Vitanuova for 2002 May 21

Brown-Tien

1. D2-D4 G8-F6
2. C2-C4 E7-E6
3. G1-F3 B7-B6
4. B1-C3 F8-B4
5. C1-D2 C8-B7
6. E2-E3 E8-G8
7. F1-D3 ...

 ABCDEFGH
 --------
|RN Q RK |8
|PBPP PPP|7
| P  PN  |6
|        |5
| Bpp    |4
|  nbpn  |3
|pp b ppp|2
|r  qk  r|1
 --------

EL wire

I forgot to mention that I got some EL wire by going in person with Ben to the soldering party at Funhouse Productions. It's nice stuff!

Google voice search

Gosh, if the woman who prompts you when you call the Google voice search doesn't sound like Heather Stern, especially when she says "Okay"!

Eldred

I recommend reading the briefs of the Eldred amici. (I've read some, but not all, of them.) I thought the appellants in the 2600 case had some stellar support, with brilliant people and careful arguments, but these amici are again remarkable.

Every single "usual suspect" is there (and some of the "somewhat usual suspects", too), but also many others. Some of those who stood out for me:

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Phyllis Schlafly, Kenneth J. Arrow, Ronald H. Coase, Milton Friedman, Intel Corporation (in partial support), National Writers Union, Wendell Berry, Ursula K. Leguin, David Foster Wallace, The Consumer Electronics Association, Organization of American Historians.

The Eldred case has made some remarkably strange bedfellows (which you'll see more clearly if you look over the complete list). It would have been nice to see more individual writers on the NWU brief; surely some well-beloved published scientists think retroactive copyright extensions are a bad idea.

If I'd had closer ties to some bookdealers' associations (like MARIAB, ABAA, ABA, and ILAB), I might have tried to gather their support. Bookdealers' intuitions are slightly different from publishers', and slightly different again from librarians', but they tend to be strongly concerned with free expression, access to information, the preservation of history, and the growth of culture and creativity.

OK, I'm going to try to find out what the bookdealers' associations are up to on Eldred.