desirable things

Millenium Mouse & Copyright

The attempts Disney goes to maintain copyright over their intellectual property are legendary. Copyright term extention acts have ensured that Mickey Mouse is saved from the public domain and continues to generate income for Disney.

But what would happen if Mickey was shown to be older than we thought? An artefact at Lund Historical Museum dated to 900 A.D. was excavated at a site called Uppåkra in southern Sweden.

Surprise, surprise its Mickey!! This means that Mickey is over 1000 years old – let Mickey enter the public domain – he deserves it…

Don’t be surprised if Disney uses this as an excuse to extend copyright terms to 1000 years!

Although made of bronze, the brooch ornament likely adorned the clothing of an Iron Age woman. Excavations at nearby sites, such as at Järrestad, have yielded other unusual pieces of jewelry, such as a necklace with a pail fob at the end and another necklace strung with 262 pieces of amber. (Discovery Channel)

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

Theories, Movement & Collected Stories

James Boyle has just given an excellent presentation on what the environmental movement did right. He points to the right mix of theory, movements and the collection of stories in the creation of the concept of the environment. The environment as a concept did not exist prior to its creation, establishment and acceptance in the wider public.

What he means is that the movement to protect public domain and develop creative commons requires more than the creation of licenses and preaching to the choir. The theory is required as a base but the broader public does not want to read theory. Therefore what is required is a movement of people to enable the transfer of dry theory in the communication to the public.

How should this be done? Well the environmental movement added a collection of stories. Individual examples of environmental damage. Burning streams, smog cities, nuclear waste and silent springs. The collection of stories have become established and iconic. They are established in the mental image of the public to such a degree that protection of the environment becomes an obvious step.

So, in order to establish the protection of the public domain, open access and creative commons the organisations working with these issues should look at the strategies of the environmental movement.

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 Reminder

Since my blogging habit have become more erratic of late I have forgotten to write about stuff that happens. Sorry about this. One important event is the release of the final draft of the GPLv3.

GPLv3

What follows is a brief period for commenting then the draft will get the final and official form and go live.

More info at: FSF official page or Ciaran’s blog (FSFE).

Thanks to Personal Notes for the reminder…

Posted on by mklang

Harvard Thesis Repository

With so many discussions on Free Culture, Open Access and the problems connected with making academic publishing available outside academia it is surprising how few good places there are to find thesis’ online.

This is why I was happy when Peter Murray-Rust pointed me towards the Harvard College Thesis Repository (a project of Harvard College Free Culture).

Here Harvard students make their senior theses accessible to the world, for the advancement of scholarship and the widening of open access to academic research.

Too many academics still permit publishers to restrict access to their work, needlessly limitingâ??cutting in half, or worseâ??readership, research impact, and research productivity. For more background, check out our op-ed article in The Harvard Crimson.

If you’ve written a thesis in Harvard College, you’re invited to take a step toward open access right here, by uploading your thesis for the world to read. (If you’re heading for an academic career, this can even be a purely selfish moveâ??a first taste of the greater readership and greater impact that comes with open access.)
If you’re interested in what the students at (ahem) the finest university in the world have to say at the culmination of their undergraduate careers, look around.

The FAQ explains much of the process. It is also good to see that they are applying Creative Commons Attribution License

Q. What permissions do I have to grant to free my thesis?

A. To make sure your thesis is always available for scholars to build on, we ask that you give everyone permission to do the things you’d want to be able to do with a scholarly work you liked: download the work, read it, keep copies, share it with other people, and adapt it into fresh works. The specific legal permission we ask for is the Creative Commons Attribution License, the same one required by the world’s leading biology journal PLoS Biology and the other journals of the Public Library of Science.

My only (small) complaint is that I wish the repository was clearer in showing the license terms for their content. I only found it in the faq. Normally I would not bother reading the faq. To increase the usability of the site the terms should be on the download page and preferably on the essay file.
Despite this I think this is an excellent initiative and I would hope that the fact that Harvard has taken a step such as this would work as an incentive for other universities to follow suite.

Posted on by mklang

For the love of God

Damien Hirst has always been one of the more prominent of the group of UK artists often referred to as the Young British Artists (is it soon time to rename the group). His work includes things like a shark pickled in a tank filled with formaldehyde and the amazing massive sculpture depicting a pregnant female human, with layers removed from one side to expose the fÅ?tus, muscle and tissue layers, and skull underneath.

Damien Hirst’s latest artwork is this life-size platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 fine diamonds. The sculpture, titled “For The Love of God,” will likely sell for as much as $100 million, making it the priciest contemporary artwork ever made. White Cube gallery is selling several limited edition silkscreen prints of the work, priced from £900 to £10,000, for one sprinkled with diamond dust. (via Boing Boing)

Images 2007 05 29 Magazine 03Matter450.1

Besides being incredibly pricey it’s a nice piece of bling bling to show off…

 

Posted on by mklang

Robot Ethics

Some people seem not to be able to find anything to write about. Me on the other hand I am stuck with the problem of finding too many things fascinating. The topic of Robot Ethics is one which I would love to have time to engage in. I was reminded of this by the Humlab Blog

Peter Asaro will present a lecture on â??Robot Ethicsâ?? in the HUMlab.

This lecture will be an overview of his research at the HUMlab on Robot Ethics, particularly on the ethics of military robots. Peter is one of the new Postdoctoral Fellows at the HUMlab and the Department of Philosophy.

His film Love Machine will be shown in HUMlab at 15:30 on this Friday, June 1.
This is part of the â??Love, War & Robots Film Seriesâ??

Love Machine flyer

Love Machine (2001), directed by Peter Asaro, 110 min,

My fascination with robot ethics is the border between man and machine. When does a machine become complex enough to be granted rights on its own? Some may argue that no matter how sophisticated the software the machine will always be a machine. Fair point. But what happens when we begin to mix tissue in the machine. What happens when we begin to put more foreign objects into the human body. At what stage will the limits between man and machine become blurred enough for us to seriously discuss the limits of the man/machine dichotomy.

I have used some of these questions in my computer ethics courses but I never seem to have the time to explore this more deeply.

Posted on by mklang

About time too…

Via the Resistance Studies blog:

The Alabama Legislature on Monday approved a bill that would pardon Rosa Parks, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists convicted of violating Jim Crow laws in the state. During the â??second Civil Warâ?? in the 1950s and 1960s against desegregation, thousands of African-Americans and white people were arrested while standing up for freedom.

The protesters were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, inciting riots, loitering and more, as they peacefully marched, staged sit-ins and protested to bring an end to the Southâ??s oppressive Jim Crow laws.

For exercising their rights as American citizens, they unjustly ended up with criminal records.

Recently, some Southern states, including Tennessee and Alabama, have moved to offer pardons to those convicted of acts of civil disobedience during the civil rights movement.

The House and Senate this week passed the Rosa Parks Act, named after the mother of the civil rights movement that would grant pardons to individuals who sought them.

The full text of the legislation is here:

http://alisdb.legislature.state.al.us/acas/searchableinstruments/2006rs/bills/hb592.htm

About time too…

Posted on by mklang

Bibliographies

Have you seen Bibme? It’s a cool application for creating, handling and saving bibliographies.

BibMe is your one-stop source for all your bibliography needs!  Donâ??t remember all the information for the source you cited? No problem! BibMe allows you to search from a database of millions of entries to find your source and autofill in the information. Or, if you the source in front of you, you can enter your entries in manually. BibMe also offers resources to help you cite your work properly in the â??Citation Guideâ?? section.

In addition to this the bibliography can be exported into the different bibliographic formats. I thought this was a very cool application.

Posted on by mklang

Smoking Jacket

The Smoking Jacket by Fiona Carswell is part of a project “…exploring reflective design as it relates to the body, behavioral choices, and information displays.”

The idea is to remind the smoker about the consequences of smoking. The jacket “…has a built-in pair of lungs on the front. As the wearer smokes, the lungs fill up with the exhaled cigarette smoke and begin to gradually darken over time.”

Smoking Jacket

At first I thought this was kind of creepy but now I think the jacket is a bit cool – maybe too cool? Instead of acting as a deterrent it may even encourage users?
(via Art Threat)

Posted on by mklang