What’s the matter with those darn scientists anyway? How long is it going to take before we can all have a transporter to get us to and fro, eh?
Day: August 23, 2008
Dancing Baby Expands Fair Use
Mark Hefflinger at Digital Media Wire reports:
A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that copyright holders must consider the potential “fair use” of their works before sending copyright takedown notices to online video sites. “In order for a copyright owner to proceed under the DMCA with ‘a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,’ the owner must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright,” U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote, in his ruling.
The Rube Goldberg variations
As I said, Rube Goldberg was one of my first favorite cartoonists. He drew these wild machines that were soooo complicated but did simple things.
And his cartoons have inspired one of our favorite short films of all time: THE WAY THINGS GO. Definitely Recommended Viewing.
The Way Things Work have in turn inspired a series of commercials which are pretty darn fun. Here’s one:
And Rube, The Way, and these commercials have inspired a whole slew of wonderful homemade contraptions that all over the internet. But we will look at those later.
We Own The Spectrum, But…
Broadcasters fight hard against public use of the blank spectrum, popularly know as “white spaces”. It could be made useful, and it’s the public’s, so what gives? Tech companies and Digital Rights organizations have been fighting hard to make the blank spectrum available for broadband use. Me, believing that Television’s days are numbered, see no reason not to adopt the future right now and make those white spaces available to everyone. Info wants to travel where it can travel, every where.
Over at BOWL OF NOSES, I am posting a series of Rube Goldberg “inventions” and the various things he has inspired. I think Rube’s collection “INVENTIONS!” needs to be Required Reading at every grade level.
As Tailor (A) fits customer (B) and calls out measurements, college boy (C) mistakes them for football signals and makes a flying tackle at clothing dummy (D). Dummy bumps head against paddle (E) causing it to pull hook (F) and throw bottle (G) on end of folding hat rack (H) which spreads and pushes head of cabbage (I) into net (J). Weight of cabbage pulls cord (K) causing shears (L) to cut string (M). Bag of sand (N) drops on scale (O) and pushes broom (P) against pail of whitewash (Q) which upsets all over you causing you to look like a marble statue and making it impossible for you to be recognized by bill collectors. Don’t worry about posing as any particular historical statue because bill collectors don’t know much about art.
Stop Travel Abuses
In July, the Department of Homeland Security exceeded 1,000,000 on the Terrorist Watch list, including Ted Kennedy. Additionally, if you cross the border now, custom agents can copy your hard drive virtually at will; do you really want them to have that photo of your grandmama? And you thought just going through airport security was bad. Well, now is the time to complain. The ACLU have a nifty letter all set to go to your rep in congress. It will only take a second