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while($i <= 7) { $i++; echo rand(); }

1 week, 2 days ago 3 Comments

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Due to how out of shape I am, Gnorb easily caught and tagged me to share 7 random facts about myself. Strangely, I sensed some déjà vu—due to the fact that I had already completed a similar meme last year. Always one to enjoy talking about myself, I am complying and listing 7 new facts that reflect how much I have changed since then.

  1. I have never been to an amusement park in my life. My family is not the type which goes to touristy places, and I never had the desire to go. I’ve gone to 1 or 2 county fairs, but certainly no Disneyland, Legoland or Six Flags. I think I dodged a bullet on that one, simply because I almost never enjoy something which is supposed to be fun. (Hence why I am writing this blog instead of being outside.)
  2. I am a Mac (user). I love my MacBook Pro, and would never switch back to Doors.
  3. I enjoy watching crappy romantic comedies. Actually, I enjoy watching any form of comedy—no matter the quality.
  4. I have Pantophobia. That is, I am afraid of everything. You name it, and 9 times out of 10 I am afraid of it. I’m not cripplingly afraid of everything, I just mildly cringe whenever I encounter most things I fear slightly.
  5. I am an Independent. Usually, I support Democrats, but when a strong Republican candidate comes along I will support him. I supported both Ron Paul and Barack Obama.
  6. I hardly ever read books. I used to read a lot, but I almost never have time anymore. This is something I want to fix, but in the meantime I read classics via DailyLit.
  7. I am an active contributor to the Habari Project. This is the first time I have extensively worked on an open source project, and I am really excited about the directions we are headed in.

Hopefully, this didn’t bore you too much. It was tough to think of new, interesting facts that I hadn’t already mentioned. Following the spirit of the meme, here are 7 people I would like to tag (if I can catch them):

Once again, thanks to Gnorb for tagging me. I look forward to reading the responses of the people who I tagged, all of whom are much more interesting than me.

For inquisitive minds, the PHP script I used for the title of this post would print 7 random numbers.

The 26 Hour Day

2 weeks, 4 days ago 12 Comments

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Apparently, Senator Vince Illuzzi thinks he can extend the amount of time in a day. Or at least restructure the space-time consortium. In a ridiculous cost-cutting measure, he has suggested that all state offices and schools cut down to 4 day weeks, with 10 hour days. He cites the always-popular reasons of saving money on heat and gas. Screw learning, it’s all about the cash. In fact, screw the laws of time: if it will save taxpayers cash, then it has to be a good thing, right?

Absolutely not. Nobody is bringing up the fact that this would eliminate every vestige of free time a student has. First, let’s tackle the fact that this would essentially eliminate summer vacation. Since schools are required to have at least 175 days a year, this would mean summer vacation would be dipped into by many weeks. Depending upon implementation, a best-case scenario would be 2 to 3 weeks for summer vacation. This is certainly not enough time for students to do enough of the best kind of learning which comes with summer: volunteering, getting a job, or taking summer courses. Fortunately, the legislator could always wave a magic wand and eliminate the 175 day requirement. Unfortunately, I expect the eventual “solution” would involve less summer vacation.

Figure 1

Assuming the summer issue could be settled, it is worth considering that there simply is not enough time in a day for 10 hours of school. The typical high school student has approximately 3 hours of homework per night (this is being conservative). In my school, bus transportation takes 45 minutes in the afternoon and 1 hour, 45 minutes in the morning. Let’s also assume 1 hour for showering, eating breakfast, eating dinner, and doing chores (combined). Finally, the American Sleep Disorders Association recommends 9.5 hours of sleep per night for a teen. Adding this up, we get an impossible sum: 10+3+2.5+1+9.5=26. In order to do all homework and get a healthy amount of sleep, even without any free time, there would need to be 26 hours in a day for the 10-hour school day to work. Contrary to what Senator Illuzzi may think, there are only 24 hours in a day. So, even if a student never gamed, played sports, had fun or did anything normal, they would only be able to get 7.5 hours of sleep. (See Figure 2)

school-1.png key-2.png

Obviously, that doesn’t seem too unreasonable. 7.5 hours of sleep is less than recommended, but is still reasonable—until you remember the average student does far more than sleeping, homework, and learning. In a more typical situation, a student might spend 1 hour doing any number of clubs or after-school commitments in a day (volunteering, etc.): the sort of stuff young people are encouraged to do. In addition, they are on the varsity soccer team and have 1 hour of practice every day. In order to do everything, they would only have 5.5 hours of sleep per night. (10+3+2.5+1+1+1+5.5=24) That is going into the realm of stressful and unhealthy. This student still has no free time and isn’t able to do much outside of school (certainly no part-time job), yet only gets 5.5 hours of sleep per night. (See figure 4)

school-2.png

As you can plainly see, this proposed plan would wreak havoc upon already stressed teens. It would eliminate summer vacations and would force the average teen to only get 5.5 hours of sleep per night (or less). In the scramble to cut costs, there should be other places to look besides taxpayers’ right-less students’ time. I have another idea for you, Senator Illuzzi: try carpooling. Or, if you really hate schools this much, eliminate required schooling.

Burying the AP in a Grave of its Own Making

2 weeks, 5 days ago 4 Comments

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AP Banned

The Associated Press has decided to join the MPAA and RIAA by jumping on the bandwagon of blatantly ignoring existing copyright law. Over the weekend, the AP sent 7 DMCA takedown notices to the Drudge Retort (a parody of the Drudge Report) for short snippets posted on the site. (Update: This isn’t the first time the AP has misinterpreted fair use) For those of you who are unaware, the AP has a long history of trying to squash all competition. By essentially having a monopoly on the news, the AP is able to keep new outlets from springing up where a member paper already is. Then, along came the Internet, where it is impossible to have a monopoly on the news. Of course, the AP has had some trouble with this new market. Their response? Sue everyone in site.

Obviously, these postings are clear instances of fair use. Only 1 of the stories used the original headline and all six were under 79 words. Clearly, these could not replace the original article. In fact, these stories would help the AP by sending traffic their way. For those of you on the edge, here is a quote of a story in question:

Clinton Expects Race to End Next Week

Hillary Rodham Clinton says she expects her marathon Democratic race against Barack Obama [sic] to be resolved next week, as superdelegates decide who is the stronger candidate in the fall. “I think that after the final primaries, people are going to start making up their minds,” she said. “I think that is the natural progression that one would expect.”

This story only uses 18 words from the original story, along with a 32 word quote of Hillary Clinton. It also includes a link back to the original article. Despite falling clearly under fair use, the stories had to be taken down due to the ridiculousness of the DMCA. Once again, the flaws of the DMCA are abundantly clear: it favors huge companies and organizations who are then able to trample over all forms of public debate and opinion. Yet, the associated press claims it is not fair use:

The use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few sentences only. This is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of “fair use.” AP considers taking the headline and lead of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes “hot news” misappropriation.

Ummm, what? It is not fair use because it happened to be a news article. Since when did news articles not have to follow standard copyright law? According to the AP, using the headline and the first few sentences only is not what fair use intends. In fact, that is the essence of fair use: quoting a small piece of a copyrighted material to provide commentary or clarification. What would they rather have us do, quote the entire article? No, I think they want bloggers to buy licenses:

The Associated Press encourages the engagement of bloggers — large and small — in the news conversation of the day. Some of the largest blogs are licensed to display AP stories in full on a regular basis. We genuinely value and encourage referring links to our coverage, and even offer RSS feeds from www.ap.org, as do many of our licensed customers.

According to the New York Times, the AP has apparently backed down from the original heavy-handed stance. Looking between the lines, it actually looks like the AP might be gearing up to launch a further onslaught against bloggers. By developing a set of guidelines (stricter than the law allows), the AP will be prepared to send out wide-spread DMCA notices. Unfortunately, most bloggers will have to comply and will not be able to challenge in court, even though they would win there. Interestingly, the AP has still not withdrawn the takedown notice for the 7 original stories. In a rather observant remark, the vice president of the AP draws the clear connection with the RIAA:

“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” Mr. Kennedy said. “That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do.”

And no other organizations have ever tried that? Looks like the AP has decided to follow in the footsteps of the MPAA and RIAA. Fortunately, TechCrunch has a response: ignore all AP stories. Henceforth, we bury AP stories and don’t quote them. I am more than happy to sign onto this and will no longer link to or quote an AP story on this blog. Let’s see how long this copyright strategy lasts if their traffic drops like a stone.

You can find the original stories summarized on this page.

Simon Owens has extensive information upon the AP’s record and interviewed Rogers Cadenhead about the story.