Hulleye Comes By!

The US Airforce is pouring some cash into places which would otherwise be deemed pretty stupid.

Not for want of trying, though. Last year, the Air Force spent $25,000 on a report, titled “Teleportation Physics Study,” to examine possible ways to teleport humans and objects through space.

The military has a long history of funding research into topics that seem straight out of science fiction, even occultism. These range from “psychic” spying to “antimatter”-propelled aircraft and rockets to strange new types of superbombs.

Military-watchers have long argued over whether such studies are wastes of taxpayers’ money or necessary to identify future super-weapons, weapons that a foe might develop if we don’t.

In recent years, many physicists have become excited about a phenomenon called “quantum teleportation,” which works only with infinitesimally tiny particles. It might lead to new ways of transmitting cryptographically secure messages, some speculate, but not human beings for a long time to come, if ever.

“Experts in the field can foresee using teleportation in the area of data encryption but not (at least not in the near future) for the purpose of ‘beaming’ macroscopic (e.g., human-size) objects across” space, said Phil Schewe, a physicist, chief science writer at the American Institute of Physics and author of a forthcoming book, “Bottled Lightning,” on the history of the American electrical grid.

Schewe thinks the government is sometimes justified in funding “offbeat research,” but he is wary of the Air Force teleportation study, prepared by physicist Eric W. Davis.

If the Air Force really thinks such study could lead to actual teleportation devices, “then I would say that something is wrong with the way the Air Force allocates its research money, at least on this topic,” Schewe said.

You can download the full Teleportation Physics Study via Evan Poll’s blog (link to post) and also directly from the Federation of American Scientists site (link to PDF).

[quoted from BB]

The lawyers representing Patricia Santangelo (a suburban mom who is the first person to refuse to settle with the recording industry over a file-sharing accusation, preferring to pay a lawyer to defend her, rather than capitulate to bullying) have created a blog called RIAA vs the People where they’re keeping track of the case as it goes:

We are lawyers in New York City. We practice law at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.

Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation we and our firm have undertaken to represent people in our area who have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for having computers whose internet accounts were used to open up peer-to-peer file sharing accounts.

We find these cases to be oppressive and unfair, as large law firms financed by the recording industry sue ordinary working people for thousands of dollars.

We have set up this blog in order to collect evidence and input about these oppressive lawsuits.

The transcript from a hearing in Patricia Santangelo’s filesharing case shows the judge refusing to be, in Mike Godwin’s words, ‘a mere conduit steering Ms. Santangelo to the RIAA’s ‘conference center’.

MR. MASCHIO: No, all I was suggesting, your Honor, is that, if she
doesn’t come with an attorney, that the more direct way of doing this
— and this is just to facilitate things — is to deal directly with
the conference center.

THE COURT: Not once you’ve filed an action in my court.

MR. MASCHIO: Okay.

THE COURT: You file an action in my court, your conference center
is out of it. They have nothing to do with anything.

MR. MASCHIO: Okay. I’ll give her my card.

THE COURT: If you are here, you are here as an officer of the court. You’re taking up my time and cluttering up my calendar, so you will do it in the context of the Court. Maybe it will be with a magistrate judge, but you will be representing your client, not some conference center. And if your people want things to be done through the conference center, tell them not to bring lawsuits.

It’s a nice reminder that the RIAA lawsuits affect real people with real lives — even busy judges who may chafe at the role they’re being asked to play in this unfortunate, ineffective “education” campaign.

Apparently the RIAA lawsuits are self-sustaining: that is, the cost of running their shakedown operation was less than the settlements it generated, so there was no reason to expect an end to the legal attacks on thousands of Internet users.

Patricia Santangelo’s defense shifts those economics. By defending herself in court, Santangelo is causing the RIAA to fork over for attorneys to argue that she should be forced to pay up to $150,000 per act of infringement that she is alleged to have committed.

How can Santangelo afford to defend herself? She has an attorney who believes that she is innocent, and that when she is found innocent that she will be able to recoup his fees from the RIAA.

This attorney (Ray Beckerman of Beldock Levine & Hoffman) believes that he can do this for lots of RIAA defendants. If he and other attorneys make good on this, kiss the RIAA’s profitable legal shakedown goodbye: once the long-term suicide of suing customers becomes unprofitable in the short term as well, no way are the shareholders in these corporations let them go on.

We expect Ms Santangelo’s costs to be picked up by the RIAA, since (a) the copyright statute permits the Court to shift the attorneys fees to the losing party, (b) these cases were clearly frivolous and brought in bad faith, and (c) it is a matter of public interest that the RIAA be deterred from bringing more such meritless cases…

We will fight to the end. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t take on something unless I am prepared to fight to the end. Also, anyone who knows me knows that the one thing I can’t stand is a bully. The RIAA will give up long before we do, because sooner or later it will dawn upon them that their attorneys are taking them for a ride…

As far as I am concerned there should be no limit to how many people we can represent. If we have too many cases we can hire more lawyers.

Via BoingBoing

courtesy what were they thinking