Apparently a team of researchers in Japan has isolated the gene in the onion which produces the chemical that causes tears when the onion is cut. (Tearless Onions May Be on the Way (washingtonpost.com)) They're hoping they can engineer a new onion which lacks the gene, so that onions can be tear-free without any taste changes. My favorite quote from the article:

In fact, stopping the tears might mean altering the flavor in unpredictable ways, said Eric Block, an expert in the chemistry of onions at the State University of New York at Albany.

What I love about this is the idea that somewhere out there, there are people who are experts in "the chemistry of onions". I mean, is modern science great or what?

I ran across this article in LawMeme: Turing Universal Machine Threat to All Mankind. That article references this blog by Edward Felton. A quote from Felton's post:

If you're designing a computer, you have two choices. Either you make a general-purpose computer that can do everything that every other computer can do; or you make a special-purpose device that can do only an infinitesimally small fraction of all the interesting computations one might want to do. There's no in-between…If anybody has a hint about how to [give a simple, non-technical explanation for this], please, please let me know.

The first comment on the LawMeme page tries to fulfill the request with this analogy:

A single purpose computer ist to a gerneral purpose computer as an instrument which can play only one note is to an orchestra. With a limited instrument, you can't play much in the way of music. There are some rhythmic avenues to explore, but the creativity of the player is severely limited by the device.

That doesn't really analogize the situation very well, in my opinion. Below I'll try to address the problems in this analogy, and propose one of my own.

Every time I read another story about Verisign, I think that surely this time the company has hit rock bottom. Turns out the tiny, uber-cynical portion of me is actually still correct: they haven't. Now they're demanding that a professor at the UCLA Law School send them a copy of a utility bill to prove that the Law School's mailing address is valid, even though Volokh sent them a copy of the listing in the American Association of Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers.

Oh, in a similar vein I forgot to post last week that, in another wonderful display of their technological savvy, it appears Network Solutions/Verisign forgot to reregister their own (UK) domain name in August, and someone sniped it out from under them. As of this writing, there's a mildly humorous Flash audio bit attached, so stay a moment and listen.

There's a couple of encouraging developments in the War on Fair Use. Two bills have been introduced to Congress (though they will almost certainly sit still until the next session) which would return significant Fair Use rights to consumers of digital media, mostly removed by the DMCA. The first is the Digital Choice and Freedom Act. The DCFA would explicitly provide consumers with the same Fair Use rights with digital media they enjoy with analog media (such as cassettes and VCR tapes), among them the right to make personal copies and compilations.

The second act in question is the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act. This act would counteract the portions of the DMCA which make circumventing copy-protection schemes illegal even for uses previously covered under Fair Use. Essentially the act would make it legal to bypass the copy protection on a DVD in order to make a backup copy or to extract clips from the film for use in a personal compilation. (Currently even attempting to bypass such protections is illegal.) This has very, very important consequences for digital research—there have been a number of important cases where legitimate academic researchers have had their research shut down (or chilled, which amounts to the same thing proactively) by the threat of prosecution. The bill also would extend some pretty strong protection to devices which merely are "capable of enabling significant non-infringing use of a copyrighted work", in stark contrast to the DMCA's inverse requirement.

As noted, the bad news is that neither of these bills will go anywhere until next session—and in fact, probably neither will be passed. The hope is that by introducing two such bills, Congress will be forced to address the issue somehow—preferably by repealing or significantly reworking the DMCA itself.

This provides a unique opportunity, since there is an election coming up, after all (nice timing by the bills' supporters). Send the candidates in your area letters or e-mails requesting that they clarify their stance on the two bills in question, and vote your conscience. It's time the consumers had a say in the Rape of Copyright.

Saw this via Ars Technica.