PFunked

I'm sure it's happened to you

So I was on the road, explaining the complex plane (as used in the Mandelbrot set) to my girlfriend. I was so involved that I didn't notice I had entered a small town (cruise still set to 65, town is 45). Got pulled over.

Didn't get a ticket, but I was too nervous to tell the cop the truth -- I was so excited about math that I missed the 55 sign.

Nicholls Graduation

I'm heading to the motherland to see my brother graduate from nursing school at Nicholls.

If you're around this weekend, give me a holla.

Moar

Settling in at Auburn. This place is coo'.

I got a job! The library thing. My start date is June 2. I'm excited. Time to buy new candy jars.

I want a ukulele. If I own a "serious" instrument I feel bad about not mastering it. With a ukulele I can just play silly songs. I have Jam Sessions for the DS, I should try some joco songs on it.

WoW is good. Point to any game that gives me the same thrill as downing a new raid boss with 24 of my friends. We are 5/6 SSC, 2/4 TK now. My dorf has the mad plums. Yes I have several spreadsheets. Yes they contain formulas and rankings for every relevant item stat in the game. No you cannot see them.

There's this girl I like. She's hot. She found me first, so nyah.

Intellectual Property is a Lie

Anytime someone uses the term "Intellectual Property" they are either lying to you or completely confused about the topic.

First, the term is used to combine Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks. All of these are very different with their own set of rules. Combining them muddies the waters.

Second, by implying that copyrights are property, they add lies by using the terms "stealing" and "piracy". Stealing implies the original owner is deprived of some physical object (property). A copyrightable work is easily duplicated without the owner being deprived of the original. Thus, copyright infringement is not stealing, even though lobbyists use the term "stealing" to push for harsher infringement penalties.

The natural right is the right to copy.

The natural right is the right to copy!

We set aside our natural right to copy for a short time to allow the creator to profit. After the copyright term is up, the work becomes Public Domain and our natural right to copy resumes.

I bring this up because there's a bill called "Pro-IP" making its way through the House Judiciary Committee. You, my astute reader, should take caution just from it's name. The business interests behind the act are lying to us, and the lawmakers are simply confused beyond remedy.

Interview Tidbit

My interview on Wednesday went extremely well.

One note from the interview that I thought was amusing. Those of you with whom I worked at Entergy will recall us using MediaWiki to take the Digital Roadmap to the next (usable) level. Turns out that this crew I'm interviewing with landed on the exact same solution. I looked at one of their server wiki pages, and it could have been a copy and paste from the old Roadmap. Very fun.