Eh? Cuba bans smoking.
Yep. The country that produces the world’s finest cigars is turning its back on them. Fidel Castro’s regime has announced a ban on smoking in some public places. The government said public transport, shops and other closed spaces would become smoke-free in early February.
I suppose it would be too cynical to conclude that this may have something to do with the fact that El Dictatore (seen here in better days) has given up the habit?
Lunatic/clueless Legislator Department
“A California state Senator with ties to Hollywood has introduced a law that could mean jailtime for any developer of a file sharing application. That’s right — it’s not about anyone who actually used the app to do something illegal, but whoever develops an application. This, despite the fact that courts have found repeatedly that you can’t blame the application for the fact that some people misuse it. So why is Professor Ed Felten at risk? Well, he recently wrote a file sharing application in all of 15 lines of code. The purpose, of course, was to show that the concept of regulating file sharing by banning the creation of such applications was ridiculous and anti-innovation. By the way, if you’re wondering where you’ve heard of State Senator Kevin Murray before, he’s the politician who also made it illegal to send any media file in California anonymously. Despite the questionable basis for such a law (and the fact that it probably violates other laws concerning privacy — especially with respect to children), it appears that Murray doesn’t really care about the facts of the situation, but just that folks in the entertainment industry are happy with all the laws he’s passed in their favor. Anyway, based on my reading of the actual proposal, it would also threaten to put anyone who has written FTP software and possibly even web browsers in jail. Maybe his next law will simply outlaw the internet, and force us all to watch broadcast content instead. That would really help, wouldn’t it?” [Source]
Agricultural ‘piracy’
From Wired:
“Monsanto’s ‘seed police’ snared soy farmer Homan McFarling in 1999, and the company is demanding he pay it hundreds of thousands of dollars for alleged technology piracy. McFarling’s sin? He saved seed from one harvest and replanted it the following season, a revered and ancient agricultural practice.
‘My daddy saved seed. I saved seed,’ said McFarling, 62, who still grows soy on the 5,000 acre family farm in Shannon, Mississippi, and is fighting the agribusiness giant in court.
Saving Monsanto’s seeds, genetically engineered to kill bugs and resist weed sprays, violates provisions of the company’s contracts with farmers.
Since 1997, Monsanto has filed similar lawsuits 90 times in 25 states against 147 farmers and 39 agriculture companies, according to a report issued Thursday by The Center for Food Safety, a biotechnology foe.”
Media Lab Europe to close
Well, well, there’s a blast from the past. According to The Register the Dublin outpost of the MIT Media Lab which was set up with much hype at the height of the Internet boom is to close. The reason? “Observers say the Lab’s biggest drawback as far as private-sector supporters were concerned, was the lack of near-term commercial potential for technologies developed there.
The [Irish] Minister for Communications, Noel Dempsey, [who provided some of the Lab’s funding] acknowledged that the lab was closing, and said it was a disappointment. He said its failure can be explained in part by the economic downturn that particularly affected the technology sector but also by the changing attitude of business to ‘non-directed research’.”
Nobody who knows anything about the attitude of most companies to research will be in the least surprised. If it doesn’t contribute to the bottom line before the CEO’s stock options mature, then forget it.
One problem with long-duration space missions…
This lovely cartoon by Chapatte of Les Temps appeared in today’s International Herald Tribune.
Thanks to Gerard for the link.
Shuffle mode
Dan Hill has a typically thoughtful meditation on the implications of the iPod Shuffle.
Who did you say you were?
Ever get the feeling that someone doesn’t think you’re up to the mark?
Portrait snatched today in Shelford.
Still Life with bowls
I took the kids bowling the other day, and while they were demolishing skittles sat with a cup of coffee and a camera watching other groups.
Contradictions
On the same day that the New York Times is reporting that the ringleader in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has been sentenced to ten years in gaol, the Observer reports that “two US defence contractors being sued over allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison have been awarded valuable new contracts by the Pentagon, despite demands that they should be barred from any new government work.”
Prince Harry’s dress sense
From an interesting Observer piece on Harry’s social set:
“It could have been worse. At Cotswold Costumes, Harry had tried on an SS costume only to find it was too small. On Friday the shop did not deny it had supplied the outfit to the prince, nor that he had tried on an SS outfit. ‘I’m not saying anything. I don’t think it’s appropriate,’ said a woman who declined to give her name. However, by Saturday morning, the shop said it was no longer stocking the outfit.”