The blog
Writing & notes
Essays, notes and reflections on technology, law and life.
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Woeful Spring
The first tidings of spring are upon us here in Melbourne, and I bemoan its untimely insurgence upon my cosy winter hideaway. It encroaches slowly at first – a glimpse of sun or a day without frost – but then rapidly degenerates into a haze of allergies, heat, and overclocking worries. I guess this means… Read more →
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Buzz Words
Buzz words – is there any greater evil? Throughout the brief but turbulent period in which the IT industry has been subjected to mainstream marketing and its bold visions of compulsive spending, we’ve seen the rise and fall of a number of catchwords. Loosely speaking, one can chart the development of the tech industry with… Read more →
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Itsbay Andway Iecespay
I came across the following links in my weekend travels: Copying is Theft: interesting article on the moral dubiosity of digital copyright An Austrian daredevil has flown across the English channel on a carbon fibre wing A horrendous bug in Nero 6 has been discovered that can cause erasure of a hard disk’s data Interesting… Read more →
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New Photos Added
I uploaded some more files to the jaani.net/ gallery. The new album contains photographs of the University of Melbourne grounds which I took on first day of semester. More photos are yet to come. In the interim, I suggest you check out Decibel Dragon.com for some stunning photography and a most excellent site-design. That photographer… Read more →
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Quae Vide
Each Friday, I’ll try to collate a summary of interesting links, reviews, and articles upon which I have stumbled throughout the week. The links will be presented with minimum commentary, but are hand-picked for quality and categorised for convenience. Here are the first Quae Vide picks. This week’s theme is science and technology. Science/Technology: Voodoo… Read more →
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Anti Anti-Spam?
The legal issues surrounding junk e-mail detection and removal continue to discourage internet service providers from employing pro-active filtering techniques. Many ISPs are concerned about being sued for filtering false-positive (incorrect) “junk” e-mail messages in compliance with the various anti-spam regulations currently under consideration in the United States. Service providers are placed in a difficult… Read more →
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Court Rebukes Detention of Children
The Family Court today ruled that detaining children is unlawful. Affirming a previous decision, Justice Strickland said he had “determined prima facie that children are unlawfully in detention and there is a real issue to be tried about that.” Counsel for the children applied for their immediate release pending a full trial which is due… Read more →
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The RIAA’s First Hurdle
Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week evinced the first signs of opposition to an RIAA subpoena campaign against file-sharing activity by predominantly college-aged students. Over the past 3 months, the Recording Industry Association of America has issued 871 subpoenas demanding information from several major tertiary institutions about the use of file… Read more →
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Cliché of Today: Composition
Walking from the law school to the engineering precinct, my mind made a similar transition from right to left. During the reshuffle, I happened upon the following: Let every moment of existence be a well-framed photograph. Gold! This had me in stitches for several ‘well-framed’ moments. And everywhere I looked, I saw the rule of… Read more →
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Federal Court Overrules Mod Chip Verdict
In a unanimous decision, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia yesterday overruled its previous verdict that video game console copy-protection schemes comprised a “technological protection measure” as defined in subs 10(1) of the Copyright Act. The result is to prevent the sale of so-called “mod chip” devices which circumvent said protection, and… Read more →