And no, I’m not doing just fine. And no, it’s not interesting.

Star Trek: Nemesis trailer mirrors and alternate formats, including AVI and MPEG, courtesy of Section 31.

There’s Evil Afoot:   Everyone from Microsoft to Sun to the BSA to Amazon has filed with the FCC to object to “troubling” restrictions in Cox and Comcast’s broadband service agreements, which prohibit everything from WANs to any type of server. (This coming in the middle of the FCC ‘reevaluating’ all the legislative steps that the Clinton administration made to ensure competition and guarantee affordable, widespread broadband access.) It’s nice to see the tech companies display such enlightened self-interest, but where is the consumer represented in this flurry of filings? That’s right, we’re not.

You may think this assessment of Palladium is excessively paranoid. It is not. I cannot think of a single piece of legislation that has ever appeared before Congress, or any case before any Court of this land, that stood to negatively impact more people’s rights and freedoms than this technology initiative from Microsoft and Intel does.

The RIAA has bought another piece of legislation, this one legalizing all the things they’re already doing to disrupt distributed p2p networks. Interesting fact: the sort of things they’re doing to disrupt these networks, such as spoofing, would not have worked on Audiogalaxy, with its massive built-in peer filtering. Which is why they killed it. See also: this excellent review of Audiogalaxy alternatives.

A group of publishers, including the Post and the Times, are suing Gator, makers of the OfferCompanion trojan which is installed with many file-sharing apps. The publishers seem to not take too well to Gator throwing up pop-ups on top of their sites without asking. I just hope they remember to scatter the ashes when they’re done.

Hide Ads bookmarklet (supplants the Hide IFrames bookmarklet): hides images with dimensions most commonly used in internet advertising, as well as all IFrames. Requires a DOM-capable browser, though really only is useful for IE5/Win. All other 5+ browsers can get the same effect with less effort through a user stylesheet.

And now, your daily surreality: Mike Tyson hugs gay rights demonstrator, denies homophobia. Rapist, yes; homophobe, no. Good to know.

Brad muses: “[…] Did we really need hosts?” If it means more Bernadette Peters in my life, then the answer, of course, is yes. (I have to wholeheartedly agree with everything else, though.)