Last year, October 3 was declared the “Day against DRM” but I have heard no mention of Oct 3 this year. I urge you to make this Oct 3 your personal Day Against DRM. DRM or Digital Rights Management means losing your rights to create, experience, and share culture: music, ideas, art, and communication.

This video, titled “Birdsong”, expresses what DRM is trying to kill off.

As reported on the Good Math, Bad Math blog, John Backus has died. Backus was the inventor of the Fortran programming language and is the “B” in BNF grammar (Backus-Noir Form grammar).

See also the New York Times obituary.

The great scholar Daniel Dennet recent had some serious heart trouble that required he undergo surgery wherein his heart was stopped completely. He has written about the experience and reflects on famous deathbed epiphanies that result in atheists succumbing to religiosity. He admits having an epiphany of his own but remains an atheist.

Dennett’s fans will find it a interesting quick read.

The presentations from Netspeed 2006 are now online in PDF, powerpoint, and podcast formats. I look forward to seeing video/hearing audio of the sessions I couldn’t go to!

Episode 9 of Pure Pwnage, the homebrew mockumentary about Internet gamers, will be screened on December 9, 2005 at Bloor Cinema in downtown Toronto, Canada. It will be available for download on December 10, 2005.

Episodes can be downloaded in many ways, and the use of bittorrent has been popular in the past. However, since the release of the last episode, many Canadian ISPs have begun using technology to block or throttle bittorrent traffic. It may not be possible to effectively get this episode via bittorrent this time around, at least for Canadians.

Oh, I almost forgot… BOOM HEADSHOT!