- Sorting Out 9/11 (New Yorker) — the thorniest problem for the 9/11 memorial was the ordering of the names. Computer science to the rescue!
- Tagger — Python library for extracting tags (statistically significant words or phrases) from a piece of text.
- Free Science, One Paper at a Time (Wired) — Jonathan Eisen’s attempt to collect and distribute his father’s scientific papers (which were written while a federal employee, so in the public domain), thwarted by old-fashioned scientific publishing. “But now,” says Jonathan Eisen, “there’s this thing called the Internet. It changes not just how things can be done but how they should be done.”
- Internet Archive Launches Physical Archive — I’m keen to see how this develops, because physical storage has problems that digital does not. I’d love to see the donor agreement require the donor to give the archive full rights to digitize and distribute under open licenses. That’d put the Internet Archive a step in front of traditional archives, museums, libraries, and galleries, whose donor agreements typically let donors place arbitrary specifications on use and reuse (“must be inaccessible for 50 years”, “no commercial use”, “no use that compromises the work”, etc.), all of which are barriers to wholesale digitization and reuse.
ENTRIES TAGGED "Creative Commons"
Four short links: 17 May 2011
Sorting Out 9/11, Tagging Text, Unlocking Scientific Publishing, and Internet Archive's Meatspace Branch
Collaborative genetics, part 2: Five Easy Pieces, Sage's Federation
The second installment of this series, about a Sage Commons Congress on
the open-source sharing of genetic research, looks at the reasons
collaborative research is critical to finding new treatments.
Collaborative genetics, Part 1: The ambitious goals of Sage Commons Congress
The opening installment of this series, about a Sage Commons Congress on
the open-source sharing of genetic research, explains the elements of
modern research and how collaboration facilitates progress.
Four short links: 15 September 2010
CC Privacy Info, Magic with iPads, SSL in Javascript, and Reading Patents
- Privacy Commission Uses CC License For Content — The office of the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner is releasing its content under the CC-BY license, including fact sheets, newsletters, guidance, case studies, howtos, and more.
- Magic iPad Light Painting (BERG London) — continuing their stunning work, this concept video uses a form of long-exposure stop-motion to turn the iPad into visual magic.
- Implementing TLS and Raw Sockets Using Only Flash and Javascript — interesting first steps to implementing non-trivial security in Javascript (“The Language Of The Future ™”). (via ivanristic on Twitter)
- How to Read a Patent in 60 Seconds (Dan Shapiro) — quick guide to the important parts of a patent. For more detail, check out the more detailed docs from the PatentLens.
Four short links: 2 November 2009
Inside Botnets, Creating Choropleths, Privacy Simplified, Massively Machiavellian Online Social Gaming
- Your Botnet is My Botnet (PDF) — 2008 USENIX Security paper analysing >70G of data gathered when security researchers hijacked the Torpig botnet. A major limitation of analyzing a botnet from the inside is the limited view. Most current botnets use stripped-down IRC or HTTP servers as their command and control channels, and it is not possible to make reliable statements about other bots. In particular, it is difficult to determine the size of the botnet or the amount and nature of the sensitive data that is stolen. One way to overcome this limitation is to “hijack” the entire botnet, typically by seizing control of the C&C channel. [...] As a result, whenever a bot resolves a domain (or URL) to connect to its C&C server, the connection is redirected or sinkholed. This provides the defender with a complete view of all IPs that attempt to connect to the C&C server as well as interesting information that the bots might send..
- cartographer.js — build thematic maps using Google Maps. To be precise, you can build a choropleth, which is my word of the day. (via Simon Willison)
- Making Privacy Policies Not Suck (Aza Raskin) — interested in developing a standard set of privacy policy components the way that Creative Commons has created a standard set of copyright license components.
- Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell (TechCrunch) — many of those games on Facebook that your friends play are evil. To get in-game money or objects, they’ll let you take a survey but at the end you’re signed up for crap you never wanted. Related: this article on monetizing social networks which talks about social gaming’s business model.
Four short links: 14 July 2009
Twenty Questions, CC Pix, INSERT INTO WEB, and Wash Your Hands!
- Twenty Questions about GPLv3 (Jacob Kaplan-Moss) — twenty very challenging questions about the GPLv3. foo.js is a JavaScript library released under the GPLv3. bar.js is a library with all rights reserved. For performance reasons, I would like to minimize all my site’s JavaScript into a single compressed file called foobar.js. If I distribute this file, must I also distribute bar.js under the GPL?
- CC Searching within Google Image Search — what it seems. (via waxy)
- YQL INSERT INTO — insert into {table} (status,username,password) values ("new tweet from YQL", "twitterusernamehere","twitterpasswordhere"). That’s too cool. (via Simon Willison)
- CleanWell — very low-cost recyclable enviro-friendly antimicrobials to battle third-world disease. Met the founder at Sci Foo. He said women wash hands more than men, because women enter bathrooms in pairs. Single easiest way to increase handwashing compliance is to put sinks and basins outside the room, in public view.
Four short links: 14 May 2009
Open Source Ebook Reader, Libraries and Ebooks, Life Lessons, and Government Licenses
- Open Library Book Reader — the page-turning book reader software that the Internet Archive uses is open source. One of the reasons library scanning programs are ineffective is that they try to build new viewing software for each scan-a-bundle-of-books project they get funding for.
- Should Libraries Have eBooks? — blog post from an electronic publisher made nervous by the potential for libraries to lend unlimited “copies” of an electronic work simultaneously. He suggests turning libraries into bookstores, compensating publishers for each loan (interestingly, some of the first circulating libraries were established by publishers and booksellers precisely to have a rental trade). I’m wary of the effort to profit from every use of a work, though. I’d rather see libraries limit simultaneous access to in-copyright materials if there’s no negotiated license opening access to more. Unlike the author, I don’t see this as a situation that justifies DRM, whose poison extends past the term of copyright. (via Paul Reynolds)
- Lessons Learned from Previous Employment (Adam Shand) — great summary of what he learned in the different jobs he’s had over the years. Sample:
- More than any other single thing, being successful at something means not giving up.
- Everything takes longer than you expect. Lots longer.
- In a volunteer based non-profit people don’t have the shared goal of making money. Instead every single person has their own personal agenda to pursue.
- Unfortunately “dreaming big” is more fun and less work than “doing big”.
- Flickr Creates New License for White House Photos (Wired) — photos from the White House photographer were originally CC-licensed (yay, a step forward) but when it was pointed out that as government-produced information those photos weren’t allowed to be copyright, the White House relicensed as “United States Government Work”. Flickr had to add the category, which differs from “No Known Copyright”, and it’s something that all sharing sites will need to consider if they are going to offer their service to the Government.
Four short links: 6 May 2009
Hamster Maps, Open Flu Data, Smart Grid Dollars, and Remixable Remix
- Hamster Wheel Maps — Jack Schulze has created an interesting way to see the world, in the form of “horizonless maps”. The city unfolds in front of you like it was built on the inside of a hamster wheel and you’re the hamster. Wired UK shipped an enormous foldout version.
- Why Pig Flu is Better Than Bird Flu: Open Data (Glynn Moody) — Glynn points to GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data), a system set up in 2006 because scientists were finding it hard to get timely H5N1 data. Following the correspondence letter in Nature, we have all pledged to share the data, to analyze the findings jointly, and to publish the results collaboratively, on the basis of open sharing of data respecting the rights and interests of all involved parties. This system has been used in the Mexican H1N1 outbreak.
- IBM Plays Sugar Daddy to Smart Grid (CleanTech) — IBM said it’s making $2 billion available to jump-start IT projects, including the smart grid, because of the continued difficulty for partners to get project financing. The $2 billion would come from the company’s lending and leasing arm, IBM Global Financing, in the form of low-rate loans, deferred payments, and other forms of project financing. The money is tied to projects authorized under the U.S. stimulus plan, which set aside $4.5 billion for smart grid projects. (via Freaklabs)
- Lessig’s “Remix” Book Now ccFree — the latest book by Larry Lessig is now available under a CC-BY-NC license. (via Lessig blog)
Four short links: 30 Mar 2009
A great free book, dead newspaper dig, movie Torrent wakeup, and money from free:
- Digital Foundations with Adobe Illustrator — CC-licensed book that gets you started using Adobe Illustrator. I’m loving it, and I have the artistic ability of a particularly philistine rock. See also their advice to authors on how to negotiate a Creative Commons license. (via bjepson’s delicious stream)
- How to Become a Death Of Newspapers Blogger — tongue-in-cheek dig at the recent imminent deaths of newspapers being predicted. Point taken about how unproductive these are: The point’s not to fix anything. It’s to describe the problem more dramatically than the next guy. If Steve Outing says newspapers have a “death spiral” and Clay Shirky predicts “a bloodbath,” the point goes to Shirky. Basically, imagine a group of people watching a building burn down and bickering amongst themselves about whether it’s a conflagration or an inferno. It’s like that, but with consulting fees. (via migurski’s delicious stream)
- BarTor, Android BitTorrent with a Twist — take a picture of a DVD’s barcode, it looks up the movie, and sends the torrent file to your desktop to be automatically downloaded. NetFlix should have a legit form of this. If iTunes Movie Store had it, you could have racks of “DVDs” in stores that you could browse and snap to “buy” (giving a cut to the store). This feels monumental.
- Survey of Free Business Models Online — an interesting breakdown of ways to make money from “free” on the web. (via glynn moody)
Uncommon Knowledge and Open Innovation: Building a Science Commons
The first session I attended today was John Wilbanks' "Uncommon Knowledge and Open Innovation: Building a Science Commons" presentation. John talked about the process of establishing the Science Commons and how creating a science oriented commons presented unique challenges. John first pointed out that Metcalfe's Law works for both networked computers and documents. But, he went on to extend…
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