I was on a panel today at SXSW!

Hank Jones asked me to give a little ten minute presentation on Audio Formats and Web site Security..

I saw a great movie yesterday at the SXSW Film Festival:
Daniel Cavey’s Dear XXX.

AOL is toying with the idea of swapping IE for a Gecko-based model as its default browser.

See:
AOL 7.0 tests Netscape browser,
by Jim Hu for CNET.

I just sent my letter to Intel saying “thank you” for standing up to the SSSCA last week.

These letters can be sent Leslie Vadasz c/o tom.marchok@intel.com
.

Here’s what I sent:

Dear Mr. Vadasz,

I am a journalist and magazine editor who has been watching the SSSCA proceedings very closely over the past few months. (I also own 3 PCs and 2 laptop PCs, and plan to be buying a lot of new hardware over the next 6 months, for what it’s worth).

I wanted to thank you personally for being the only tech company with enough integrity to speak out on behalf of both the average consumer and your technology partners around the world.

Thank you for fighting the entertainment industry’s attempts to undermine our fair use rights and harm our economy by hobbling your industry with burdensome, nonsensical regulations that protect their bottom line at the expense of your own.

Please keep up the good work — don’t let Hollywood take away your right to innovate and my right to use my equipment as I see fit.

Sincerely,

Lisa Rein
Contributing Editor, XML.com, OpenP2P.com
Freelance Journalist – http://www.finetuning.com/collect.html

Intel‘s got a lot of integrity. It was the only company that spoke up at the SSSCA hearings that went on all last week on Capitol Hill.

Consumer representatives weren’t invited to Senator Hollings’ little get together. Luckily, Leslie Vadasz, one of Intel’s founders, delivered an elegant statement on our behalf, and followed it up with a follow-up letter to Hollings.

The EFF has put together a little letter we can all send to Intel to show our support. I’m on my way out the door to SXSW (Lawrence Lessig is speaking about the Creative Commons at 3pm today), but I’ll be sending one out this weekend.

Check out the latest EFFector:
ALERT: Oppose SSSCA; Support Intel’s Bravery
A Bad Law and a Sneaky Process
.

Has the Bush Administration forgotten that using Nuclear Weapons in any capacity will kill everything else on the planet within in a few years after they’ve initially wiped out the enemy?

What part of “kill everything else on the planet” do they not understand? Hey guys. That’s us! Us too! Us too! Get it? We all die. Every one of us, and the animals…and the plants….the whole she-bang! Get it now?

Take a look at:
Secret Plan Outlines the Unthinkable
–A secret policy review of the nation

GREAT editorial by Eric Hellweg for Business 2.0 on the SSSCA:
Memo to the Record Companies: Downloading Can’t Be Stopped

–The recording industry is feeling the heat after years of technophobia and abusive behavior toward consumers. Can it muster the strength to try something new?

To make matters worse, the industry is turning to Washington for a bailout. Most absurd among its proposals to Congress is the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), sponsored by Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), which would force computer equipment companies to install government-sanctioned copy protection on all hardware and consumer electronics devices. Does Hollings really believe consumers will let the government decide what kind of hardware goes into their PCs and iPods? Such a move would, as Intel (INTC) executive vice president Leslie Vadasz said during a preliminary hearing on the matter, “substantially retard innovation, investment in new technologies, and … reduce the usefulness of our products to consumers.”

Instead of trying to rewrite copyright law, the labels should instead brush up on the laws of supply and demand.

Now there’s a new website that streams hearings from Capitol Hill:
Capitol Hearings.org (a service of C-SPAN).

Today’s a voting day in my state (California). Is it in your state? Then GO OUT AND VOTE! 🙂

I still have to figure out what’s up for grabs this time around in the election. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m voting for Barbara Lee.

Remember Barbara Lee? She was the one dissenting vote against the USA Act.

415-554-4411 is the number to call in San Francisco to find out the location of your polling station.