Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Introduction to Great Design. “Here's why I'm afraid to turn off my cell phone: because I can't always seem to muster the brain cells necessary to turn it back on. “It has two buttons on it, a happy green button and a scary red button. They have funny icons on them that don't mean very much to me. “You might think that the green button turns it on. Green means go, right? “Wrong.” The first draft of Introduction to Great Design is up. [Joel on Software] 5:54:52 PM    comment []

Very good "fair use" opinion re Google's cache. A district court in Nevada has rejected the claim that Google's cache violates copyright law. The opinion is grounded both on "fair use" and implied license. The "fair use" part of the opinion is fantastic. But interestingly, the "implied license" part of the opinion weakens any such claim in the context of Google Book Search. [Lessig Blog] 5:54:37 PM    comment []

Iran welcomes Russia offer (The Statesman). Teheran’s nuclear negotiator today welcomed Moscow’s offer to have Iran’s uranium enriched in Russia, but said the proposal needs more work and threatened to renew full-scale uranium enrichment if his country is referred to the UN Security Council. . . . “Our view of this offer is positive,” Mr Larijani said a day after talks with Russian security council chief. “This plan can be perfected in the future, during further talks that will be held in February.” Some critics say that Teheran is using the proposal, under which Iranian uranium would be enriched in Russia and returned to Iran for use in the country’s reactors, to stall for time as diplomatic pressure over its nuclear activities mounts. “There are lots of details surrounding this offer that must be decided,” Mr Larijani told a news conference. Russian officials have said further talks on the proposal would be held in Russia around 16 February after the 2 February emergency board meeting. 4:33:52 PM    comment []