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Wednesday, September 28, 2005 |
Cooper: Typography and the User Interface. There is a quiet issue that nags at the computer industry. While processing speed and computational flexibility have grown at incredible rates, our displays, the most human-facing elements of our digital lives, lag behind.
[Tomalak's Realm]
9:56:26 PM 
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Taking the permission society seriously.
Charles' post about sports broadcasts just reminded me of UnhappyBirthday.com, which encourages people to warn ASCAP and Time Warner every time they hear someone singing "Happy Birthday" in public. By overwhelming clearance departments with frivolous letters, the site's creators hope to make a statement about copyright-gone-amok.
That said, perhaps a more direct way to the same end is to borrow a page from that sports guy and encourage the public to write letters any time they anticipate singing "Happy Birthday" in the near future. So, seeing as my dad has birthday coming up, I figured I'd get the ball rolling:
ASCAP - New York
One Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023
licensing@ascap.com
Dear ASCAP,
The copyright status of "Happy Birthday To You" and the law related to public performances of copyrighted works have recently been brought to my attention. I would therefore like to request permission in advance to sing "Happy Birthday" to my father at Frenchy's Original Cafe in Clearwater, Florida, on October 8, at approximately 1 pm.
My father will be turning 75 on this day and will probably be ordering the Seafood Gumbo and Fried Grouper. The rest of the party will include Charles Star, my brothers Peter and Paul, their spouses Karla and Cindee, and my mother Lynn. Five of us will be singing while my brothers merely mouth the words and smile. We expect there to be approximately 50 disinterested witnesses.
I realize this is short notice but we only recently settled the details. If there is a charge for the privilege of singing in this instance, please let me know. And, if there is, please specify whether or not the cost can be reduced by moving to another location.
I look forward to your prompt reply.
Sincerely,
Carrie McLaren
Bear in mind that when Lawrence Lessig et al. tried to license "Happy Birthday" to celebrate the Free Culture movement, they waited months to get permission. So, um, I'm not holding our breath for a reply...
[Stay Free! Daily]
9:56:10 PM
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Students Discover Economics in Its Natural State. WHY do the keypad buttons on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots? It is an interesting question, since the patrons of these machines are almost always drivers, none of whom are blind. The answer, according to my former student Bill Tjoa, is that because A.T.M. producers make keypads with Braille dots for their walk-up machines anyway, it is cheaper to make all machines the same way. The alternative, after all, would be to hold two separate inventories and make sure that each machine went to the right destination. If the Braille dots caused trouble for sighted users, the extra expense might be justified. But they do not. By ROBERT H. FRANK. [NYT > Business]
9:53:58 PM
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TWO STORMS FOR FROST AND CALDERA.
In Katrina's aftermath, an online community launches rescue missions for two of their own... The first storm came for them by sea, hitting land with winds whipping faster than 150 miles per hour. Samuel Frost had gotten the warning to clear out of New Orleans the Saturday before last at 4:00pm local time. This was the city he'd lived in for all his 21 years; his fondest memory is running as a boy up Monkey Hill, the highest point of the Big Easy, and when he got to the top, rolling down the side like a lunatic. And unlike...
[New World Notes]
11:03:49 AM
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Two from BNA News:
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WIKIPEDIA FOUNDER FOCUSES ON TEXTBOOKS
Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia Foundation are attempting to
create a comprehensive, kindergarten-to-college curriculum
of textbooks that are free and freely distributable, based
on an open-source development model. Created in the same
mold as the Wikipedia project, Wikibooks is still in its
earliest stages.
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THEATRE CASHIER FACES JAIL UNDER BOOTLEGGING LAW
A 19-year-old movie theatre cashier in St. Louis faces eight
years in prison after pleading guilty to bootlegging movies
and posting them to the Web. He pleaded guilty in San Jose
federal court to a provision of the Family Entertainment and
Copyright Act of 2005, which prohibits using recording
equipment to make copies of movies in theatre. The
conviction is the first in the Operation Copycat sting.
10:52:52 AM
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Did you hear the one about the time
Microsoft tried to recruit Eric Raymond?
No, really. A Microsoft recruiter e-mailed the open source zealot and
proselytizer earlier this month. esr's account and e-mail reply are
offered in some context, from which he argues . . .
negotiation is pointless. Microsoft is not reformable. Jeering at
offers like this actually the most constructive thing we can
do.
9:52:56 AM
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Top 10 Worst Products of the Decade (CNet).
You know the number one, don't you? But a couple of those I think don't
belong. I'm sure, for example, that the Furby is far from among the ten
worst and closer to the ten best. (Not near the ten best, mind you, but
closer than to the worst.)
9:52:52 AM
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