Build Date: Fri May 23 09:01:24 2025 UTC
When I saw George Perry over there drinking sake and playing Connect Four, I thought "Now THERE'S a man who uses a non-standard video driver!"
-- Binky
Keep Your Hands Off of My PC
2002-03-02 19:23:01
In a screeching rant that would make any PDJ author proud, Thom Greene of The Register rips into Senator Hollings (D - SC) and his ludicrous "dog and pony" SSSCA hearings Hollings held early this week.
As most PDJ readers know, any PC that would be legal under the SSSCA would be rendered to nothing more then an expensive VCR/CD that crashed on a regular basis (just to remind you that Microsoft Windows was Inside.) Any sort of real and effective anti-copy protection requires the hardware and the operating system to distrust and disallow all but "validated" programs, applications and content. Under the SSSCA, if some byte hasn't been blessed by one of the few privileged multi-national corporations allowed to bless bytes, you can bet your sweet ass that "your" PC will choke on it. Your PC will probably also be programmed to alert your local police department that you've been practicing unsafe computing. And Linux will never, ever qualify as an SSSCA approved product.
An Intel VP, Leslie Vadasz, echoed this thought, in an uncharacteristic moment of sanity in Sen. Hollings' private little hearing room - which is really more of country club, where only the most generous donors are permitted membership and allowed to speak. And for his efforts, Sen. Hollings berated Vadasz for not marching to the corporate drum. Or at least Sen. Hollings' corporate drum.
First elected in 1966, Sen. Hollings is rapidly setting himself up to become the poster boy of Senatorial term limits. Oblivious to the technical revolution of the past 40 years and obviously in the pocket of his corporate masters, it appears that Hollings is willing to destroy the personal freedoms of millions of computer using Americans, along with permanently crippling US technical leadership in this field, all for just the few shekels the MPAA and RIAA tossed into to his re-election basket.
I'd tell you to write to Senator Hollings and inform him just what a bad idea the SSSCA is, but it is clear that Sen. Hollings thinks that anyone that wants to copy a file or write a program or just use a computer in an "unapproved" fashion is a criminal that should be heavily fined and then locked up. So instead, I urge you to join the EFF and fight for your rights.
Those evil bastards in the House and Senate might have slipped the DMCA over on us when we weren't watching, but not this time... not this time. And we certainly might lose fight against the SSSCA, but at least we'll be watching and protesting. I certainly plan to make myself as annoying as possible to those that support the SSSCA and won't be watching the SSSCA become law with any shred of probity or dignity remaining.
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Eavesdropping on Geeks: 'Star Trek: Discovery' vs 'The Orville'
If you broke into Pigdog's top sekrit headquarters, spying on their mysterious mix of weird science and old-skool geekiness, you'd overhear this conversation: (More...)
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
I just came across this coolio essay by Pigdog Journal Science Editor binky wedged between two staves in the back corner of the submissions barrel. It's on the origin of the cyberbilly and is definitely de rigeur for any serious student of this fascinating sociological movement. (More...)
