Day: December 17, 2002

Creative Commons License Launch

Creative Commons finally launched its licenses so people now have a range of choices other than the extremes of putting something in the public domain or asserting complete copyright control over something.

For example, people are regularly writing to ask me to use (sometimes even to quote) things that I have written. As long as they give me credit and it is for noncommercial use, I’m fine with that (in fact, I encourage it — take my content, please). Creative Commons will let me do that using a licensing framework that is a bit more formal.

I’m almost finished with a system so that I can designate which of the 9 Creative Commons licenses I want to apply to a given piece and have that reflected on the site. This is really both the strength and weakness of Conversant.

On the one hand, I don’t have to wait for Seth Dillingham or Macrobyte to create a Creative Commons interface. For this and a wide variety of other uses, I can whip one of my own up relatively quickly using a few macros and some metadata. On the other hand, this wide opened nature of Conversant seems to create a “okay, what do I do next” issue (especially since there are usually multiple ways to accomplish the same thing).

Holy Speed Improvement, Batman!

Seth Dillingham announced an upgrade to the Conversant code that would speed things up, and he wasn’t kidding. For a number of reasons, this site’s home page is one of the slowest on any of my sites. Before the change, this page would sometimes take 6 to 7 seconds to load. After the change, it loads almost instantaneously over my broadband connection. Not bad considering all of the dynamic things going on behind the scenes.

Yeah, Seth.

It’s a Digital World (Toward the Paperless Office . . . and Life)

A couple days ago, Seth Dillingham posted about his initial experience with Snapfish — a company that takes your film negatives, develops them, sends you the negatives and prints, and then posts high-res versions of the photos online that you can download for a small fee. Seth’s posting piqued my interest and soon I tracked down the web sites as well as reviews of several of Snapfish’s competitors.

The one that I’m going to give a whirl this week is ClubPhoto.Com. The downside with ClubPhoto.Com is that for what I want, you have to pay a $24.95 to $34.95 yearly fee. But after that, for $1/roll plus shipping they will develop your film, send you the negatives, and place high-res scans on their web site that you can download for free.

That is exactly the sort of service I’ve been looking for, since the only thing I ever do with my prints is scan them and then pack them away in archival safe binders in my basement.

I know I should just buy a digital camera, but I have yet to see one that can do what my Olympus 170 Zoom point-and-shoot camera can do. Excellent zoom and decent optics, no shutter lag, and it only cost me a bit over $300. Most of the digital cameras that I’ve used either have bad shutter lag (and I am the most impatient person in the world, so this just drives me bonkers), poor optics/no zoom, or is in the stratospheric price range. Show me a digital camera that’s 4x3x2, has 3x optical zoom, no shutter lag, 4mp resolution and under $400 and I’ll consider changing my mind.

In response to my praise of ClubPhoto.Com, Seth wrote,

I like having prints, I have boxes and boxes full of them. How old fashioned of me! 🙂

A minor obssession of mine over the past few years has been to dramatically reduce the number of physical objects I have to keep on hand and manage. My approach with photos and pretty much everything else where it is applicable is simple — scan it, categorize it, and then store it for safe keeping depending on how important it is. Film negatives I keep. A lot of personal papers I’ve simply scanned and pitched.

Seth’s groupware product, Conversant, is partially responsible for this as I’ve grown addicted to the ease with which Conversant allows me to manage the things I post to my web site. Ultimately, I’d like to have every photo, document, journal, essay, etc. that I’ve ever produced available in such a system.

At the moment my laptop contains about 14 gigs worth of such materials (not including pictures), and I’d say I’ve probably got another 20,000 to 30,000 pages of materials still in analog-only form plus another 20,000 to 30,000 pictures which I’m gradually converting to electronic formats.

The one thing I have to keep around that I’d really like to get rid of is my book collection. At the moment, my book collection has reached 1,704 volumes. Maybe 10 percent of those I’d actually want to keep around, but for the rest a PDF scan of the books would more than meet my needs (actually, it’d probably drastically increase their value, just as I get a lot more out of my CD collection now that everything’s converted to MP3s and the CD’s are stored in the basement).

I am looking forward to the day when someone finally ships a laptop with a 1 TB hard drive so I can have access to every song, every book, every picture, every article, essay, recorded speech and radio show at my fingertips no matter where I am.

Paul McCartney Gets 99.44% Pure on Tour

TheSmokingGun.Com, a web site that specializes in posting scans of legal and other documents, recently discovered an oddity in the standard rider that Paul McCartney used during his 2002 tour. Specifically, the rider calls for venues to provide the singer and his entourage with “24 Large Bars of Ivory Soap.”

Ivory Soap is not only a Procter and Gamble product, but the major ingredient in the soap is animal fat mixed with vegetable oils. As The Smoking Gun puts it,

So, while Paul won’t sit on a leather couch, the Liverpudlian is apparently lathering with beef tallow.

Source:

Paul McCartney Tour Rider – 2002. The Smoking Gun, Accessed: December 15, 2002.

Disposition of 2002 New York City Arrests

The North American Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network recently distributed the following e-mail about the disposition of court cases stemming from the arrest of animal rights activists protesting outside the home of a Marsh Inc. executive earlier this year,

On April 21st, 2002, during World Week for Animals In Labs, 10 people were arrested for alleged property destruction at the home of a Marsh Inc. executive in New York City, [USA]. They were charged with 1 count of criminal mischief in the 2nd degree – a Class D felony charges (in the U.S. are ranked as violations (the least serious), misdemeanours, and felonies (the most serious)) The case was closed today.

One individual was not an activist and was improperly identified while walking down the street past the activists and was arrested.

Peter Owens, Jessica Stewart and Broderick Gumpwright had their charges dismissed early in the case.

Melinda DeAugustines plead to Criminal Trespass (a misdemeanour)and sentenced to time served and one year of probation. If she cooperates with her probation, the charge will be dropped to a violation and sealed after that year.

Amiee Grenier plead guilty to a Class E felony (Class A is the highest, E the lowest) and was sentenced to 5 years of probation.

Benjamin Persky plead guilty to a Class D felony – Criminal Mischief in the 2nd degree. He will be sentenced December 23rd, at 100 Centre Street, Part 71, 11th floor. Time is unknown, though likely 2:15pm.

Joshua Schwartz and Jennica Tait plead guilty to a Class D felony – Criminal Mischief in the 2nd degree. They have court dates January 6th and February 10th respectively – I am unsure as to whether this will be sentencing or a pre-sentencing conference.

Jennifer Greenberg went to trial and was found guilty of a Class D felony, Criminal Mischief in the 2nd degree. She too has court January 6th.

Josh, Jennica, and Jen’s court dates will be held at 111 Centre Street, part 53, 5th floor, New York City. Court begins at 9:30 a.m. If they receive a different, specific scheduled time down the line, it will be posted.

Thanks so much to everyone who attended court for the defendants this week. They have personally expressed their sincerest appreciation.

Jennifer, Benjamin and Josh are currently in custody. Please write them letters…Josh is doing better than Jen – she’s only 17 and is rather upset.

Jennifer Greenberg, 3100201610
Rose M. Singer Center
1919 Hazen St.
East Elmherst, NY 11370
USA

Joshua Schwartz 3100201611
BBKC
125 White St.
New York, NY 10013
USA

Benjamin Persky 1410212600
GRVC
0909 Hazen St.
East Elmherst, NY 11370
USA

Source:

Urgent ELP! Bulletin. E-mail communication, North American Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network, December 14, 2002.