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.

Powered by ScribeFire.

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.