the pod bay door

A fascinating interview with Jessamyn West, creator of Librarian.net, is available in the latest issue of Library Juice.

I don’t know if this is the basis for a Broadway musical, but it’s a heckuva start, as they might say in Minnesota. This was staged without the other library patrons having any idea what was about to happen, so it appears; watch their reactions. I love it – it’s totally brilliant.

In other news, trying to load Gallery nearly reduced me to tears last night. Tonight I mucked around a bit more, downloading and unzipping binary NetPBM files (it’s ok, my brain hurts too), and I did some CHMOD shyte. Finally, I submitted a long message on their user forum. I’m beginning to wonder, is it worth it?

So instead, I built my first PHP page last night. I have no idea what the coding means. And I played on my computer, over and over and really loud, Trusty Chords, by Hot Water Music. This is music to exorcise the demons. Listening wasn’t enough – I blew the dust from my Telecaster, plugged it into my AmpCan, took a minute to decipher the chord structure of the song, and played along like I was in a punk band. HA!

Today, people at work reaffirmed my faith in humanity.

Isn’t life sweet?

Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, is currently leading a constitutional challenge of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which when passed, extended existing and future copyrights in the USA by 20 years. The campaign is called Free the Mouse, after Mickey Mouse – Disney’s original copyright on Mickey Mouse expires in 2003. Lessig is arguing against the continual extension of copyright in the USA, which has happened 11 times in the past 40 years. The argument is that it prevents the flow of creative material into the public domain. There is much more to it, and the essential details are here.

Lessig has lost this case twice, and is now presenting to the US Supreme Court. The October 10th Economist features an update on Lessig’s fight to reduce copyright protection.

The copyright issue is a tough one – as a librarian and musician, I can see both sides. When I copy an article 135 times for a class I’m teaching, I complete a log so that proper payment gets made (often not to the author, however). As a musician, I support downloading of music, but not for resale. I don’t believe this makes me a hypocrite – musicians like Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, who led the charge that brought down Napster, have not suffered greatly from downloading. Those that have suffered need to look in the mirror, and question the quality of their product before blaming the web.
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