A trio of topics: Controversy

I'm going to briefly leave three things that popped up on my radar in the last day or so. I'm having a busy, grumpy day, and while I may still do a post on one or the other of these - certainly will, in the case of the organic food report - but today you all get to follow a link if you want, and draw your own conclusions. I haven't the brain to be witty or anything approaching wise. The first thing I saw when I went on the book of faces this morning was that a site where you can download some code is being suppressed by that social media outlet as spam, despite it being a free-for-all. I find it ironic, since this topic - 3D printed guns - is one I wrote on back in March of this year, and it's certainly not new news. Pandora's Gun has gone viral. Not my post, the concept. You can find it at this link. And you can find a very interesting and pertinent discussion of the law surrounding Free Speech and computer code here. I've included a pertinent chunk of the court's ruling below.

The court, after discussing the scope of the First Amendment’s protection for speech, particularly for scientific writings, goes on:

   Computer programs are not exempted from the category of First Amendment speech simply because their instructions require use of a computer. A recipe is no less “speech” because it calls for the use of an oven, and a musical score is no less “speech” because it specifies performance on an electric guitar. Arguably distinguishing computer programs from conventional language instructions is the fact that programs are executable on a computer. But the fact that a program has the capacity to direct the functioning of a computer does not mean that it lacks the additional capacity to convey information, and it is the conveying of information that renders instructions “speech” for purposes of the First Amendment. The information conveyed by most “instructions” is how to perform a task.

   Instructions such as computer code, which are intended to be executable by a computer, will often convey information capable of comprehension and assessment by a human being. A programmer reading a program learns information about instructing a computer, and might use this information to improve personal programming skills and perhaps the craft of programming. Moreover, programmers communicating ideas to one another almost inevitably communicate in code, much as musicians use notes. Limiting First Amendment protection of programmers to descriptions of computer code (but not the code itself) would impede discourse among computer scholars, just as limiting protection for musicians to descriptions of musical scores (but not sequences of notes) would impede their exchange of ideas and expression. Instructions that communicate information comprehensible to a human qualify as speech whether the instructions are designed for execution by a computer or a human (or both). {FN193: 273 F.3d at 447-448, 60 USPQ2d at 1964-1965}

Moving on to the second thing that caught my attention... which is also related to the digital world surrounding us, and the daily thinning of the veil of privacy we attempt to wrap around us. Do you know what happens to your most intimate data when you send off your cells to have the DNA within encoded and interpreted? Did you know that with or without your consent, that data may be used for other purposes, including but not limited to scientific research and law enforcement inquiries? "most genetic-testing companies, like social networks before them, have also made a business out of DNA data collected from customers. They have partnerships with companies like Glaxo or Pfizer Inc., giving access to their trove of data for research." And finally, only related through the context of manipulation of society at large, just like the social media platforms attempt to do, there's this report on organic food marketing. I've said for years that it's nothing more than a marketing ploy - there is no health basis to eating organic foods versus... um, inorganic. (which makes NO sense, but hey, none of this does). The report lays out the vicious tactics adopted to push organic foods.