Is that it?

Gosh...I think I'm done with the semester...

Copyright Complaint

A group that includes Microsoft and Google has filed a complaint with the FTC, arguing that some copyright warnings issued by various groups, including the NFL and MLB, are overly broad and improper, giving short shrift to fair use.

Ruh Roh!

Senator Ted Stevens may be in trouble. The tiered Internet access crowd should probably find a better spokesperson (and one who is more coherent).

Is it done yet?

One more assignment...

Origami

Cthulhu origami, no less!

Web Page Update

After some tinkering, I got the inline styling and external style sheet versions of the Thoreau assignment to look the same. I think I'm done.

Hooray! Website works!

After seemingly hours of semi-tedious manual html coding, my website, including both versions of the Thoreau fragment, works.

Hacking Fox News

Via Slashdot, someone was rather easily able to get to Fox News' FTP password. Guard your passwords better than this!

Now That's Speed

How'd you like to surf the internet at 40 gigabits-per-second?

How to prevent iPod theft

Hide your iPod inside a Zune!

Pitt Blogging!

I brought my camera and took pictures.



This little guy is looking quite festive.





Must be a whole lot of learning in that cathedral. This is the dirty side. I guess all the dirty learning goes on on this side.

Hip Shushers

A New York Times article on hip librarians in NYC. It references Park Slope, Brooklyn, which is where my wife lived when we first met. A very nice neighborhood for hip librarians.

Digitizing Astronomical Data

Via Slashdot.

YouTube

In celebration of my Internets getting fixed, let's waste some bandwidth. Here's a beatbox flute version of the Inspector Gadget theme.

Homepage

The link for my homepage is here as well as over there ---->

Second Life Lawsuit with Bonus Sex Added for Free!

Via Slashdot, a lawsuit involving Second Life...and cyber sex toys. Such a shame that Second Life assignment isn't mandatory anymore.

Internets are fixed

Well, once again, without me doing a thing, my internets are now working at normal speed. Guess all that "the line test was good" and "your modem is getting a good speed" nonsense I heard from the Verizon tech support was....uh....nonsense. I just wish they would tell me what really broke along the line so if (when) this happens again, I can just tell them to fix it.

Sloooooow Internet

The problems with my DSL continue. Trying to get anything done with little more than dial-up speed ranges from frustrating to impossible. If FIOS were in my area, I might consider switching to that (5 Mb/s for $40 a month!), but that would also be run by Verizon, so it would probably break constantly...

If this doesn't get better soon I'll have to switch to cable, which would be extra difficult as we don't even have cable or any cable hookups in the house at this time. What a pain.

Copyright Musings

Somehow I managed to get through three years of law school and the bar exams for two states without ever having to learn any copyright law (which is federal law, so it probably wouldn't be on any state bar exam, but there can be some crazy stuff on bar exams). I guess this latest assignment made up for that, at least in some small way.

My Sweet Plagiarism

Since we're on the topic of copyright with our latest round of reading (and if you're musically inclined this could be interesting too), I thought some of you might be interested in reading about the copyright infringement suit from 1976 where the owner of "He's So Fine" sued George Harrison over his song "My Sweet Lord," alleging that Harrison had plagiarized the basic tune. George Harrison lost the case.

A Columbia Law discussion of the case is here, including sound clips of both songs so you can judge for yourself.

Here is another article discussing the long history of the case.

Koha Entries

I searched my library and could not find anything by Isaac Asimov! So I corrected that omission. Here's my list of Asimov books, as well as over on the sidebar ----> (yes, there are 16, because apparently I can't count -- but as the old joke amongst lawyers goes, if I were good at math, I would've gone to medical school):

1. Asimov’s Chronology of the World
2. Azazel
3. The Complete Robot
4. Counting the Eons
5. Far as Human Eye Could See
6. Foundation
   
7. I, Robot
8. Nemesis
9. Nightfall (with Robert Silverberg)
10. The Planet That Wasn’t
11. Quasar, Quasar Burning Bright
12. The Road to Infinity
13. The Secret of the Universe
14. The Subatomic Monster
15. The Ugly Little Boy
16. The Winds of Change and Other Stories

Happy Anniversary, Internet Freedom!

Via Boing Boing, it's the tenth anniversary of ACLU v. Reno!

ZoomClouds...

I guess adding new items to the various services worked, because I can see all of them now.

Steampunk Art

A Wired pictorial of steampunk art. Somewhat relevant to what we're doing, check out the steampunk RSS feed machine (I think it's picture 11). Wonder if it works better than ZoomClouds...

What the heck is steampunk? Glad you asked.

Constitutional Protection for Stored Email

Score one for civil liberties. The Sixth Circuit upholds decision that stored email is protected by the Fourth Amendment from seizure without a warrant.

ZoomClouds?

Over there ---->

Maybe...who knows...

Grazr Widget

The Grazr Widget is live. Once more...over there ---->

No DJ Darth Vader this time. Just look below if you want to see him spin again.

Custom Search Engine

The Electronic Music Search Engine is here. And also over there ---->

Above, you can enjoy DJ Darth Vader.

Bloglines feed?

It is here. And there is also a link on the right side.
Over there ---->

Web 2.0

Having to manually input the authors' names for the EndNoteWeb assignment made me think that having the ability to put "author" tags around the author could have enabled ENW to easily extract that information from the websites and put it in the entry automatically . . . assuming the original author/editor did that, which I guess is the rub about adding tons of metadata functionality -- if it's not used, it's not terribly useful.

Poor wittle Pwuto...

Not even the largest dwarf planet.

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OS Fight!

This started a few years ago, but Microsoft had a site extolling the virtues of Windows over Linux. There was some fighting back by Linux supporters, and Microsoft got spanked for a misleading claim that Linux was ten times more expensive than Windows.

Now just imagine a series of negative political ads backed by scary music...

Info from here.

Google Books

Because it was mentioned in our readings for the first paper, I looked up Google Book Search. Check it out and see what books you can find.

Technology Problems, Part Deux

Well, with the Koha problem solved (thanks for the comments all), it reminded me of Verizon's little problem with overly aggressive spam filtering -- a problem that lead to a class action lawsuit for lost email. I was actually affected by this, but the stuff I never received was of no great importance.

Fun with technology!

Well, the syllabus said we could use our blogs to vent about the course so...

One of the lessons of this course seems to be that technology is wonderful...if and when it works. Between the lack of a Koha ID that I should've received by now (though it may be in a junk email folder, except that I don't have one on my Pitt account), to the delays in getting the EndNote ID, to the mysterious missing EndNote extension/plug-in...and now I'm having to reconcile a printed copy of the syllabus with the changes...it hasn't been a very happy evening.

Eerie Technology

A new Japanese robot. If you think it's a bit creepy, it may be that you're descending into the uncanny valley.

Win a live lobster!

If you're in Osaka and in the mood for fresh lobster, try this game out.

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Roomba Blogging!

Somewhat related to cat blogging (well, not really) is Roomba blogging. Here's Robie (pronounced row-bee -- named by the kids) cleaning the living room while I blog and do other school-related stuff:

Computer of the Future!

This is how the RAND Corporation, about 50 years ago, envisioned a home computer would look in the year 2004:



...or is it? Actually, it's a fake. It's an entry in a Photoshop contest from a website called Fark (some parts of the website may be considered mildly not work-safe (the occasional woman in a bikini) -- so just a warning if/before you click). Here's a link to the original thread containing the entry and the entries of others. (Reading Nicholson Baker's book made me think of digital manipulation.) To be clear, it was never intended as a hoax, but it has fooled people into thinking it was legitimate. Caveat spectator!

ABC's Second Life Island Nuked

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Second Life island was
nuked. This site has "before" and "after" pictures.

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Firefox Extensions

I've been using Firefox for quite a while now, and since we're all required to use it this term, I thought I'd share some of the other useful extensions that I've been using. As I recall more (I'm at work at the moment) I'll add them.

NoScript - This one blocks scripts from running on sites you haven't marked as trusted. It's a good extension to help with computer security (it prevents Java, JavaScript, popups and other scripts from running). You do have to be sure to mark sites you use and trust as trusted or they won't have complete functionality (and you'll be banging your head wondering why Amazon isn't working right when you're trying to buy your books -- until you mark it as trusted).

Forecastfox - Allows you to add weather forecasts to your tool bar so you can see what the weather's going to be like today and tomorrow.

Tabs Open Relative - This is a simple one that makes new tabs in Firefox open to the right of the current tab rather than as the far right last tab.

Update: Now that I'm home...some more extensions.

IE Tab - Allows you to view a website in a tab as if you were viewing it in Internet Explorer. Some websites just don't work right in Firefox, unfortunately.

Plain Text to Link - Allows you to highlight text for a website that is not a clickable link and open it in a new tab without having to copy and paste the text into the address bar.

Clear Private Data - Allows you to add a button to your toolbar so you can clear all private data with one click.

Download Status Bar - Will indicate downloads in a small status bar at the bottom of your browser instead of the popup download manager. With multiple concurrent downloads you'll get multiple status bars.

Blogroll

I've added a blogroll on the side for all the MLIS blogs. It needs some updating, so if you don't see yours there, it will be soon. I may also add a list of other sites I visit frequently, but for now here's one: Boing Boing.

Computer Cooled by Mineral Oil

In LIS 2600 one of the things we're discussing is computer construction. Here's an interesting link to an article and video about a computer built submerged in mineral oil. It's based on the older project by Tom's Hardware of building a computer submerged in vegetable oil.

Cat Blogging

Inspired by a longstanding practice by Kevin Drum, here is my first cat blogging post.

This fine gentleman is known as Little (though his given name is Percy, no one calls him that):



I guess he was caught in mid-yawn.

Here is Tasha, though she is better known around the house as Katty:



Although they both seem to have spooky glowing eyes, I assure you they're not evil (well, maybe sometimes they are...but not too much).

First Post

Though this is the inaugural post of this blog it is not my first attempt at blogging. Many years ago, when the blogging craze first started, I made one that I think was read by two people -- me and my wife. All trace of it seems to be gone, as I couldn't find anything about it on the Internet Archive.

So, here's to blogging fun. And let's get those internet tubes good and clogged.