Over the weekend I heard a talk by Mike Godwin of Public Knowledge about the state of intellectual property law. The lame duck Senate is currently poised to consider Public Knowledge – The Intellectual Property Protection Act (H.R. 2391), a draconian mix of copyright legislation which would abolish many fair use protections and extend criminal penalties to the mere careless or accidental offering of copyrighted files even if no infringing activies actually occurred. Consider writing your Senators, and keep an eye on this one.
Monthly Archives: November 2004
Brainwagon Radio: Aiptek DV4500, Halo2 and other gadgets
Where your host describes a number of interesting gadgets and gizmos, and then plays some Halloween sounding music:
Links from the show:
- The Aiptek DV4500, pictures, video and sound files coming soon.
- Grayson: a film trailer created by amateurs, telling the story of Dick Grayson, aka Robin
- Jeri Ellsworth designed the Commodore One, a clone of the old Commodore 64 using programmable logic devices. She’s also designed the C64 Direct TV, a joystick with a C64 embedded in it, available this Christmas season from QVC. Cool!
- I got a chance to play some Halo 2. Short story: If you liked the original, you’ll like the new one.
- Cool product of the day: a plastic which you can melt in hot water and easily sculpt. When heated to 150 degrees F, it turns clear and is easily moldable, and yet when cools becomes tough and stiff like nylon. Can be remelted again and again. Neat stuff.
- Music of the Day: Frank Ho’s The Merry Prank of Mr. J, kind of Halloweeny sounding, from garageband.com
Cool Optical Illusion
A classic illusion is the hollow face illusion, where a concave casting of the face appears convex. This is demonstrated neatly here, with a simple cardboard cutout whose head appears to track you as you move around. Very neat. There are lots of other cool illusions on the parent website, check them out too.
Screw the X Prize, Work on the L Prize!
Over the weekend, Julian Gomez informed me of a project that he thought (correctly) that I might be interested in: The L Prize. What is that, you say? Best answer from their website:
The L PRIZE is a new and exciting open competition that will be officially launched fall 2004 by an independent team led by Tim Courtney. The purpose of the L PRIZE is to reach both the established LDraw community and the broader 3D software developer and user communities, and to draw on this greatly expanded pool of resources to build a unique convergence of interests and abilities that will result in significant advances to LEGO CAD technologies.
Contestants will apply their knowledge and skills with the goal of furthering the State-of-the-Art of LEGO CAD software and support tools. Casual Users, Hobbyists, Educators, and Students will all reap the benefits of these advances. The open competition model of the L PRIZE will also encourage grass-roots level innovations in 3D software technologies and software interfaces that may benefit the software industry at large.
A couple of years back I worked on some simple filters to convert ldraw models into a format palateable to my toy raytracer, and generated the somewhat disappointing picture at the right. Still, fun stuff.
If you are interested, you should get in touch with these guys.
Addendum: Hey Julian, I know you’ve worked a bit on this stuff before, why not try and extract some of their money in your copious spare time?
Cory Doctorow on Copyrights
Cory Doctorow gives a nice talk to a bunch of librarians, and somebody was kind enough to record. transcribe and post the Quicktime.
Brainwagon Radio: Alternator Trouble, plus a Pot Pourri
Where your host laments the problem with his SUV (bad alternator) and comment spammers, chats about the NPR program regarding political speech and the public domain, talks a bit about his microphone setup, plays some blues music, and recalls all the terrific Cajun food he had during his only trip to New Orleans.
Links:
- Home To New Orleans, by the Dare ya Blues Band
- The NPR program Political Speech and the Public Domain
- IT Conversations has mp3 files for all the sessions of Bloggercon III
I’m looking for recommendations for a good phone for use in mobile weblogging, if you have any suggestions go ahead and mail me with your recommendations. I am inherently a cheapskate, so cheaper suggestions will be considered more strongly than more expensive $500 and up phones, so bear that in mind. The ideal candidate will be:
- cheap
- decent camera, VGA resolution or up, good low light sensitivity a plus
- Bluetooth
- bonuses: voice recorder and video clip capability
- did I mention cheap would be good?
NPR : Political Speeches and the Public Domain
This morning Neda Ulaby of NPR reported on Political Speeches and the Public Domain, which covers a dilemma. Public speeches by politicians are normally considered to be in the public domain, but news networks recording such events often copyright their own recordings of these events, causing enormous difficulties for historians, students, and independent film makers to use these materials. They often require written permission before they can even examine this footage, and negotiate the circumstances under which material can be used. Arguing fair use can be problematic and expensive at best, requiring deeper pockets than many independent organizations can muster.
Thought provoking.
Random Act of Political Expression
Damn, wish I was this creative. (Courtesy of BoingBoing).
Oops…
Herbert Baerten reported that my feeds weren’t valid RSS and that his client Doppler was having difficulties with it as a result. It should be fixed now: Feed Validator gives it a clean bill of health. If you had difficulty getting Brainwagon Radio, I apologize and will try to be more careful in the future.
Dark Side of Oz
Ever wonder what happens if you play Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon as the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz? Wonder no further.
Upset over the election?
Some people seem to take offense with the idea that Red States represent the New America. Warning: Strong Language.
Brainwagon Radio: Digital Audio 101
Where your host tries to give a meaningful introduction into digital audio by explaining the basics of digital audio. Topics covered include:
- What is sound?
- What does your computer do when it records a digital audio file?
- What does sample rate, sample size and bitrate mean?
- The sound settings that I use to record these podcasts, namely:
- sample rate = 22050
- sample size = 16 bits
- I record in stereo (2 channels)
- I use a bitrate of 64kbps, which results in files which are 480Kbytes per minute
Anybody with any experience in digital recording will undoubtably be bored, but my lunch at Bloggercon gave some hint that this might be necessary.
Garageband closing music is Leigh Silver and the Bitter Things, playing Moody.
TaxProf Blog: Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed
The Big Picture has an interesting list of post-election maps which seek to demonstrate the oddities of how people voted in the Presidential election. I find this one to be rather interesting, which showed that of the 32 states that receive more in federal tax money than they collect in taxes, 76% ended up voting for George W. For all their preaching about self reliance, it appears that these predominantly Republican states drink heavily from the fountain that is federal taxation.
Caught on Tape, er, Flash!
I happened to be seated a couple of rows in front of Russell Beattie during the Mobile Weblogging session at Bloggercon, and he caught me on video. I’m the red blob in the center of the Quicktime movie, and also visible in the larger snapshot.
See honey, I wasn’t just going to Fry’s all day.
Courtly Art of the Maya
Well, I wanted nothing more than to spend the day relaxing around the home, but my wife conned me into going over to the Legion of Honor Museum in Golden Gate Park to see their new exhibition: The Courtly Art of the Maya. Despite the fact that we arrived fairly late because of horrendous traffic, we quickly reviewed the 130 artifacts. I must admit to a certain fascination with Mesoamerican history: at one time I thought it would be fun to try to teach myself the system of Mayan hieroglyphics. As is typical of most of my grandious endeavors, that ended with the purchase and reading of several books, but without any real knowledge sticking. Still, I remain fascinated by the Mayan culture, and this exhibition of Mayan art was quite impressive and beautiful. I urge anyone in the Bay Area to drop in and see it.
Books on the subject that I recommend:
- Mayan Script: A Civilization and Its Writing, by Longhena and Frongia
- Breaking the Maya Code by Michael Coe
You can also download images of Mayan glyphs here.