Quotulatiousness

October 19, 2011

Supreme Court rules that linking to defamatory material is not libel

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

The Supreme Court of Canada makes the common sense ruling:

Hyperlinking to defamatory material on the internet does not constitute publishing the defamatory material itself, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Wednesday.

The ruling will alleviate fears that holding someone liable for how they use hyperlinks on websites, personal ones or others, could cast a chill on internet use.

The responsible use of the internet and how traditional defamation law applies to modern technologies were at issue in this case, which was watched closely by media organizations and civil liberties groups.

How someone can protect their reputation in the internet age when content is passed around with the quick click of a button was also considered in the case. On social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, users often share links, and the court’s ruling could have dramatically disrupted that function had it gone the other way.

In its unanimous decision, the court said a hyperlink, by itself, should never be considered “publication” of the content to which it refers. But that doesn’t mean internet users shouldn’t be careful about how they present links. The court says that if someone presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that repeats the defamatory content, they can be considered publishers and are therefore at risk of being sued for defamation.

Vikings finally hand the keys to Christian Ponder

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:31

Most of the reaction to yesterday’s announcement that Christian Ponder will start the Vikings’ next game against the Green Bay Packers follows the same line: it’s about time. Ponder comes in with the team sitting at 1-5 and out of playoff contention. Green Bay, defending Super Bowl champs, are unbeaten this season. It’s a tall order for a rookie, but he clearly showed enough of a spark in last weekend’s disastrous outing against Chicago to get the nod to replace Donovan McNabb.

Dan Wiederer at the Star Tribune:

Truthfully, it was becoming awfully hard to find a risk-reward scenario that didn’t lead to Ponder replacing McNabb. As quarterback controversies go, this one sure seems clear-cut. For a Vikings squad whose 2011 season is going down in flames, the chance to develop a promising young quarterback far outweighs the value of possibly scratching out an extra two or three wins with an aging veteran whose contract will be up at season’s end.

It was quickly becoming a foregone conclusion that Ponder would start at some point this season. Frazier said as much Monday. So why delay the inevitable?

The Vikings head coach might say Wednesday he believes Ponder gives the Vikings the best chance to win now — this week and for the rest of 2011. But really, this is a prudent move designed to build toward a more promising future.

Questioning the “income inequality” argument

Filed under: Economics, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:19

James Pethokoukis doesn’t find the income inequality talk particularly convincing, and has a few reasons why:

Sorry, the story just doesn’t hold together. According to left-wing think tanks, columnist and bloggers — and, of course, the Occupy Wall Street radicals — the top 1 percent have been exploiting the 99 percent for decades. The rich have been getting richer at the expense of the middle class and poor.

Really? Just think for a second: If inequality had really exploded during the past 30 to 40 years, why did American politics simultaneously move rightward toward a greater embrace of free-market capitalism? Shouldn’t just the opposite have happened as beleaguered workers united and demanded a vastly expanded social safety net and sharply higher taxes on the rich? What happened to presidents Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry? Even Barack Obama ran for president as a market friendly, third-way technocrat.

Nope, the story doesn’t hold together because the financial facts don’t support it. And here’s why:

[. . .]

5. Set all the numbers aside for a moment. If you’ve lived through the past four decades, does it really seem like America is no better off today? It doesn’t to Jason Furman, the deputy director of Obama’s National Economic Council. Here is Furman back in 2006: “Remember when even upper-middle class families worried about staying on a long distance call for too long? When flying was an expensive luxury? When only a minority of the population had central air conditioning, dishwashers, and color televisions? When no one had DVD players, iPods, or digital cameras? And when most Americans owned a car that broke down frequently, guzzled fuel, spewed foul smelling pollution, and didn’t have any of the now virtually standard items like air conditioning or tape/CD players?”

No doubt the past few years have been terrible. But the past few decades have been pretty good—for everybody.

Regulators back off (temporarily)

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Environment, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:08

Walter Olson reports on some recent regulatory retreats:

Are there enough data points yet to call it a trend? I think there are: the Environmental Protection Agency is now backing off a whole series of deeply unpopular Obama-era initiatives. This time it’s the idea of tightening the federal standard for coarse airborne particulates — better known as “dust” — from the current 150 micrograms per cubic meter to a figure somewhere between 65 and 85, depending on what assumptions are used. That change could have dealt a tough economic blow to businesses, notably farms and ranches, that kick up quantities of dirt in the ordinary course of operation. Unfortunately, the EPA — unable to resist the urge to lash out against its critics — is being less than candid about its latest turnabout.

The retreats have been coming steadily in recent months, since President Obama’s popularity ratings began to tank. In July, following protests from Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and other lawmakers, the administration dropped a proposal that would have required lead-dust lab testing as part of even relatively minor renovations to older homes. Last month it scuttled costly new smog regulations. A couple of weeks ago it relaxed its so-called Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which was menacing the continued operation of power plants. And it remains under heavy pressure to scrap its ultra-expensive “Boiler MACT” rules, another utility nemesis.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has made it clear that she isn’t happy about some of these about-faces, and her staff spun the latest dust decision in remarkably graceless fashion, accusing critics of spreading “myths” and claiming the agency never had any intention of going after farm dust in the first place.

Four year sentence for . . . posting an idiotic suggestion to Facebook

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:54

Patrick Hayes attempts to point out that the sentence imposed on Facebook idiot Jordan Blackshaw is both disproportional and a clear and present danger to free speech rights in Britain:

Did you know that all it took for people to trash their own neighbourhoods this summer, such was the ‘collective insanity’ then gripping the UK, was for someone to suggest they do so on Facebook? A few words saying something like ‘let’s have a riot’ and, hey presto, off people went to have a riot.

This didn’t happen, of course. But it is a view of last August’s riots that seems to provide the rationale behind the sentencing of 20-year-old Jordan Blackshaw. This was the man, lest we forget, who on 9 August set up a Facebook ‘event’ entitled ‘Smash Down in Northwich town’. This hardly inspiring suggestion involved would-be rioters meeting up for said ‘smash down’ outside a local McDonald’s.

In explaining why Blackshaw was to receive a four-year jail sentence for doing nothing more than publishing words online, the judge claimed that ‘this happened at a time when collective insanity gripped the nation’. Blackshaw’s conduct, he continued, ‘was quite disgraceful and the title of the message you posted on Facebook chills the blood’. Yesterday, Blackshaw’s appeal against the harsh sentencing, alongside that of another ‘Facebook rioter’, was rejected by the Crown Court.

So, how many people responded to Blackshaw’s online suggestion during this period of ‘collective insanity’? The answer is one: Blackshaw himself. (He was immediately arrested). In fact, only nine of his 147 Facebook friends even responded online. Yet the reason for this collective no-show, at least as far as the judge was concerned, was ‘the prompt and efficient actions of police’ who eventually took Blackshaw’s Facebook page offline.

October 18, 2011

Sable Island becomes Canada’s newest national park

Filed under: Cancon, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:46

Canada’s newest national park is a tiny dot of sand out in the Atlantic:

It is just a long, slender, green-bean of a thing, but this dune off the cold coast of Nova Scotia is anything but a harmless strip of sand. Its swirling waters are known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, for they have swallowed 350 ships since 1583. Its underwater Scotian Shelf hosts 18 shark species who feast on the island’s grey seals.

The island is tall and narrow — 40-km in length, and only 1.5-km in width — and its body is held together by a skeleton of beach grass that traps the sand granules and the pirate wreckage buried within. Hundreds of untamed horses run wild, their matted manes unruly in the blustering wind where the Labrador current collides with the warm gulf stream and breeds thick fog.

This is Sable Island, a crescent-shaped mass roughly 300 kilometres out to sea. On Monday, Sable Island was formally named a Canadian national park reserve to ensure, the environment minister said in a statement, that the “iconic” and “fabled” island will be protected for all time.

[. . .]

Now that Sable Island is a national park, rigs are prohibited within one nautical mile of its shores, and its surface will never again be drilled. Some fear the new distinction will spur tourism and threaten the island, but Ms. Hirtle said resources are so scarce that she does not foresee a “Sable Island Club Med.”

Politicians should stop lecturing us about our “obesity epidemic”

Filed under: Britain, Government, Health, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

Rob Lyons in the Yorkshire Post:

I would argue that the obesity panic is greatly exaggerated, that the “cure” for it doesn’t work, and that it usually gets promoted by politicians who have no better way to justify their existence.

For starters, obesity rates have stopped rising for adults, and are actually falling for children. The latest figures from the Health Survey for England, the best source of information we have, show that in 2009, 22.1 per cent of men were obese — compared to 24.1 per cent in 2008; for women, the new figure was 23.9 per cent, as against 24.9 per cent in 2008.

In 2004, 19.4 per cent of boys aged two to 15 were regarded as obese; in 2009, that figure was down to 16.1 per cent. The equivalent figures for girls were 18.5 per cent (2004) and 15.3 per cent (2009).

Even then, what the medical profession regards as obesity and what we commonly recognise as obesity are two different things. About one in four adults is classed as obese.

Now, think about your workmates and friends. Would you really regard a quarter of them as obese? I’ll bet few of them match up to the typical picture that accompanies every story about obesity: a morbidly obese person, whose clothes are straining to hold in their tummies. Such very overweight people only make up about two per cent of the population.

In truth, distinctions between normal weight, overweight and obesity are pretty arbitrary lines, based on something called body mass index (BMI) — that’s your weight in kilos divided the square of your height in metres. BMI is not a particularly good predictor of health, except at the extremes. Those who are mildly obese have much the same life expectancy and health outcomes as those who are normal weight. Being a little underweight is almost certainly worse for you than being mildly obese.

The “Long Tail” gets chopped off for App Store customers

Filed under: Economics, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:14

Matt Asay considers the “Long Tail” argument and finds it doesn’t apply for app developers:

Two years ago The Register‘s Andrew Orlowski, writing for the New Statesman, poked crater-sized holes in the notion that “long tail” economics were good for musicians. In 2011, it’s equally clear that the long tail* is bad business for app developers, brands, and, well, everyone. The internet has not diffused the ability to make money; it has concentrated it.

The reason is clear: the more abundant the content or apps, the greater the value of separating wheat from chaff. We simply don’t have the time or patience to scavenge the long tail of production.

This isn’t a new idea. For me, Orlowski’s review of the music industry was dispositive on the issue, along with Nick Carr’s analysis of web traffic. But it bears repeating because of the continued euphoria around app stores and their supposed ability to share the wealth in a growing mobile economy.

If only.

Some of the blame for this diminished opportunity for small app developers has to go to the app store’s organization (or lack thereof). In the Apple App Store, I found it very hard to find what differentiated many apps from all the (sometimes dozens) of similar apps other than the odd spelling of the name and the even odder choices for the app icons. Early gaming of the review and ranking made it even less useful. I’ve had an iPhone for over three years, but it must be at least a year since I downloaded a new app — partly because my aging iPhone 3G is no longer able to run the current iOS — but mostly because it’s such a pain to find things in the App Store.

NFL week 6 results

Filed under: Football — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:43

Staying (barely) above even in this week’s predictions. Dropping in the AoSHQ pool, however, as I’m now sharing a three-way tie for ninth.

    √ @Atlanta 31 Carolina 17
    √ @Cincinnati 27 Indianapolis 17
    ∅ @Detroit 19 San Francisco 25
    √ @Green Bay 24 St. Louis 3
    ∅ @New York (NYG) 27 Buffalo 24
    √ @Pittsburgh 17 Jacksonville 13
    ∅ Philadelphia 20 @Washington 13
    √ @Oakland 24 Cleveland 17
    √ @Baltimore 29 Houston 14
    √ New England 20 Dallas 16
    ∅ New Orleans 20 @Tampa Bay 26
    ∅ @Chicago 39 Minnesota 10
    √ @New York (NYJ) 24 Miami 6

This week 8-5 (7-6 against the spread)
Season to date 59-31

October 17, 2011

It was “a moment of mass credulity on the part of the nation’s media”

Filed under: Britain, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:59

Cory Doctorow points out that no “adult content” filter is a replacement for parental guidance and supervision:

Last week’s announcement of a national scheme to “block adult content at the point of subscription” (as the BBC’s website had it) was a moment of mass credulity on the part of the nation’s media, and an example of how complex technical questions and hot-button save-the-children political pandering are a marriage made in hell when it comes to critical analysis in the press.

Under No 10’s proposal, the UK’s major ISPs — BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin — will invite new subscribers to opt in or out of an “adult content filter.” But for all the splashy reporting on this that dominated the news cycle, no one seemed to be asking exactly what “adult content” is, and how the filters’ operators will be able to find and block it.

Adult content covers a lot of ground. While the media of the day kept mentioning pornography in this context, existing “adult” filters often block gambling sites and dating sites (both subjects that are generally considered “adult” but aren’t anything like pornography), while others block information about reproductive health and counselling services aimed at GBLT teens (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender).

[. . .]

The web is vast, and adult content is a term that is so broad as to be meaningless. Even if we could all agree on what adult content was, there simply aren’t enough bluenoses and pecksniffs to examine and correctly classify even a large fraction of the web, let alone all of it (despite the Radio 4 newsreader’s repeated assertion that the new filter would “block all adult content”.)

What that means is that parents who opt their families into the scheme are in for a nasty shock: first, when their kids (inevitably) discover the vast quantities of actual, no-fooling pornography that the filter misses; and second, when they themselves discover that their internet is now substantially broken, with equally vast swathes of legitimate material blocked.

What’s in a name?

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:22

Jean-Louis Gassée contrasts what was expected and what was delivered:

On 4 October, after months of speculation, Apple finally launched the iPhone 5. The commentariat were ecstatic and approvingly listed the new smartphone’s strongest points: twice the processor speed; seven times the graphics oomph; a new camera with an Apple-designed lens, 8MP and improved image processing; the power of the new iOS 5; iCloud integration and synchronisation with iDevices; a new smart antenna; Siri, the innovative intelligent assistant. And, courageously resisting the temptation of capricious cosmetic changes, the iPhone 5 stayed with Jonathan Ive’s elegant, timeless design.

The preternaturally modest Apple execs cringe at the gushing praise, but what can they do? It’s their cross to bear.

That’s what we expected. Now let’s consider the reality: Same phone, same features, same design, but it’s now called 4S instead of 5. This changes everything. The pundits are indignant: The iPhone 4S is a lame, evolutionary product; the bosses’ presentation (video here) is flat, uninspiring. This dog won’t sell. Apple has lost its mojo.

(Regarding the “flat” presentation, Apple executives knew Steve Jobs was just a few breaths away from his last, but they got on stage and delivered anyway. When news of Jobs’s demise came out the following day, many critics, such as blogger Robert Scobble, had the good grace to apologise to Cook & Co for railing about their subdued performance.)

Nostalgia for the monoculture that never was

Filed under: Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

Steven Hyden points out that waxing nostalgic for a mythical time when “we” had a monoculture is farcical:

Like Touré, I get nostalgic for the monoculture. It certainly seems like an alluring idea. The monoculture reinforces the belief that what we as critics spend so much time thinking about really is a central part of the way our society lives and breathes. Otherwise it might be hard to believe in the primacy of pop music when millions of people are out of work and our government is crippled by deep systemic dysfunction. But the best thing (or the worst thing, if you’re writing a think piece) about the monoculture is that it exists safely in the past, where it can live on in our imaginations as a mythical place where, as Touré recently wrote in Salon, “an album becomes so ubiquitous it seems to blast through the windows, to chase you down until it’s impossible to ignore it” — an all-powerful communal unity that comments on the shortcomings of the present.

[. . .]

I’ll remember going back to my junior high school that afternoon and talking about the video with all of my classmates. We knew instantly that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” signaled the dawn of a new era in pop music; it expressed our joys and fears, and pointed the way to a new future. We pledged to commit all the details of this moment (sorry, Moment) to memory, so that when our children asked us what it was like When The World Changed Forever, we would be able to pass down the tale.

Oh, wait a second: It didn’t happen that way at all.

Yes, I saw “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video over lunch, but nobody seemed to know who Nirvana was when I got back to school. It wasn’t like my friends could just punch up the video on their iPhones after I told them about it; the clip was in heavy rotation on MTV, but you still had to watch the channel for an hour or two (and at certain times of the day) to see it. Once my classmates did see it, a number of them purchased “Nevermind,” as I did. But many of them didn’t. Some preferred Pearl Jam. Some liked N.W.A.’s “Niggaz4life.” Some didn’t care about music at all; they’d rather play Tecmo Bowl. Then there were the millions and millions of Americans who bought Garth Brooks’ “Ropin’ the Wind,” the best-selling album of 1991. If anything, that was the album that we as a culture were united behind — it sold 14 million copies, though I never heard it once blasting through people’s windows.

The Vikings’ litany of mistakes, miscues, and brain farts yesterday

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

Vikings stink up Soldier Field, losing 39-10 to the Bears

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:11

The difference between this loss and the earlier losses is that the Vikings were never in this game. Chicago jumped out to an early lead, and never looked back. The normally great first-half defence didn’t show up tonight, and the offence was its usual anaemic self.

The Vikings had done well to avoid injuries so far this season, but lost several players to injury over the course of the game, including safety Jamarca Sandford, offensive tackle Phil Loadholt, and centre John Sullivan. With two offensive line starters out, Donovan McNabb was running for his life back there.

On the good side of the ledger, after a quiet start, Jared Allen got a sack and stripped the ball from Jay Cutler. The Vikings turned that into 6 points on an Adrian Peterson run. Late in the game, Christian Ponder took over at quarterback for Donovan McNabb, and showed some nice situational awareness (avoiding the pass rush) and good accuracy and distance downfield. Other than that, there wasn’t much for Vikings fans to cheer.

After the game, coach Leslie Frazier was careful not to commit himself about who will start next Sunday’s game, but Andrew Kulha at Bleacher Reports is sure that we’ve seen the start of a new quarterback era:

It may be time for former Philadelphia Eagles star, former Washington Redskins mistake and current Minnesota Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb to take his curtain call.

It’s been a great run for McNabb, but it’s probably best to stop digging while he still has a chance to get out of the hole that is the latter stages of his career.

Christopher Gates at the Daily Norseman agrees:

Statistically, if you look at Donovan McNabb’s line from Sunday night, it doesn’t look like he played all that badly. . .he only threw five incompletions on the evening, and put up 177 passing yards. However, as the fourth quarter started at Soldier Field on Sunday evening, Minnesota Vikings’ head coach Leslie Frazier decided that the time had finally come.

And, with that, the Christian Ponder era got underway in Minnesota.

Sure, by the time that Ponder got into the game, the Vikings only had five healthy offensive lineman. . .Phil Loadholt was out of the game with an (as of now) undisclosed injury, and John Sullivan suffered a concussion early in the second half. As the Vikings only had seven offensive linemen dressed on the evening, another injury probably would have seen Jim Kleinsasser lining up at tackle or guard. However, despite that, and despite spending most of the evening running for his life, Ponder was not sacked once in 18 pass attempts, and completed 10 of his passes for 99 yards in his quarter of work.

Update: Tom Pelissero sums up the brief (about a quarter) appearance of Christian Ponder:

Ponder made his NFL debut with 14 minutes, 43 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears, who led 39-10 and sacked starter Donovan McNabb five times.

“I don’t see it ending like this, as you say,” McNabb said. “But it’s tough. You’re one-and-five at this particular point. I felt like we did a lot of great things (Sunday). But I guess we’ll sit down to talk, but I still expect to be in there next week.”

Ponder was 9-of-17 passing for 99 yards (52.9%) and a 70.5 rating over two drives, both ending with fourth-down passes caught short of the first-down marker. But the rookie first-round picks’s skills were on display as he repeatedly escaped pressure and made several rhythm throws into tight windows.

He scrambled for 8 yards and a first down on his second snap. His first throw was a swing pass to Adrian Peterson for no gain and his second a touch pass to Percy Harvin for 20.

“I thought he did a good job under the circumstances,” Frazier said. “We’ll go back and look at the tape and fully evaluate it. But it seems like he moved around pretty good.”

Ponder was 5-of-10 passing for 58 yards on his first drive, which went 69 yards in 12 plays before a fourth-and-10 throw to Visanthe Shiancoe gained only 9, stalling the Vikings at the Chicago 12-yard line. The Vikings’ next drive went 40 yards in eight plays before stalling at the Chicago 30.

“I was very grateful for the opportunity that Coach let me go in,” Ponder said. “I thought I made some plays, thought I missed some plays, missed a couple throws. But I definitely had fun. It’s always hard to have fun when you’re losing that bad, but I was grateful and I definitely had fun.”

Update, the second: In his column at the Pioneer Press, Tom Powers suggests it’s time for a fire sale:

Vikings for sale! Vikings for sale! Cheap!

Not the team, but individual players. Hey, all you NFL general managers out there, get your very own Minnesota Vikings player. Take him home to play with your kids. Let him tend to the petunias in the garden. Have him wash the car. All we ask for is a seventh-round draft pick in return. And, of course, you take over paying his salary.

The NFL trade deadline almost always passes unnoticed. It’s not a big deal the way it is in other sports where there is a flurry of last-minute activity. The Vikings desperately need to change all that.

The 2011 deadline is Tuesday. It should be a very big deal. There ought to be balloons, parades and free hot dogs at Winter Park if Rick Spielman, the Vikings’ Invisible Man, can partially salvage a lost season by dumping veterans for draft picks. Even very low draft picks would be swell. So would a bag of Doritos.

October 16, 2011

“We have reached a point where the average earnings of a two income family can barely support the spending of government”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:38

Canadians have an addiction problem. They’re addicted to government:

Consider the following:

  • The Government of Saskatchewan alone spent over $11 billion last year (April 2010 to March 2011) to provide services for its citizens. That works out to nearly $11,000 for every man, woman, and child in the province, or $44,000 for a family of four.
  • The average wage for a person in Saskatchewan is about $44,000/year.
  • If the provincial government relied solely on the income tax of its citizens, then a family of four would have no choice but to have both parents work . . . one to provide for the family and one to provide for the government.

Now consider what other levels of government spend.

  • At the municipal level, the City of Regina has an operating budget of about $2500/person. Federally, the Government of Canada spends about $8,000/person.
  • All together our three levels of Government spend over $21,000/person . . . or $84,000 for a family of four.

We have reached a point where the average earnings of a two income family can barely support the spending of government . . . let alone pay for food, clothing, and shelter for themselves and their children.

The reality is that “free” public services come with a cost . . . and these costs increase as we demand more “free” stuff.

One of the truths about addictions is that they require larger and larger “hits” . . . that provide ever smaller and smaller “highs”. This results in people either becoming so dependent on the substance that they cannot function without it . . . or they pursue the addiction to its ultimate conclusion, an overdose.

H/T to Katewerk for the link.

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