Archive for October, 2006
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006
The Small Print Project
One of Cory Doctorow’s students just started up a blog documenting the incredible small print that we’re subjected to daily. It’s called the Small Print Project and people are invited to post their experiences of dodgy clauses that they’ve noticed. It’s quite bizarre what companies try and impose, this one example from Cory:
Just last week, […]
No Comments » - Posted in ...Issues, ...IP/Law by Kitty
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
Yay! US Judge Dismisses Keywords Infringement Suit
Google’s billions have come from selling keyword searches. So I can pay $X to come up in their list of advertisers whenever someone searches for “blogging”, “cats”, “Sydney” etc, no one really has a problem with that. However, what Google also does is use trademarks as keywords. So if you were Sony you can pay […]
No Comments » - Posted in ...Issues, ...Media/Markets, ...IP/Law by Kitty
Saturday, October 14th, 2006
Australian blog listings
Apparently, as of May 2006, there were at least 360,000 Australian blogs. Here is a webcast on how you can set one up yourself. Also so you don’t get into trouble, a legal guide and a guide to blogging anonymously from the EFF (US). As well as some directories listing Australian blogs:AustralianBlogs.com.auThe Australian IndexAustralian Blogwise […]
1 Comment » - Posted in ..Blog Making Etc by Kitty
Saturday, October 14th, 2006
DVD war prolonged but at least a partial consumer solution
Apparently there’s “very little chance” of reaching an agreement on a unified format but NEC is creating a multiformat DVD player that will play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Not that I’m convinced that we really are so desperate for HD, especially when a whole chunk of the extra capacity goes to housing DRM (even Bill […]
No Comments » - Posted in ...Issues, ...Media/Markets, ..Stuff, ...IP/Law by Kitty
Saturday, October 14th, 2006
Possible Summer Projects - Mead Making
Have been meaning to do some sort of homebrewing for a number of years now with my latest fixation being mead. Anyway it seems a little bit easier than beer and wine and as Mead Made Complicated rightly note: “nobody knows mead: if you have friends taste wine you made, comments could be like: “it […]
No Comments » - Posted in ..Stuff, ..365 Ideas by Kitty
Friday, October 13th, 2006
EU Trademark Office rejects SPAM
The European Office of Trade Marks and Designs has knocked back the application from Hormel, the maker of the ham in a can Spam, to trademark “spam” with regards to “services to avoid or suppress unsolicited emails”, and the “creation and maintenance of computer software; technical consultancy, particularly in combination with network services; [and] providing […]
No Comments » - Posted in ...Issues, ...Media/Markets, ...IP/Law by Kitty
Friday, October 13th, 2006
Lucasfilm wins right to Stormtrooper costume monopoly
Star Wars: Collecting | Lucasfilm Wins Lawsuit Against Stormtrooper Pirate
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has awarded Lucasfilm Ltd. $20 million in damages in a copyright infringement and unfair competition case against the British firm Shepperton Design Studios and its owner, Andrew Ainsworth. The court found that Shepperton Design Studios […]
No Comments » - Posted in ...Issues, ...Media/Markets, ..Stuff, ..Blog Making Etc, ...IP/Law by Kitty
Friday, October 13th, 2006
Sydney Uni discovers the power of the blog
There’s one called Sydney Life which is a blog of “student experience” which is predictably irritating (though less so since they’ve gotten on more bloggers), but more interestingly, academics and research groups are being encouraged to start up their own blogs so hopefully some more readable blogs might come out. You can find a list […]
No Comments » - Posted in ...Media/Markets, ..Stuff, ..Blog Making Etc by Kitty
Friday, October 13th, 2006
Friday Diversions - Annoying Internet Songs
These are a little old, but my household has been singing them all week and I thought I’d share the madness.
The most annoying is the Schnappi song - the small schnappi crocodile that buries its catchi tunes deep into your neural pathways so even the smallest hint of a “snee” or a “schni” will set […]
No Comments » - Posted in ..Stuff by Kitty
Friday, October 13th, 2006
No University Left Behind - A Scary Thought
In an OpEd piece in the NY Times, Eugene Hickok thinks it is a good idea that the US government to standardise/regulate/control the US tertiary system. Apparently this is a flow on from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 which aimed to increase the performance of primary and secondary education in the US […]
