BuzzMachine

We win

: The Supreme Court rules that 10 commandment displays that tried to sell them violated the separation of church and state, but displays attempting to present religion as part of history are OK. Oh, some will be up in arms, but this appears to be a good ruling that, though fuzzy, stops government from selling religion without banning religion.

Quotes:

Eugene Volokh says: “I have often heard it said that the Ten Commandments are an important part of the foundation of American law, and I think that’s true to a point. But here’s a quick question for you: How many of the Ten Commandments are actually implemented as legally binding obligations under modern American law? (To avoid confusion, let’s focus on the list in Exodus, chapter 20, King James Version, available here.)

It turns out that the answer today is pretty much three, #6 [that is, don’t kill], #8 [don’t steal], \and #9 [don’t lie].”

Coveting thy neighbor’s house is, after all, the basis of the housing bubble.

And John Podhoretz at National Review reflects the confusion about the fuzziness of the ruling:

“Why didn’t the Supremes just say you could display the 10 Cs on Monday, Wed, and alternate Fridays, but not on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Or that they could be viewed inside government buildings, but only on the walls of bathrooms and in janitors’ closets? Has anybody ever advanced this radical opinion — that the five justices in question may be intelligent and thoughtful people individually, but that together they form one blithering idiot?”

We lose

: Grokster loses. Thus so do toolmakers and enablers of any sort … which, after all, is the very definition of the internet. The decision is terribly out of sync with the future.

: Susan Crawford, who knows whereof she blogs, is awaiting the decisions to say more but offers this:

And the content industry’s victory in Grokster means that inducement is officially recognized as part of contributory infringement. I’m hopeful that the test for inducement is straightforward enough that technology innovators have some certainty.

: The Wall St. Journal has a panel of legal brains discussing the import; free linkn here. Q&A with background here.

: Scotusblog has great ongoing discussion of both cases.

: Ernie Miller is way on top of the news here. Copyfight will, of course, be on top of the case.

The exploding newsroom

: The Lenslinger contemplates the future — in a week or two — when everyone in a newsroom has a camera and a pencil: Specialties merge, egos deflate.

Now, Young Broadcasting, KRONís owner, is announcing that another of their stations, WKRN of Nashville, is jumping aboard the solo train. Not only that, WKRN is doing it NOW. Having already purchased 30 Sony Z1 cameras (at a mere 3 pounds apiece) along with 16 Dell laptop editors, KRN management announced an eight week training course that will transform 13 traditional news crews into 30 video journalists….

Jill Reporter-Bunny might shoot her own stuff, but chances are Chet Graytemples wonít pack his own lens when he saunters off the set long enough for a series shoot.

If he does, then that would be a revolution, one in which the star-making nature of your local news factory might indeed crumble. Imagine a TV newsroom where even the top anchor schleps gear, thus tarnishing the artifice of suave superiority inherent in the dapper newsreader model. While thatís not likely to happen, one aspect of the changing times does excite me: the gradual transformation of local correspondents from overdressed poseurs to blue-collar news gatherers.

A pixel is worth…

: A pretty blogroll.

Dell hell, still burning

: Now it’s my hard drive that is so flawed I can’t Ghost it and the diagnostic Dell wants me run on it won’t even bother to run. So let’s add up the tally: motherboard… CPU…. memory…. wireless network…. battery…. keyboard…. case…. hard drive. What’s left? The Dell logo? No, that’s broken, too.

Home service? Complete care? Complete crap. Earlier rants here; follow the links. Went to the Apple store today with my son. If I can prove that my EVDO Verizon card will work (so I can avoid it not working and having to pay a 10 percent restocking fee), I may well follow the light.

I just got more Dellspeak: “Ms. Kolar,” says the Delly, still refusing to pay sufficient attention to get my name right — or thinking he is being cute to find some way to insult me, “I am a Supervisor at Dell and I am concerned with the problems you are having with your computer and wish to resolve them very soon.” Boilerplate babble; seen it in every email. So sincere. “In order to resolve the issue that you are facing, we need to setup a service to replace the hard drive of your system.” Notice they’re not telling me when they are going to ship me a hard drive or a computer or a refund. No, that will take more hours’ of email back and forth with somebody else on the next shift. “Please try and understand that as per Dells policy, we can not provide you with a system exchange. System warranty is there for such failures only.” Well, look at the list of everything that has gone wrong with this so-called system. I’d call that failure. But Dell won’t… not yet. “After a period of thorough troubleshooting, either over the phone or through email, when a Dell technician determines that it is necessary to replace a defective hardware component.” I just gave the guy exactly what he asked for: the results of his diagnostic. But, no, they have to slog me through the mud a little longer. “At that point, a replacement is dispatched or the system is taken into the depot for repairing.” And what about the AT-HOME REPAIR I’m paying for? Not mentioned. “And this system is still in a repairable state, so system exchange is not a possibility at the present stage.” Repairable? Says who? They’ve replaced damned near everything you can and it still doesn’t work. I don’t call that repairable. “While I say this, I don’t mean that even if the system is not repaired to your satisfaction, we cannot replace it. We can exchange the system, but only after exploiting all the possible avenues of repairing.” Like buying a Mac? Infriggingcredible.

Dell sucks. Dell lies. Don’t buy Dell. Sell Dell.