Wednesday, June 18, 2008

A week under our (proposed) new copyright regime: Day Three....

Professor Michael Geist (Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa) continues his series explaining all the things you probably think you ought to be allowed to do that will suddenly be illegal if the Tories new Copyright Bill passes.

Here's
Day three of a planned five day week. (Day 1, Day 2)

Start saving now, this could end up costing you a LOT of money!

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Another day under our new (proposed) copyright regime...

Michael Geist continues his series on a week in the life of the Canadian DMCA with Day Two where ten year old Rona's love of American Idol leads to her family becoming unwitting criminals by doing the sorts of things thousands of Canadians do every day.

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A day in the life of the new copyright law....

So Michael Geist is doing a series on his blog taking us through various days in the life of our (proposed) new copyright legislation. Professor Geist takes us through a typical day of a suburban Canadian family and then breaks down all the things that family did that day that would be illegal under the proposed law.

Here's DAY ONE.

Suffice it to say almost everyone I know would be liable to be fined under this law for something they've done that no one would have thought would ever be illegal.

If you're upset by this turn of events, take action! At the very least join the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group (64,407 members and growing fast with the introduction of the legislation). Also, write to your MP to complain! Don't let the government turn you into a criminal for exercising your rights as a citizen and a consumer.

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Monday, June 09, 2008

Hockey Night in Canada? It's Wednesday.

Well this is GREAT! I'll miss hearing the Hockey Night In Canada theme song on Saturday nights, but I think it's AWESOME that CTV (read: TSN) just bought the rights to the song. BRILLIANT. And, HILARIOUS.

TSN will apparently use it for its hockey broadcasts (pretty much every Wednesday night starting this season) and CTV will use it for its Olympic hockey coverage too.

This is just too funny.

Update: TSN (of course) has more.

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Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Weather from Mars...

Here's the latest weather report from Mars.

Why am I posting it?

Because I can.

It's from Sol 7, and we're actually up to Sol 10 now in the Phoenix Mission.

Maybe the people updating the website are busy watching the lander dig a hole on Mars. Hopefully, we'll get more reports posted soon.

Additional cool piece of this story (what? that's not cool enough for you?) include the fact that when Odyssey goes into safe mode and stops transmitting, it barely matters. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter just takes over.

Why is that cool?

C'mon. We've got spy satellites (plural) constantly spying on Mars.

What's NOT cool about that?

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Hillary Clinton to Suspend campaign on Friday...

Senator Hillary Clinton will apparently hold an event in Washington D.C. on Saturday to express her support of Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's nominee for President.

Well, not that it wasn't true Tuesday, but congratulations to Senator Obama on securing the nomination (officially).

Obama/Whoever '08!

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Sunday, June 01, 2008

Clinton really, really, REALLY can't win...

OK, time to play with delegate numbers again!

Thanks to CNN's handy dandy delegate counter, it's once again time to play with the numbers and see what Hillary Clinton needs to do to win the Democratic nomination.

As of yesterday's DNC ruling, the new threshold for the win is 2118 delegates. How can Clinton still win? Well there are several scenarios (all equally fantastic and impossible mind you, but there are several). Here's my personal favourite.

Maybe Senator Clinton will win 100% of the vote in the three remaining primaries. 100% of the vote in Puerto Rico, 100% of the vote in Montana, and 100% of the vote in South Dakota.

Now, that alone is not enough for Senator Clinton to win. She's well past the point where something as mundane as winning all the remaining votes can get her the nomination. No, she'll still need to rely on the superdelegates even if not a single eligible voter votes for Obama in the next three contests.

The good news for Senator Clinton is that if Obama doesn't receive a single vote between now and next Tuesday, she'll only need to attract 75% of the remaining super delegates to (barely) win the nomination.

So, all she needs to do is win 100% of the primary votes remaining and the support of 75% of the remaining super delegates.

Good luck with that Senator.

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