Copyright has become an election issue in Canada, and with the federal election looming on the 28th (I've cast my absentee ballot, for Olivia Chow, and have my fingers crossed for a nation run as well as Toronto Layton's district in Toronto was under Jack Layton) the copyfight is heating up back in my homeland. Most recently, a Liberal MP from my old riding of Parkdale introduced a poorly thought-out bill that would have been bad news for the Internet. Michael Geist wrote an editorial about this in the Toronto Star, and the fallout has been intense, with letters going back and forth in the paper. Michael's written a followup editorial that the Star just ran.

Further, copyright reform proceedings must also be perceived to be balanced. According to Elections Canada, Bulte and her riding association have accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from rights holder groups and broadcasters. Parliamentarians involved in the copyright reform process should refuse all such contributions to ensure that the perception of absolute impartiality is preserved.

Link (Thanks, Donna!)

Next June, Japan's Matsushita will start selling a "sleep room" for insomniacs. USA Today's description of it reminds me of the euthanasia room from Soylent Green. You get into the bed, which is "upright like a recliner." A giant TV screen shows a video clip of a river in a forest, while soft music and nature sounds play in the background. A little while later, the lights dim, the TV shuts off, and the bed reclines. The river soundtrack continues to play. Then the massage machinery inside the mattress kicks in and kneads away the tension from your body. Finally, the lights go out and some air is released from the mattress, and you fall asleep -- hopefully.

At Matsushita, a night of rest isn't cheap. Rieko Saitoh, a company publicist, says the whole system is expected to go on sale in June 2005 — to the tune of $30,000.

Still, company officials say that even if the price is high, customers won't lose much sleep over it.

"Nobody who's come in here for 30 minutes hasn't fallen asleep," said Heiuchi.

Link

A Lithuanuan event management company offers unusual party games, including the time-honored sport of Madagascar Cockroach Racing.

Every participant receives special race money and can purchase with them one of six cockroach. Other participants bet for the couple of player and cockroach they liked the most and watch the competition on the big table (4.5x1.5 m).

The game will be a surprise to all guests. As much as they would load the poor insect from the beginning, they will love them be the end of the race. Players stimulate theirs cockroaches to run by knocking the glassed surface of the course with the special small sticks and joy of every step of cockroach. The finish of the race is quite unpredictable and every step of a cockroach brings lots of emotions to all the guests.

Link (Thanks, Frank)

Nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler has co-authored a paper in a scientific journal addressing fears surrounding self-replicating nano-machines. The paper, co-written by Chris Phoenix of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, was published in the journal Nanotechnology last week. From the abstract:

"In the light of controversy regarding scenarios based on runaway replication (so-called 'grey goo'), a review of current thinking regarding nanotechnology-based manufacturing is in order. Nanotechnology-based fabrication can be thoroughly non-biological and inherently safe: such systems need have no ability to move about, use natural resources, or undergo incremental mutation. Moreover, self-replication is unnecessary: the development and use of highly productive systems of nanomachinery (nanofactories) need not involve the construction of autonomous self-replicating nanomachines.

Accordingly, the construction of anything resembling a dangerous self-replicating nanomachine can and should be prohibited. Although advanced nanotechnologies could (with great difficulty and little incentive) be used to build such devices, other concerns present greater problems. Since weapon systems will be both easier to build and more likely to draw investment, the potential for dangerous systems is best considered in the context of military competition and arms control."

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This online radio station serves the Spanish-speaking blog community worldwide. Cool! Link to the web radio station, and Link to the related weblog. (Thanks, Jean-Luc)

The Man Who Shocked The World is a new biography about Stanley Milgram, the provocative social psychologist whose mind-blowing experiments three decades ago are still highly relevant in today's world of Abu Ghraib and Friendster. From the Milgram Web site, hosted by the book's author, Dr. Thomas Blass:

"Controversy surrounded Stanley Milgram for much of his professional life as a result of a series of experiments on obedience to authority which he conducted at Yale University in 1961-1962. He found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts-to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, and this fact was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment. But, during the experiment itself, the experience was a powerfully real and gripping one for most participants.

Milgram's career also produced many other creative, though less controversial, experiments; such as, the small-world method (the source of 'Six Degrees of Separation'), the lost-letter technique, and an experiment testing the effects of televised antisocial behavior which, though conducted 30 years ago, remains unique to the present day."

Link

If nothing else, click for the surprise of random white dudes in bad pimps-n-hos attire. Link (via buffoonery, thanks Susannah)