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Here's the bad news: the World Wide Web Consortium is going ahead with its plan to add DRM to HTML5, setting the stage for browsers that are designed to disobey their owners and to keep secrets from them so they can't be forced to do as they're told. Here's the (much) worse news: the decision to go forward with the project of standardizing DRM for the Web came from Tim Berners-Lee himself, who seems to have bought into the lie that Hollywood will abandon the Web and move somewhere else (AOL?) if they don't get to redesign the open Internet to suit their latest profit-maximization scheme.

Danny O'Brien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains the wrangle at the W3C and predicts that, now that it's kosher to contemplate locking up browsers against their owners, we'll see every kind of control-freakery come out of the woodwork, from flags that prevent "View Source" to restricting embedded fonts to preventing image downloading to Javascript that you can't save and run offline. Indeed, some of this stuff is already underway at W3C, spurred into existence by a huge shift in the Web from open platform to a place where DRM-hobbled browsers are "in-scope" for the WC3.

We pointed out that EME would by no means be the last "protected content" proposal to be put forward for the W3C's consideration. EME is exclusively concerned with video content, because EME's primary advocate, Netflix, is still required to wrap some of its film and TV offerings in DRM as part of its legacy contracts with Hollywood. But there are plenty of other rightsholders beyond Hollywood who would like to impose controls on how their content is consumed.

Just five years ago, font companies tried to demand DRM-like standards for embedded Web fonts. These Web typography wars fizzled out without the adoption of these restrictions, but now that such technical restrictions are clearly "in scope," why wouldn't typographers come back with an argument for new limits on what browsers can do?

Indeed, within a few weeks of EME hitting the headlines, a community group within W3C formed around the idea of locking away Web code, so that Web applications could only be executed but not examined online. Static image creators such as photographers are eager for the W3C to help lock down embedded images. Shortly after our Tokyo discussions, another group proposed their new W3C use-case: "protecting" content that had been saved locally from a Web page from being accessed without further restrictions. Meanwhile, publishers have advocated that HTML textual content should have DRM features for many years.

Lowering Your Standards: DRM and the Future of the W3C

"You're a lawyer. You know u can't tweet stuff like that and expect to get on an @easyJet flight."

— Mark Leiser (@mleiser) September 24, 2013

Mark Leiser, a law professor who writes a tech law column for The Drum, says he was denied boarding on an Easyjet flight after he tweeted critical remarks about the airline (he said that a delayed flight had caused a soldier on his flight to miss a connection and that Easyjet had refused to help). According to Leiser, a member of staff told him, "You're not allowed to talk about Easyjet like that and then expect to get on a flight."

“I put out a tweet about it and then when I got in the queue, and a member of staff approached me and asked if she could have a quick word," Leiser explained. "She said she understood I’d said something on social media about easyJet and then told me they were not allowing me to board the flight.

“I said you’re kidding me; I asked where that had come from and she told me I should know I’m not allowed to do that. I was stunned. I told her I didn’t really understand what she was telling me and she said: ‘You’re not allowed to talk about easyJet like that and then expect to get on a flight’.”

“She then asked me to step out of the queue and repeated that she was not letting me on the flight. I told her she’d better get somebody down to discuss this and she told me the manager was on his way to speak to me. Then she told said she couldn’t believe I thought what I’d done was appropriate. I was just sitting there in disbelief.

“So the the manager arrived and told me that based on my tweet they couldn’t let me board the flight because I wasn’t allowed to do that and I should know better. He then called over to the girl on the counter to instruct my bags be taken off the flight. It wasn’t until I asked him if he’d heard of free speech that the tone changed. He asked me if I was a lawyer and I told him I taught law at Strathclyde.

"He quickly had a word with his staff and then told me I’d better get on the flight because they were waiting for me. If I hadn’t had my ID badge I don’t think he’d have let me on the flight."

EasyJet under fire after claims it refused to let The Drum columnist Mark Leiser on board for sending critical tweet [Angela Haggerty/The Drum]

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This dramatic video from Bot and Dolly shows off their robotic camera systems by projection mapping a 3D animation onto two screens as they're waved around by one and a half ton robotic arms. In July, Boing Boing co-sponsored the Robot Film Festival held in their incredible studios. There I learned that while this film appears to be shot from a hand-held camera, it's probably made with a camera on a robot arm following a recorded path made by motion tracking a hand-held camera to a tenth-of-a-millimeter precision. Bot & Dolly had no comment on whether or not that's the case in this film.

I don’t think I’d want to be on the wrong side of this one. It’s not often that I see a helicopter design that looks original, but this one by flickr user piratesxlovexrum is awesome. It’s aggressive and bold, and looks vaguely Soviet-inspired. And I have to point out that great bit of photography.

The Wet Lord bleeds.

Mr. Ballmer and Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, were walking across the law firm’s lobby, when Mr. Ballmer — absorbed in reading a document from Nokia related to the deal — tripped on a glass coffee table. Letting out a loud shriek, Mr. Ballmer fell to floor, hit his head and began bleeding above his eyebrow. Executives from Nokia sequestered in a conference room elsewhere in the offices were baffled by the sound, wondering whether Mr. Ballmer was reacting badly to a counter-proposal they had made. His security detail patched him up, and Mr. Ballmer resumed negotiations.

There's something strangely convincing about the idea Ballmer would literally shriek at the sight of an undesirable proposal.

Or, more accurately, you want to buy several, along with the pain elemental, and then attach them to a mobile over a baby's crib, thus making that child impervious to any fear once the colonization of Mars begins within its lifetime.

Other option: Dangle it from the ceiling over the bed of anybody who played Doom growing up and enjoy the cacophonous variety of screaming they provide.

So many options. Purchase either or both at the Bethesda store.

Of course you want this Cacodemon plushy originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 05 Sep 2013 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good morning and happy Labor Day! I hope you all are enjoying  a nice day off. Well, I finished this kit last night and got pictures this morning. Not the greatest kit, a lot of fit issues and lack of detail really hamper construction. What can you expect from a kit that is probably about 30 years old. We really could use a newer model, alas, unless the new movies have some Star Destroyers in them this may not come to pass. Anyway enough of my griping, Continuing to fuel my resurging passion for Star Wars, here is my latest addition, an Imperial class Star Destroyer.

Hope you all like it, please let me know what you think!

-Stephen

 

I love the 287, did you use parts from relevant model kits. I have the Huma kit on my shopping list.

This is my most usual so far. Huma's 72nd Fw Triebflugel built last year.

 

 

 

It’s no secret that I love Monty Python, so it’s really no surprise that someone like Rifiröfi would be able to successfully appeal to my vanity in order to share his own LEGO Monty Python creations. The thing is, Rifiröfi LEGO recreations of key scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail are really quite good — wonderful custom minifigures presented with well-built scenes in pseudo-official box art.

Here’s The Rabbit of Caerbannog, with its “nasty, big, pointy teeth!”

Fortunately, the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is at hand to assist King Arthur and his brave knights.

But one of my favorite scenes is when *SPOILER* Sir Bedevere establishes that Connie Booth’s character is a witch because she weighs the same as a duck.

Okay, fine, I can’t pick a favorite scene. Here’s the Black Knight.

Finally, no depiction of Monty Python and the Holy Grail would be complete without the French knights and Arthur’s assault on their castle.

Check out all of Rifiröfi’s LEGO Monty Python scenes on Flickr. And since I’m in a mildly self-aggrandizing mood, you can take a trip in the wayback machine with me and visit my own LEGO Monty Python photoset on Flickr. (For the record, I think Rifiröfi’s scenes are way better than mine — some of the earliest LEGO photos I posted online back in 2004.)

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Flickrite Obedient Machine recently posted this adorable little version of Han Solo’s blaster (technically the DL-44 heavy blaster pistol), chock full of interesting parts use. The brown carrot as the handle is especially nice.

MSP! built Babylon 5.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund -- tireless free speech crusaders who fight for comics' legitimacy -- commissioned a great educational resource about comics' role in literacy called Raising a Reader (PDF).

This new resource is written by Dr. Meryl Jaffe, with an introduction by three-time Newbery Award honoree Jennifer L. Holm (Babymouse, Squish) and art by Eisner Award winner Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Drama) and Eisner Award nominee Matthew Holm (Babymouse, Squish). Raising A Reader! was made possible by a grant from the Gaiman Foundation.

You can get print-ready digital files from the Foundation, and they'll have print copies at at San Diego Comic-Con.

CBLDF Releases RAISING A READER, a Resource for Parents and Educators