The world of bits and pol­i­tics is get­ting all het up again.

First there’s this lit­tle mat­ter of AT&T, Apple, GoogleVoice, and the
FCC. The fences around the play­grounds are com­ing down and the
prop­er­ty own­ers are not happy.
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/08/01/att-responds-to-fcc-letter-re-google-voice-mobile-iphone-app/

Rep. Ed Markey (D‑MA) is try­ing for net neu­tral­i­ty leg­is­la­tion again.
A much more pro-neutrality admin­is­tra­tion might make a dif­fer­ence. PDF
link to the text includ­ed. At 13 pages this bill is considerably
eas­i­er to grasp than most.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/the-war-over-network-neutrality.ars

—————

It’s Def­Con time and every­one is punditing.

More hack­ing of high secu­ri­ty locks and access sys­tems. I think these
guys are doing an impor­tant job but Bluz­ma­n­is’ grand­stand­ing egoism
and bul­ly­ing of the mak­ers of these sys­tems is quick­ly under­min­ing his
credibility.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/electronic-locks-defeated/

Schneier mounts the bul­ly pul­pit and decries Chi­na’s Green Dam Youth
Escort filter/spyware pack­age and then reminds us how much of that
tech­nol­o­gy we’ve allowed into our own net­works int he west.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/building_in_sur.html

One the oth­er hand you could get one of these and pre­tend you’re
secu­ri­ty con­scious. I think I’ve found a new desk lamp.
http://www.a2591.com/2009/08/im-not-security-camera.html

————————

Real Sci­ence is odd­er than sci­ence fic­tion. Wel­come to the northern
most sci­en­tif­ic out­post. Be nice to the bar ten­ders, beware of the
birds.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/svalbard/

————————

Pho­tog­ra­phy

Jakov Cor­di­na takes great pic­tures. And he’s show cas­ing a, new to me,
wid­get that makes a flickr pho­to­stream embed­d­a­ble slide show. (cau­tion
there are a cou­ple of videos with music included)
http://www.jakovcordina.com/post/86633471/photostream-slide-show

——————–

Archi­tec­ture

Three entries today. First the “ledges” are Sears tow­er are open. So
you can now stand on a piece of glass 1300+ feet up in the air over
Chica­go.  No way in hell you’re get­ting me up there but the sprogs
seem to like the float­ing over the city feeling.
http://sweetbakerygoods.com/architecture/architecture-sear-towers-1353-ft-high-glass-balconies/

Train cars are con­vert­ed into church­es in Rus­sia. Some of these are
touch­ing­ly naive and some are small works of art. (The pho­tos rock
too.)
http://englishrussia.com/?p=2248

The exam­ples are of paint­ings and illus­tra­tion but the Bauhaus
move­ment pro­duced some Very Impor­tant Archi­tec­ture. Nev­er mind, just
read the sto­ry and look at the paintings.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/02/bauhaus-ninety-years-of-inspiration/

——————

Enter­tain­ment
Pop out and grab a cof­fee. You’ll about 10 min­utes for today’s video selections.

Amy Cre­hore is a blue grass fiend and puts up some fab­u­louslinks. This
one is  Josephine Bak­er and Thomp­son Jazz Orches­tra from 1927. Can you
imag­ine watch­ing this woman in per­son? Elec­tri­fy­ing. The accompanying
music is Ahmad Jamal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsXyDrf9HO0

Cab Cal­loway and Bet­tie Boop. This can not go wrong. There’s tons more
trea­sure in the Inter­net Archive’s col­lec­tion of vin­tage cartoons
includ­ing a whole lot of BB.
http://www.archive.org/details/bb_old_man_of_the_mountain

That’s it for today, enjoy.

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