PenguinREPORT

It’s a holiday in the US - one that’s intended to recognize the efforts of workers. But everyone has to work, whether you live in the US or not. Consider this a tip of the Penguin top hat to all readers anywhere engaged, in the words of Jackson Browne, in “the struggle for the legal tender.” If you don’t have the day off, at least give yourself a pat on the back.

I’ve got lots of wireless information flowing into the inbox. Appropriate enough, as I borrowed the Linksys wireless access point from the office for a little home experimentation over the weekend. I haven’t found the range to be particularly strong at home, although I’m certainly covered anywhere within our cozy house. Stepping outside, though, reduces the signal strength to a very short range, and for all the obvious reasons. The signal is carrying through 3-4
walls, depending on the direction I move outside. To the east, it also has to carry through an ‘88 Dodge Caravan. Funny, I never thought of that rusty vehicle as particularly strong. But it certainly serves the purpose of blocking out the 802.11b signal from the access point.

We’re not the only ones talking about wireless access and accessible wireless access points these days, either. Bill, our on-site admin at Digital Daze sent me the following note:

It’s funny that this subject just came up on the UUASC (Unix Users Assoc.of Southern California) mailing list yesterday…

You might want to list your access point with:

http://www.boingo.com/ or
http://www.wi-find.com/ or
http://www.nodedb.com/unitedstates/ or
http://www.wifinder.com/ …

Even though Boingo is a commercial service, they also list “free community access point hotspots” in their location directory.

http://www.boingo.com/hso/free.html

There are also some good links on the following page.
http://www.socalwug.org/july_25th_2002.htm.

There does seem to be quite a movement underway to make these points accessible to all. It’s good to see, provided that those who have submitted the information either own the networks or have unambiguously secured the permission of the owners. If you’re in such a position, these sites exist to spread the
word.

Some of the loose details about the Coble-Berman bill limiting the Fair Use Provision of the Copyright Act were cleared up by Denis Ambrose in another mail:

I’ve done some digging and found some information. First, please continue to encourage everyone to call their rep and have them vote against this bill.

The bill number is H.R.614; they should refer to that number while contacting their rep.

Also, the web site Acting for Change offers a great service where you can find out the name of your rep and send them an email. Just to make it easier to contact their elected officials.

Also, wondering about why Rep. Coble has taken an interest in this bill, even though he is from NC? Well, the chairmanship certainly helped. How about these PACs that donated money:

National Association Of Broadcasters Television And Radio Political
Action Committee $5360

National Cable And Telecommunications Association Political Action
Committee (Ncta Pac) $4999

American Intellectual Property Law Association Intellectual Property Pac $4000

International Trademark Association Political Action Committee (Inta
Pac) $3000

Recording Industry Assoc/America Inc Political Action Committee (Fka Recording Arts Pac) $2874***

Microsoft Corporation Political Action Committee $2000

Motion Picture Association Of America Inc Political Action Committee
$1250

Intellectual Property Owners Association Political Action Fund $1100

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc Political Action Committee $1000

National Association Of Securities And Commercial Law Attorneys Pac
(Nascat Pac) $1000

Broadcast Music Inc Legislative Fund For Authors Composers & Publishers $1000

Aol Time Warner Inc Pac (F/K/A America Online Inc Political Action
Committee) $1000

(from http://capwiz.com/wa/bio/fec/?id=445&cycle=2001-2002)

Makes you feel very democratic, doesn’t it?

Anyways, if people are going to call their reps, tell them they must be polite, and calmly explain their position. They should not expect to talk with the rep, but rather someone in the office. I believe the House is not in session for a few more weeks if you care to know.

Thanks, Denis. This is all good and useful information to have. It is a bit discouraging to see the amounts of PAC contributions possibly helping this bill along, though. That’s alot of food money for folks like you and me.

Finally, I’ve got the personal blog up and running. It’s powered by Movable Type, as are several of the Lockerngnome blogs. The one ongoing snag is propogation of the domain. The hosting service ALXHost tells me that I haven’t yet purchased the domain name. Funny - my credit card statement tells me that I have. When I pinged tech support for any possible reasons why the domain hasn’t propogated in over a
week, they forwarded it to the sales department. That means it’s likely to be mid-week next week before the domain is visible. When that happens, I’ll let you know.

Have a great Monday.