Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Monticello's clever windvane

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 04:59 AM PDT

Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.

monticelloweathervane.jpg

Dylan's post about the Eisinga Planetarium, a 225-year-old ceiling-mounted orrery in Holland, reminded me of the weathervane at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello that made such an impression on me as a child. Jefferson, ever the clever tinkerer, connected the weathervane on his roof directly to a compass rose hanging on the ceiling of Monticello's entrance portico. Instead of having to trudge outside to find out which way the wind was blowing, he could simply look out his front window.

Video of the weathervane in action

Great Firewall of Australia to block video games unsuitable for people over 15

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 05:39 AM PDT

Mike sez, "According to the Australian government, video games are worse than porn; they're planning to block web-based games deemed unsuitable for anyone over the age of fifteen. This would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Just call us South China from now on."
So far, this has only applied to local bricks-and-mortar stores selling physical copies of games, but a spokesman for Senator Conroy confirmed that under the filtering plan, it will be extended to downloadable games, flash-based web games and sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard.

This means that even Australians who are aged above 15 and want to obtain the adult-level games online will be unable to do so. . It will undoubtedly raise the ire of gamers, the average age of which is 30 in Australia, according to research commissioned by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia.

Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the Government clearly went far beyond any mandate it had from the public to help parents deal with cyber-safety.

He said Australians would soon learn this the hard way when they find web pages mysteriously blocked.

"This is confirmation that the scope of the mandatory censorship scheme will keep on creeping," said Mr Jacobs.

"Far from being the ultimate weapon against child abuse, it now will officially censor content deemed too controversial for a 15-year-old. In a free country like ours, do we really need the government to step in and save us from racy web games?"

Web filters to censor video games
Previously:


HOWTO ask good skeptical questions

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 02:36 AM PDT

In this Richard Dawkins Foundation video, Skeptic Magazine's Michael Shermer explains the ten criteria we can use when confronted with claims about how the world works that serve as a "baloney detection kit."

RDF TV - The Baloney Detection Kit - Michael Shermer (via 3 Quarks Daily)

In praise of Kitchen Aid's customer service

Posted: 25 Jun 2009 02:25 AM PDT

I've mentioned my beloved Kitchen Aid espresso machine here before, but I need to mention it again. Last week, I noticed that the enamel had started to flake off, peeling away in big strips the size of business-cards. Dreading a bureaucratic runaround, I dug out my Amazon receipt, then called up Kitchen Aid's warranty number. Apart from a small problem getting the correct number (the number listed on their site is out of service), it went amazingly.

The operator asked for my serial number, asked me to describe the problem, then asked if I could be at some address the next day to receive my replacement unit and ship back the defective one. I gave her my office address, and yesterday at around 2PM, a DHL guy showed up with a brand new espresso machine in its package. I lifted it out, replaced it with the defective one, watched as the DHL guy slapped a return sticker on it, and then he left, leaving me a shiny new coffee machine that I brought home in a cab (two people on the street and the cabbie all stopped me and asked me about this beautiful coffee machine and whether it worked as good as it looked and where they could get one of their own). This morning, I enjoyed a perfect cappuccino with breakfast, and ruminated on just how damned good the customer service from Kitchen Aid had been, and I figured, man, that deserves some public approbation.

Previously:



Wonderful summer events at Toronto's Merril Collection, a science fiction reference library

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 10:52 PM PDT

Lorna Toolis, head librarian at Toronto's magnificent Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy sez,

I'm really pleased about having the staff from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory do a day long presentation on the Chandra Mission. The programming is meant for teenagers as well as adults.

Join us on Friday, July 17th and Saturday July 18th, 2009, when the Merril Collection will present a galaxy of exciting events in conjunction with NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory Mission. Course material is intended for teen and adult patrons.

Schedule of Events

Unless otherwise stated, all events will take place in the lower level programme room of the Lillian H. Smith Building, 239 College Street.

Highlights of the Chandra Mission Friday, July 17, 2009, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Author Julie Czerneda launches her new book Rift in the Sky Friday, July 17, 2009, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m. in the Merril Collection reading room, 3rd floor

A Voyage Through Art-Space by Donna L. Young. Saturday, July 18, 2009, 9:30 - 10:45a.m.

Workshop: Stellar Evolution - Cosmic Cycles of Formation and Destruction. Saturday, July 18, 2009, 11:00 - 12:00 a.m.

Workshop: Alien by Design with Julie Czerneda, Sci-Fi Author Saturday, July 18, 2009, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.

Illustrating Space with Jean-Pierre Normand, SF / Fantasy Artist Saturday, July 18, 2009, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m.

As space is limited, interested members are asked to phone and register attendance with Merril Collection staff at 416-393-7748.

Toronto Public Library>Unique Collections > Merril - What's New?:

My graphic novel for Android and iPhone

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 10:41 PM PDT

The folks are Robot Comics have completed their conversion of the comics in my CC-licensed graphic novel Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now, which adapts six of my stories for comic form. The Robot Comics editions are free and run on your Android phone and (sometimes) on the iPhone (Apple rejected the adaptation of the award-winning story Anda's Game because the scene in which a video-game orc is beheaded was "objectionable"). Many have also been translated to Spanish -- they're planning on doing the whole lot. It's all free, non-commercial, and CC licensed, natch!

Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now reaches 30,000 downloads

Previously:



Life with a 100 lb rodent that sounds like a Geiger counter when it's happy

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 10:34 PM PDT

Jeff Vandermeer sez,
"When people hear him they are always amazed. His voice is often mistaken for a birdsong. When he's nervous he sounds like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. When he's happy he sounds like a Geiger counter."

An indepth interview with a capybara owner living in Texas. These giant rodents are among the most fantastical of beasts: "I take Caplin out in public a lot just because I like to have him with me. It is fun to watch people's reactions. Most people have no idea what he is and some take that as a personal affront, angry that such an animal could even exist. But most people are excited and enthusiastic about him, often referring to him as a giant hamster. That usually means they like him. Those who refer to him as a giant rat are more likely to be afraid. He is confused with a variety of animals such as tapirs, wombats and peccaries. One thing that amazes me is that very small children in strollers who can hardly speak a dozen words will point at him and say, "Mouse!" They are almost better at making that connection than adults are."

And: "Since he weighs 100 lbs, I can only have him in my lap for a few minutes before it starts cutting off circulation in my legs."

The Fantastical Capybara: An Interview with Melanie Typaldos About Her Caplin Rous (Thanks, Jeff!)

WaxMP3: a player for Creative Commons music from Magnatune

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 11:39 PM PDT

Lucas sez, "Wax MP3 is my new player for the Creative Commons music at the Magnatune netlabel. It's a slick experience for open music, like what Ubuntu brings to Linux. Says a commentor on [ed: Magnatune founder] John Buckman's blog: "I''ve already listened to 3 great new songs; normally I never would've thought to choose their respective 'genres'. What a great idea.'"

Magnatune Radio -- Independent music to listen, download, or license

Office worker squid

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 10:27 PM PDT

Health insurance versus health

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 11:02 PM PDT

Ezra Klein's Washington Post column quotes from the Congressional testimony of Wendell Potter, a 20-year exec at Cigna, explaining how the health insurance industry's business model is incompatible with health itself:
The industry, Potter says, is driven by "two key figures: earnings per share and the medical-loss ratio, or medical-benefit ratio, as the industry now terms it. That is the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits..."

The best way to drive down "medical-loss," explains Potter, is to stop insuring unhealthy people. You won't, after all, have to spend very much of a healthy person's dollar on medical care because he or she won't need much medical care. And the insurance industry accomplishes this through two main policies. "One is policy rescission," says Potter. "They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment..."

The issue isn't that insurance companies are evil. It's that they need to be profitable. They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for shareholders. And as Potter explains, he's watched an insurer's stock price fall by more than 20 percent in a single day because the first-quarter medical-loss ratio had increased from 77.9 percent to 79.4 percent.

The reason we generally like markets is that the profit incentive spurs useful innovations. But in some markets, that's not the case. We don't allow a bustling market in heroin, for instance, because we don't want a lot of innovation in heroin creation, packaging and advertising. Are we really sure we want a bustling market in how to cleverly revoke the insurance of people who prove to be sickly?

The Truth About the Insurance Industry (via Making Light)
Previously:


Where Tetris blocks come from

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 11:10 PM PDT

On Offworld, our Brandon's found out where Tetris blocks come from:
tetrisfact.jpg

You didn't think they just popped up on screen themselves, did you? Commercial animation by South Korea's WooDUS, who are also behind this vaguely Bubble Bobble-esque title animation.

Behind the scenes: How Tetris blocks are made

Discuss this on Offworld

China: State censors block all Google services

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 07:42 PM PDT

Spotted via tweets from friends in Tibet and China last night: news that China's government blocked access to Google (and related apps like Google Calendar and Gmail). The broad display of censorship capabilities lasted from one hour to more than a day, depending on who you ask in China and what ISP they're using. Some are reporting that the delay is still ongoing at the time of this blog post. Snip from Guardian:
271px-National_Emblem_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China.pngEarlier in the day, the main state and communist party media - Xinhua and People's Daily - condemned Google for providing links to pornographic websites through its search engine. Last week, the government ordered the US company to halt foreign website searches as a punishment.

Many Chinese netizens believe the move is intended to distract attention away from the domestic controversy over Green Dam censorship software, which must be sold with all new computers from 1 July.

In a rare move, the US has lodged a complaint over the tightening of censorship rules. Google agreed to self-censor in compliance with requests by local officials after setting up a China subsidiary and locally hosted website in 2005. One reason for this controversial decision was that its services were frequently being disrupted or slowed. That has been rare since.

China blocks Google services (Guardian, via @rmack)

World's Oldest Functioning Planetarium

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 06:20 PM PDT

Dylan Thuras is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dylan is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Joshua Foer.

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While traveling in Eastern Europe last year I stumbled on the globe museum in Vienna, Austria. It had some beautiful orreries and tellurions (an astronomical instrument depicting the movement of the earth around the sun) but none of them came close to the impressiveness of the Eisinga Planetarium

Aside from a plaque that reads, "Planetarium," one would hardly be able to tell that inside this seemingly cozy, Dutch house lives the oldest, accurate moving model of our solar system. What is harder to believe still is that the model, built in 1781, is still functioning to this day!

Eise Eisinga, a wood carver and amateur astronomer living in Franeker, Netherlands, decided to build the model in 1774 after a mass panic occurred among the Dutch following an alignment of the planets earlier that year. People were terrified that a plantary collision was imminent. Eisinga hoped his model would help prove that nothing of the sort was going to happen.

The model was built from oak wood, nine weights, a pendulum clock, and over 10,000 hand-forged nails. Each planet continues to orbit the Sun at an appropriate speed (i.e. Earth, once a year, and Saturn, every 29 years). The museum is also home to a variety of old astronomical instruments as well as modern day astronomy equipment.

More on the planetarium here, on the globe museum here, and to the Atlas category "Astounding Timepieces" here.

DOE loans Tesla $465M to build "Model S" - Ford got $4.9B, Nissan $1.6B under same program

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 07:03 PM PDT

tesla.jpg

Via Wired's Autopia blog:

The Obama Administration will lend Tesla Motors $465 million to build an electric sedan and the battery packs needed to propel it. It's one of three loans totaling almost $8 billion that the Department of Energy awarded today to spur the development of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Feds Lend Tesla $465 Million to Build Model S (Wired: Autopia, via @timoreilly)

More coverage: NYT, SJ Merc, NPR. Related: Tesla's Fantasy Valuation (Reuters)

Chris Anderson responds to plagiarism blog-storm over "Free"

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 05:36 PM PDT

Chris Anderson, author and Wired magazine editor-in-chief, responded on his blog to a web-tempest that blew up yesterday after Waldo Jaquith at the VQR rightly pointed out that some passages in his new book "Free" were improperly cited.

All the web loves a blogtroversy and a public takedown, and many sites covering the matter invoked the p-word: plagiarism.

In my opinion, Anderson handled the situation honorably: he responded directly, candidly, and immediately. He publicly took responsibility for the "screwup" first, and explained what had happened in more detail later, without backtracking on the failure(s) and why they matter. Read the whole thing, but here's one graf of note:

Also note the VQR is not saying that all the highlighted text is plagiarism; much of is actually properly cited and quoted excerpts of old NYT times articles and other historical sources. And as you'll see, in most cases I did do a writethrough of the non-quoted Wikipedia text, although clearly I didn't go nearly far enough and too much of the original Wikipedia authors' language remained (in a few cases I missed it entirely, such as that short Catholic church usury example, which was a total oversight). This was sloppy and inexcusable, but the part I feel worst about is that in our failure to find a good way to cite Wikipedia as the source we ended up not crediting it at all. That is, among other things, an injustice to the authors of the Wikipedia entry who had done such fine research in the first place, and I'd like to extend a special apology to them.
Corrections in the digital editions of Free (longtail.com)

World War II + Twitter = Propaganda Hilarity

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 04:12 PM PDT

Schneier: Fix US airport security by making TSA more transparent

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 04:58 PM PDT

Bruce Schneier has an extensive, must-read blog post up today about how to fix what's wrong with air security in America. The shortest version of what he recommends to the Obama administration: "Establish accountability and transparency for airport screening." And, in a second sentence: "Airports are one of the places where Americans, and visitors to America, are most likely to interact with a law enforcement officer - and yet no one knows what rights travelers have or how to exercise those rights."

Here's more from his essay:

Let's start with the no-fly and watch lists. Right now, everything about them is secret: You can't find out if you're on one, or who put you there and why, and you can't clear your name if you're innocent. This Kafkaesque scenario is so un-American it's embarrassing. Obama should make the no-fly list subject to judicial review.

Then, move on to the checkpoints themselves. What are our rights? What powers do the TSA officers have? If we're asked "friendly" questions by behavioral detection officers, are we allowed not to answer? If we object to the rough handling of ourselves or our belongings, can the TSA official retaliate against us by putting us on a watch list? Obama should make the rules clear and explicit, and allow people to bring legal action against the TSA for violating those rules; otherwise, airport checkpoints will remain a Constitution-free zone in our country.

Next, Obama should refuse to use unfunded mandates to sneak expensive security measures past Congress. The Secure Flight program is the worst offender.

Fixing Airport Security (Schneier on Security)

Iran: The White House is Tweeting in Farsi

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 04:03 PM PDT

tweetfarsi.jpg The translation for this tweet is "President Obama's Remarks on Iran at his Press Conference, with Persian Translation [Link]" (via Steve S. / Wayne's list)

The "Whatever" Economy

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 03:51 PM PDT

whatever.jpg

Writer and periodic Boing Boing guest-blogger Susannah Breslin spotted this funny/desperate real estate sign. Whatever.

Homeless Guy Smashes Other Homeless Guy Upside Head With Skateboard During Quantum Physics Argument

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 05:17 PM PDT

Bell's Theorem and the Death of Locality? Or the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument? We may never know what the beef was, but an argument between two homeless men about the splitting of atoms resulted in the splitting of lip:
computerscience.jpgA homeless man is on trial in San Mateo County on charges that he smacked a fellow transient in the face with a skateboard as the victim was engaged in a conversation about quantum physics, authorities said today.

Jason Everett Keller, 40, allegedly accosted another homeless man, Stephan Fava, on the 200 block of Grand Avenue in South San Francisco at about 1:45 p.m. March 30.

At the time, Fava was chatting with an acquaintance, who is also homeless, about "quantum physics and the splitting of atoms," according to prosecutors.

Keller joined in the conversation and, for reasons unknown, got upset, authorities said. He picked up his skateboard and hit Fava in the face with it, splitting his lip, prosecutors said.

Physics discussion ends in skateboard attack (SF Gate, image via Computer Science for Fun)

Best follow-up line, from Wagner James Au in the BB comments here:

"Fava retaliated by tossing mangy alley cat nicknamed Schrödinger at his assailant."
Update: BB commenter orangebag identified the perp as none other than "Cosmic Stan."
"Where's my cheese? Don't take my rowboat! Got no room!" the lunatic screamed from his regular spot near the Campus Drive bus stop. "I need space! Gimme space! Infinite dimensional separable Hilbert space!"

X-Men Universe Relationship Map

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 03:00 PM PDT

Xmenmapppp
UncannyXMen.Net has a relationship map of the characters in the X-Men universe(s). The color of the lines mean such things as "one sided infatuation" and "single date/kissed/one night stand." A dashed line "signifies one of the parties is from an alternative reality." X-Men Universe Relationship Map (Thanks, COOP!)

Previously:


MASS MoCa harmonic bridge plays traffic in the key of C

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 01:56 PM PDT

Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.

massmocabridge.jpg

I was at MASS MoCa not long ago, but somehow managed to miss "Harmonic Bridge," an intriguing sound sculpture by the artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger. Atlas Obscura user CharlieCoats writes:

Artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger affixed two 16-foot-long resonating tubes to the bottom of a highway overpass, and placed microphones at specific intervals to pick up both the sound of traffic and passing pedestrians. The sounds travel down to speakers encased in concrete cubes on either side of the road below the bridge. The hum generated by the device is a droning C, one so low its sound wave is 16 feet long (the reason for such long tubes).

The droning is a subtle presence that blends with the sounds of passing cars, creating a unique sonic experience in a seemingly unimportant location. An instrument literally played by the city, one whose melodies are harmonious with the overall landscape of sound in the urban world.

MASS MoCa - Bruce Odland & Sam Auinger: Harmonic Bridge

Saving the tasty Mangalica pig from the brink of extinction -- so it can be eaten

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 11:58 AM PDT

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After having eaten more than my share of mouth-watering ham during my recent trip to Gijón, Spain (where I gave a presentation about DIY at the fantablulous Foro Internet Meeting Point) I was gratified to read that the Mangalica pig has been saved from the brink of extinction. As Michael Pollan and others have pointed out, one of the best ways a plant or animal species can ensure its survival is to be useful to people.

At one time, only 198 purebred pigs remained in the world. Farmers preferred other breeds. "The corpulent Mangalica grows very slowly and cannot be kept in closed quarters. It is therefore poorly suited to modern industrial pig farms, and it has been gradually replaced by modern breeds," according to the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity in Florence, Italy.

After less than two decades of intense breeding, the Mangalica population has now increased one-hundred-fold, with 20,000 pigs living in Spain and Hungary.

An 8-10 pound leg of Boneless Jamon Mangalica costs $490 at La Teinda. Rare pig breed resurrected for ham lovers

The first MP3 player (1998)

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 11:42 AM PDT

Images A284 Mp3

11 years ago Eiger Labs introduced the MPMan. It had a storage capcity of 32MB (about 10-20 songs) and sold for $69.

World's First MP3 Player (1998): MPMan 32MB (Via Microsiervos)

Documentary about building a steam boiler

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 10:06 AM PDT


Patrick Johnson made a great documentary about David Dowling, Dennis Svoronos, and Brady Scott's process of building a steam boiler, which the call Ignatius.

Wacky gilded pyramid house in Illinois

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 09:55 AM PDT

Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.

onanpyramid.jpg

Speaking of creepy Midwestern pyramids, check out the Onan Pyramid House in Wadsworth, Illinois:

The six-story-tall, 17,000-square-foot Gold Pyramid House in Wadsworth, Illinois has to be one of the most bizarre homes ever constructed. Its builders, Jim and Linda Onan explain in three nouns and two adjectives what their unique home represents: "Power, Gold, Mystery, Exotic, and Impressive." The Onans are subscribers to the seventies cult theory of "pyramid power." Their home is believed to be the largest 24-karat gold-plated object in North America.
The home is closed to tours, but I understand you can spy it from I-94, about half-way between Chicago and Milwaukee. If there's an eccentric home like this near you, please consider sharing your local treasure with the Atlas Obscura community.

Waterboarding used on pot suspects, says London police officer

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 09:20 AM PDT

London's metropolitan police are waterboarding marijuana suspects, says a police officer.
Six members of London's metropolitan police force are the focus of a criminal investigation after a corruption probe revealed allegations by a serving officer that detectives waterboarded suspects allegedly caught with a "large amount" of marijuana...

"[British] papers gave varying accounts of the exact technique used by police, with the Times saying that officers poured water on a cloth and placed it over a suspect's face to simulate the experience of drowning," reported the Associated Press. "The Daily Mail said police officers repeatedly dunked the suspects' heads in buckets of water. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear."

UK cop accuses colleagues of waterboarding pot suspects (Via Dose Nation)

Compact marble machine

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 08:30 AM PDT


The creator of this enchanting "compact marble machine" claimed to have created it in four hours. It reminds me a bit of the Eames' solar powered Do Nothing Machine from 1958. (Via Cynical-C)

Giant smoke ring hovers over theme park

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 07:38 AM PDT


I sure wish I could have been there to see this.

This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It was a circular formation in the sky that stayed over King's Dominion [Amusement Park in Eastern Virginia] today for about 10 minutes. We looked away for a minute or two and then looked back and it was no longer there.
Vortex UFO over King's Dominion

How the Canadian copyright lobby uses fakes, fronts, and circular references to subvert the debate on copyright

Posted: 24 Jun 2009 07:34 AM PDT

After closely watching the way that the Canadian copyright debate has proceeded (from a new copyright bill drafted in secret and off-limits to input by Canadian artists, librarians, ISPs and scholars; to a plagiarized "independent" report that used faked-up research and US lobby-group talking-points to "prove" Canada's copyright pariah statement), Michael Geist has created this handy chart showing how the copyright lobby in Canada uses a variety of fronts to subvert the legislative process.

The whole report is a must-read, untangling the web of circular references -- one organization creates a push poll, a second one inflates its results, and a third points to the second as evidence of a consenus -- and sleazy manipulation that is used to cook the books on copyright in Canada.


Although there are many groups involved in copyright lobbying, at the heart of the strategy are two organizations - the Canadian Recording Industry Association and the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association. CRIA's board is made up the four major music labels plus its director, while the CMPDA's board is comprised of representatives of the Hollywood movie studios. Those same studios and music labels provide support for the International Intellectual Property Association, which influences Canadian copyright policy by supporting U.S. government copyright lobby efforts.

In addition to their active individual lobbying (described here), CRIA and CMPDA have provided financial support for three associations newly active on copyright lobbying - the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's IP Council, and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (there are other funders including pharmaceutical companies and law firms). Those groups have issued virtually identical reports and in turn supported seemingly independent sources such as the Conference Board of Canada and paid polling efforts through Environics.

The net effect has been a steady stream of reports that all say basically the same thing, cite to the same sources, make the same recommendations, and often rely on each other to substantiate the manufactured consensus on copyright reform.

Unravelling the Canadian Copyright Policy Laundering Strategy
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