derivative work

the trailer for “Serenity” is here. some day i’d love to write an article about the derivative nature of the whedon canon — derivative, i say again, is good, essential, and ubiquitous. whedon & crew’s derivations are a fine, fine example of building-upon, tweaking, mixing, improving, mashing, and processing mythology, pop culture, science fiction, and [...]

And geneticists are using DNA to uncover relationships in populations all the time. Jobling’s colleague, Turi King, profiled the Y chromosomes of 150 men with random surnames and compared them with 150 men who shared surnames. Unexpectedly, she found that sharing a surname means you are highly likely also to share a Y chromosome. — [...]

wiretaps increased last year: Wiretaps in U.S. Jump 19 Percent in 2004 [sfgate 4/28] i’m pondering whether the wiretappers’ efficiency also increased? can they scan information more quickly now? did governments take cops off the streets to put them in surveillance vans? or did the governments hire a bunch of new wiretappers? hmm, all sorts [...]

support your local coffeeshops with the starbucks delocator. [citing trail from wendy seltzer legal tags to Boing Boing to stay free!] and hey — a word to the San Francisco Art Institute: using a trademark to describe, criticize, or compare to the referenced entity is trademark fair use. look it up.

Texas bans gay foster parents. now, if only they can figure out a way for people to know their own sexuality. [link from misc heathen 4/22] update: ping analyzed the so-called research on ‘homosexual’ foster parents and jon stewart’s The Daily Show aired the solution to knowing if you’re gay or not (or dangerously bisexual): [...]

siva calls out the folks who keep on talking to men in the public interest tech community & ignoring the women who’ve laid the groundwork: SIVACRACY.NET: Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Weblog: Y (Chromosome) the Same Old Faces? [thanks to copyfight] and an nyu student demonstrates to j. antonin scalia understand that the private sex practices of consenting [...]

Andrea Dworkin has died. As Susie Bright points out, she was a significant influence on most feminists, and the starting point for the sex radical movement. Susie Bright said anything I could have wanted to say about Dworkin.

We already knew this, but Chuck D. is pretty cool: LL Cool J has come out in support of the US music industry’s legal threats music downloaders. LL was speaking to a Senate committee investigating whether the industry has been too heavy-handed . “My question is, if a contractor builds a building, should people be [...]