Not too shabby.

April 2nd, 2004 Girl Hacker has put up some excellent links in the last week or so. I'm posting a link on the Revolving House, which is listed on Realtor. How to make your own pencils, which was inspired by The Pencil : A History of Design and Circumstance, a book I've been meaning to read, one of these days. Of course I've also been working on resetting my internal clock for several months too...

April 5th, 2004 If you have any interest in Google, or any interest in operating systems, or any interest in cluster computing read The Secret Source of Google's Power now. The article includes this link on the The Google File System [pdf] from my alma mater.

Ever want to destroy the internet? Ask an expert and they will tell you that government regulation will destroy the internet. Fortunately, some people still fight the good fight. playfair, a great spin on FairPlay, allows you to control the storage of the songs that you legally purchase from iTunes.

Lastly There Goes the Neighborhood, put a new perspective on the housing market for me. In fact I now wonder if the Wells Fargo economists report is political motivated. See the Housing Bubble website for more discussion on the housing market.

April 6th, 2004 More Googly Goodness. Following up on yesterday's link, we now have a name for the Google computing system, GooOS.

And more from the Intellectual Ownership Wars too. A Heretical View of File Sharing [NYTimes, unfortunately] covers a new report on the lies told to us by the music industry. As further evidence of the benifits of music swaping, I offer justafan.org, which according to Downhill Battle, raised $1500 in its first day of operation.

On a more intellectual level I bring you The Celestial Jukebox Revisited and a post from Lawrence Lessig on Grey Tuesday and copyright law, The Black and White about Grey Tuesday.

April 7th, 2004 The copyright information just keeps comming. The Perils of Strong Copyright [pdf], Which discusses the issues around current copyright law, the death of the public domain, and the response and concerns of Libraries, Librarians, the ALA and related organizations. The time has come when the people need to get togther and say to their governement that the RIAA and MPAA, along with Disney, DO NOT own us, or our ideas, and they should most certianly not own our government or the creativity of an entire generation, as well crush the creativity of the next. I want my fair use rights back, I want my right to inovate, and I want my Copyrights to expire, if not in 14 years, then certianly when I'm dead.

Info To Go Blog, is where I got found the paper linked above, and I'll continue to monitor the the Info To Go site which:

...is a highly selective monthly newsletter specializing in the latest Internet resources, tools, news, and trends. It is for today's busy information professionals, librarians, educators, and others interested in utilizing high quality Web resources instead of wasting valuable time searching the Net.

April 12th, 2004 I'm a little behind in posting links. I'll try and cover them now in chronological order. Loving Music without buying CDs was first. My question is if no one buys CDs, who will rip them for us? Where will all the free music come from? I don't think that anyone has addressed this issue yet. I mean without some one stupid enough to buy the music, there will never be a free copy of it to download, except from actual criminals. The fact of the matter is that I agree with fair use, and a burgeoning public domain. I believe that downloading can be a form of civil disobediance. I think that people should boycott the record industry and make all those greedy corporations go bankrupt. But if no one ever purchases a CD, and the band never releases an elctronic copy, how will I ever hear about them? Where will my free sample(s) come from? I ask you, who, who, who is going to buy the next Britney alblum for me?!?

Until today it had been my beliefe that All sins are equal in God’s eyes.. The article there puts forth an excelent case for clarifying that statement. Although I do not find that all the examples necessarily support the argument, and I know nothing more about the author or the website, I must say that the article did change my mind. Admittedly I did not have far to go, however, as my father says, "Truth is truth, no matter where it is found.".

Architecture /Design /Simple Living: Loftcube, a very cool housing idea.

Humor: Multicolored chicks, and Bush Failed to Stop al Qaeda During Clinton Years.

Although the Amazon people were very prompt in replying to e-mail, and gave me a free shipping upgrade, I'm still experiencing Buy Now, And We'll Never Send It To You, Ever technology.

April 13th, 2004 I am generally wary of Manifestos, however, A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools, is an excellent article on how to improve both computer software for, and basic human, collaboration. Personally I would love to be a player in the Collaborative Tool arena. My efforts to implement a Wikki at work never took off... I rarely particpate in the original Wiki and my current use of Collaborative tools is limited to Trackback and Instant Messaging... so maybe I should actually participate if I want to have any input into the future. I will point out that the author did not place a trackback link on the page, so maybe I'm not completely out of the loop.

April 21st, 2004 Should have posted this little tid-bit a while back. The first link is to the New York Times money grubbers. Doesn't anyone remember when journalisim was a responsibility, a duty done in the service of one's country and fellow citizens? The New York Times money grubbers now charge people to access their archived articles. Not even a small amount either, The New York Times money grubbers actually charge 2 dollars and 95 cents Amercian per article. They are basically making money off what was once a free service provided by your local library. In addition to almost locking out blogs, the New York Times money grubbers also hurt libraries, since they must continue to subscribe to the paper, store and then send out for microfiche transfer their issues of the Times. This is the only way that an individual can perform free research of the New York Times, due to the money grubbers that run the paper, and their crazy scheme to get people to overpay for what should at worst be a nominally feed service, and at best a responsibility of a paper to the citizens of the locality it serves. Now that I got my rant out of the way, I will provide you the link to the New York Times money grubbers web site, since the brief of the overpriced article actually contains engouh content to demonstrate where and why I found the situation in question interesting.

A Justice's Sense of Privilege [New York Times money grubbers] gives a brief overview of the situation in question. Two reporters had their partial recordings of a speech being given by Supreme Court Justice Antonon Scalia erased, by federal marshals. The Slate Article contains links to more accounts and commentary, but primarily it asks the real question: Who do the Marshals answer to?

April 23rd, 2004 This may be my last post. The university has decided that CIF Alumni accounts are a security risk, or some such hogwash. As another alum pointed out, we are all Rochester Educated, don't they think that our education counts for something? I pitty those attending a school that believes it produces no benifit to it's students. Anyway... it is possible, since the whole alumni group are computer savy, that we will get another server. My Google Rank will drop to nada, but whatever. Maybe I will be able to retain the site for my own benifit, since that is the primary benifit they will be depriving me of. I'll do my best to let both of my readers know what any new URL is/will be.

Before I go you should check out Writing on the Brain.
-Josh out

April 27th, 2004 Assuming that virtual includes will work, this transition has been the easiest I've ever gone through. I want to give a big Thank You to all of CIF and the other Alumni who made this happen. Never under estimate the power of geeky people in large groups!

April 30th, 2004 I'm baaaack.