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Representatives of the former International Monetary fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of sexually assaulting a maid in a Manhattan Hotel on May 14, have reportedly tried to offer her family in Guinea over a million dollars in hush money to make the case go away. That’s the story in today’s New York Post, which cites a “French businesswoman with close ties to Strauss-Kahn and his family.” The source reportedly told the paper, “For sure, it’s going to end on a quiet note.”

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Close race this week, but coming out on top for “most insightful” was a comment from The Buzz Saw in response to Disney’s Anthony Accardo whining that the tech industry hasn’t propped up legacy businesses that are slow to adapt to a changing market. TBS points out that since Accardo is only focused on “protecting” rather than innovation, you would get results that simply piss people off (something the entertainment industry does all too often):

Innovation to enforce copyright, eh?

I’m curious. As a software engineer myself, exactly how is the tech community to come up with an algorithmic (excuse me… “innovative”) mechanism to detect a license/copyright? For one thing, the “tech community” has been trying that for years. DRM anyone?

I make it a point to sell my talent, not my output. My output can be copied and reused eternally, and that is a desirable trait! My ability to create such useful output is obviously a scarce good, and I find myself able to sell it accordingly.

The reason the “tech community” (such a ridiculous generalization of a term) refuses to support Big Content in its endeavor to lock down content is that the end result would be a ridiculous sense of entitlement.

If Big Content had its way…

A TV would refuse to function, because it detects too many viewers.

A camera would not shoot, because it would sense a “no cameras” signal in the area.

An application would fail to launch, because the keyboard detected fingerprints other than those of the original licensee.

A Blu-ray would not start, because it senses you exceeded its viewing quota, and you need to go buy the movie again.

A song would not play, because the attached speakers are too awesome, and you are not licensed to hear so much bass.

A book would erase its words, because its GPS would detect that it is being read in a country where the book is not released yet.

Yeah, I am very comfortable over here NOT on your side, Big Content

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Watch what happened today at the Jefferson Memorial in DC. CodePinker Medea Benjamin and others were arrested for “dancing,” and others were body slammed for the crime of movement!

James Fallows digs into the Air France stall mystery. No full answers yet, but interesting analysis for those of you who are interested in the technical details.

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And the main puzzle, as several of the initial stories point out, is why a team of experienced pilots would have kept pulling back on the controls, to increase the nose-up pitch, when the stall warnings were going off. This is a puzzle because being trained to do exactly the opposite is practically the foundation of learn-to-fly courses. If a plane is losing speed and threatening to stall, you recover by pointing the nose sharply down and adding power (plus other things). This reduces the angle of attack, builds air speed, and allows the wings to start providing lift once again.

Every pilot has done this in practice time and again through his or her flying career. “Stall recovery” drills are part of every basic flying curriculum, every recurrent competency drill, every bit of familiarization with a new airplane. (…)

Why this didn’t happen in the Air France cockpit is the next stage of the mystery to explain.