confused of calcutta

If you haven’t seen it already, do take a look at this letter to the Times last week, from Joseph Stiglitz and John Sulston.
Here are a few excerpts:
The question of “Who owns science?” is therefore a crucial one, the answer to which will have broad-reaching implications for scientific progress and for the way in which [...]

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My wife and I have been married nearly 24 years; a long time ago, when she was pregnant with our first child, I remember her saying “You know something? It’s amazing just how often you notice pregnant women just because you’re thinking about pregnancy”. I’m sure psychologists have a term for the condition, some sort [...]

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I’ve kept an eye on the J.K.Rowling lexicon lawsuit for some time now. Initially I thought it was an April Fool’s joke. Then, as I realised it was serious, I thought it best to park it at the back of my mind, I had more important things to do. I guess I considered the lawsuit [...]

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Artificial abundances.
I’d spent quite some time thinking about artificial scarcities, but never really considered the possibility of abundances being artificial as well.
That’s the problem with being on holiday, your mind goes off in all kinds of tangents. This post is actually the result of my reading the following article in today’s FT: US steps up [...]

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Remember Fake Steve? If you haven’t read his blog, it’s an absolute must. Sadly, it looks like he’s finally been outed. Hope he carries on regardless.
Makes you think that MSM has a chance of survival after all. Which is what I was thinking when I saw this article in Information Week. Cory Doctorow on How [...]

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My partially-self-imposed silence has meant that I’ve got a long list of things I’ve wanted to blog about, a state that Sean has often claimed he’s in.  And one of the things I wanted to bring to your attention was Cory Doctorow’s 30 minute session being an Author@Google.  Here’s the link; I’ve also put it [...]

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Wikipedia defines Fraunhofer lines thus:
In physics and optics, the Fraunhofer lines are a set of spectral lines named for the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826). The lines were originally observed as dark features (absorption lines) in the optical spectrum of the Sun.
The English chemist William Hyde Wollaston was in 1802 the first person to [...]

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Interesting times. Following Steve Job’s Heartbeat post, Edgar Bronfman, the head of Warner Music, is reported to have made scathing comments about Jobs’ vision of a DRM-free world. Here’s a quote:
“The notion that music does not deserve the same protections as software, television, films, video games, or other intellectual property, simply because there is [...]

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[With thanks to Ms Safka, and to Malcolm for alerting me to this story via his post here.]
[An aside: Would you believe Melanie turned 60 earlier this week? Happy belated birthday.]
In a HotNews post earlier today, Steve Jobs opened up (pun intended) with his views on DRM. Well worth a read. For me, the most [...]

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Larry Lessig and Rishab Aiyer Ghosh have both spent a great deal of time trying to get all of us to understand one thing: that the law as it stands is completely inappropriate for today’s culture, especially today’s digital culture.
If you’re not into mashups and your music isn’t a smorgasbord of samples and you don’t [...]

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