Sights and sounds wandering through the garden...

By Tony Billoni

Friday, July 12, afternoon

The Gibson guitar company is here showing off their wares. They have also set up a tech tent back stage to help any of the bands that may need extra help. There is no confirmation over whether any of the guitars go to "eleven."

Some folks are taking advantage of an enterprising group who brought in the Rain Room. For $2.00 a day, anyone can stand in a cool mist for as long as they like. None of the attendants seemed too concerned over anyone who may drop to au natural under the spray.

	Photo by Tony Billoni

"That's Cheryl Lynn- in Bud All American Bikini"

As we said earlier, the EFF is one of the backbone organizations for this net- cast. I spoke with Lori Fena who is the eff exec director and she gave me a bit of background on the work this political action org is doing to lay the groound work for the net to be a total free speech environment as well as a free Blue Ribbon temporary Tattoo (available from the EFF tent)!

The whole EFF story is on their page at www.eff.org. From there you can get all the details of their court challenge but what happened in the past few weeks caused a lot of cyber-toasting. A federal court in Philadelphia just struck down the communications decency act (CDA) which was passed as part of the larger Telecommunications bill last winter. The CDA was proposed by Senator Exon and backed by a number of religious right lobby organizations. The act would use vague terms like patently offensive or indecent and attach criminal liability along with huge (like $250,000 huge) fines for taking part in such activity. The EFF vigorously debated the opposition on the bill which basically used fear tactics to sway public opinion with visions of porn jumping out on the screen the second any child logs onto the net.

"The EFF- now that's why we're here, right?"

The EFF spent a good deal of the court challenge educating the panel of judges as to what the net really is. Lawyers have said the judges rendered a landmark decision which is sound legally and everyone is hoping will hold up in the supreme court this fall.

The judges basically went the route of sidestepping the government becomming the guardian of decency the lobbyists were hoping for. Lori says the best way to police chilren's use of the Net is for parents to establish a dialog- seemingly a sane and rational approach--so kids, go tell your folks how to use the Net so they think they know what they are talking about when they tell you what to look out for.

Moving into sci-fi territory Lori predicts we won't be carrying around these clunky 4lb laptops much longer. As she sees it we will be jacking into outlets nearly everywhere and carrying little more than discs, using the massive computing power of the Net to carry on with our business and life.

	Photo by Tony Billoni

"The power is in the pudding"

The guy nearly everyone who feels they have any influence if they wish to display the power they weild here in Eden is the security pass guy. from the moment you get off route 115/35 passes are necessary. Unlike any normal city where social structures are defined over the course of years, the only way to tell a rock star from a poseur or the promoter from the guy who is selling hot dogs are the passes. Seth Sheck of T-Bird Entertainment out of Reno put together a unique and first time strategy of creating passes in the shapes shown above. The simplicity of seeing a shape cuts down on the time needed for the security to deal with the over 5000 people with laminants (the in-the-know word to use for an all access back stage pass). And hows it working? I havent been hassled yet. :)