White House Briefing on Vampires

First Quantum of Solace trailer

The Prisoner Puzzle

Long considered lost footage, I've had this interview from 1977 for many years. Warner Troyer interviews Patrick McGoohan about the making and meaning of the TV series "The Prisoner" in front of a live studio audience.

Journey's End trailer

If you haven't seen The Stolen Earth yet, do not watch this trailer. You've been warned.

What to do when Twitter's down

No, I'm not going to bitch about how "twitter's always down". If it's up, I tweet. If it's not, I don't. I've learned to get over it. However, if you've just got to post that tweet while twitter's down and you've got Web access, head over to twitabit. Give it your twitter login info, write your post, and send it off. Your tweet will be queued and sent along when twitter's up again.

I've noticed that it can take some time for posts to be forwarded along so if your tweet is time sensitive you're basically back to SOL. Also, it seems like that when you queue several tweets, they'll be sent to twitter in reverse order. (i.e. Write tweets 1,2,3 and they'll be posted to twitter in 3,2,1 order.) I've not confirmed this so correct me if I'm wrong.

Journey's End

Just two episodes to go in Doctor Who series 4!

Boot Vista faster with multiple cores

If you've got a multi-core computer (2, 4, 8, whatever) and you're running Vista, here's a great way to decrease your boot time by instructing Vista to actually use more than one core during the boot process.

1. Click on the orb, type msconfig, and press enter
   
   
2. Click Continue a UAC window appears. (If you're not logged in as an admin you'll probably need to give your admin password too.)
   
3. Select the Boot tab and then click the Advanced options... button.
   
   
4. Check the Number of processors: option and use the drop-down list to select the number you wish to use.
   
   
5. Click OK.
   
6. Back on the Boot tab check the Make all boot settings permanent option. (If you don't do this step, you'll be forced to undo it once you reboot. So, ok, if you're not sur about this process, skip this step, confirm it works, then redo all this including this step.)
   
   
7. If you did step six answer the "are you sure" question by clicking the Yes button.
   
   
8. Reboot your computer.

I saw about a 30% boot time reduction by changing from one to two cores for boot.

U.S. copyright renewal records available for download

Wondering if that book published between 1923 and 1963 is currently in the public domain? Well, now you can find out.

For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963, the rights holder needed to submit a form to the U.S. Copyright Office renewing the copyright 28 years after publication. In most cases, books that were never renewed are now in the public domain. Estimates of how many books were renewed vary, but everyone agrees that most books weren't renewed. If true, that means that the majority of U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963 are freely usable.

How do you find out whether a book was renewed? You have to check the U.S. Copyright Office records. Records from 1978 onward are online (see http://www.copyright.gov/records) but not downloadable in bulk. The Copyright Office hasn't digitized their earlier records, but Carnegie Mellon scanned them as part of their Universal Library Project, and the tireless folks at Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders painstakingly corrected the OCR.

Thanks to the efforts of Google software engineer Jarkko Hietaniemi, we've gathered the records from both sources, massaged them a bit for easier parsing, and combined them into a single XML file available for download here.

Read the full story on Inside Google Book Search.

Don't take pictures of busses in the UK...

...or you might be labeled a paedophile.

A bus-spotter says it is no longer safe to practise his hobby of 40 years after being branded a terrorist and a paedophile.

Rob McCaffery, 50, is proud of his 30,000 photos of trams and coaches but after being interrogated twice in 12 months he fears the time may have come to hang up his camera.

The credit controller, from Gloucester, says he now suffers "appalling" abuse from the authorities and public who doubt his motives.

The bus-spotter, officially known as an omnibologist, said: "Since the 9/11 attacks there has been a crackdown.

"The past two years have absolutely been the worst. I have had the most appalling abuse from the public, drivers and police over-exercising their authority.

Mr McCaffery, who is married, added: "We just want to enjoy our hobby without harassment.

"I can deal with the fact someone might think I'm a terrorist, but when they start saying you're a paedophile it really hurts."

Read the full story on Yahoo! UK & Ireland News.

OpenCongress.org

I've got to admit that I don't track my representative and senators as much as I should. This is about to change. I just found OpenCongress.org and so far I'm impressed. Create an account and it will find your rep and senators for you. From there you can add more, track legislation, get related news stories, leave comments and even vote yea/nay on individual bills. Oh, and you can subscribe to all of it via RSS! So, now whenever Rep Fortenberry, or Senators Hagel or Nelson do something, I'll know about it.

You can also create blog widgets to track legislation. Here's one on the recent FISA bill.

Feel free to add me as a friend. My username is msauers.

Cookie on Colbert

If You're Not Gaming You're Losing!

If you're not gaming you're losing! from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

Little Brother word cloud

Pick a book, get the text (legally please), and create a word cloud using Wordle.

What It's Like To Fly With No ID Under The TSA's New Regulations

The Consumerist has the story of a man who's flown without ID under the new TSA rules. Here's the scary part:

So you know how the new TSA regulations went into effect yesterday, where you can only fly without ID if you "cooperate" with the TSA? Well, it turns out you also have to take a test about your personal life. They call up a service to administer it, and the last question they asked was which political party am I registered under (I correctly answered "democrat" and they still let me on board).

Read the full story on The Consumerist.

EFF weighs in on "making available"

These two arguments are brilliant! First, Making Available == distribution:

It claims that the right "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public" granted in the Copyright Act means that an actual distribution must be proven. This is a more demanding standard of evidence than simply showing a judge that copyrighted files exist in a user's shared file folder on a P2P network.

One of the key parts of this claim is that Congress showed in other laws that it could be quite clear about granting a "making available" right when it wished to do so. The fact that the Copyright Act doesn't include such language should be taken as an obvious sign that just attempting to distribute a work cannot be considered copyright infringement, said the EFF.

Second Media Sentry == the public:

"It is axiomatic that a copyright owner cannot infringe her own copyright," says the brief in its concluding section. "By the same token, an authorized agent acting on behalf of the copyright owner also cannot infringe any rights held by that owner. Accordingly, where the only evidence of infringing distribution consists of distributions to authorized agents of the copyright owner, that evidence cannot, by itself, establish that other, unauthorized distributions have taken place."

Read the full story on ars technica.

Complaint stops live blogging

Ever live blog an event? If so, check out this story from Lakewood, WA:

Lakewood City Councilman Walter Neary operates a blog with community information and his commentary on events and issues.

But his blogging live during a June 2 council meeting drew criticism. Some people at the public comment period complained about the Clover Park School District's choice of superintendent.

Neary's post about their concerns was on the Internet before the meeting ended, including his questioning the depth of their involvement in schools.

When someone complained that he should be paying attention instead of typing on his laptop, Neary agreed not to blog until after meetings.

Here's my question: if he'd just been taking notes and then posted them after the meeting would that be OK? I'd think so. In other words, I think people were upset he was live blogging. If the blog post was accurate, and the article doesn't say it wasn't, then I'd take that as proof he was paying attention.

MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits

Never mind "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to copyright infringement according to the MPAA.

"Mandating such proof could thus have the pernicious effect of depriving copyright owners of a practical remedy against massive copyright infringement in many instances," MPAA attorney Marie L. van Uitert wrote Friday to the federal judge overseeing the Jammie Thomas trial.

"It is often very difficult, and in some cases, impossible, to provide such direct proof when confronting modern forms of copyright infringement, whether over P2P networks or otherwise; understandably, copyright infringers typically do not keep records of infringement," van Uitert wrote on behalf of the movie studios, a position shared with the Recording Industry Association of America, which sued Thomas, the single mother of two.

Red the full story on Wired.com.

Profs tell Thomas judge making available isn't distribution

It can't be easy for a federal judge to admit that he was wrong when giving jury instructions in a high-profile case, but the judge in the Jammie Thomas file-swapping case has stepped up and cast serious doubt on his own actions. Following other court rulings around the country, Judge Michael Davis indicated that he may grant Thomas a new trial after telling the jury that simply "making available" a copyrighted song on P2P networks counted as infringement. Now, Davis has asked for public comment on "whether the Court committed a manifest error of law in instructing the jury." The first public response to that question offers a resounding "yes" in response.

Nine copyright professors have filed a "friend of the court" brief (found via Threat Level) that addresses Davis' question. While the "making available" issue can be tedious, technical, and contradictory (different court rulings have gone different ways), the brief actually does a fine job of making the debate accessible.

The main thrust of the argument is a simple one: a close look at the actual words of the relevant copyright statute show that rights holders have the exclusive prerogative to "distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public." The key question concerns whether just making available a file in a shared directory counts as a distribution to the public, and the professors argue that it clearly does not.

Read the full story on ars technica.

A Morning at Intelligentsia

Part 1

Part 2

Via BoingBoing

Colbert mocks Sean Hannity’s patriotic bluster...

...with a Venn diagram!

Watch the full video on Raw Replay.

Obama to forgo public funding of his campaign

Repost of an e-mail I just received.

Barack Obama recorded a video message with an important announcement that he wanted you to hear first:

https://donate.barackobama.com/bignews

We have made a crucial decision that will impact how we compete in the general election, and it's important that you understand the decision, its implications, and the challenge ahead.

Did you help create the record?

Get yours.

Library-related topics on TWiT

I'm a bit behind on my podcast listening so sorry for the delay in posting this. The first 45-ish minutes of This Week in Tech episode #144 covers the following topics and is definitely worth a listen.

• Microsoft to shut down book search program in face competition from Google Book Search. Microsoft's comments.
• Text Archive, Open Content Alliance, and OpenLibrary.org. OCR is corrected by reCAPTCHA.
• Orphan works legislation now in Congress. Could be good or bad depending on how law is implemented.
• Internet Archive served by FBI in 2007 with national security letter seeking identity and behavior of Internet Archive user.
• Kahle and attorneys were under immediate gag order with penalty of incarceration.
• FBI served 200,000 such letters in four years, circumventing FISA court.
• Archive's only legal recorse was to sue government (Internet Archive v. Mukasey) with help of ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation, arguing law was unconstitutional.
• FBI settled before case was challenged before judge. Internet Archive settled on condition that it could go public.
• Six senators ask FBI for information on this case. Full text.
• Video on Archive.org about NSLs

The episode is listenable and downloadable from the TWiT site.

Smithsonian Joins the Flickr Commons

The Smithsonian Institution now has a flickr account similar to the one from the Library of Congress. Thanks to Roy Tennant for the pointer.

Portrait of Albert Einstein and Others (1879-1955), Physicist

Librarytour Jamaica

The LBI Shanachie Tour episode from Jamaica is now up. The first library is the same one Mary and I visited while out there.

Spore widget

Just testing to see what this thing does.

Visit Spore.com

Spore Creature Creator available

It's a free trial version but it's still fun. Here's a video of my first attempt at creature creation.

Microsoft on Copyright

I use Windows Live Writer to write most of my blog posts. (BTW, I love this program!) When I used the Insert Video function while writing my previous post on Obama I noticed a little link down at the bottom of the window labeled "Please respect copyright".

Here's what you get when you click on that link:

COPYRIGHT NOTICE & FAQ.

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The following is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact a lawyer.

What is copyright?

Copyright law protects original works, such as websites, books, music, paintings, photos and video. A work is “original” if it contains some elements you created and did not borrow from others. Typically, when you create an original work, you own the copyright. As the copyright owner, you can control how others use your work. For example, if you write a movie script, you have the right to, and can prevent others from, copying your script, sharing it with others (“distributing it”), making a movie or book from your script (a “derivative work”), or publicly performing your script as a play or movie. You also have the ability to sell or give away these rights. In other words, you could sell the right to make a movie based on your script to a movie studio.

If you use someone else’s copyrighted materials without permission, that use generally violates the copyright owner's exclusive rights, and is copyright infringement. So if you create a new work and include parts of other people’s works in it (such as an existing photo, lengthy quotes from a book or a loop from a song), you must own or have permission to use the elements you borrow. For example, if your script is based on an existing popular series, you should obtain permission to use the elements you borrow from the series.

Copyright law is different from the law of personal property. If you buy a physical object, such as a movie on DVD, you own the physical object. You do not, however, obtain ownership of the “copyrights” (the rights to make copies, distribute, make derivatives and publicly perform or display) in the content of the movie. The fact that you have obtained physical possession of a DVD does not automatically grant you the right to copy or share it.

If you make your own movie, it may include many copyrighted works in it. So, if you decide to make a movie based on your script, you must either create all elements of it on your own, or have permission to use the elements you borrow. Especially keep in mind that photos or artwork hanging on the walls of your sets and music on the soundtrack (even if you own the CD or MP3) may be copyrighted. You should not include copyrighted works such as these in your movie without authorization.

A few other things to keep in mind are:

1.

Just because a work does not include a copyright notice (e.g., © 2006 Microsoft Corporation) does not mean the work is in the public domain. Copyright notices are generally not required for works to be protected by copyright.

2.

Just because a work is easily available on the internet or elsewhere does not mean you may use the work freely. Look for terms of use, such as Creative Commons, that explain how works you find on the Internet may be used.

Isn't it in the public domain?

Just because a work is freely available, does not mean it is in the “public domain.” Copyright is for a limited term; it does not last forever. In the copyright context, “public domain” means the copyright term has expired. Once a work is in the public domain, it may be freely used without permission from the copyright owner.

Determining the term of copyright can be complex, particularly because copyright laws vary from country to country. Also, even if the copyright on a work has expired, you should be careful about how you use a public domain work. For example, a book may be in the public domain, but it might not be ok to scan the book cover to cover and post it on the internet. This is because the particular version of the book may contain new copyrightable material that is not in the public domain, such as cover art or footnotes.

What about fair use?

In limited situations, you can use copyrighted works without permission from the copyright holder. It can be difficult to figure out whether use of copyrighted works without permission is legal, though, because the laws in this area are often vague and vary from country to country.

The copyright law in the United States has a doctrine called “fair use”. Fair use provides a defense to copyright infringement in some circumstances. For example, fair use allows documentary filmmakers to use very short clips of copyrighted movies, music and news footage without permission from the copyright owner. Fair use is a difficult concept because determining whether something is a fair use involves weighing four factors. Unfortunately, weighing the fair use factors rarely results in a clear-cut answer.

Rather than applying a fair use test, many other countries have specific exceptions to copyright infringement. The number and type of exceptions vary by country, but they frequently allow copyrighted materials to be used without permission from the copyright holder for activities such as nonprofit research, teaching, news reporting, or private study.

If you incorrectly decide that something is a fair use or falls into an exception to copyright infringement, you could be held criminally and civilly liable and have to pay damages. We suggest you talk to a lawyer if you have questions regarding fair uses of copyrighted works.

What happens if you upload copyrighted materials to one of our websites without permission?

By law, we are required to take down videos, music, photographs or other content you upload onto a website hosted by Microsoft if we learn that it infringes someone else’s copyright. If you believe that we have mistakenly taken down content you uploaded that you own or have permission to upload, you can also let us know that. Finally, if you upload infringing content repeatedly, we will terminate your account and you could face criminal and civil penalties. So please, respect other people’s copyrights.

What if my stuff is on a Microsoft website without my permission?

If you believe that anything on a website hosted by Microsoft infringes your copyright, let us know. Just provide us with the information requested here and we will see that your copyrighted works are taken down.

I want to share my content, but...

Many of our websites and services allow you to share content you create, such as video, music and photographs. Though there is no way for us to ensure that your content will not be misused when you share it online, you may consider making it available under a Creative Commons License.

Creative Commons licenses are a simple way for you to let people know what uses they can make of your creative works and under what conditions. Creative Commons licenses are customizable based on your preferences and are automatically generated through the use of an online form. The form includes questions such as whether your work may be used only for non-commercial purposes and whether the work may be modified. As such, a variety of licenses are possible. For example, an “attribution only” license allows others to make any use of your work as long as they indicate that you are the copyright holder.

Creative Commons is continually developing new licenses tailored to needs identified by creative people like you. To learn more about Creative Commons, or to prepare a Creative Commons license, visit their website (http://creativecommons.org/).

What if I don't want my website crawled?

Microsoft search services (MSN Search and Windows Live Search) follow the Robots Exclusion Standards. This means that you can control which pages Microsoft search engines index and how often Microsoft bots access your website. To learn how to do so, or for more information regarding Microsoft’s webcrawling and site indexing practices, please visit http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx.

Over all I'd say that this is a reasonable document. Nothing here particularly made me cringe and that surprised me when reading a document from such a company as Microsoft. I will say though that I'm not exactly a fan of this advice: "We suggest you talk to a lawyer if you have questions regarding fair uses of copyrighted works." Why not at least attempt to explain how Fair Use works instead of pointing in the direction of a lawyer. (Yep,  Microsoft's afraid of liability issues I'm sure.) 

Barack Obama on Religion and Scripture

Power User's Guide to Firefox 3

Here's a list of the included tips:

1. Shrink the Super-sized Back Button
2. Adjust the Smart Location Bar's Number of Suggestions
3. Shift+Delete Mistyped URL Suggestions
4. Ditch Obselete Extensions
5. Revert the "AwesomeBar" with Oldbar
6. Trick Out Your Smart Bookmarks
7. Set Gmail as Your Default Email client—Without an Add-on
8. Say Hello to the Firefox Robots
9. Enable Spellchecking in One-line Input Fields
10. Mac Users: Add Favicons to Your Bookmark Toolbar

Full details on Lifehacker.

Author Sues Booksellers for Selling His Books

More proof that Copyright as it stands is totally bonkers. (Even if this case gets tossed out, which it should, the fact the someone thinks this is reasonable under the current law proves my point.)

But the Los Angeles-based Valerie F. Horn, Townsend's attorney, said that although the claim is rooted in an issue with Nazca (which is, for all intents and purposes, an individual named Herbert R. Moseley), the bookstores are legally entangled. According to Horn, Nazca, aka Moseley, copied Townsend's works without permission and then distributed the books to the booksellers. This, she said, results in "liability to all those within the chain of distribution." Horn also added that whether the booksellers named knowingly or unknowingly sold ripped-off books is irrelevant, as per the copyright statute.

Read the full story at Publishers Weekly.

Firefox 3 Officially Released

Last Night's Storm

About five minutes after I recorded this the tornado siren went off.

Digital copyright: it's all wrong

Check this one out, the US proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement:

The ACTA draft is a scary document. If a treaty based on its provisions were adopted, it would enable any border guard, in any treaty country, to check any electronic device for any content that they suspect infringes copyright laws. They need no proof, only suspicion.

They would be able to seize any device - laptop, iPod, DVD recorder, mobile phone, etc - and confiscate it or destroy anything on it, merely on suspicion. On the spot, no lawyers, no right of appeal, no nothing.

Read the full story in The Sidney Morning Herald.

Police Chief Faces High Court Anti-Piracy Action

Tired of suing customers, music industry group goes after the cops. I kid you not!

UK music licensing outfit the “Performing Right Society” (PRS) - the guys that come asking for money when you play any music within earshot of the public - is rolling out the big guns ready for a High Court showdown with a little known group of music pirates, known in the UK as ‘the police’. Not the band of the same name, but that government organization people rely on for keeping law and order.

According to a report, the police in the county of Lancashire have apparently committed a terrible crime and let the whole country down. Rather like the copyright infringing tea-rooms and their carol-singing occupants we wrote about last year, it appears that the police have been recklessly listening to music in stations all over the county - without a license. The PRS aren’t happy.

Read the full story on TorrentFreak .

Google AJAX Feed API - Dynamic Feed Control Wizard

I'm a fan of Feed2JS and FeedDigest so I was skeptical that this one would be any different. Also, there are other tools that will make RSS-based tickers but those are mostly ad supported. This one is different in two ways.

First, it's not directly ad supported. The resulting widget does display a Google logo but many libraries aren't against that as opposed to more traditional ads for companies and/or services. (In this case, the Google logo is less an ad, more a credit for the service being used.)

Secondly, you don't need to know the URL of the feed you're sourcing. As shown in the screenshot below, I was able to pull in content from my blog, Tame the Web, and the NLC's blog just by typing in their names. Google automatically did a search and found the feed URLs for me. How slick is that?

And here's the result:

Loading...

I'll definitely be covering this tool in my RSS presentation at Internet Librarian this year.

Google AJAX Feed API - Dynamic Feed Control Wizard via RSS4LIB

Chuck D on Piracy

Via The Pirate's Dilemma

Get The Pirate's Dilemma for free

Matt Mason has officially released his latest book The Pirates Dilemma for free online.

Why would an author give away a book for free? Obviously it makes a lot of sense given the arguments in this particular book, but it’s true for all authors that piracy isn’t a threat, it’s an opportunity...

By treating the electronic version of a book as information rather than property, and circulating it as widely as possible, many authors such as Paulo Coelho and Cory Doctorow actually end up selling more copies of the physical version. Pirate copies of The Pirate’s Dilemma are out there online anyway, and they don’t seem to have harmed sales. My guess is they are helping. To be honest, I was flattered that the book got pirated in the first place.

Get it at http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book. (If he'd released it under a CC license I'd be adding it to the NLC's online collection. Alas not.)

YouTomb

The folks over at MIT Free Culture have created YouTomb.

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

While it doesn't make the original videos available you can at least find out why that particular video you're looking for is no longer available.

Three HTML 5 Related Drafts Published 2008

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how HTML5 fits in with XML and XHTML and would appreciate anyone helping me out on that. In the mean time...

W3.org 2008-06-10: The HTML Working Group has published three documents: HTML 5, HTML 5 differences from HTML 4, and the first public draft of HTML 5 Publication Notes . HTML 5 introduces features for Web application authors, new elements based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability. See the diff-marked version showing changes made since the 22 January 2008 draft. Learn more about the HTML Activity. (Permalink)

The War on Photography

Bruce Schneier, security guru weighs in on the large number of photography-related "security" stories of late.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer? Because it's a movie-plot threat.

Read the full article at Schneier on Security.

Impressions of ACURIL2008

I'll write a post about my whole Jamaican experience later this week. In the mean time, here's a video for your enjoyment.

Your Papers Please: TSA outlaws ID-less flight

That is, unless you just say, you "forgot" your ID...

In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly. The policy change, announced on Thursday afternoon, will go into force on June 21, and will only impact passengers who refuse to produce ID. Passengers who lie and claim to have lost or forgotten their proof of identity will still be able to fly.

Yep, a terrorist would never lie and say "whoops I forgot my ID" now would they? The full story can be read on CNET News.com.

Photographing in Union Station (DC)

This one is hilarious.

The Fox channel in Washington D.C. became aware that photographers were being hassled by security in Union Station (the train station in Washington), so they dispatched a reporter and a crew to do a story on it. So they're interviewing the head spokesman for Amtrak, who is explaining that there aren't any laws or rules against photography inside the train station...when a security guard comes up and tells the TV crew they'll have to turn the cameras off.

A link to the video and a second video from of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton regarding her opinion that these "rules" are getting out of hand are at The Online Photographer.

Cop takes out news cameraman

An Eyewitness News 4 photographer was cuffed and cited Thursday morning for disobeying a police officer. It was a situation where the photographer was trying to do his job. And now the Albuquerque Police Department is reviewing the tape to see if the officer crossed the line. Full story and video at KOB.com.

Moderate Turbulence

This was my flight from Denver to Lincoln yesterday. The man I'm speaking to is a pilot that was sitting behind me.

ACURIL2008 Update

As to the hotel problem, we checked back last night and they said that the dinners had been cleared from our account. We'll double-check when we get the bill Saturday morning but it sounds like this problem has been cleared up. I don't remember if I said this before but as a result of all this we figured out that eating via room service is actually cheaper than the hotel restaurant (the one of the three that are actually open) or the buffet. Go figure.

Yesterday afternoon we went down to the local craft market in Montego Bay and had an interesting experience. It was fun and we were able to pick up some interesting souvenirs but almost every booth (hundreds of tiny ones) mostly all had the same stuff. (I kept expecting to see "made in China" on some of the crafts but was unable to find a single one.) Every seller wanted to make sure you stepped into their booth and bartering was expected. Once we learned to say "no thank you" directly, they would politely back off. Before we left I had a Brown Stew Fish lunch. (I need to find the recipe for Jamaican Brown Sauce). It wasn't exactly what I expected (photo below) but it was delicious.

Last night's "cultural event" was a lot of fun. The room and the busses that transported us were very hot but it was worth it for the entertainment. I'm uploading the next batch of 200+ photos now but here's just a few shots I got from last night's event.

My presentation on Creative Commons this morning went well. Since I had a lot more time than I did @ CIL, I was able to present the material in a less rushed manner and even had time to show the videos. (Everyone loves the Muppets.) Here's the presentation slides (sans video) if you're interested.

| View | Upload your own

Hello from Jamaica

It's the end of our third full day here in Montego Bay, Jamaica and overall things have been going well. Friday was a long day in getting here so we relaxed most of Saturday and experienced the resort water park. Yesterday was a trip out to hike up Dunn's River Falls and the opening ceremonies for the conference. (Hey Jane, we need to talk about how to open a conference ;-) Today, the first full day of the conference went well. Stephen Abram's keynote was as interesting as always. And yes, there is such a thing as "Jamaican time". Be sure to check out all the photos and videos in my ACURIL2008 flickr set.

As for the resort itself, well, the WiFi is great if a bit pricey at $11.95/24 hours. Check out these download and upload speeds:

Keeping that in mind, we ran into a bit of a problem with food arrangements this evening. When we checked in, we were told we were on the "Modified American Plan" which included breakfast and dinner, while we were responsible for paying for our own lunches. We were given ID cards that we were to use to "pay" for those respective meals. This worked until tonight. When we got to dinner tonight, the hostess saw our conference badges she asked if we were with the conference. When we answered yes we were informed that our plan covered breakfast and lunch. We showed her our cards to no avail. We paid for the buffet dinner and planned to speak with the registration desk.

When we got to the desk we ended up speaking with the woman who checked us in on Friday night and she did remember us. Well, we were in for a double-whammy. It was true that the plan for the conference attendees covers breakfast and lunch, but since we got a cheaper room outside of the official conference rate (cheaper) we weren't supposed to have any meals included at all. "It was our fault" the woman said. I looked back at her blankly and then she said "So, you're wondering what we're going to do about it?" Of course, that was exactly what I was wondering. There was a bit of back and forth and here's what I offered as a reasonable solution: You give us what we were told we'd have (free breakfast and dinner) for the past three days. (This works out to three breakfasts, and two dinners as we had one dinner at the opening night conference reception.) We'd understandably pay for the one room service and one lunch that we had on site. Then, starting tomorrow, we'd gladly pay for all of our meals as it should have been. Reasonable I think since it was admittedly their fault.

We ended up being told that she'd speak to her manager and we should check back with her tomorrow morning and we're now officially on the "European Plan". Oh, and during all this, she asked us if we'd put a $6 tip on our dinner bill as that had been already posted to our account. No, we didn't. We left a $2 tip in cash on the table. Yeah, I'm really liking how this place is run right now.