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« July 2001 | Main | September 2001 »

August 24, 2001

Aug 24, 2001

What a week! We spent last weekend over on Pender picking blackberries and drinking too much. So the week started with me tired, and stressed. David, who has been with the company for over twenty years moved to Kamloops this week, so on Tuesday night, Idar and I went out with him, and it got drunk out. His last day was Wednesday, so once again it got drunk out. Wednesday was also Lara's birthday, so that was a double doozie. The stress level was pretty high all week, because we're going to miss David, both personally and professionally.

All in all, an interesting week. My holiday is definitely overdue. We leave on Wednesday. YAY!

August 17, 2001

Aug 17, 2001

A few quick points:

First thing is that I'm heading out east at the end of the month, so for those of you following at home, I'll be arriving in Montreal on August 29th to go to Lara's class reunion. It's actually pretty cool, because she did Class Afloat

the first year it was offered. After that, we're headed to my old home of Ottawa on the 1st of September to hang out with some of my friends and family. We leave on the 4th for Toronto to meet some of our suppliers, and then are headed home. Short but sweet.

Second is that at the last VLUG meeting, Matthew Skala did a bang up presentation on the monopolization of ideas (AKA intellectual property). He followed up with a posting to the VLUG discussion email list with a bunch of links. Here they are;


  • http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp01100e.html
    The government consultation process site, with links to their documents on what they're looking for in submissions. Deadline for the first round is September 15. I encourage people to write submissions, but strongly recommend *reading* the discussion papers carefully before responding.

  • http://www.flora.org/dmca/
    Home page for a mailing list of people who are writing submissions for the above comment process.

  • http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    Richard Stallman's story _The Right to Read_, about a dystopian future where the DMCA is carried to an extreme.

  • http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html
    _Courtney Love Does the Math_, in which she talks about how the music industry jerks artists around.

  • http://www.bbc.org/
    Big Blue and Cousins home page, with links to my article in their latest newsletter, the Adobe press release, and comments from the president and newsletter editor.

  • http://www.jps.net/dcm/copyright/
    Lots of historical background.

  • Sorry, I couldn't find much of the Bloody Mary material online; some is in the above link, and lots of more general stuff about the history of that time (not copyright) is on the Web - search "lady jane grey"or possibly "queen mary i" (searching "bloody mary" will probably give you more about the drink than the monarch). If you're really dedicated, you can find the same hardcopy resources I worked from. Ask for the five volumes of call number "Z2002 L64 Reference" at the UVic library; you must ask at the circulation desk because it's in a section of the stacks that's currently closed for construction; be sure to say it's reference because that's shelved separately from the other books with similar call numbers.

  • http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s2.html
    The Statute of Queen Anne, an early copyright law, enacted in 1709.

  • http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html
    A letter by Thomas Jefferson, from 1813, describing the difference between copyright privileges and natural rights.

  • http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/cpbfaq.html
    Cyber Patrol Break FAQ, discussing my own legal battle.



Quite a nice list to start with. there are some other materials to look at if you go up to your left and click on IP Issues


Last but not least, I'll be doing a presentation shortly after I get back on Give Your Mac The Birdor Linux on Mac hardware. It should be fairly interesting. I'm still primarily using MacOS on my iBook as I said earlier, but I do like having the option, and Wow!, but does it go fast!

August 03, 2001

Aug 3, 2001

Back from a hardware failure. The root filesystem of my linux box failed. I've been too busy to fix the install until now.


For those who missed it, a protester was shot at the G8 summit in Genoa. Shot. Twice in the head. Then run over with a police vehicle. I'll see you in Kananaskis.

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