- Joel Veitch’s 12 Days Of Christmas for charity Referencing this is a bit late and clumsy, but I’ve been a bit distracted and I’m only now starting to come out of my hole…
- According to a campaigning group, staff at the Grand Canyon are not allowed to officially comment on the of the geological feature Apparently, the reason is that the geologic age is way in excess of the apparently 6000 year old age of the planet according to Creationists. Not sure I believe the story, and will look into it further…
- Lifehacker’s awesome list of iTunes power tips There are actually some decent ones hereie. things you didn’t already know if you used it regularlywhich are worth exploring. Multiple libraries and PDF storage are both quite interesting…
Year: 2006
Taking a little time off…
It may not surprise many of you to know that the last month or so has not been without its stresses. I’ve made, unmade and remade a number of significant decisions in a number of weird areas of significant impact to my lifemore of which in the new year. I’ve also been rather swamped in both my work and personal life. And finally I’ve found myself in the company of a great many people in lamenting the death of a friend and pioneer of the creative and expressive web. I’ve wanted to write a proper post about Leslie since the moment I heard the news, but I’ve not really known what to say. So I’ve been remembering her with friends off the web instead. The world is much the worse without her.
Anyway, during the last month or two, my site has suffered enormously. Many things I’ve wanted to write remain unwritten, many things I’ve wanted to take apart remain unscrutinised and I’ve made a conscious commitment not to take on any more commitments until such time that I get everything in order, which has meant missing out on a few really interesting opportunities. The truth of the matter is I’ve been in danger of burning out a bit and so I’ve decided to take the holiday that I’m due and take a little bit of a break from the web. So I’m planning for the next week or two to be barely online, to not be posting unless I just find myself doing it and to basicallywelllet my brain get its shape back.
I’ve still got a lot I want to get out, and I’m thinking the period after Christmas or in the early New Year might be a good time to do so, but for the moment I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone. Spend time with your loved ones, make something for fun and change your environment for a little while and I’m sure it’ll do you the same world of good that my two days in Norfolk so far is already doing for me. I’ll see you all soon! x Tom
- Planting trees in cooler climates may actually speed up climate change The more you hearif you believe it of coursethe more it seems that this really is one of those situations where the world either has to operate together or where there have to be some seriously good incentives for poorer countries to do things for t
- I may have just found the absolute best / worst present for a five year old ever made It’s a great big artificial arm made of soft toy material with huge claws that they can wear over their real arm. My cousin’s going to love me, and her parents are going to totally hate me…
- Are you cleverer when you’re hungry? Given that most schools in the UK are currently focusing on making sure children have had a good breakfast in order to improve behaviour and concentration, it’s an interesting and impactful argument to make…
- Wendy Grossman writes about the recent advert posted by 4500 musicians protesting about Gowers rejection of copyright term extension on recordings Turns out some of the people who protested werewelldead. Makes you wonder who decided to protest on their behalf. Maybe the people who actually own the recordings? Bit dodgy.
- My lovely colleague Simon Willison has gone and finally relaunched his weblog in Django I know weblog redesign posts are a bit 1999 but still, it’s really clear and well organised with a range of innovative little UI and archiving touches. Worth a look.
- Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist goes to meet business types and weirds them out because he’s not interested in profit maximisation I think I love Jim Buckmaster. Craigslist may not represent a replicable model, but it’s nice to have a counter example to the kind of advertising strip-mining that eviscerates sites and services because it can only think of eyeballs not communities…
- Sam Sethi reports on being fired my Mike Arrington on Twitter Funny chap, Sam. Not one predisposed towards calming things down (in my highly limited experience of him). Not really got a clue what this whole Le Web debacle is about. Too busy. Sorry.
- Webb’s keynoting at ETech. That’s going to be fun. Lovely topic and one which he’s going to knock out of the {insert sporting metaphor}.
- I don’t think I’ve ever been more troubled than by watching the various Philips Bodygroom adverts I suspect the only way I could be more troubled is if I tried to use the appliance in question. Eek.
- I’ve been playing a bit with Widsets today. It doesn’t work seamlessly, but it’s pretty interesting… I really think this is a better model than that of a mobile browser. The browser is useful too, but this dashboard style approach seems more suited to the available interfaces…
- Use the Wii-Mote as a lightsabre, by the creator of MacSabre earlier in the year You don’t even have to have a Wii to use it, and can instead hook it up to your Mac. No Wii? No Matter…
- I met that chap from ‘Random Acts Of Reality’ the other night at the Webby do And charming he was too. Funny evening, but definitely notable for the people present, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years and a good proportion of whom were totally awesome fun.
- Victor Keegan writes quite glowingly about ORG and MySociety He points out that he hasn’t seen groups quite like these in any other country of the world. I think, after some initial reserve about their first projects, it would be difficult for me to find fault in the work that MySociety have done recently. Bravo.
- Oxbridgelife – a profoundly troubling and actually quite insulting website designed to find jobs for people from Oxford and Cambridge Note that it’s really got nothing to do with whether the people who went there were any good, just that they happened to go to a couple of universities. A solid embodiment of old boy networks…
So the Gower’s Review has been released and you can download it as a PDF. I’ve not read it in detail yet, although I hope to in the next couple of days, but the impression I get is that in general it’s pretty positive – if I’m reading it correctly, it contains recommendations that individuals should have the right to make private copies of their music, that copyright terms should not be extended and that there should be a general provision that any subsequent term extensions should not be retroactive – ie. that people with copyright get what they were entitled to when the work was created. It looks like he’s also recommended no changes to the EU’s patent law with regards to software patents or genes or business practices, and that there should be provisions which require media that contains DRM to be clearly labelled. That one alone is pretty bloody interesting. In addition orphaned worksstuff that no author can be found forwould be easier to reuse legally, and libraries and research institutions should be given special provisions to protect, preserve and utilise copyrighted information.
There’s some stuff I’m less sure about. It’s probably reasonable to make sure there are mechanisms in place to dissuade the illegal commercial distribution of copyrighted material and to protect legitimate IP. However I’m a bit confused about the specifics of how this might conceptually affect people whosaygive music to friends, as teenagers have been doing since the creation of the blank cassette tape decades back. And obviously, you have to think about loopholes and ways in which companies can find ways to circumvent the spirit of the law while remaining within the letter – for example, I’m not sure that the rights for Libraries to make copies for preservation counts for much if they don’t have the right to circumvent DRM restrictions to do so. I’ll look forward to reading more about that later when I’ve got more time.
Any reactions from anyone else? What do you think about Gowers?