250 years of Pittsburgh innovation
I’m originally from Pittsburgh, a town whose greatness goes beyond the Steelers, great pizza, and the world-famous Primanti’s sandwich. Here’s a great video of a quarter-millennium of Pittsburgh innovation, from the Heinz History Center:
Final exams and cat naps
Finals are coming fast, but still make sure to take care of yourself. This cat does.
Tweets for week ending 11/15/2008
“Is There a Privacy Risk in Google Flu Trends,” http://tinyurl.com/6h5tm4 #
“Obama to Address the Nation Each Week on YouTube,” http://tinyurl.com/65u66m #
“Online Age Verification for Children Brings Privacy Worries,” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16ping.html #
Can a President Obama “Say Goodbye to BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe,” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/politics/16blackberry.html #
“Israeli Candidate Borrows a (Web) Page From Obama,” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/world/middleeast/15bibi.html #
The real digital garbage: e-waste
60 Minutes ran a segment this evening on the real digital garbage: e-waste, namely, CRTs, computers, cell phones, and other digital junk thrown away by Americans who think they’re recycling, but which sometimes end up in illegal dumps in places like Hong Kong:
60 Minutes is going to take you to one of the most toxic places on Earth - a place government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see. It’s a town in China where you can’t breathe the air or drink the water, a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead.
It’s worth risking a visit because much of the poison is coming out of the homes, schools and offices of America. This is a story about recycling - about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.
For additional info on problems with e-waste, here’s links to GAO reports on e-waste:
- Electronic Waste: Observations on the Role of the Federal Government in Encouraging Recycling and Reuse (July 26, 2005);
- Electronic Waste: Strengthening the Role of the Federal Government in Encouraging Recycling and Reuse (Nov. 10, 2005);
- Electronic Waste: EPA Needs to Better Control Harmful U.S. Exports through Stronger Enforcement and More Comprehensive Regulation (Aug. 28, 2008);
- Electronic Waste: Harmful U.S. Exports Flow Virtually Unrestricted Because of Minimal EPA Enforcement and Narrow Regulation (Sep. 17, 2008).
New River Gorge
Google Book Search settlement
Here’s an excerpt from today’s press release:
The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and Google today announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, would resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers as representatives of the AAP’s membership. The class action is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Info on the settlement here and here.
Wii cool invention and video!
Today’s Times has an article on Johnny Chung Lee, who came up with a way to use a Nintendo Wii remote with a video display to give a more interactive experience. When you move around the room, the view on the screen changes. This is unbelievably cool and I hope it’s used in video games and other technologies soon. Also interesting is how Lee used YouTube to publicize his ideas. As the Times notes:
He might have published a paper that only a few dozen specialists would have read. A talk at a conference would have brought a slightly larger audience. In either case, it would have taken months for his ideas to reach others.
Small wonder, then, that he maintains that posting to YouTube has been an essential part of his success as an inventor. “Sharing an idea the right way is just as important as doing the work itself,” he says. “If you create something but nobody knows, it’s as if it never happened.”
The video, viewed over 6 million times, is a must-see:
New York Times and 148-year copyrights
In conjunction with its endorsement of Senator Obama for President, today’s New York Times website has a great graphic illustrating its endorsements since 1860, alongside the winners for each year. For example, in 1888, the Times endorsed Grover Cleveland, who was defeated by Benjamin Harrison. Four years later, the Times again endorsed Cleveland, who won. The graphic also allows you to pull up the original published endorsements. Here’s an excerpt from the Times’ 1860 endorsement of Abraham Lincoln:
As a historical document, this is fascinating. But note the claim of copyright at the bottom, asserting copyright to something published in 1860. Say what!? The Times needs to read copyright laws a little more closely before asserting copyright to an editorial published 148 years ago. Even with Congress’ expansion of copyright terms, an editorial published in 1860 is not still copyrighted. (For more “recent” examples, see Lincoln’s 1864 endorsement, Grant’s 1868 endorsement, etc., also containing copyright notices).
Mersenne primes and the bailout bill
Here’s an interesting number: $11,315,000,000,000. That’s the new limit on public debt proposed by today’s draft of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. That’s a pretty big number, slightly over (slightly?) 11 trillion dollars.
Here’s another one: 243,112,609-1. The Guardian reports that researchers have found the largest-yet Mersenne prime, a number with nearly 13 million digits. Mersenne primes are prime numbers that can also be expressed as 2n-1. Seven is a Mersenne prime because it’s 2³ - 1. According to Science News, only 46 Mersenne primes have been found so far.
Well, that puts everything into perspective. The public debt is only 14 digits, a paltry figure compared to the newest Mersenne prime. Even better, the $700 billion bailout package represents a mere (mere!!) 6.59% increase over the current statutory public debt limit of $10,615,000,000,000 under 31 U.S.C. § 3101(b).
Don’t you feel better now? I know I do.
Sites and course pages
For new STU students, welcome to law school!
My home page is at http://nathenson.org.
This site, digital garbage, is my academic blog on law and technology.
I also run a personal blog at http://nathenson.org/blog.
Course pages are available to STU students through Blackboard at http://webcourses.lexisnexis.com. You’ll need to get your Lexis ID from the law library.
UPDATE: Lexis is in the process of updating its main law school homepage. The update has led to problems for users of Internet Explorer 7. If you have difficulty logging into Blackboard, try using Mozilla Firefox.
