Stewart, Colbert to return. I support the writer’s strike (they should get the same royalties across all media) but a primary campaign without Stewart and Colbert is a national calamity.
December, 2007
19
Dec 07
automatically ‘mirroring’ distro torrents?
So… I was having a discussion with a copyright classmate about the legitimate uses of bittorrent, explaining that (like any good protocol) torrent can be used to transfer both legal and illegal bits.
screenshot by dantekgeek, used under CC-SA
It struck me that many would probably be able to spare disk space for a pile of iso and some upload. (I certainly can.) But there is no way, that I can see, to automatically ‘mirror’ the torrents of the major distros- all the torrent pages seem to assume that you just grab a single iso that you need, and then leave your client running; no information on automatically grabbing new torrents; shutting down old ones; etc. It seems like there are many people who could be talked into more pro-active mirroring if there were a scriptable way to do that, like the elaborate mirror scripts that already exist for ftp/http.
Do such scripts exist for torrent? I’d like to use some of them if they do :)
[Long term, without having given it much thought, this also seems like a good idea for rpms/debs; yes, there is some overhead for smaller files, but using a protocol that automatically load-balances and mirrors seems like it would be a good idea. It took me a full year on columbia campus before I noticed that I had a local mirror; I like the idea of using a protocol that would figure that out for me, and automatically allow me to help out/participate as well. But like I said, I haven't given this much thought.]
19
Dec 07
happyhappyjoyjoy
Jump for Joy, by bingbin, used under a CC-BY license
That is about how I’m feeling right at the moment. Last exam done. Not going to be my finest semester (job search was unexpectedly distracting, and frankly I got a bit cocky about copyright and patent, which I paid for come end of semester) but not bad, all things considered. Now to clean up the pigsty that is my apartment and do some Christmas shopping… joy.
17
Dec 07
“open source fact check” blog
A new blog, dedicated to fact-checking spurious claims in open source blogs. Reminds me a bit of my own adventures (1, 2) in open source journalism. :) I will be keeping an eye on this blog; hopefully it becomes something useful and which others check before promoting openly false posts by others.
12
Dec 07
only in new york
NYPD @ Times Square, by Web Phenomenon Joi Ito, used under CC-BY
Had a drink with a friend after my patents exam today. There was a van with a loudspeaker outside.
The goal of the van and loudspeaker were to remind everyone that a murder had taken place there the weekend before, and that if they had any tips, they should call the police.
I almost want to give the cops credit for this method of detective work, except for the little detail that the crowd at this bar is a little different at 5pm on a Wednesday that it is at 2am on a Saturday, which is when the shooting occurred. Oops.
12
Dec 07
so close yet so far
so close: past exams from your patent prof have asked that you do analysis on a case which is pending before the courts, so you decide to search patent blogs for interesting cases which are before the courts. And lo and behold, one of the cases you saw on the patent blogs was on the exam.
so far: you took one look at the particular case, read the first paragraph and first sentence of the second paragraph, decided ‘that patent application is so completely insane, it couldn’t possibly be in the exam‘, and never looked at it again.
Oops.
11
Dec 07
surfacing from exam hell briefly
(1) Thanks to everyone who voted for me for the board; I hope I’ll be able to accomplish what I’ve set out to do.
(2) fairly good summary of the html5/ogg situation, from Mozilla’s rep to the HTML5 video workshop. At the end, he says:
If you are passionate about the use of Ogg Theora and <video> one of the best things you can do is start using it.
Do compelling demos. Release video in Theora format. It may be easy to use a service that provides video for you in exchange for giving them certain rights but if you want your format to succeed, then increased usage is the way.
He’s right, of course. (ahem.)
I have nothing much else to add to his post right now, except to add the (perhaps informative) detail that the risk from submarine patents in a new video codec is not small, or hypothetical. Microsoft is currently on the hook for one billion (with a b) dollars for an mp3 patent violation. You don’t have to like software patents to understand why increasing that risk makes Nokia and Apple nervous. Hopefully w3c can work through the issue in a way that works for everyone.
(Comments off because there are a lot of trolls around this issue and with exams I have no time to moderate.)
8
Dec 07
firefox nitpicks, revisited
[I've studied an immense amount the past 38 hours; this is a brain break while watching the terrible but enjoyable Gladiator.]
Someone recently linked to my old post on firefox nitpicks; I’ve also been using firefox three this week. Time to revisit…
Fixed:
- direct bookmarks from url bar: ffox’s new ‘awesomebar’ is really quite nice. Finally caught up to ephy :)
- bookmarks, generally: tags! woohoo! again, ffox catches up.
- theming: new ffox is impressively integrated with gtk/gnome themes. There are some details that aren’t right- HIGginess generally- but still, overall, very impressive- can’t have been easy.
Not fixed/improved:
- printing dialog: still not native; gets more painful now that the gnome printing dialog exposes lots of cups functionality. (Who knew my printer could do double-sided printing? Sadly, ffox still doesn’t, though apparently epiphany doesn’t expose the full functionality either.)
- history in new tab: still doesn’t work. Yargh. At least there is a plugin.
- window icon: booo.
- clutter: seems to be about the same, overall. Still really should follow epiphany’s lead of separating preferences and personal information.
Ahead(?) of epiphany:
- prism: prism is awesome; ephy should have done something like it ages ago. (Not actually integrated into ffox3 yet, but… details.)
- speed: I actually have no idea how fast ephy is these days, but I can’t ever remember having a browser launch as fast as ffox3 does. Very impressive. Probably helps that I’m back to nearly-no-plugins state as a result of the upgrade.
The ffox guys should be proud- this looks like a very nice release, if still not perfect.
6
Dec 07
if the mountain will not come…
[Today was the last day of classes- so after this I crawl into my exam hole for two weeks.]
The more mobile startups get, the harder it would be to start new silicon valleys. If startups are mobile, the best local talent will go to the real Silicon Valley…
I love New York, but after much thought, I’ve decided that I’m going to Silicon Valley this summer, to work at the law firm of Orrick Herrington. (wikipedia) (Assuming I pass their conflicts requirements, of course.) I’m really excited- Orrick has great people and a strong startup and licensing practice. It should be a great place for me to start my career.
This was simultaneously a very hard and a very easy decision- very easy, in that there was no ‘wrong’ answer, but also very hard, in that there were a lot of great options with various, competing strengths. I spent a lot of time wrestling not just with them, but with myself as well, trying to understand not just what they offered but what I wanted and needed. Orrick came out on top, but I literally went down to the wire, and I think very highly of the other firms that I filtered out along the way, especially the last handful.
I wasn’t the only one involved in this decision. I’d like to thank the various lawyers in my life- I got a lot of great advice. Much of it was conflicting, but that was the nature of the beast :) And yes, Krissa is excited about the possibility of going West again, though she’ll be in New York for the summer.
[And yes, before anyone mentions it to me for the third time in the past 24 hours, I've seen the bubble 2.0 video. I even got shown it in a class today! The video is exactly correct- we're absolutely in a bubble... and yet, per Graham, I think I need to make the pilgrimage anyway. Who knows... the explosion might be fun.]
[Oh, and if any Orrick people stumble across this, make sure to check out my blog Q&A.]
6
Dec 07
Voting With Your Feet and Other Freedoms
This Post In A Nutshell (aka, the Murray Version)
No one should be surprised that social network users can’t ‘vote with their feet,’ because most users give up a portion of their autonomy when they choose to use web services. This post will suggest that protecting autonomy is desirable and should be designed in to software, and outline five qualities that such software would have.
[The rest of the post will not be brief; it is in part a draft of an essay for my class in 'Law in the Internet Society'.]