I’m just testing some new blog software…WordPress, an offshoot of B2. We’ll see how this goes for a bit, with some tweaking. I like Userland, but this has some advantages, esp the fact that I can access it from anywhere, rather than just from my laptop.
So, unless I get Tiki working, and it just blows me out of the water, I will switch over to WordPress.
Freaking fabulous news from the BBC: They're putting their archives (both radio and TV) online, for free, accessible by anyone. This is just completely the coolest thing ever…hopefully this will be a model for future open information from other media creators.
Best quote of the year (I want this thing on a T-shirt):
“I believe that we are about to move into a second phase of the digital revolution, a phase which will be more about public than private value; about free, not pay services; about inclusivity, not exclusion. ” -Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC
Read the story here.
Check it out:
For now it just forwards, but ibiblio is in the process of virutal hosting, so….I decided that if I was moving into a professional mode and looking for jobs and such, anonymity wasn't what I was going for. I also registered cryptonom.net for future use.
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Go, Go NC legislature! NC just became the first state to get a law to the governor concerning the right to refill inkjet cartridges. Sounds wierd, I know, but it's one of the stranger pieces of fallout from the DMCA.
Thanks for those that pointed out my broken-ocity this last evening. I was editting my .htaccess file trying to get ISIS to be happy with PHP, but evidently just didn't have any success. Should be all fixed now.
Just a quick blog….just made it to Cincy, OH. 8 hours, 15 minutes door to door, with two quick pit stops. Not a bad drive, actually. Dinner tonight, then Columbus bound for Origins. Lots of pictures forthcoming from that, but no access after tomorrow…so it'll be up next week.
Have a great weeked, guys!
Round-up of Links About SCOTUS Decision to Censor Library Internet Access.
Not too much new to report about the SCOTUS censorship decision yet, but here are more links from around the web. Some librarians are reporting calls from companies selling filtering software already. Oy.
Look twice at that Yahoo News headline – it refers to the Court approving “anti-porn” filters in libraries. What they fail to mention is that there's a heck of a lot more content than just porn that is also being blocked.
I want to make sure that I note that this ruling currently applies only to those libraries that accept federal e-rate money for technology and telecommunications. Unfortunately, with the funding situation facing most libraries today, many don't have a choice. And as Andrew Mutch implied in his message, it's a good bet that Congress will try to apply this logic to ALL federal funding now, which means pretty much every library everywhere.
It will be interesting to see if this applies to wireless internet within a library, too. What a major step backwards that would be.
For those that might have missed it, big defeat in library land today. Have I mentioned that I'm really not happy with the political leanings of our government right now? I think this is a poor reading of the first amendment, as well as detrimental to libraries public trust. Hopefully something like SquidGuard or something much like it will become the defacto standard for library filtering, since it's free (as in beer and speech) and it allows you to control the filtering in a plain text file. No hidden commercial filters would be great, and since the CIPA isn't specific on WHAT libraries should filter in order to continue to recieve federal funding, perhaps they could just install something like squidguard, block…oh…goatse.cx (the perennial joke on Slashdot), and then leave access to the rest of the web alone. Would that satisfy CIPA?
Great point by Lessig about reasons that librarians should ALL be signing the petition for the Public Domain. Sign up, people!
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cutting libraries while killing the commons. Commons-blog has a nice link to a story about Milwaukee libraries being defunded. Yet at the same time, extensions of copyright terms simply increase the cost of getting access to content. If every librarian signed our Reclaim the Public Domain Petition, then perhaps we could rebuild a public domain that could make the costs of libraries fall. [Lessig Blog]
Just about to get off work…just have time to blog for a moment about a book that's really making me think: Bobo's in Paradise by David Brooks, an incredibly sharp witted look at the newest ruling class in the US, the bourgeois bohemians (Bobo for short). The book takes a historical look at the class structure of the US, from roughly the turn of the century on, and comments on the differences in intellectual and power classes through time. From the “refined and connected” class of the 30's and 40's through the bohemian uprising into the 60's, and the historical ties both had to European cultures…it's really eye opening to read an expose on a culture that you are a part of, but didn't even realize existed. Fascinating, and it's causing me to rethink a lot of things in both my studies and my life. Can't ask for more than that from a book, I suppose.