coffee.geek.nz

there's a geek fallacy that your friends are friends with you therefore they'd naturally be friends with each other -- yeah, it's a fallacy.

"Friend" is a changing word - facebook has destroyed it's true meaning. I define friend is someone you'd expect would let you sleep on their couch (and vice versa).

In absence of any photograph of me with a giant group of friends, here are photos of friends. If i've missed you out, it's mostly likely becasue there's no photo!

In the link below is a video of Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairperson of One Laptop per Child, talking on the successes and lessons of the project.

these include:
* Truancy dropping to zero - from something like 30%.
* The idea that children drop out becuase they're needed elsewhere is debunked. They drop out because school is boring or not relevant.
* Children with OLPCs to take home are commonly teaching parents to read and write.
* Rote learning destroys passion for learning.
* Children are the agents of change, for the whole village.
* You really can give a laptop to a child, walk away, and they'll work it out for themselves.
http://www.5min.com/Video/The-Success-of-the-One-Laptop-Per-Child-Organi...

Photo of Child and grandmother at home in Peru - by Jeff Salter, creative commons Attribution/Share-alike

The verdict is out in the case of numerous media/entertainment companies versus an ISP over in australia.

The entertainment companies wanted a ruling that an ISP is responsible for the actions of their customers - so they sued an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement to occur".

Now, we can't have that. If someone breaks copyright then they should be responsible for their own actions, not their ISP, not the mail service, not the maker of the fax machine, not the people who built a photo sharing website.

Commonsense prevailed, and the judge ruled in favour of the ISP. The entertainment companies now must pay the ISPs legal costs.

I've picked some of that commonsense from within the judge's ruling:

In summary, in this proceeding, the key question is: Did iiNet authorise copyright infringement? The Court answers such question in the negative for three reasons: first because the copyright infringements occurred as a result of the use of the BitTorrent system, not the user of the internet, and the respondent did not create and does not control the BitTorrent system; second because the respondent did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring; and third because the respondent did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement.

On the incorrect use of the word "theft" to describe copyright infringment:

Br3nda and tiny, originally uploaded by Liz Henry.

a photo of me @ Drupalsouth :-)

Brooklyn Mist, originally uploaded by sebastia88.

pretty photo of Brooklyn in the fog.

recently:

I spoke in front of lotsa government people - on a panel along with the Vikram Kumar and Kate Lundy. It was videoed, but i don't know where to find the video. here's a photo:

organised a Girl Geek Dinner --- but more importantly, i found someone to take over organising the next one! Hurrah for Amber Craig

I got commit access to laconica - which is amusing. Who gives a 6 month pregnant person commit access? The project changed named this week to "statusnet". It's the software the power http://identi.ca

I went to Open Govt barcamp - including the hackfest. While there i recorded a podcast. Need to clean it up a bit, but my plan is to get about 5 interviews then advertise the podcast.

love this photo of my friend Jon, at full alert during the national brass band championships.    

Jon Is A Geek » Blog Archive » NZ Brass Band Championships 2009Source: jon.geek.nz

Is your baby our next cover star?

Please vote for my Nephew, Nat, who is narrowly in the lead to be on the cover of an edition of a beebey magazine.

(the website needs flash to see the photo, yeah i know that sucks.)    

www.coverbaby.co.nz

I get about one of these emails via flickr everyweek.

Hello
We're currently collating images for an educational website [.... ]
We're seeking images to illustrate some new video clips on [....]

[.... details of the project ...]

We need to confirm the image is yours and that you're granting us permission to use it. We are happy to acknowledge you - if you're willing to let us use this please let us know the name of yourself or person to be acknowledged.

Regards
[....]

The problem is, they *never* *ever* send a url to which photo they are talking about. I've uploaded >50 photos of Kaka.

Occasionally, when it is such a awesomething they want to do with the photo, i reply with "Please, which photo are you talking about? please send url".

the reply is often something like this one about a monarch:

The one with a close of up a Monarch butterfly on a purple flower.

There's a white wall in the background.

I consider this undeniable proof that people don't have any clue what that address bar on their browser is for -- no wonder phishing schemes are so popular.

I'd also like to point out that my photos are CC-BY licenced, so they don't actually need to ask at all.

Pressure to dump copyright law

Creative Freedom on Morning Report, on NZ National radio this morning:

Pressure is mounting on the Government to dump a controversial law change that enforces copyright on the internet. (duration: 3′24″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3

photo by Ian Hayhurst

me, in computerworld, originally uploaded by Br3nda

smug photo of me and the tiara from the Blogger's Predict panel.

I had a great time at the Wellingtonista awards on Thursday night.

While i didn't win, i loved the loud cheer for my blog in the reading of the finalists :-) thanks folks. And thanks to those who voted for me.

The winner, of "Best contribution to the internet by a Wellingtonian" was the Wellington Flickr Group. The three admins (me, Brett and Sue) posed for this photo:

Also - a video summary:

once apon a time, about 3 years ago, i was accused of copyright infringement.

It was a photo, posted to flickr long ago, and used in my blog. It was a photo i took of my chocolate milkshake, out at "The Bach" near island bay.

Here's the photo:

Some random from the intarwebs left comment after comment on this blog saying "You stole my photo". It was complete buillshit. They also started emailing my webhost, repeatedly accusing me of copyright infringement. My webhost dutifully forwarded these to me, i replied it was all complete bollocks.. we moved on.

fast forward to November 2008 - what's an ISP supposed to do under this circumstance? I'd call their claim "unreasonable", but i dislike the idea that my ISP is the judge and adjudicator.

Consider this advice from NZ's Ministry of Economic Development:

What should a copyright owner do if they discover a New Zealand website contains material that infringes his or her copyright?

fuck, I say FUCK gravity, originally uploaded by solidstate_

it's the law.

Lucy and I, at the Kiwicon VIP drinks, originally uploaded by Br3nda

Kiwicon was a blast -- New Zealand's best Information Security conference. Lotsa professionals, hackers and only one of two idiot script kiddies in the wrong place.

This photo is from the speaker drinkies at a secret underground location on the Friday night.

mum and I, originally uploaded by Br3nda

mum came to town to attend the New Zealand Open Source awards. I didn't win a prize, but i did win a great 2 days hanging out with mum.

• Why does Russell Brown look so very very unhappy on the webstock.org.nz photo?
• twittering too much.. this happens when they make me work on solaris.
• New post: Software freedom day in Wellington --- register before it's too late!! http://coffee.geek.nz/node/22146
• what is the perl equiv of ceil()?? /me forgot perl
• yay! happily using google in Te Reo.
• my October is looking crazy busy
• just made a matrix sheet of my todolist items...
• New post: The most successful geek event in wellington is... http://coffee.geek.nz/node/22156
• i kinda wanted a black hole to start destroying the world... but it's not too late i guess

Dear the Malt House Wellington.

I love good beer -- and i love the beers at the malthouse, but i can't go there anymore now i've seen a photo of the urinals in your mens toilets.

It's way way beyond creepy and disgusting to know the men i'm having a drink with are taking a leak into a women's mouth.

What kinda sick person puts these in a bar's toilet?

please lemme know when they're gone.

-Brenda

I do this alot with my palm:
1. take photos with DSLR
2. put camera card into palm
3. send photo by email

This is the only method i've found for getting photos from my camera into my ipodtouch so i can email them..
1. take photo with DSLR
2. photos saves to Eye.fi
3. Eye.fi connect to wifi, uploads to https://eye.fi
4. the eye.fi server pushes to flickr
5. I go to my flickr account with my ipod
6. Save photo from safari
7. Send photo my email

alas this requires being online with wifi (the final email step queues for later sending on both palm and ipod)

Photo by Steve Jurvetson, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

I tried to blog from the bloggers' kiosk at cebit, and learned my blog doesnt work in IE. they only had IE.Most noticably IE doesn't do png transparency, so they're missing out on the beauty of the coffee cup.Anyhoo.. I encountered some folks here from rimuhosting.com. They read my blog (wtf! people aren't supposed to _read_ it!).. annd wanted a photo taken with me. heh.i should hire some folks to pretend i'm famous more often.

Photo by Cameron Kaiser

Licensing instructions in the original theme:

Chromz is a free template from Free CSS Templates released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. The photo is from PDPhoto.org. You're free to use it for both commercial or personal use. I only ask that you link back to my site in some way. Enjoy :)

Additions to morph into a drupal template, are license under the WTFPL.

okay so.. from a quick glance at apple.com

things it has:

1. wireless (802.11b/g)
2. bluetooth (2.0)
3. quad GSM (so gsm anywhere)
4. EDGE
5. 2Mpix camera, so i guess MMS + video messaging

things it doesn't seem to have:

1. UMTS or other 3G -- it's a 2.5G phone.
2. Video calling?? the camera's on the wrong side so i can't see how it
   could make video calls - and it's not 3G anyways.
3. no hardware keys - so no tactile feedback while typing. Important to
   

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