tuesday, january 25, 2005
The only Hipster PDA that is hip
Are you as cool as you think you are with your piddly little Hipster PDA Mini? Does the Hipster PDA leave you wanting more?
It’s the Hipster PDA MEGAAAAA. Big index cards + a huge clip = well, it won’t fit in your pocket, but real hipsters are all about irony, right?
The improvement is obvious.
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thursday, january 20, 2005
Three uninteresting things
Some of the things on my Wikipedia watchlist:
Baldness Code of Hammurabi Crest toothpaste Declarative memory Denim Driftwood Duct tape Episodic memory Flip-flop (footwear) Gnocchi Harp License plate Sellotape Smog Tartan
Statistics about my Delicious links:
462 days (from 10/14/03 to 1/19/05)
1500 links
~3 links a day
120 tags (10 to 75 links each; median is 25)
1-3 tags per link
no more than 10 characters per tag (minus /tech and /meta suffixes)
no link title longer than half the page
extended descriptions on every link since 9/18/04
Most popular of my Flickr photos:
My iBook with all its lying stickers.
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tuesday, december 07, 2004
LAUSD is also stupid in the details
I have to follow the LAUSDnet Design Standards when working on the school website for Web Design class (AKA design slavery). This section of the standards annoys me as much as my principal does:
Notification of Copyright text that should be on first pages
Copyright-2003 © Los Angeles Unified School District - All rights reserved.
The District Logo and other District Artwork posted on LAUSDnet pages are protected by US and International Copyright Law. They may not be duplicated/copied for use in other documents by non-District Personnel nor used on non-lausdnet pages (http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us) without notifying webmaster@lausd.k12.ca.us nor can any of the artwork be altered in any way by anyone, District or non-district, without expressed written permission. LAUSDnet users are reminded that motion pictures, television programs and sound recording files are protected by copyright law. Copying and/or downloading these files is prohibited.
It’s blatantly incorrect. First of all, LAUSD doesn’t own the copyright to my work. They’re not paying me and I didn’t give it to them.
Secondly, yeah, the district logo is protected by copyright law, but that means it’s sometimes allowed to be duplicated or altered, according to fair use doctrine. I could use it to link to LAUSD on a webpage or refer to the stupid district in print. I could even make a parody and publish it in our little newspaper.
The last two sentences of the copyright notice bother me the most. LAUSD thinks it can stop people from pirating? OK, but it shouldn’t lie about the law. Obviously, not every piece of multimedia on the internet is illegal and not supposed to be downloaded. What about the iTunes Music Store? Not to mention ads and music posted for publicity, Creative Commons, and works in the public domain. But you knew all that. I wanted to vent.
A revised notice (without pseudo-legal capitalization):
The district logo and other district artwork posted on LAUSDnet pages (www.lausd.k12.ca.us) are protected by United States copyright law. Use of the art in other documents by non-district personnel or on non-LAUSDnet pages is restricted - notify webmaster@lausd.k12.ca.us first. With few exceptions, the artwork also may not be altered in any way without express written permission. LAUSDnet users are reminded that most creative works are protected by copyright law and may not be copied or downloaded without permission from the creator.
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monday, november 15, 2004
Stock market silliness
The Stock Market Game gives students the chance to invest a hypothetical $100,000 in a real-time portfolio. They think they’re playing a game. You know they’re learning economic and financial concepts they’ll use for the rest of their lives.
Hey, that’s a good idea: put the secret on the front page that the students see every time they log in.
My class “invested” heavily in Google, Pixar, Starbucks, and Sony. Why? They make things we like, and they seem successful to us.
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saturday, august 07, 2004
googlewhacking time
jul 15 3:09 am
jun 8 3:32 am
apr 23 12:05 am
oct 23 12:05 am
nov 23 12:05 am
may 11 8:32 am
dec 12 6:20 pm
nov 12 6:20 pm
oct 12 6:20 pm
hmm. well, that turned out to be less interesting than i thought it would be. half the pseudo-random times i googled just gave me boring forum posts (mostly network54.com) or bad poetry (mostly allpoetry.com). oh well.
you may ask why i was doing this pointless thing. 1) i was sticking the current date & time in the little “search google” box in safari (so i could change it back painlessly) while i changed the system date & time to edit old posts. 2) i was curious, so i pressed enter. 3) i was curious, so i put quotes around it and changed some numbers. 4) ??? 5) profit!!!
