cousin it

rOCK N r0LL:

Hmmm, no VR thread. So, here is one.

Scott Weiland Makes Up With Velvet Revolver: ‘Maybe We’ll Do Some Shows Some Time’ by: Amy Sciarretto Yesterday 625,417http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2011/07/ScottWeiland.jpg[/img]
Mike Lawrie, Getty Images

Never say never. That’s the viewpoint Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland had adopted when it comes to his other former band, Velvet Revolver. Weiland reports that he is once again friends with Slash and the rest of the group, and says not to rule out an on-stage reunion at some point in the future.

In a recent interview with Classic Rock magazine, Weiland reflected somewhat wistfully on his time in Velvet Revolver, which paired him with former principal members of Guns N’ Roses, saying, “That was a magical thing, too. That was right when I was getting off dope and those guys were all sober and clean, and I had a very special kind of kinship because we’d all experienced the same things.”







More: http://ultimateclass...shows-together/

It might be if a few senators have their way.


Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videosfrom the not-understanding-the-technology dept
Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. A few weeks back, we noted that Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons had proposed a new bill that was designed to make "streaming" infringing material a felony. At the time, the actual text of the bill wasn't available, but we assumed, naturally, that it would just extend "public performance" rights to section 506a of the Copyright Act.

Supporters of this bill claim that all it's really doing is harmonizing US copyright law's civil and criminal sections. After all, the rights afforded under copyright law in civil cases cover a list of rights: reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works or perform the work. The rules for criminal infringement only cover reproducing and distributing -- but not performing. So, supporters claim, all this does is "harmonize" copyright law and bring the criminal side into line with the civil side by adding "performance rights" to the list of things.

If only it were that simple. But, of course, it's not. First of all, despite claims to the contrary, there's a damn good reason why Congress did not include performance rights as a criminal/felony issue: because who would have thought that it would be a criminal act to perform a work without permission? It could be infringing, but that can be covered by a fine. When we suddenly criminalize a performance, that raises all sorts of questionable issues.

Furthermore, as we suspected, in the full text of the bill, "performance" is not clearly defined. This is the really troubling part. Everyone keeps insisting that this is targeted towards "streaming" websites, but is streaming a "performance"? If so, how does embedding play into this? Is the site that hosts the content guilty of performing? What about the site that merely linked to and/or embedded the video (linking and embedding are technically effectively the same thing). Without clear definitions, we run into problems pretty quickly.

And it gets worse. Because rather than just (pointlessly) adding "performance" to the list, the bill tries to also define what constitutes a potential felony crime in these circumstances:
[blockquote]the offense consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works[/blockquote]So yeah. If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link... you could be facing five years in jail. This is, of course, ridiculous, and suggests (yet again) politicians who are regulating a technology they simply do not understand. Should it really be a criminal act to embed a YouTube video, even if you don't know it was infringing...? This could create a massive chilling effect to the very useful service YouTube provides in letting people embed videos.

http://www.techdirt....be-videos.shtml

Saw this on Phil Plait's blog.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjMVsTFVX10&[/url]
Play the movie while looking at the small white speck in the center of the ring. At first, the ring is motionless and it’s easy to tell that the dots are changing color. When the ring begins to rotate, the dots suddenly appear to stop changing. But in reality they are changing the entire time.

The rest: http://illusionconte...2011/#post-2342


Illusions are a good reminder that eye witness accounts can often be flawed.

WTF? Why doesn't the "indent" tag work anymore?