derivative work

David Conniff on “Happy Days” in Times Select (sigh) writes about the human tendency to imitate and synchronize: Mirroring the people around us is also a way we communicate affiliation and affinity. Two people in a friendly conversation often match each other’s body language down to the crossing of their ankles or the waggling of [...]

In a recent article bemoaning the difficulties faced by business travelers of getting Internet access in their hotel rooms, not once did the writer ever describe the real problem. The problem isn’t access to the network; in almost all instances, the problem is authentication to the network, because the network employs some proprietary network authentication [...]

In an interesting twist on press subpoenas, Army prosecutors have subpoenaed journalists to get them to vouch for published quotes — not source information or unpublished information. [SFgate 12/18.] The prosecutors hope to use the quotes to prosecute First Lt. Ehren Watada, who denounced the war on Iraq as illegal and refused to deploy. Sarah [...]

The WSJ editorial page is not something I ordinarily frequent, but they recently wrote an editorial on the DMCA. Aside from a reflexive and simplistic “intellectual property is good so don’t bother me with nuance or details” attitude, this paragraph struck me: Google claims “a legal safe harbor” from copyright infringement under the 1998 Digital [...]

Or at least those who stuck around for the drug tests. After Gainesville, Florida, implemented drug testing for its library volunteers, the number of volunteers, most of whom were senior citizens, dropped from 55 to 2. Bill Maher gave this story the fisking it deserves, and radref at Radical Reference pointed me to it to [...]