Orwellian
Doc captures in a nutshell why the Hollings bill won't cut it, in his Linux Journal article Biting The Hand That Beats You:

"Napster and its successors are the listeners' workaround of the failed radio industry...Other workarounds are bound to follow, over and over, until the entertainment industry starts serving fully empowered customers or gets replaced by something that will. Protective legislation will only make the process happen faster."

I cannot chase from my head the vision of future citizens sequestering away, hoarding and constructing their own Rube Goldberg versions of technology circa 1998-2002, which will be vastly preferable to the castrated offerings on the consumer market. Two steps forward, ten steps back.

Later: And Dan Gillmor makes the same point: "Policy is not going to stop technology from evolving. It can only make criminals of more and more people who are going to use it no matter what her [Hilary Rosen's] clients say."

Go Doc, Go!!

A Moment
This afternoon, 4:30 yoga, room not as hot as usual, 98, 99 degrees f. instead of the standard 102, 103. Uncrowded class, lots of room to maneuver and breathe, blinds open to show post-rain cloud sculptures. Husband and wife first-timers behind me, both struggling (he more than she) but troopers. Forty-five minutes in, the floor series begins and they get to take their first shavasana. Lying on the floor like bricks in a wall, his head to her feet. The guy reaches up and draws mischievous patterns on her insteps. Without a flinch or a giggle, she lies there and takes it, a slow smile spreading over her eye-shuttered face, until it's time to begin the next posture.

Still on the Loose
Here's Papa (not Hemingway, although the confusion is understandable), reading Bag and Baggage with a few of his favorite things to keep him company. Somehow he transported these to the Inn to take this without getting arrested; they're a little more casual about their weaponry in his neck of the woods.

And the little Casinos shall lead them...
This was a long time coming: on Wednesday the Ninth Circuit endorsed service of process by email once court approval has been obtained, in a case brought by the RIO hotel and casino in Las Vegas. This means that if someone is trying to evade service of a lawsuit and you have their email address, you can legitimately accomplish service by email. The Ninth Circuit found this to be reasonable and in keeping with Consitutional due process:

"As noted by the court in New England Merchants [v. Iran Power Gen. & Trans. Co., 495 F. Supp. 73, 80 (S.D.N.Y. 1980)], in granting permission to effect service of process by process via telex on Iranian defendants: 'Courts...cannot be blind to changes and advances in technology. No longer do we live in a world where communications are conducted solely by mail carried by fast sailing clipper...ships. Electronic communication via satellite can and does provide instantaneous transmission of notice and information. No longer must process be mailed to a defendant's door when he can receive complete notice at an electronic terminal inside his very office, even when his door is steel and bolted shut.' 495 F. Supp. at 81. We wholeheartedly agree."

Noting that there remain some difficulties in confirming receipt of emails and their attachments, the court stressed that for the time being the validity of email service should be treated on a case-by-case basis: "[W]e leave it to the discretion of the district court to balance the limitations of email service against its benefits in any particular case."

Sign of the week that the judicial system is joining the 21st century. (Of course by that time it may be the 22nd.)