Web links related to the Back of the Book program of 11/1/99

Ah well, things got away from me over the past week and now it's Monday, 11/8/99 03:12:34. This is the latest I've ever gotten an update done on a program's Web page. The Pacifica Foundation's National Board meeting in Houston, Texas produced only a resolution to not sell any of the Pacifica stations and a reinstatement of the infamous “gag rule”. Anyone who's been following the long, sad story of the theft of the Pacifica Foundation, which owns WBAI, shouldn't be surprised that something absurd has happened at their Houston meeting. On Saturday the Pacifica National Board closed all of its “Public Sessions” to the public! This is illegal, but they did it anyway. Here's the information I have on this absurd and terrible action. They did open the “Public Session” to the public on Sunday, however.

I've added the E-mail about National Burn Your GIFs day, and a little more on willpower and temptation. This should be the final version of this Web page.

As usual it's something of a crap shoot as to whether or not the Web cast of tonight's program is going to work. But here are your choices:

Paul Williams of UFO Desk is arranging for this feed. And we thank Porus dot com for this feed.

“Emmanuel Goldstein” of Off The Hook is maintaining this feed.

I've read a piece from the New York Times about willpower. Some people say there's no such thing, and others swear that it must be there. Of course much of what we think we know is not really so.

In Catholic school they used to tell us that dog spelled backwards would never tempt us beyond our ability to resist the temptation. This little idea is part of the basis of the laws in this and most other countries. It wasn't until I was an adult, and had long since abandoned superstitious beliefs in supreme beings, that I started to really question this idea. I suspect that there may well be temptations that are beyond the limits of people to resist. Is there possibly a temptation that no one could resist?

Of course temptation is something that Christianity is obsessed with. Here's a famous monograph on temptation by famous preacher John Owen (1616-1683).

Here's a guy who eschews willpower already.

The hell with willpower, this guy claims he can give you, or rather sell you, super willpower. And you can gain Extra Sensory Perception powers as well!

Interesting is that new research has shown that rhesus monkeys grow new brain cells on a daily basis, speculation is that perhaps we do too.

I finally got to this E-mail. I still don't know when “National Burn Your GIFs Day” is, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet.

Subject: Burn All GIF's Day is Coming Soon…
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 17:33:09 +0000
From: "Irene B." <micros50@computer.net>
To: rpm@glib.com

Hi . R. Paul

I added a few links below that point to some websites that describe how one greedy company is attempting to bilk the owners of both, for profit, and, not for profit, websites by attempting to demand that they purchase licenses if they wish to continue to use independently developed software (including freeware) to create, process, read GIF's , TIFF's and other types of images which employ LZW compression, (for which they hold a patent) that they plan to post and utilize on their websites. While this company, Unisys, was granted the right to demand payment for a license under US law, the move is quite ridiculous, as it will force smaller software development companies to stop providing support for GIF's TIFF's (and other LZW format) images, it will force website owners to discontinue using images that employ these format's and instead to use other alternative formats which are available (else pay a $5000+ license fee in the case of non profit websites). . I, and many others, feel that it is a very foolish, greedy, and backwards move by a corporation who's lawyers probably have little practical understanding of today's current world of software development and internet technologies and are instead driven to try and maximize profits by forcing small software (and freeware) developers as well as average everyday website developers to pay an outrageously high cost (which some cannot even afford), in order to be allowed to continue to use old, outdated technology which has been around since the old BBS days of the early-mid 80's.

The following links explain it all in more detail:

1) http://linuxtoday.com/stories/9303.html

Gives a summary plus links to sites with further info

2) http://www.barnstormer-software.com/things_that_suck/unisys.htm

Read about how one small software developer has to remove GIF, TIFF, etc. support from his freeware product because he couldn't afford to pay Unisys $50,000 up front to pay for the first 20,000 copies that would be downloaded. The write of the software estimates a user base of only about 100 users..

3) http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/Gif/Gif.html

More info

4) http://burnallgifs.org/

The official "Burn All GIF's" Website. (Apparently a site that Unisys loves to visit).

I also posted links to these sites on my boyfriend's site. He's at http://einval.vol.8m.com/main.html (Click on "User Submitted Sites")

I also Loved your discussion a couple weeks ago about how that big movie company is harassing people for deep linking to pages on their site. It's amazing how far some greedy companies will go to grab every last cent they can, and how arrogant and foolish their lawyers can be, especially when they have not an inkling as to how the internet works.

Sincerely,

Irene B.

There are a lot of issues that we can't talk about on the air at WBAI. But there is an Internet list called “Free Pacifica!” which you can subscribe to, and these issues are discussed there. If you subscribe to it you will receive, via E-mail, all of the messages which are sent to that list. You will also be able to send messages to the list.

If you want to subscribe to the “Free Pacifica!” list just click on this link and follow the instructions, and you'll be subscribed. Could open your eyes a little bit.

The above list has occasionally produced a high volume of E-mail because of the attention that these issues have drawn. If you would prefer to subscribe to a low volume list that only provides announcements of events related to these issues then subscribe to the FreePac mailing list.


My voice mail number at WBAI is 212-209-2996. Leave a message.

You can also send me E-mail.



WBAI related links

Union bulletin #12

Free Pacifica Web site

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site


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