and all email addresses, and there mine sits neat and tidy.

Although admittedly I seem to have observed that giving addresses to many sites is a bigger threat than having it sitting on web pages, so on my commercial site I have now made it a regular mailing link.

Anonymous said...

Great. So now in addition to hearing douchebags on their cellphones, we get to hear books read aloud as well. Technology is great!

Anonymous said...

You wrote to me once, and now I am trying to give back without generating a shit storm.

Nobodies don't need to worry. P.S. If people can't tell whether you're joking or not when you are joking, you should probably give up trying to be funny. At least on the internet.

ganesha games said...

Freedom, as always, brings in the question of how will people use it. I'm afraid one interest of many Jailbreakers is to consume pirated media.

ganesha games said...

Speaking of how people use their freedom, Eo, I think you should disallow anonymous comments on the blog. The possibility to voice snide remarks and negativity with the protection of anonymity seems to attract trolls, and in the end it detracts from the pleasure of reading.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of how people use their freedom, Eo, I think you should disallow anonymous comments on the blog. The possibility to voice snide remarks and negativity with the protection of anonymity seems to attract trolls, and in the end it detracts from the pleasure of reading.

Everyone who posts here, even those with registered accounts, is anonymous. You're most definitely anonymous. I'd say this blog would be better off without your inane comments. You'd have to go use up all your pretentiousness somewhere else. (Or risk having your head explode.)

If anonymous comments detract so much from the pleasure of reading, by all means cease to frequent this blog you wop piece of shit.