I’m in the middle of prepping for a podcast…but I stopped for a quick, blatantly political post, because time is short. Congress expects to vote on H.R. 6304 probably tomorrow (I just spoke to my Congressman’s office, and they said they expected the vote on Friday), and telecom immunity for warrantless spying just scratches the surface of the problems with this bill. It basically takes judicial review completely out of the loop on surveillance of phone calls, emails, and all sorts of communications by the American public. There’s a judicial process described, but it’s been completely defanged, and leaves the government basically able to do what it will. It’s blatantly unconstitutional, but the judicial review of the legislation itself will take years to work out.

The bill is so new that I can’t even link to it’s text above via Thomas, the Library of Congress’ legislative repository. Enacting legislation in this fashion isn’t deliberative…it’s an arm-twisting, secretive attempt to increase executive branch authority, and gain immunity from prosecution for the telecommunications companies that need to instead have their day in court. You may or may not agree with me 100% on this, but I urge you to call your Representatives to vote ‘No’; this is wrong. This is not a compromise.

Some links:

• ACLU Condemns FISA Deal, Declares Surveillance Bill Unconstitutional
• Opencongress Blog: Huge Opposition to the New FISA Compromise
• NYT Editorial: Mr. Bush v. the Bill of Rights
• EFF Urges Congress to Reject Final ‘Compromise’ on Telco Immunity

UPDATE: The EFF guys are on it; they’ve got the text of the bill available (http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/FISAINTRO_001_xml.pdf), as well as an analysis piece (http://www.eff.org/files/AnalysisHR6304-v5.pdf). Thanks, EFF!!

My buddy Dave Slusher just posted a well-written, thorough overview on leaving Twitter for FriendFeed with the minimum of fuss, and the maximum of your Twitter network.

I watched Dave start this process a few days back, and traded thoughts with him as he pieced together this workflow. I’m 100% on board with him here…in fact, I’m dropping my own half-written post on the same subject, and just referring to his post instead. Twitter was nice, and a great proof-of-concept, but FriendFeed is flat-out superior. Just move…and Dave gives you the scoop on how. Thanks, Dave!

So I’ve been playing with FriendFeed for a couple weeks now, after my initial total dissage. I’m liking it, I’m liking some of the tools and API functionality I’ve found, and some of my online compadres are coming to the same conclusion I am: Twitter was Round 1, but it’s time to move on.

I’ll keep my account, of course, and I can probably even sync some updates over there…but I expect my @replies there will drop off. Picking up your friends and connections to move can definitely be a PITA, but the fact that FriendFeed is in one sense an aggregator of other stuff (like Twitter) helps with that quite a bit. Incrementally moving over becomes a bit easier…and even if a Twitter buddy doesn’t have a FF account, there’s a nifty imaginary friend feature that lets you create a stand-in account. Good idea; it further reduces the cost of jumping on board.

However, I also struggle with the centralization these sorts of services do; the way in which they pull the conversation away from the primary source. I saw the notification for Dave Slusher’s decision to move in FriendFeed, for example, but I deliberately chose to respond at his blog instead of in FF (and then steal shamelessly from my comment there for this *grin*). I think both styles can work, but I don’t want to lose commenting directly at blogs b/c we’re all interacting in meta-meta-meta services. I guess it’s just a balance to be aware of.

Come on in, the water’s fine, all.

Court gives detainees habeas rights – Wow. Joy. Awesome.

I realize this freaks a lot of people out and makes them see red…but really, this is right the right thing to do. It doesn’t mean that bad people go free. It means bad people get a trial, and then (if guilty) punished…which is the bedrock, the very foundation on which our freedoms rest. You can muddy the waters all you want with danger to the troups, and people will die, and whatever protestations you want. But when you hit rock bottom, our Constitution doesn’t say do whatever it takes to keep people safe. It, in fact, constrains the government’s ability to arbitrarily defend you, in order to preserve the more basic rights. Without freedom, you don’t have anything. Without law, you don’t have freedom. You just have to hope you stay on the King’s good side.

Thanks very much to all the groups and people that worked so hard to argue this. Don’t forget to support them. And don’t forget…our next President will very likely replace some of the Justices that voted in the majority in this decision. In my opinion, SCOTUS appointments are probably the single most important thing to consider in upcoming election. (Note: I didn’t say the only thing; I said single most important thing. *grin*)

I’ve (mostly) stayed out of direct political discussion during the primary period; though I’ve made notes to myself in my outboard brain. Not that I’m secretive about my political views…but the general election is really the place where one makes their case to everyone. So I’m planning some discussions of who I’m voting for, and why, because I think it’s important to talk this stuff out. We all say our minds won’t change…but sometimes they do. I’m an existence proof of that! *grin*

A good starting point, I think, is Doc Searl’s post Meet the new boss, nothing like the old boss, which discusses and links to a post by Dave Winer: Blow up the Beltway. Both of them make excellent points that I hope we take to heart this election year. I hope BOTH parties take this opportunity to blow up the Beltway, shake things up, point off-site, and try some new ideas on for size. Here’s to hoping.

It may seem like I’m making a big deal about nothing…but I can assure you that I’m not. My jaw dropped, and I pumped my fist in the air at my desk when I saw this BoingBoing post: RepRap universal constructor achieves self-replication. Not that I didn’t think it would happen…but to see it, to see the post…it’s awesome.

I feel strongly that rapid fabrication technologies are the Free Software of …well, of hardware. Of real stuff. A RepRap (more properly, one of the rapidly evolving descendants) plus information will be making stuff for you in a relatively short time. Things that today you would buy from someone who purchased it from a distributor who has a deal with a wholesaler that ships it by the container-full from China. And your stuff can be customized at manufacture for you; not the kinda-but-not-quite what I wanted that you get from the store. Designs of both items and replicators will be shared, and will evolve. I can’t wait.

I re-discovered Winamp a few months ago, after a long separation (thanks, Brent!)…I’ve tried a lot of music players/library managers on Windows, and Winamp is my present choice. (Songbird is coming along, but it’s not QUITE where I want it yet). It slices, it dices, it organizes, it plays. Beautiful.

I realized today I’m missing a piece of the puzzle, though; last.fm audioscrobbling. Just about every other music player/device I use — my Chumby, my Nokia 770, Banshee on my Linux box, etc. — allows me to post my music played to last.fm, either directly or via a proxy. I haven’t been doing that with Winamp though…a hole in my stats. *grumble* Tonight I noticed, and decided to fix it. I figured…hugely popular and long-lived app…how hard can it be? Eh…therein lies the rub. So I thought it’d be a good idea to drop some notes; for my future re-installs, and for anyone else it might help.

The issue is partially the long-livedness (is that a word?) of Winamp (and associated API drift), and partially the fact that the last.fm folks don’t appear to be all that jazzed up over Winamp anymore, so it doesn’t get a huge amount of plugin love/debugging. Regardless…the 5.5 upgrade to Winamp apparently whacked the existing audioscrobbler. After this was noticed by the community, who then proceeded to track down and identify the problem, a re-release of the plugin was announced. I got that, but I still had a problem with it; no config screen would pop up.

After more googling, I finally found a solution that worked for me (on WinXP SP2; ymmv). Two parts:

1. Install the 2.0.47 plugin linked off of this forum thread
2. Go to this page, and follow these directions (updating a dll)
3. (optional) Then config plugin with last.fm login info, if needed

Works like a CHAMP. I’m now updating last.fm via just about every connected music source I use. Just need to track down/wire up a method to do proper MTP-type mobile player info, and I’m 100%! Thanks to everyone on those threads and web pages for doing the gruntwork.

The online music label Magnatune recently added widgets for allowing you to embed Magnatune album players on your own site. Very nicely done, John! I wanted to try it out, and I just bought a really nice classical (Bach violin) album there by Lara St John. So here’s the player: you can click through to her page and buy the album…well worth it!

Note: this, like all Magnatune players, is the whole album; these aren’t 30 second snippets. John Buckman is amazingly generous, and really understands the next-generation music industry. I strongly encourage you to check out Magnatune and it’s artists.

Bach Violin Concertos by Lara St John

In the midst of a huge, whacked-out, troll-besmirched ramblefest of a comment thread over on Charlie Stross’ blog, a guy named Greg London gives one of the best return barrages against the what, don’t you want us to succeed? refrain that I’ve ever read. He knocks it out of the park, IMO. Thanks to Greg for the analysis, and thanks to Charlie for letting that comment (and it’s context) stick around, even in the midst of some pretty intense flamefestness. It was worth it.