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<?xml-stylesheet href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/atom10full.xsl" type="text/xsl" media="screen"?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css" type="text/css" media="screen"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265</id><updated>2008-07-21T17:39:22.408-07:00</updated><title type="text">bricoleur</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/" /><link rel="next" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25&amp;redirect=false" /><link rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/posts/default" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><generator version="7.00" uri="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>113</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><link rel="self" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/bricoleur" type="application/atom+xml" /><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-3848745561973710429</id><published>2008-07-21T17:25:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-07-21T17:39:22.424-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="code" /><title type="text">Playing with Gmail</title><content type="html">Been doing a little playing around with Gmail and &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression"&gt;regexes&lt;/a&gt; of late. A few things to note: (a) &lt;a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/"&gt;fetchmail&lt;/a&gt; is great, (b) if you want to backup your entire gmail account on Windows, &lt;a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/geek-to-live--back-up-gmail-with-fetchmail-235207.php"&gt;this Life Hacker Guide&lt;/a&gt; is great but be sure to read the &lt;a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/geek-to-live--back-up-gmail-with-fetchmail-235207.php#c4380014"&gt;comment about port 995&lt;/a&gt;, (c) Google appears to only allow a certain number of pop messages to be fetched per connection, meaning you'll have to rerun fetchmail a bunch -- I don't think this is an error in how fetchmail is set up, (d) if you are looking for a good way of stripping attachments, try &lt;a href="examples.oreilly.com/progintemail/mboxscrub.pl"&gt;mboxscrub.pl&lt;/a&gt; from O'Reilly (though likely you'll need to modify the regex for the beginning of a new message (in the elsif condition), I think "&lt;tt&gt;/^From /&lt;/tt&gt;" without the trailing dash is correct. It is &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;amazing&lt;/span&gt; how much poorly structured data is in a few years worth of email.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/342056823/playing-with-gmail.html" title="Playing with Gmail" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=3848745561973710429" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/3848745561973710429/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/3848745561973710429" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/3848745561973710429" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/07/playing-with-gmail.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-8070297217244135340</id><published>2008-07-10T20:05:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-07-10T20:17:41.071-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="code" /><title type="text">GPSBabel (wonderful)</title><content type="html">I bought a &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/products?q=garmin%20forerunner%20305"&gt;Garmin 305&lt;/a&gt; a while ago (their &lt;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/garmins-new-forerunner-405-puts-the-watch-back-in-gps-watch/"&gt;new model&lt;/a&gt; looks even better) in the hopes that a gadget would spur me to exercise and to play around with geocoding photos. It has mostly worked. It did get me to exercise more and getting data on my runs is very satisfying but its windows software is sluggish and not that great. Plus it uses its own weird format making using the data elsewhere a bit of a pain. Fortunately, &lt;a href="http://www.gpsbabel.org/"&gt;GPSBabel&lt;/a&gt; exists and was really easy to install. Just a quick "apt-get install gpsbabel" and the addition of "blacklist garmin_gps" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist to make sure gpsbabel's usb driver is used instead of the default one on my debian/knoppix system. Then I use "gpsbabel -t -r -w -i garmin -f usb: -o kml -F out.kml" to create a KML file that is more useful. Woohoo! Will post more on geocoding photos (which it is fabulous for) in Windows and Linux later.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/332327533/gpsbabel-wonderful.html" title="GPSBabel (wonderful)" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=8070297217244135340" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/8070297217244135340/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/8070297217244135340" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/8070297217244135340" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/07/gpsbabel-wonderful.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-2217816818568821319</id><published>2008-07-06T15:44:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-07-11T11:04:57.579-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="drinks" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="recipes" /><title type="text">La Paloma *</title><content type="html">&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;based on the recipes found in &lt;a href="http://cocktailjen.blogspot.com/2005/11/la-paloma-whew-time-to-relax.html"&gt;Cocktail Jen&lt;/a&gt; (from &lt;a href="http://www.esquire.com/drinks/la-paloma-drink-recipe"&gt;Esquire&lt;/a&gt;) and &lt;a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E1DB123EF930A3575BC0A9659C8B63"&gt;The New York Times&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanmixer/2561931251/"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 160px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/2561931251_e09a8e2091.jpg?v=0" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;3oz fresh grapefruit juice&lt;br /&gt;1oz fresh lime juice&lt;br /&gt;simple syrup to taste&lt;br /&gt;soda&lt;br /&gt;Optional: 2oz tequila (I used &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&amp;amp;safe=off&amp;amp;resnum=0&amp;amp;q=sauza%20conmemorativo&amp;amp;um=1&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;sa=N&amp;amp;tab=wf"&gt;Conmemorativo&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Most recipes recommend starting with a grapefruit soda (&lt;a href="http://www.mexgrocer.com/6275.html"&gt;Jarritos&lt;/a&gt; is recommended with others using Fresca or Safeway Select).  I like the fresh fruit as long as it is well strained to get rid of the pulp.  It also allows you to make the drink lighter and less sweet (especially for the non-alcoholic version).  Some serve it with a salt rim, such as the version in the photo (credit to &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanmixer/"&gt;Urban Mixer&lt;/a&gt;), but I leave that off and serve it in a tall glass with lots of ice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"&gt;* I've been on a bit of a tear making interesting drinks at home. Mostly non-alcoholic though alcohol could go in most of them. Anyhow, I figured I would post some of the recipes here to spread the joy of a refreshing summer drink. Where they are consciously based off the creations of others, I'll post links. &lt;/span&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/332869868/la-paloma.html" title="La Paloma *" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=2217816818568821319" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/2217816818568821319/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2217816818568821319" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2217816818568821319" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/07/la-paloma.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-6338713221417713128</id><published>2008-06-09T15:05:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-06-09T15:25:45.697-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="library" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="google" /><title type="text">Books are weapons in the war of ideas</title><content type="html">&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/2351907969/in/set-72157604204316251/"&gt;&lt;img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2389/2351907969_ddca335ae6.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/"&gt;David Weinberger&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/2008/05/31/scan-and-release-digitizing-the-boston-public-library/"&gt;describes&lt;/a&gt; a visit to the &lt;a href="http://www.opencontentalliance.org/"&gt;Open Content Alliance&lt;/a&gt;'s scanning operation at &lt;a href="http://www.bpl.org/"&gt;Boston Public Library&lt;/a&gt;. A healthy dose of optimism after the sad news that &lt;a href="http://searchengineland.com/080523-112101.php"&gt;Microsoft has stopped its scanning operation&lt;/a&gt;.  The title of the post and the image on the right is from a U.S. Government war poster digitized by Boston Public. You can see the &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157604204316251/"&gt;rest of the set&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/collections/"&gt;more from Boston Public&lt;/a&gt; at Flickr.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Congratulations to Boston Public and the Open Content Alliance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;small&gt;[disclosure: I work on &lt;a href="http://books.google.com"&gt;Google Book Search&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/small&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/308349591/books-are-weapons-in-war-of-ideas.html" title="Books are weapons in the war of ideas" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=6338713221417713128" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/6338713221417713128/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/6338713221417713128" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/6338713221417713128" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/06/books-are-weapons-in-war-of-ideas.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-9190835479197256481</id><published>2008-04-11T12:20:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-04-16T10:41:51.485-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="canada" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="law" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="copyright" /><title type="text">FOIA and Copyright</title><content type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/ip-in-canadian-penny-47k-usd.html"&gt;Another&lt;/a&gt; problem with crown copyright comes to light as &lt;a href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=69970f8a-8f9a-4200-b41d-062707d8ea7c"&gt;British Columbia uses it to restrict distribution of FOIAed documents&lt;/a&gt;.  Before you feel all superior (if you are an American), though the US &lt;a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000105----000-.html"&gt;doesn't have &lt;/a&gt;crown copyright (or federal copyright in the US in most situations), the federal government may be able to claim copyright &lt;a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000105----000-.html"&gt;abroad&lt;/a&gt; and states may also claim copyright.  So this also could have happened here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;PS A good article on US government copyright is Becky Dale's column "&lt;a href="http://www.valawyersweekly.com/dale.cfm"&gt;Can The Government Copyright Public Records?&lt;/a&gt;"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;Update:&lt;/span&gt; Only four days later comes news from &lt;a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/15/oregon-our-laws-are.html"&gt;Boing Boing&lt;/a&gt; that the State of Oregon is &lt;a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/2526821/Notice-of-Copyright-Infringement-and-Demand-to-Cease-and-Desist"&gt;asserting copyright in the arrangement, compilation and notes of its revised statutes&lt;/a&gt;. Ug.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/268571959/foia-and-copyright.html" title="FOIA and Copyright" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=9190835479197256481" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/9190835479197256481/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/9190835479197256481" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/9190835479197256481" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/04/foia-and-copyright.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-923993929710767317</id><published>2008-03-26T07:20:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-03-26T07:54:10.003-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="misc" /><title type="text">Graham: Creativeness, Roles and Companies</title><content type="html">Paul Graham is a great writer and has written many &lt;a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html"&gt;great essays&lt;/a&gt;.  His &lt;a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html"&gt;most recent&lt;/a&gt; makes the argument that humans are "naturally" suited to not having bosses and not working in large companies (he talks about the difficulties of groups over 8 people).  I agree that there are many downsides to working at companies and I could certainly write about the upsides and why I love what I'm doing at Google, but that wouldn't really be disagreeing with Paul.  I don't take him to be saying that starting your own company is always better, just that you should be aware that organizations of greater than 8 people have a cost that should be taken into account.  He talks about it as being a "restrictiveness" that takes toll on creativity and says that it is a particular problem for engineers.  Which brings us to his dismissal of why others won't feel the pinch:&lt;br /&gt;"The restrictiveness of big company jobs is particularly hard on programmers, because the essence of programming is to build new things. Sales people make much the same pitches every day; support people answer much the same questions; but once you've written a piece of code you don't need to write it again. So a programmer working as programmers are meant to is always making new things. And when you're part of an organization whose structure gives each person freedom in inverse proportion to the size of the tree, you're going to face resistance when you do something new."&lt;br /&gt;I don't agree with this characterization of programmers as more creative than others.  It is true that you never &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;have&lt;/span&gt; to write the same code again (though how many times have you written authentication or a wrapper around an authentication class) but that doesn't mean that everything you write flows out of a brand new non-linear creative endeavour any more than a sales person's pitch is entirely new.  Sales people sell services that have never existed (and then they get engineers to code this selling process into an online flow and move on to selling new stuff).  Support folks get entirely new questions all the time (and then get engineers to code a system for responding to the easy stuff in an automated way).  These folks that Paul singles out as being less restricted (or less "meant" to create) do all sorts of breathtaking new things too.  I've seen support folks handle a very angry person with an issue with a brand new type of product by creating solution to the user's problem and explaining it in a way that is brilliant.  I've seen sales folk come up with entirely new types of business arrangements or finding an elegant "in" to a relationship. It is certainly true that both of these groups do a bunch of work that is less creative, but so do engineers, even at startups (gasp!).   These are the things that follow the creative move, things like debugging, unit testing, perfecting UI, etc.  A good startup as well as a good big company, will value creation (and the stuff after the creation) in all of its people, not just the ones that are from Paul's chosen tribe.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/258357634/graham-dont-work-for-company.html" title="Graham: Creativeness, Roles and Companies" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=923993929710767317" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/923993929710767317/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/923993929710767317" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/923993929710767317" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/03/graham-dont-work-for-company.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-7209639500881649364</id><published>2008-01-30T09:36:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-01-30T09:58:45.175-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Johnny Lee</title><content type="html">Gotta say, &lt;a href="http://johnnylee.net/"&gt;Johnny Lee&lt;/a&gt; seems wicked cool. There is a lot to love.  &lt;a href="http://www.goldtoe.net/"&gt;Goldman&lt;/a&gt; turned &lt;br /&gt;me on to his &lt;a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/"&gt;homebrew head tracking Wii VR hack&lt;/a&gt; (see below), but his &lt;a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/"&gt;projects page&lt;/a&gt; is full of cool stuff (especially the &lt;a href="http://littlegreatideas.com/slingshot/"&gt;community paint slingshot&lt;/a&gt;) and he's also funny (as evidenced by his videos and the names of his company -- &lt;a href="http://littlegreatideas.com/"&gt;Little Great Ideas&lt;/a&gt; -- and his blog -- &lt;a href="http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/"&gt;Procrastineering.com&lt;/a&gt;). Watch the video, subscribe to the blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width="425" height="373"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jd3-eiid-Uw&amp;rel=1&amp;border=1"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jd3-eiid-Uw&amp;rel=1&amp;border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="373"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/226024939/johnny-lee.html" title="Johnny Lee" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=7209639500881649364" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/7209639500881649364/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7209639500881649364" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7209639500881649364" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/01/johnny-lee.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-8597964292360388137</id><published>2008-01-27T18:58:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-07-11T10:45:05.274-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="recipes" /><title type="text">No-Knead Bread</title><content type="html">&lt;div&gt;Wow. I've been trying to make really good bread for many years with only mediocre bread as a result. About two years ago I clipped a great New York Times &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html"&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; about a fabulous new bread &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html"&gt;recipe&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately I didn't get the time to actually try the recipe until this past Christmas. And it is everything many people have &lt;a href="http://readymademag.com/blog/2006/11/15/lazy-bread"&gt;described&lt;/a&gt; it as. Easy. &lt;a href="http://www.aresrocket.com/bread/"&gt;Magnificent&lt;/a&gt;. Hard to screw up. Tasty. &lt;a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/one-for-the-sling-files/"&gt;Moist&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href="http://wednesdaychef.typepad.com/the_wednesday_chef/2006/11/jim_laheys_nokn.html"&gt;Fantastic&lt;/a&gt;. Mmmmm.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahl/2176008484/"&gt;&lt;img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160362488797359650" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="No Knead Bread" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/R51KV8EEbiI/AAAAAAAAHSI/YB39qgbPFTA/s400/noknead.jpg" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Since Christmas I have made it about seven times and I continue to be amazed by it. Now I've begun to try some modifications, but it has been hard to improve on the original. The basic trick is to use a very straightforward recipe (3cups flour, 1/4tsp yeast, 1 1/2cups water, stir together, let sit for 20hrs, fold down, let sit for two hours and then bake) with lots of water (when you fold the bread it will almost run through your fingers) lots of time (the first "sitting" is supposed to be at least 18hrs, but I have had good results with 24-30hrs) and a preheated dutch oven to bake (you bake in a covered pot that has been preheated with the oven to 450F, covered for 30mins and then uncovered for 20-30mins). Really, really simple &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html"&gt;recipe&lt;/a&gt;. Total working time (other than waiting) of about 15mins (including cleanup). And, really really good.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;You should try it too. It will change the way you think about making bread. In case you need more encouragement, here is a &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU"&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/nokneadbread"&gt;flickr stream&lt;/a&gt; showing the results.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;small&gt;Photo by &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahl/2176008484/"&gt;Alex.Lines&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/small&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Update&lt;/b&gt;: I diverge from the recipe in two small ways.  First, I use a bowl with plastic cling wrap for both of the risings (not cloth, which I have found to stick to the bread even when coated with flour) and I use parchment paper under the bread in the last rising so that I can easily pick it up and toss it into the hot pot. I tend to put the parchment paper in with the bread, though that doesn't make much of a difference either way, I just find it easier.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/224316582/no-knead-bread.html" title="No-Knead Bread" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=8597964292360388137" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/8597964292360388137/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/8597964292360388137" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/8597964292360388137" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2008/01/no-knead-bread.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-2309106186140783135</id><published>2007-12-11T19:35:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2007-12-11T19:49:07.439-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="law" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="copyright" /><title type="text">Pam Samuelson's Project</title><content type="html">Professor Pamela Samuelson has an audacious project to re-imagine copyright law.  She herself calls copyright reform "a fools errand" before eloquently justifying her project.  The first results of her struggle are now &lt;a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=1002676"&gt;online&lt;/a&gt; and worth reading.  In trying to outline the fundamental aspects of an intellectual copyright regime and filling it in with the current copyright law, she gives a wonderful description of the Copyright Act in under 250 words.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;tt&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. subject matter: works of authorship&lt;br /&gt;2. eligibility criteria for specific people and works:&lt;br /&gt;  a. who is eligible: the author (but special rule for works made for hire)&lt;br /&gt;  b. qualitative or other standards: original; fixed in a tangible medium; not a useful article&lt;br /&gt;  c. procedures: rights attach automatically as a matter of law from first fixation in a tangible medium; deposit is required but not as condition of protection; notice and registration are advisable for effective protection; registration necessary for US authors to bring infringement suits&lt;br /&gt;3. exclusive rights: reproduce the work in copies; make derivative works; distribute copies to the public; publicly perform the work; publicly display the work; importation; attribution and integrity rights for works of visual art&lt;br /&gt;4. duration: life of the author plus 70 years; 95 years from first publication&lt;br /&gt;5. limitations and/or exceptions to those exclusive rights, including fair use, first sale, certain educational uses, and backup copying of computer programs, among others&lt;br /&gt;6. infringement standard: infringement occurs when someone violates one of exclusive rights, and the activities do not fall within one of the exceptions or limitations to copyright; usual test applied for non-literal infringements is whether there is substantial similarity in protected expression that the alleged infringer appropriated from the copyright owner&lt;br /&gt;7. remedies: preliminary and permanent injunctive relief; money damages; destruction of infringing copies; attorney fees; costs; criminal sanctions&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/tt&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Samuelson, Pamela, "Preliminary Thoughts on Copyright Reform" Utah Law Review, 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1002676 (footnotes ommitted).</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/198981137/pam-samuelsons-project.html" title="Pam Samuelson's Project" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=2309106186140783135" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/2309106186140783135/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2309106186140783135" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2309106186140783135" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/12/pam-samuelsons-project.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-4756670346866535612</id><published>2007-11-18T23:10:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2007-11-18T23:12:25.176-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Congratulations to the Berkman Center</title><content type="html">The &lt;a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/"&gt;Berkman Center&lt;/a&gt; starts its tenth anniversary celebration with a &lt;a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2007/11/15/macarthur-award-kicking-off-berkman10/"&gt;wonderful gift&lt;/a&gt;. Congratulations!</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/187022722/congratulations-to-berkman-center.html" title="Congratulations to the Berkman Center" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=4756670346866535612" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/4756670346866535612/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/4756670346866535612" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/4756670346866535612" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/11/congratulations-to-berkman-center.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-5242825396652348981</id><published>2007-11-08T08:25:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2007-11-08T08:53:12.595-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Innovation is Distracting?</title><content type="html">I couldn't resist this.  From a Reuters article about &lt;a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0740726020071108?feedType=RSS&amp;amp;feedName=internetNews"&gt;Yahoo!'s reaction to Google's mobile phone alliance&lt;/a&gt; announcement:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;tt&gt;Google risks being distracted by technology rather than being focused on advertising revenue, the lifeblood of both Internet players, Boerries said.&lt;/tt&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Boerries is &lt;a href="http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/management.cfm"&gt;Marco Boerries&lt;/a&gt;, Yahoo!'s SVP of "Connected Life" and he meant that as a criticism.  I am glad that Google is not just "distracted" by technology but instead focused on it and above all the user benefits it can bring.   I know that many at Yahoo! feel the same way about their innovative company and I assume that Boerries was either misquoted (it isn't even really a direct quotation), taken out of context or misspoke.&lt;br /&gt;Also, focusing on "advertising revenue" seems to incorrectly describe what both our companies do (I hope).  Focusing on value for advertisers might be a better way to understand it.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/181722025/innovation-is-distracting.html" title="Innovation is Distracting?" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=5242825396652348981" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/5242825396652348981/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/5242825396652348981" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/5242825396652348981" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/11/innovation-is-distracting.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-1720777811624883830</id><published>2007-11-07T16:51:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2007-11-07T17:41:19.300-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="law" /><title type="text">Ranking Law Schools (another random methodology)</title><content type="html">Lots of fun discussion about alternative (random) ways of ranking law schools. I like these discussions because I've never been a fan of law school rankings, so the more the merrier.  Paul Caron (a tax law professor at University of Cincinnati) gives a &lt;a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/10/google-law-scho.html"&gt;ranked list&lt;/a&gt; based on a Google search for "&lt;a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;q=law+school&amp;amp;btnG=Google+Search"&gt;law school&lt;/a&gt;."  Mike Madison &lt;a href="http://madisonian.net/archives/2007/11/02/us-news-v-leiter-v-google-ranking-law-schools/"&gt;passes along&lt;/a&gt; Al Brophy's suggestion to rerun the search as "&lt;a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;safe=off&amp;amp;q=%22law+school%22+OR+%22school+of+law%22+OR+%22college+of+law%22+OR+%22law+center%22+site%3A.edu&amp;amp;btnG=Search"&gt;"law school" OR "school of law" OR "college of law" OR "law center" site:.edu&lt;/a&gt;" which changes the results.  Here's another of just five.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=yale+law%2C+harvard+law%2C+stanford+law%2C+%22nyu+law%22%7C%22new+york+university+law%22%2C+columbia+law&amp;amp;ctab=0&amp;amp;geo=all&amp;amp;geor=all&amp;amp;date=all&amp;amp;sort=0"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/RzJk1EQyLuI/AAAAAAAAG20/XNesi10dYzk/s400/trends1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130273788368400098" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The image above shows a graph of number of searches for five of the schools on Google (from &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/trends"&gt;Google Trends&lt;/a&gt;).  If you click on the image, you'll go to the Google Trends page of the search and be able to see more info and play around with some of the variables.&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and U.S. News and World Report also has a &lt;a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/law/brief/lawrank_brief.php"&gt;ranking&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;BTW, in case you come from a law school that did well in the Google Trends ranking, this one may be sobering.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=jd%2C+mba&amp;amp;ctab=0&amp;amp;geo=all&amp;amp;date=all&amp;amp;sort=0"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/RzJlokQyLvI/AAAAAAAAG28/fpibEbmOiCo/s400/trends2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130274673131663090" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;That's searches for jd versus mba.&lt;br /&gt;Hat tip to &lt;a href="http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/2007/11/what_do_google_ranks_tell_us_a.php"&gt;Siva&lt;/a&gt;, from whose blog I first read about this (though I really don't endorse that blog or his habit of copying the entirety of the blog posts he links to).</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/181387258/ranking-lawschools-another-bad.html" title="Ranking Law Schools (another random methodology)" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=1720777811624883830" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/1720777811624883830/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/1720777811624883830" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/1720777811624883830" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/11/ranking-lawschools-another-bad.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-7498824591355393827</id><published>2007-11-05T12:16:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2007-11-05T12:23:17.338-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="copyright" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="library" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Two Library Happenings</title><content type="html">Both very happy. Paul Courrant, the University of Michigan's University Librarian, is &lt;a href="http://paulcourant.net/"&gt;blogging&lt;/a&gt; and Kenneth Crews is going to be Director of Columbia University Library's Copyright Advisory Office. What is a "Copyright Advisory Office?" From the &lt;a href="http://www.vraweb.org/publications/imagestuff/vol4no5.htm"&gt;release&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;tt&gt;In his new position, Crews will advise on the application of copyright policies to teaching, research, and scholarly communication within the University.  His responsibilities will include educating faculty, staff, and students about copyright through web-based information, publications, training programs, and conferences.&lt;/tt&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Two smart library folk. Glad that I'll get to hear them more.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/180205654/two-library-happening.html" title="Two Library Happenings" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=7498824591355393827" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/7498824591355393827/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7498824591355393827" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7498824591355393827" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/11/two-library-happening.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-3573680221067805088</id><published>2007-10-31T09:20:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-31T12:08:42.461-07:00</updated><title type="text">See a lawyer while your startup is young</title><content type="html">&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Disclaimer&lt;/span&gt;:  This post is taken from a presentation I gave at the first &lt;a href="http://w2.eff.org/bootcamp/"&gt;EFF Bootcamp for Startups&lt;/a&gt;.  It is not specific legal advice and is directed at small startups.  Big start-ups have different concerns, huge start-ups, such as &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/"&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt; (where I work), have still different concerns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi0ae8a14I/AAAAAAAAGw8/_lUWa8P2io0/s1600-h/courthouse.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi0ae8a14I/AAAAAAAAGw8/_lUWa8P2io0/s200/courthouse.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127546542837389186" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Don’t Win at the Supreme Court&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don’t see a lawyer if your goal is for your technology to be vindicated as “legal” at the Supreme Court. If that’s your goal, quit your start-up, do three years of law school and join the &lt;a href="http://www.eff.org/"&gt;EFF&lt;/a&gt;.  Vindication at the Supreme Court does not have a place on the “goals” list of a startup because your users don’t care, its expensive (you can't afford it), it takes too long and it doesn’t give you a competitive advantage (because others can use your win to do what you are doing).  Hopefully you stopped reading at “your users don’t care.”  No-one has ever used a service or bought a product because it won a court case.&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;amp;postID=3573680221067805088#rant_footnote"&gt;*&lt;/a&gt;  And, to top it all off, winning a court case is hard and time consuming.  If winning at the Supreme Court is one of your goals you are very likely to forget the others (the important ones that matter to your users).&lt;br /&gt;You should see a lawyer for two basic reasons: money (both going out and coming in) and the environment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi05e8a15I/AAAAAAAAGxE/iQR9BbuEme0/s1600-h/lawyers.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi05e8a15I/AAAAAAAAGxE/iQR9BbuEme0/s200/lawyers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127547075413333906" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Money Going Out&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lawyers are expensive.  Even if we win.  &lt;a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20011127103334/www.replaytv.com/partners_products/features.html"&gt;ReplayTV&lt;/a&gt; once said that the difference between &lt;a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030122123209/http://brobeck.com/"&gt;Brobeck&lt;/a&gt; (a law firm that went &lt;a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070702114727/http://www.brobeck.com/"&gt;bankrupt&lt;/a&gt; when the tech bubble burst) and &lt;a href="http://www.fenwick.com/"&gt;Fenwick&lt;/a&gt; (a firm that is still thriving) was that ReplayTV was a client of Fenwick.  That was not because Fenwick was basking in the fame of winning the &lt;a href="http://w2.eff.org/IP/Video/Paramount_v_ReplayTV/"&gt;ReplayTV case&lt;/a&gt; (in fact, it never got to a ruling on the merits) but because ReplayTV said that they were paying Fenwick $3M/quarter.  Fenwick was not a particularly expensive firm and the ReplayTV case was not a particularly expensive case.  Do you have an extra twelve million dollars a year?&lt;br /&gt;If not, get some good legal advice early.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi1Qe8a16I/AAAAAAAAGxM/MVSPboeXNj8/s1600-h/bankers.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi1Qe8a16I/AAAAAAAAGxM/MVSPboeXNj8/s200/bankers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127547470550325154" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Money Coming In&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lawyers and money people are a lot alike.  They can both be quite conservative and they work together.  When you get money, either from venture capitalists, bankers or through an acquisition, you can bet that they will have some lawyers taking a look at your business practices.  If you’ve already been sued, the lawsuit may make the&lt;br /&gt;deal harder to do.  If you are taking a lot of legal risks, the investors will have to jibe your risk tolerance with their own.  You may have been willing to “bet the company” on a decision but it is unlikely that a VC firm will want to “bet the fund.”  With &lt;a href="http://www.news.com/2100-1027-997860.html"&gt;lawsuits targeting investors&lt;/a&gt; and parent companies becoming more prevalent, this will become a bigger and bigger issue.&lt;br /&gt;Another reason your deal will be harder if you don’t get good legal advice early is personal.  The people doing the deal are vouching for it.  No one wants to have invested in a company bankrupted by legal bills.  The people doing the deal are also likely to be the ones that will have to clean up your mess.  No-one likes cleaning up messes.  It is not sexy work and it is much easier to prevent a mess than clean it up afterwards.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi1ee8a17I/AAAAAAAAGxU/zb2AFjePRPw/s1600-h/paradise.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi1ee8a17I/AAAAAAAAGxU/zb2AFjePRPw/s200/paradise.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127547711068493746" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;The Environment&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, you should be concerned about the environment.  Though the legal environment is not a paradise for innovation, it is much closer than it might otherwise be.  Immunities such as the &lt;a href="http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000230----000-.html"&gt;Communications Decency Act Section 230(c)&lt;/a&gt; and Safe Harbors such as the Copyright Act’s &lt;a href="http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html"&gt;Section 512&lt;/a&gt; are designed to give you enough protection to&lt;br /&gt;innovate and thrive.  Maybe not paradise, but you could make it worse.  That’s because, companies that are less incented to want innovation see suing you as an easy way to shape the law to their ends.  That is because they think they can count on you to be sloppy, not to have done your legal work and not to have the money to effectively defend your case. They are often right.&lt;br /&gt;The point is that, like the physical environment, the legal environment can change.  Don’t be a careless polluter.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;So What Should You Do?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don’t take this rant to mean that you should NEVER do something that you might get sued over.  Anyone could sue you for anything and I am definitely NOT saying that you should do nothing.  You should do lots of things.  You have a relatively high risk tolerance.  Absent personal liability or criminal charges the only thing you have to lose is your startup.  If you are a small startup, there is a relatively high chance of that happening already, without any lawsuits (the vast majority of startups don’t get killed by lawsuits).&lt;br /&gt;What you shouldn’t do is take legal risks carelessly.  The value you bring to users may be entirely dependent on the legality of some business practice.  If that’s the case, you may want to proceed even though the legality is contested by some.  Some of the file-sharing services are good examples (here I am thinking of everything from &lt;a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040"&gt;Microsoft shares&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040523211147/http://grokster.com/"&gt;Grokster&lt;/a&gt;).  The value they bring to legitimate users in making non-infringing files quickly and cheaply available would not exist if they are liable for their users’ infringement.  So their choice is either a) find another business or b) take the legal risk.  It may be a smart business move for some businesses to choose (b) as Microsoft has and Grokster did (indeed, even Grokster won at both lower courts).  However, it is unlikely to ever be essential to a business to advertise itself as being the "the Next Napster."  Indeed the &lt;a href="http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/04-480.pdf"&gt;Supreme Court held in Grokster&lt;/a&gt; [pdf] that though the technology may have been OK, intent as evidenced by unnecessary statements such as that one might create liability.&lt;br /&gt;Think hard about what legal risks are essential to your business and which are not.  Lawyers can usefully help with that thought process, so see a lawyer while your startup is still young.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Credits for Images&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These beautiful public domain illustrations were digitized as part of &lt;a href="http://books.google.com/"&gt;Google Book Search&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;Benjamin Clarke, &lt;a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=V84HAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;dq=courthouse+intitle:illustrated+subject:%22England%22&amp;amp;as_brr=1&amp;amp;pg=PP10&amp;amp;ci=138,149,828,1254&amp;amp;source=bookclip"&gt;The British Gazetteer, Political, Commercial, Ecclesiastical and Historical&lt;/a&gt;, H.J. Collins, London (1852), original from Oxford University Library.&lt;br /&gt;Robert L. Wade (ed.), &lt;a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=yC4AAAAAYAAJ&amp;amp;dq=banker+intitle:illustrated&amp;amp;as_brr=1&amp;amp;pg=PA83&amp;amp;ci=50,165,883,757&amp;amp;source=bookclip"&gt;The Illustrated Family Magazine for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge&lt;/a&gt;, Bradbury, Soden &amp;amp; Co., Boston (1846), original from Harvard University Library.&lt;br /&gt;John Cumming, &lt;a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=yq8CAAAAQAAJ&amp;amp;dq=%22adam+and+eve%22+intitle:illustrated&amp;amp;as_brr=1&amp;amp;pg=PA1&amp;amp;ci=282,515,552,576&amp;amp;source=bookclip"&gt;The Lives and Lessons of the Patriarchs Unfolded and Illustrated&lt;/a&gt;, John F. Shaw &amp;amp; Co., London (1865), original from Oxford University Library.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi1uO8a18I/AAAAAAAAGxc/-J9_L4AreWA/s1600-h/books.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_QCcjFnrXiv8/Ryi1uO8a18I/AAAAAAAAGxc/-J9_L4AreWA/s200/books.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127547981651433410" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a name="rant_footnote"&gt;*&lt;/a&gt; I say virtually none because I own a few &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300"&gt;Diamond Rios&lt;/a&gt; and "&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Trip-History-Grateful/dp/0767911865/ref=sr_1_1/104-7111512-2003937?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1193855453&amp;amp;sr=8-1"&gt;What a Long Strange Trip: The Illustrated History of the Grateful Dead&lt;/a&gt;" for precisely those reasons.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/177876857/see-lawyer-while-your-startup-is-young.html" title="See a lawyer while your startup is young" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=3573680221067805088" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/3573680221067805088/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/3573680221067805088" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/3573680221067805088" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/see-lawyer-while-your-startup-is-young.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-9138545500633858118</id><published>2007-10-31T08:23:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-31T08:54:42.504-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="about" /><title type="text">I Use Cookies</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://www.bricoleur.org/"&gt;Bricoleur.org&lt;/a&gt; uses &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/"&gt;Google Analytics&lt;/a&gt; to understand how users get to and use the site. Through Google, Analytics collects the information sent by your browser as part of a web page request, including &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#Browser_settings"&gt;cookies&lt;/a&gt; and your &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address"&gt;IP address&lt;/a&gt;. This information is used to generate reports, such as a guess of how many different visitors come to bricoleur.org.  It does not identify you personally. &lt;br /&gt;Cookies may be turned off and/or deleted through your browser. Mozilla provides &lt;a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/psm/help_21/using_priv_help.html"&gt;details on how to turn off cookies for Firefox&lt;/a&gt;. I couldn't find an equivalent page on Microsoft's site, though I am sure it exists.&lt;br /&gt;Google also receives this information and their use of it is governed by their &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html"&gt;Privacy Policy&lt;/a&gt;.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/177761425/i-use-cookies.html" title="I Use Cookies" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=9138545500633858118" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/9138545500633858118/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/9138545500633858118" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/9138545500633858118" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/i-use-cookies.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-4299318516141152617</id><published>2007-10-30T13:59:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-30T14:49:53.248-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="law" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="copyright" /><title type="text">Copyright Registrations = Copyright Free</title><content type="html">&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/206891/Four-Dogs-Playing-Poker/dvd"&gt;&lt;img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 101px;" src="http://www.nytimes.com//images/section/movies/amg/dvd/cov150/drt100/t143/t14310xucfh.jpg" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; The U.S. Copyright Office has &lt;a href="http://bulk.resource.org/copyright/letter_from_marybeth_peters.pdf"&gt;confirmed&lt;/a&gt; that U.S. Copyright Registrations are in the public domain.  &lt;a href="http://www.copyright.gov/docs/mbpbio.html"&gt;Marybeth Peters&lt;/a&gt;, the Register of Copyrights, writes: "There is no copyright protection in these records -- they are in the public domain."  This is a good clear answer for which Marybeth, &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Malamud"&gt;Carl Malamud&lt;/a&gt; of &lt;a href="http://public.resource.org/"&gt;Public Resource&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/peter/"&gt;Peter Brantley&lt;/a&gt; of the Digital Library Federation should be heartily thanked. &lt;br /&gt;In celebration (and thanks) I have put one of their Copyright Registration &lt;a href="http://rss.resource.org/"&gt;feeds&lt;/a&gt; on this blog.  Already it has payed dividends with my discovery of an assignment of a &lt;a href="http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&amp;ti=1,1&amp;Search%5FArg=Four%20dogs%20playing%20poker&amp;Search%5FCode=TALL&amp;CNT=25&amp;PID=7033&amp;SEQ=20071030171427&amp;SID=3"&gt;security interest&lt;/A&gt; in "Four Dogs Playing Poker" between Mercantile National Bank and International Entertainment Corporation. More history of the work is available from the &lt;a href="http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=Four+dogs+playing+poker&amp;Search_Code=TALL&amp;PID=7033&amp;SEQ=20071030171421&amp;CNT=25&amp;HIST=1"&gt;Copyright Office&lt;/a&gt;. I had thought that "Four Dogs Playing Poker" was the title of the famous painting of four dogs playing poker, but in fact, it isn't. What I was thinking of is a &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_Playing_Poker"&gt;series of sixteen paintings&lt;/a&gt; by C. M. Coolidge commissioned to advertise cigars. Maybe the subject of the assignment is the &lt;a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160289/"&gt;movie&lt;/a&gt; by that name (a thumbnail of its poster is incorporated here, click on the image to purchase the DVD) but that's unclear from what I could find.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/177382445/copyright-registrations-copyright-free.html" title="Copyright Registrations = Copyright Free" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=4299318516141152617" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/4299318516141152617/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/4299318516141152617" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/4299318516141152617" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/copyright-registrations-copyright-free.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-1120543041250881747</id><published>2007-10-29T17:34:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-29T17:37:51.373-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="misc" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="google" /><title type="text">Larry and Sergey Interview</title><content type="html">A good interview of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the two founders of Google) being themselves. I particularly like what I can only assume to be Larry making a "swoosh" sound to connote javascript and flash flying around at 16:03.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;CENTER&gt;&lt;object width="425" height="373"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7e3AR2k0foM&amp;rel=1&amp;color1=0xd6d6d6&amp;color2=0xf0f0f0&amp;border=1"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7e3AR2k0foM&amp;rel=1&amp;color1=0xd6d6d6&amp;color2=0xf0f0f0&amp;border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="373"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/CENTER&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/176989831/larry-and-sergey-interview.html" title="Larry and Sergey Interview" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=1120543041250881747" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/1120543041250881747/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/1120543041250881747" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/1120543041250881747" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/larry-and-sergey-interview.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-6437192470393745163</id><published>2007-10-10T12:10:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-10T15:25:01.447-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="misc" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="canada" /><title type="text">In Defense of Alpha Flight</title><content type="html">My co-worker Mike &lt;a href="http://michaeltyang.typepad.com/monkey_wrestles_ghost/2007/10/everyone-needs-.html"&gt;slams&lt;/a&gt; the Canadian superhero team &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_flight"&gt;Alpha Flight&lt;/a&gt; as not ready for a feature length movie. Perhaps I am biased (being both Canadian and American and a big fan of the original Alpha Flight comics) but I would welcome an Alpha Flight film. That comic had depth and great characters. I'd also remind Mike that &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverine_%28comics%29"&gt;Wolverine&lt;/a&gt;, a part-creation of the Canadian government and one-time member of Alpha Flight, has already been seen in three &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men_film_series"&gt;X-Men movies&lt;/a&gt; (and those movies would have been much worse without him).</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/168133588/in-defense-of-alpha-flight.html" title="In Defense of Alpha Flight" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=6437192470393745163" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/6437192470393745163/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/6437192470393745163" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/6437192470393745163" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/in-defense-of-alpha-flight.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-2778703274333395380</id><published>2007-10-08T10:50:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-08T11:45:14.232-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="law" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Really Modern Library Brainstorming</title><content type="html">Over at &lt;a href="http://www.futureofthebook.org/"&gt;if:book&lt;/a&gt;, Ben Vershbow &lt;a href="http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/10/the_really_modern_library.html"&gt;writes about a set of brainstorming sessions&lt;/a&gt; about how to kickstart thinking about a "Really Modern Library" (something I have thought about some as part of the &lt;a href="http://books.google.com/"&gt;Google Book Search&lt;/a&gt; team).  From the &lt;a href="http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/10/the_really_modern_library.html"&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;TT&gt;Over the course of this month, starting Thursday in Los Angeles, we're holding a series of three invited brainstorm sessions (the second in London, the third in New York) with an eclectic assortment of creative thinkers from the arts, publishing, media, design, academic and library worlds to better wrap our minds around the problems and sketch out some concrete ideas for intervention. &lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;The goal of this project is to shed light on the big questions about future accessibility and usability of analog culture in a digital, networked world.&lt;/TT&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An interesting project that will no doubt come up with some useful ideas but...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;TT&gt;for reasons both practical and political, we've considered restricting this contest to the public domain&lt;/TT&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course I understand that it may be easier to deal with all of the other issues they've identified without adding copyright (for one thing, they would have to add some lawyers to their eclectic assortment of thinkers) but I worry that their focus on the public domain means that the "Really Modern Library" will be missing any way to discover "Really Modern" books. &lt;br /&gt;Still I wish them well and look forward to hearing the results of their discussions. One of the really good things that &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14google.html"&gt;our announcement&lt;/a&gt; almost three years ago helped to do in encouraging reaction to it is increase the focus on digitization and the next generation of libraries. We weren't the only ones, or the first and didn't claim that we were trying to change what a library &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt;, but I think we have been useful in helping raise the profile of the discussion.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/167060562/really-modern-library-brainstorming.html" title="Really Modern Library Brainstorming" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=2778703274333395380" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/2778703274333395380/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2778703274333395380" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2778703274333395380" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/really-modern-library-brainstorming.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-7653220298986896818</id><published>2007-10-05T17:14:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-05T17:17:59.662-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="about" /><title type="text">Updating Feed</title><content type="html">I've updated my feed serving to &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/bricoleur"&gt;Feedburner&lt;/a&gt;.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/165949759/updating-feed.html" title="Updating Feed" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=7653220298986896818" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/7653220298986896818/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7653220298986896818" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7653220298986896818" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/updating-feed.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-339595506640385310</id><published>2007-10-05T11:37:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-09T10:55:57.739-07:00</updated><title type="text">IP in a Canadian Penny &gt; $47K USD</title><content type="html">&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/2/1741299_4117a31c47.jpg?v=0"&gt;&lt;img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/2/1741299_4117a31c47.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Canadian penny &lt;a href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=USDCAD"&gt;recently crossed&lt;/a&gt; the one cent USD threshold for the first time in a long time. Now comes news that the &lt;a href="http://www.mint.ca/royalcanadianmintpublic/index.aspx?requestedPath=/en-CA/Home/default.htm"&gt;Royal Canadian Mint&lt;/a&gt; is asserting that pictures of it are worth a lot more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/05/canadian-mint-we-own.html"&gt;Boing Boing&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071005.PENNY05/TPStory/?query=Mint+one+cent"&gt;Globe and Mail&lt;/a&gt; have the story that the Canadian Mint is attempting to assert intellectual property rights in pictures of Canadian pennies and use of the phrase "one cent" in a Toronto fundraising campaign. Seems wrongheaded, but one question not discussed is whether this could fly in the US.&lt;br /&gt;The quick answer to whether a picture of a US penny is copyright infringement in the US is no. Under US copyright law a picture of a coin may be protectable based on the protection of the image on the coin itself, but if that image is the work of the US Government, then it is not protectable in the US because of &lt;a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000105----000-.html"&gt;17 USC 105&lt;/a&gt; which reads:&lt;TT&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.&lt;/TT&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You might get the opposite answer if the coin was developed by a non-employee and was not a &lt;a href="http://supreme.justia.com/us/490/730/"&gt;work for hire&lt;/a&gt;, or if the copies were made outside of the US (for example, if Toronto had used a US penny in its campaign), or if US copies were made of Canadian coins. And that doesn't even begin to address the potential for a claim in trademark.&lt;br /&gt;In each case, regardless of the legal analysis, enforcement would be wrongheaded.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight:bold;"&gt;Update&lt;/span&gt;: Howard Knopf has an &lt;a href="http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2007/10/excessive-nonsense-about-one-cent.html"&gt;very smart post on this subject&lt;/a&gt; in the Canadian context with the further suggestion that the image on the coin may have rejoined the public domain in Canada because it may have been "authored" in 1937. Also, his title is better than mine: "&lt;a href="http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2007/10/excessive-nonsense-about-one-cent.html"&gt;Excessive Non Cents about "One Cent"&lt;/a&gt;"&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;small&gt;Image of Canadian penny courtesy of &lt;a href="http://flickr.com/photos/mig/1741299/"&gt;miguelb&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/"&gt;&lt;img src="http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif" border="0" alt="Attribution" title="Attribution"&gt;&lt;/a&gt; who also has a &lt;a href="http://menino.com/g2/main.php"&gt;website&lt;/A&gt;.&lt;/small&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/165942702/ip-in-canadian-penny-47k-usd.html" title="IP in a Canadian Penny &gt; $47K USD" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=339595506640385310" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/339595506640385310/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/339595506640385310" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/339595506640385310" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/ip-in-canadian-penny-47k-usd.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-2658048723133157207</id><published>2007-10-02T09:15:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-10-02T10:57:12.293-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="law" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Congratulations to Creative Commons</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/"&gt;Creative Commons&lt;/a&gt;, just &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/2007/10/creative-commons-announces-new-vice-president-and-general-counsel/"&gt;announced&lt;/a&gt; the hiring of a new General Counsel (and it should be said that the GC role at Creative Commons has and will always be more than &lt;i&gt;merely&lt;/i&gt; a GC). This is wonderful news for them and for the world. &lt;br /&gt;As Professor Lessig points out in his &lt;a href="http://lessig.org/blog/2007/10/a_new_gc_and_vp.html"&gt;blog post&lt;/a&gt;, I've been lucky enough to have the two of the former Creative Commons General Counsel, &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/about/people/alumni#10"&gt;Glenn Brown&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/about/people/alumni#36"&gt;Mia Garlick&lt;/a&gt;, decide to come to Google as Product Counsel.  Both Glenn and Mia are phenomenal lawyers and great to work with.  They &lt;i&gt;get&lt;/i&gt; products and are zealous advocates for users. From what I've heard about the new General Counsel, Virginia Rutledge, she is cut from the same cloth and will serve Creative Commons very well.&lt;br /&gt;Congratulations!</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/165942703/congratulations-to-creative-commons.html" title="Congratulations to Creative Commons" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=2658048723133157207" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/2658048723133157207/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2658048723133157207" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/2658048723133157207" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/10/congratulations-to-creative-commons.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-7402546550474993706</id><published>2007-09-29T11:32:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-09-29T12:12:36.434-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="code" /><title type="text">Mashing a Map</title><content type="html">This post is somewhat disjointed as I needed a bit of background to get to the point.&lt;br /&gt;First off, &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/"&gt;Nelson Minar&lt;/a&gt; is great. He is also a &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/?q=food"&gt;foodie&lt;/a&gt; who I have been vicariously living through as he's been traveling in &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/?q=paris"&gt;Paris&lt;/a&gt; over the last few years. I trust his &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/paris2006/food/"&gt;recommendations&lt;/a&gt; and have sent them to family and friends going to Paris quite a few times.&lt;br /&gt;Secondly, I've been getting really into mapping and it's possibilities. One of the recent toys I've been playing with is the excellent &lt;a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/map-making-so-easy-caveman-could-do-it.html"&gt;Google My Maps&lt;/a&gt; (go to &lt;a href="http://maps.google.com/"&gt;maps.google.com&lt;/a&gt; and click on the "My Maps" tab). It quickly and easily allows you to mark up a map. Then the Google maps team added an easy way to &lt;a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/09/custom-icons-for-your-maps.html"&gt;embed a map&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;All of which led me to want to take &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/paris2006/food/"&gt;Nelson's Paris food recommendations&lt;/a&gt; and map them. That way I could easily share them with my friends and family and they'd be able to see whether any of his recommendations were near a place they were going. Also, it'd be a nice thing to do for Nelson -- or at least I hoped it would. Interestingly, I didn't have to guess or be a friend of Nelson's to know whether he would be OK with me doing this. He has licensed the content of his blog with a &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/"&gt;Creative Commons&lt;/a&gt; attribution non-commercial &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/"&gt;license&lt;/a&gt;.  So I know that as long as what I am doing is non-commercial and that I do proper attribution, Nelson will be happy. Sometimes non-commercial is a hard judgment to make, but not here with my personal blog. &lt;br /&gt;The only two things missing are an ability to allow others to add to the map and a croissant icon for &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/paris2006/food/pastry.html"&gt;Boulangerie Malineau&lt;/a&gt; (though you can &lt;a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/09/custom-icons-for-your-maps.html"&gt;create your own icons&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;br /&gt;The resulting mashup is below.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;iframe align="middle" width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?z=12&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;msa=0&amp;amp;msid=115269056571457541678.00043abdf12c3dbd1e3ef&amp;amp;ll=48.881877,2.351074&amp;amp;spn=0,0&amp;amp;om=1&amp;amp;output=embed&amp;amp;s=AARTsJorQLmwar6k9rwFfgPm6sqqaPJx-A"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;small&gt;&lt;a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?z=12&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;msa=0&amp;amp;msid=115269056571457541678.00043abdf12c3dbd1e3ef&amp;amp;ll=48.881877,2.351074&amp;amp;spn=0,0&amp;amp;om=1&amp;amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left"&gt;View Larger Map&lt;/a&gt;  -- reviews from &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/paris2006/food/"&gt;Nelson Minar&lt;/a&gt;, licensed Creative Commons &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/"&gt;by-nc-2.0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/small&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/165942704/mashing-map.html" title="Mashing a Map" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=7402546550474993706" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/7402546550474993706/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7402546550474993706" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/7402546550474993706" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/09/mashing-map.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-8900750927677583941</id><published>2007-09-29T11:11:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-09-30T09:08:55.098-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="links" /><title type="text">Nelson's Paris Recommendations, Mapped</title><content type="html">Elsewhere I've posted some &lt;a href="/2007/09/mashing-map.html"&gt;commentary&lt;/a&gt;, but for now, here is the map of Nelson Minar's excellent Paris food &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/paris2006/food/"&gt;recommendations&lt;/A&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;iframe align="middle" width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?z=12&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;msa=0&amp;amp;msid=115269056571457541678.00043abdf12c3dbd1e3ef&amp;amp;ll=48.881877,2.351074&amp;amp;spn=0,0&amp;amp;om=1&amp;amp;output=embed&amp;amp;s=AARTsJorQLmwar6k9rwFfgPm6sqqaPJx-A"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;small&gt;&lt;a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?z=12&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;msa=0&amp;amp;msid=115269056571457541678.00043abdf12c3dbd1e3ef&amp;amp;ll=48.881877,2.351074&amp;amp;spn=0,0&amp;amp;om=1&amp;amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left"&gt;View Larger Map&lt;/a&gt; -- reviews from &lt;a href="http://www.somebits.com/weblog/paris2006/food/"&gt;Nelson Minar&lt;/a&gt;, licensed Creative Commons &lt;a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/"&gt;by-nc-2.0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/small&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/165942705/nelsons-paris-recommendations-mapped.html" title="Nelson's Paris Recommendations, Mapped" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=8900750927677583941" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/8900750927677583941/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/8900750927677583941" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/8900750927677583941" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/09/nelsons-paris-recommendations-mapped.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1972227005391162265.post-836556699042487680</id><published>2007-09-29T10:28:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-09-29T12:27:20.154-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="lazyweb" /><title type="text">Lazyweb: IE Problems</title><content type="html">The links at the top of this blog (home, about, law, code, music, links) don't seem to work in at least some versions of Internet Explorer, such as 6.0.2900.2180. If anyone has a fix for that, please post it in the comments.</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bricoleur/~3/165942706/lazyweb-ie-problems.html" title="Lazyweb: IE Problems" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1972227005391162265&amp;postID=836556699042487680" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.bricoleur.org/feeds/836556699042487680/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/836556699042487680" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/1972227005391162265/posts/default/836556699042487680" /><author><name>testing</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/11740500682899250940</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://www.bricoleur.org/2007/09/lazyweb-ie-problems.html</feedburner:origLink></entry></feed>
