Permalink to this post A version of this piece as it originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review on September 19, 2018 is accessible here. I used to be largely indifferent to claims about the use of private data for targeted advertising, even as I worried about privacy more generally. How much of an intrusion was it, […]
Reading
Permalink to this post A version of this piece as it originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review on September 19, 2018 is accessible here. I used to be largely indifferent to claims about the use of private data for targeted advertising, even as I worried about privacy more generally. How much of an intrusion was it, […]
I recently bought some TaoTronics noise cancelling headphones. I thought they’d make the long-haul flight home to the UK less painful.
As an itirant miserable bastard I have found they also work to make long-haul life less painful. Sometimes I just want to switch the world off and step …
Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in a Polish-speaking part of the Russian Empire, Joseph Conrad went to sea in 1874, and drew on his experiences as a merchant seaman for his fiction. In his memoir The Mirror of the Sea, he looks back on the Sydney of the 1870s: These towns of the Antipodes, not […]
At times I have a plan. I have been known to make a five year plan and more or less stick to it. More happenstance, less plan to be honest. I had planned to quit my previous relationship and go live in the Falklands or the Australian outback. My kids …
A Book Discussion with Historian Steven Attewell
Series:
4:00pm, Friday October 19th, 2018
Room 18A, 18th Floor, 25 W 43rd St
CUNY’s School for Labor and Urban Studies, New York City
Discussants include Trudy Goldberg and Philip Harvey.
[ A similar version was crossposted on Conservancy's blog. ]
Last night I started reading Night Walking by Prof. Beaumont. It felt immediately familiar to me. I mention it now only to make note of the phrase Post Circadian Capitalism and the word Noctivagator. Fab.
I did not sleep much after 3am this morning. I’m not getting enough exercise …
[ A similar version was crossposted on Conservancy's blog. ]
Folks lauded today that Microsoft has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN)'s limited patent non-aggression pact, suggesting that perhaps it will bring peace in our time regarding Microsoft's historical patent aggression. While today's announcement is a step forward, we call on Microsoft to make this just the beginning of their efforts to stop their patent aggression efforts against the software freedom community.
Every 6 months or so I find myself at the bicycle shop buying another set of blinking LED bicycle lights. The last pair having inevitably fallen apart; fallen off or ceased to work. It always costs 10 bucks more than I expect. They always have new and irritatingly imperfect ways …
Sleep has been avoiding me lately. It waits until I have given up on it and then gets me. It normally does so just before I have to get up. I lay awake last night watching my brain churning through increasingly bizarre thoughts. At some stage I was thinking about …
The pharmacist-turned-novelist John O’Grady adopted the pseudonym of Giovanni ‘Nino’ Culotta to write the story of an immigrant Italian journalist who comes to Sydney and writes about the people – and their version of English – he finds there. Nino’s true identity was only revealed two months after publication. It became a hit film in […]
Running my hand along the kitchen bench my fingers gripped momentarily on congealed sticky oil. I wiped my fingers on a towel and poured a glass of Roku Gin. Earlier today I booked a cheap hotel room in Colaba, Mumbai. Gregory Robert’s book came to mind and I thought …
With Australians trusting media platforms less than do people in just about every other country, why would you set about dismantling the one institution they trust the most? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, our 86-year-old taxpayer-funded and constantly beleaguered public broadcaster, regularly tops surveys as one of the country’s few remaining […]
Date:
Friday September 28, 2018 - 9:00 am EDT to Sunday September 30, 2018 - 4:30 pm EDT
Location:
The
Day off work today. I took H to school and Winnie for a trail run. That’s what we call it now, apparently. My Garmin watch defined it for me.
It wasn’t a run because the hills were too steep. It wasn …
Emrys and I are mending a puncture… Well we did that, and moved some flooring downstairs. He has his uses. I was just showing him how this blog worked.
It’s now evening and I’m waiting for the roast to finish …
Permalink to this post This essay was originally published in November of 2017 as part of a series commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Zeran v. AOL case. Twenty years after it was first litigated in earnest, the U.S. Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 remains both obscure and vital. Section 230 nearly entirely eliminated the liability […]
Permalink to this post This essay was originally published in November of 2017 as part of a series commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Zeran v. AOL case. Twenty years after it was first litigated in earnest, the U.S. Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 remains both obscure and vital. Section 230 nearly entirely eliminated the liability […]
Don’t sit down – no long or in-depth story this time. Just a gentle reminder of the sort of shape a past life can sometimes take. For those who fled South Vietnam to escape the rule of the Vietnamese People’s Army, today’s Ho Chi Minh City will always be Saigon. No, it’s not a name […]
September: 8th and 9th Sep Deni Fest, Victoria VIC 28th Sep Dashville Skyline Festival Hunter Valley NSW 29th Sep Full Moon Dance QLD October: 4th Oct Gympie Film Festival QLD 19th Oct 5 Church Street Bellingen QLD 20th Oct Thumb Creek House Concert NSW 21st Oct Wingham Akoostik Festival NSW
[ A similar version of this blog post was cross-posted on Software Freedom Conservancy's blog. ]
In recent weeks, I've been involved with a complex internal discussion by a major software freedom project about a desire to take a stance on social justice issues other than software freedom. In the discussion, many different people came forward with various issues that matter to them, including vegetarianism, diversity, and speech censorship, wondering how that software freedom project should handle other social justices causes that are not software freedom. This week, (separate and fully unrelated) another project, called Lerna, publicly had a similar debate. The issues involved are challenging, and it deserves careful consideration regardless of how the issue is raised.
Hello there H, You asked for some money advice. Let’s be clear I am no financial advisor. I am barely financially literate. It’s true however that I put my beloved R to sleep at night regaling her with my financial equivalent of a shortsighted Don Quixote attacking windmills …
It has been almost a week since I had a run. I have had a busy week of work and home renovations, and I know that is an excuse. I will go for a run in about an hour. I’m dropping the boy off at a birthday party this …
[ A similar version was crossposted on Conservancy's blog. ]
Proprietary software has always been about a power relationship. Copyright and other legal systems give authors the power to decide what license to choose, and usually, they choose a license that favors themselves and takes rights and permissions away from others.
The so-called “Commons Clause” purposely confuses and conflates many issues. The initiative is backed by FOSSA, a company that sells materiel in the proprietary compliance industrial complex. This clause recently made news again since other parties have now adopted this same license.