The monks in The Name of the Rose are 14th-century
monks, not, as previously reported, 13th-century monks.
Jim Tyre found a
good piece by Lisa Bowman on programmers getting
involved with legal issues.
Similarly, GrepLaw
reports that
Reason
interviews Larry Lessig on his work. Interesting:
If they were to become more politically active, however distasteful
that may be to them, that could begin to put a check on what is
achievable by others who have no hesitation about being politically
active.
("Casuistical politics is a branch of ethics." Wolff?)
I went to three parties this week. The first was my own CIPA party,
on Saturday, celebrating the partial victory won last week by CIPA
opponents. About a dozen people came by my house, including
David Fifield, who came
all the way from San Diego.
The second was a costume party in Golden Gate Park, on Sunday, which
coincided with a street fair on Haight. There I played Frisbee with
Biella and other people, and stayed a few hours outdoors, impressed
with the park's size.
The third and last was the Mozilla release party at the DNA Lounge on Wednesday.
I saw about a dozen people I knew there, and had a nice time,
despite lingering guilt about age discrimination, about which more
later. The Mozilla party was perhaps the most impressive of the
three, with an intense bass track and dancing fire-eaters (not to
mention thousands of lines of code scrolling by on a huge overhead
monitor).
I look kind of bewildered here; maybe it was the late hour. The
picture is due to Kevin Burton.
Veeck v. SBCCI: the 5th Circuit, sitting en banc,
reversed itself and ruled in favor of Veeck. Yay!
I don't feel enough connection to this case to have a "Veeck Party",
but it's still good news. The 5th Circuit holds that legislation
is not copyrightable, even if it was originally written (and
properly copyrighted) by a private party such as a "model code"
vendor.
People who don't mind living in Washington (and travel all over the
world) have
a fantastic opportunity to
get a free software job with the Science and Human Rights project
at the AAAS -- working with Patrick Ball.
Google Answers seems to
be pretty effective.
My mom and Pam are in town, and I had dinner with them twice, and
hope to see them again soon.
There was a partial solar eclipse, and I managed to watch it
without injuring my eyes.
Some labels
are
actually going to sell popular songs without DRM, something I've
advocated for a long time. If you want to create a "legal alternative"
to infringing copies, your alternative should not be less
functional than the illegal version. (Customers don't necessarily
want MP3s because they can be had for free -- they also want MP3s
because MP3 is a better format than proprietary DRM
schemes! But in the past, people who wanted legal MP3 purchases
of major labels' songs were unable to obtain them at all. The
labels, assuming their customers were all out to break the law,
kept insisting on DRM even when their customers constantly
insisted that they hated it.)
Note that what's being sold here isn't actually MP3 yet -- but I
think we're getting close.
I had a memorable dinner at Zante's Indian Pizza with Linda, Praveen,
and Bernie (whom I'd never met before).
Declan dropped by the office
on Wednesday; I've never met him in person before.
My arms are very sore again.
Did I mention that
incredibly great job opportunity
over at AAAS? You should be breaking AAAS's doors down to
apply for such a job (except don't, because they need their doors,
in order to do things like protect human rights effectively).
