quiet contemplation
February 4th, 2008Badly Drawn Boy - Promises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=742uUWqB9AY
good design
August 14th, 2007two universities. two “my [university] websites”.
one is almost a work of art, the other is the work of a website administrator.
[note: I’m allowed to say that ;)]
karan:
my view? One is “We have cash! Spend it before they notice!”, and the other is “you have an afternoon to code up a home page for our internal portal. Here’s a corporate theme; go.” :)
Jack:
Actually, it’s probably the work of an uninspired and overworked CS honours student. That’s about the level of quality I’d expect from one. :P
The UNSW is awesome though. Makes me actually want to use it.
Chris:
Hellooo there! *waves*
First one rather pretty… eheheh!
Second link - coding issue? References to “http://www.kirstykirsty.com/blog/my.monash.edu.au” Was able to get the gist… but thought you’d like to know ;)
Ash:
The linkededededness to monash is broked at the moment :P
Just thought you’d like to know.
practical copyright
August 9th, 2007A most people are probably aware, I’m studying copyright at the moment. Next year I hope to do a research project on how practical is traditional copyright in the digital age.
So far I’ve just been coming up with some ideas of what to look up. I’ve read some interesting articles about YouTube and GoogleBooks and a lot on p2p networks, but I’m interested in the emergence of “large file storage” websites (think RapidShare, MegaUpload). I’m interested in how the law will deal with such sites, as they don’t seem to be advocating their service for illegal sharing of music and (from what I can tell so far in my research) remove the files promptly after being asked to do so.
As the RIAA and MPAA (or corporations that are members of those associations) were not satisfied with one p2p network using software that stop 99% of illegal transfers**, I cannot see such groups being happy about this arrangement in the future.
At the moment the main way such groups are dealing with the piracy through website (as opposed to torrent sharing) is for the “WEB SHERIFF” to ask people to take the link to the file hosted on “file storage” and then also request that the file is removed.
So, for the web savvy, it’s really a case of trying to out-run the sheriff. I’m interested in just how difficult is it for a web-sheriff to keep up. [LOL, with my background in IT and interest in IP law I might end up being one one day :P] Moreover, I’m interested in how law/technology could be adapted to have a better balance between the rights of those who produce and those who consume.
I began to think about all this upon reading various comments in blogs about the fact that the “web sheriff” seems to be working particularly hard at preventing songs from M.I.A’s new album be uploaded and posted on blogs. The attitude seems to be that it’s “annoying” that people keep on removing the links, and “could someone please upload it again!! :D thanks”.
Therefore, it seems that there are (at least) two different types of people on the net: those who put the music online (who usually are reasonably technically skilled) and those who want to download it (who seem to be less so). “I can’t find […] anywhere, could someone put it up?” is an opt-repeated expression. It sounds like if it can’t be found by typing “download artist song” into google then a large number of people won’t be able to find the song. Clearly, it’s easy for a web-sheriff to have google automatically email them when a new website shows up with a similar combination of words.
I’m going to have to think about this further. I’m not sure of a practical solution to deal with those who understand the workings of the net. It’d be interesting to see how affective the web-sheriffs are at just dealing with the files that can be found through the “download artist song” method.
**(I don’t have the journal article to refer to here [i know it’s bad journalism - just pretend we’re having a conversation…] *wink*)
karan:
Far be it for me to quote Slashdot as a font of wisdom, but here’s an interesting article about the optimum period of copyright, as calculated by a Cambridge student: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/13/1233201
His conclusion? 14 years. What chance of copyright ever being revis ... [continues...]
kirsty:
I love it! That’s so up my alley :D
Jack:
Dang, that’s awesome. I love the seeing the discussion around technology and IP. But I’m more interested in open source licenses (viral and non-viral), Creative Commons and software patents.
Piracy just seems to be this perpetual cat-and-mouse game and each side has their conspiracy theories. I’m not quite sure what to make of it all.
Fixing the site
July 7th, 2007You may have noticed that I’ve cleaned up the design of the site a little. Removed some pink etc. I’ll do a complete revamp when I can be bothered. I want to add some ajax to remove the whole having to go to another page to post the comments… I’ve been dabbling in it lately, so shouldn’t be too hard.
kirsty:
oh yeah. and note i have broken the styles in a few places - and i like the use of courier as headings :P
Oh, and I love the design of gothrobot and lovely party
Jack:
Hi Kirsty! Remember me? I’m that guy that Karan stalks.
Woo I like a good use of Courier. I wish Windows had the “American Typewriter” font installed, it really is a beautiful font that looks really catchy as a heading.
I like how the comments show up with the post here. It makes people want to comment and be attention whores :D
kirsty:
Hi Jack, yes, I remember you :)
I’m glad you like the comment system. I wanted my blog to be less of a monologue and more of a conversation.
kirsty:
gothrobot scares me a little! *weoooweweeeoooowwoooo*
Just a quick post
July 6th, 2007WTF? It’s possible for people to die from waxing?
karan:
Yeah, saw the indepth thing about this a couple of days ago (I’m terrible with remembering where I saw something though). It points to one thing - there’s a reason why no other creature in the world does that waxing/hair removal thing! :P
kirsty:
i must say, it’s kinda put me off the idea… :-/
cold lasange
June 23rd, 2007how wonderful is cold lasagne in the early hours of the morn?
karan:
not half so awesome as cold pizza! :P
Chris:
Agreed on the pizza thing! Can’t beat it.
be careful what you blog about
June 20th, 2007Just a quick thought as I’m in the middle of exams:
It seems now days that the information that people on their web2.0 profiles (myspace, facebook, etc) is worth printing in the newspaper.
Take the terrible shootings that have happened in Melbourne, I just read in the paper that the brother of the girl that was shot was asked about the risqué photos of her on her myspace site, and also published that she had listed herself as being “bi”, and the fact that she likes porn.
Now I’m all for reporting the truth, but really, do we need to know these things? The poor girl’s in hospital! Also, haven’t these journalists been to myspace before?! There are 15 year old girls from my old high school who have risqué photos and talk about how they think they might be bi. Perhaps the girls involved in the shootings do not mind such things being published in the newspaper, but I am certain that many people are live through an alter ego on the net, and would not necessarily want their family, employer, and general society finding out about these things in this unbalanced portrayal of who they are.
It’s obvious that whatever you blog or put on myspace can be viewed by anyone, but people rely on the relative anonymity that comes from the fact that you are on just one page of the billions upon billions. There is also a difference between putting something on myspace, where it’s most likely that only your friends and random strangers will read it, and it being on the second page of The Age.
karan:
in a google world, nothing is safe if it exists in e- form. People marvel at google but then suddenly turn on it when it’s used to do things they’re not so comfortable with.
In another way though it’s in the spirit of the insta-celeb culture that we live in.
Naim:
More like ‘insta-mini-celeb’. I mean, it’s not even 15 minutes of fame anymore, it’s more like 2 minutes. People are in a single news story that says something about blogging, and then that’s it, all done.
And it’s not Google’s fault in particular, it’s just that it is new. Okay, not just that it’s new, but I see that many of ... [continues...]
Kirsty’s exam 1 07 mix
June 7th, 2007Some other songs I’m enjoying:
Bonde Do Role - Solta O Frango
Heart It Races - Architecture in Helsinki
kirsty:
lol. wordpress can’t do html code - i love that only some of the links above hover
karan:
what what? Wordpress can to do HTML code!
kirsty:
lol. it cannot! it is incompetent - if you look at the code it has nested “
kirsty:
bah! it couldn’t even do the code! see, it’s stupid!
karan:
like this? I will not have you besmirch wordpress! :P
You can get plugins to extend support for comments. and i still don’t get what you meant by the initial comment..
Song of Week - Ice Cream by Muscles
May 31st, 2007“ice cream is gonna save the day
ice cream is gonna save the day, again
i don’t need a number
i just wanna dance with my shirt off”
It’s so nice to find my life motto in song *grins* [check it out]
Mr Simon:
Spot on Kirsty - I love muscles. Saw him at Golden Plains and he was tops!
missing link records
May 15th, 2007If you’re looking to find a more obscure CD or just want to buy a CD online, use Missing Link. Not only will they order things in, they seem to make a real effort to find whatever it is you’re looking for.
Also, I like receiving a hand-written note with the first CD of the bundle I ordered explaining the situation with the others I’ve ordered. It said one of the CDs, when it was last seen in Missing Link, was in the “sale” bin, because “I guess sadly no one knew of its great value”. Hilarious. Just one of the reasons that computers should not replace people in customer service.
Naim:
Excellent! Now all I need is someone to tell me of an obscure artist that I’ll like.
Anyone heard of Antoine Dufour or Andy McKee? I don’t know how obscure they are, but I’ve never seen any of their cds for sale in a shop.
karan:
she lives!
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