Discovered on June 28, 2010
They Don’t Complain and They Die Quietly
“This is one of the gifts plants give me. They remind me to slow down, to take the long view, to breathe, relax, and just wait for what happens next.”
June 2010
Discovered on June 27, 2010
Discovered on June 25, 2010
Discovered on June 23, 2010
Discovered on June 20, 2010
Discovered on June 19, 2010
Vanishing Point - A generative kinetic music video. [via]
Discovered on June 17, 2010
Doodle from class today.
Discovered on June 11, 2010
Discuss the new copyright bill or other Internet issues with Michael Geist, Canadian law professor.
A reddit “I Am A” thread.
The Chef and I have posted questions.
(Hopefully a moderator can verify and “star” the thread soon.)
Emend (verb), to improve by critical editing.
“Emend is a service for alerting website owners and authors of grammatical and spelling mistakes found on their site.”
Amendments for your site show up in an ATOM feed. Example: Stungeye@Emend
[via: The comments for a blog post on XML extensibility.]
Discovered on June 8, 2010
pieces of relationship - mixed media on wood, 10 x 12”
The maps of the Geotaggers’ World Atlas have been enhanced to show tourists in red, locals in blue. (Yellow could be either.)
Object-Oriented Modeling, when discussed separate from computer-programming, becomes very philosophical.
Objects as Platonic forms.
Canadian Copyright - Bill C32
On Thursday the Canadian government introduced the Copyright Modernization Act (or Bill C-32).
The CBC does a good job of outlining the proposed changes to Canadian copyright law.
The bill is an attempt to strike a fair balance between:
- Our ability to monetize creativity. -vs- Our ability to re-purpose culture.
- A creator’s right to control their works. -vs- A consumer’s rights to experience purchased media flexibly and in perpetuity.
There are things to like in this bill. The format-shifting, time-shifting and backup provisions are long-overdue, as is the expansion of fair-dealings1. The non-commercial “mash-up/youtube” provisions are indeed progressive.
However, any and all use-rights provided by the bill are revoked if the work in questions is protected by a digital lock. This immediately makes backing up DVDs illegal. It also makes viewing DVDs using the Linux operating-system illegal2. Copying a quote from a DRM-locked e-book for a book report or a news story would be illegal too.
The supremacy of digital-locks promoted by this bill must not be allowed to pass into law. If you value free-speech, your ability to re-purpose culture, and your right to use your purchased media as you see fit, I ask that you write your Member of Parliament to express your displeasure over the DRM provisions in Bill C32. (If anything, a bill that includes DRM provisions should mandate explicit labeling of all digitally-locked media.)
You can find your MP by searching for your postal code on openparliament.ca.
I recommend following these tips on discussing bill C32 with your MP. For the most impact, voice your displeasure using hand-written snail-mail.
Footnotes
Fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire would not infringe copyright. Parody and satire were not previously considered fair dealings in Canada.
In order to view legally purchased DVDs using the Linux OS one must break the digital locks on the DVDs. The reason for this is that the DVD industry has not provided any other way to view DVDs when using open-source software. Since I use Linux for all my DVD viewing, C32 would make watching movies a criminal activity for me.
Discovered on June 2, 2010
The Canadian Copyright Bill: Flawed But Fixable
Michael Geist’s initial reaction to the Canadian copyright reform bill (C-32) announced today.
Looks like an improvement over C-61 but DRM is still poised to trump fair dealing.
“The future belongs to the companies and people that turn data into products.”