Digitial Camera Purchasing

All-in-one digital cameras

Top three:

Fujifilm S9500 (S9000 in the US) Reg Review DP Review from $503

Panasonic FZ30 Camera Labs DP Review from $501

Sony DSC-R1 DP Review Camera Labs from $798
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Google Print

William Rees-Mogg has an interesting Comment piece in today’s Times on the future of the fastest-growing company ever entitled Grow up, Google.

He describes his small academic publishing company and claims that Google is threatening to overthrow the whole concept of copyright and thus put him out of business. Not only is the big G on a course to crush poor Lord Rees-Mogg’s livelihood, but apparently put and end to all innovation (“No copyright � no revenue � no innovation.”)

Much has been written about Google, and more specially Google Print, and their regard to copyright law. In one of the first legal tests of their technology, last week a US district court ruled in their favour in respect to their cache. The use of the material in a cache was deemed fair in a case that has a number of similarities to Google Print: selected copying and holding of copyrighted works where it is up to the author to opt-out.

This strikes to the heart of the matter as I see it: copyright is a privilege granted to creators of works, in that society agrees to afford them certain rights for a period of time, in return for public use after that period has expired. It must have a sensible framework that responds to the needs of society and the artists, and, if last week’s ruling is anything to go by, the courts agree on this.

It is not as if Google is actually threatening to end copyright; by employing the fresh technologies and a rather radical approach to information, they are stretching the possible realm of copyright into new paradigms. But, content creators have to realise that there must be limits to their control. There must be possibilities for fair use.

It would be nice to see content creators and artist groups realise that the new possibilities for using and accessing their material offers a realm of new possibilities for them and consumers may be fight back against over-zealous control [Sony?].

Google Print should mean more and more people finding the value in established print media. In the days of misleading blogs and suspect entries on Wikipedia, the public will probably finally get better at judging value and authority. This can only be good for society, informed debate, and quality publishers.

Forgetting about all these grandiose ideas, Google is essentially applying the rules that have evolved in the online world (caching, linking, listing, implied permissions of use) to the print world. That can only be a good thing (dependence on sensible thinking implied).
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Cambridge in the 1960s

The Dorothy, Cambridge
Originally uploaded by Doig007.

Scanned in a couple of the more interesting adverts from the various things I’ve picked up from charity shops over the years. They are available via my Flickr.

There’s some nice tit-bits available online on Cambridge in the 20th Century.

Truthiness

The Word: Truthiness.

Fact, as has been often said, is stranger than Fiction. Or that is at least what I feel. In my gut.

Earlier this month, the American Dialect Society announced on that ‘truthiness’ was being voted 2005 Word of the Year, amazingly beating both ‘podcast’ and ’sudoko’ in the process. The ADS announcement even referenced the Colbert Report, Comedy Central’s lastest and greatest ‘fake news’ show. [For those that haven't seen it, both t's are silent, a la the French pronunciation.]

The scandal is that when AP picked up the news story and released a short piece on it that was reprinted by all the major media, from CNN to Yahoo!, they failed to mention the Colbert Report entirely, citing some (Visiting Associate) Professor, who — if later investigations by Colbert are to be believed — hadn’t even heard of the Colbert Report. The Prof even denied that Colbert had ‘pulled it out of his ass’, saying that the OED had citations back to the 1800s.

Colbert replied in a subsequent show, where he proclaimed AP to be the biggest threat to America (naturally just beating bears, at least for this week, in the Threatdown), that it was “like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what `Hamlet’ is about,” and that:

The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don’t get the idea of truthiness at all. You don’t look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.

AP have finally covered the whole sorry truthiness tale.

Now for the original citation. It’s actually from the very first Colbert Report, and, from having seen most of the first series, actually one of the funniest sections that stuck in my mind. Here it is in full…

On this show, your voice will be heard….in the form of my voice.

Because you’re looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls them as I sees them. I will speak to you in plain, simple English.

And that brings us to tonight’s word: Truthiness.

Now I’m sure some of the Word Police, the Word-anistas over at Webbsters, are going to say, ‘Hey! That’s not a word.’ Well, anyone that knows me, knows that I’m not fan of dictionaries or reference books: they’re elitist, constantly telling us what is or isn’t true or what did or did not happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that’s my rights.

I don’t trust books. They are all fact; no heart. And that’s exactly what’s pulling our country apart today, because, face it folks, we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or Conservatives and Liberals, or Tops and Bottoms. No, we’re divided between those that think with their head and those that know with their heart.

Consider Harriet Myers: If you think about Harriet Myers, then of course her nomination’s absurd. But the President didn’t say he thought about her selection, he said this: I know her heart. Notice how he said nothing about her brain. He didn’t have to. He feels the truth about Harriet Myers.

And what about Iraq? If you think about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn’t taking Saddam out feel like the right thing? Right here. Right here in the gut. Because that’s where the Truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen. The gut.

Do you know you have more nerve-endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now, somebody’s going to say, I did look that up, and it’s wrong. Well, Mr, that’s because you looked it up in a book. Next time try looking it up in your gut. I did, and my gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.

And I know some of you may not trust gut, yet. But with my help you will.

The truthiness is that anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.
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Churchillians in the News

A pair of second year students — why is it always second years? — at Churchill College have been fined for sending a live hamster through the post.

Along with fresh (and misleading) coverage of the whole gay police horse debacle, one wonders what image Oxbridge really paints to the World.
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