Recently in links Category

More PDFs (and sometimes epubs) of original Victorian and Edwardian books of interest to Steampunks. See part one here, and how these books were found here.

Automata (1893)

http://www.archive.org/details/automataoldandn00unkngoog

Automobiles (1900)

http://www.archive.org/details/horselessvehicle00hiscrich

Babbage On The Difference Engine (1864)

http://books.google.com/books?id=Fa1JAAAAMAAJ

Engineering (1860)

http://books.google.com/books?id=rkkOAAAAYAAJ

Factories (1844)

http://books.google.com/books?id=dXs4AAAAMAAJ

The Jacquard Loom (1895)

http://www.archive.org/details/jacquardweaving00bellgoog

Lovelace On The Difference Engine (1853)

http://www.archive.org/details/scientificmemoir03memo

(also http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html)

Mechanisms (1868)

http://books.google.com/books?id=vOhIAAAAMAAJ

Shipbuilding (1869)

http://www.archive.org/details/handbookironshi00smitgoog

http://identi.ca/tag/wikimediahatesart

I have a lot of respect for the Wikimedia Foundation, everyone I've met from it have been great people and I use their software and projects daily. I was proud to take part in the Wikipedia Loves Art event earlier this year. But as an artist I am disappointed and offended by Wikimedia's treatment of a contemporary art project.

Whatever lawyers who charge for each letter they send out on your behalf may tell you, and whatever your opinion of contemporary art, there are strong precedents in the US supporting free speech under the first amendment for artists who use trademarks. To demand that artists transfer resources to a trademark holder or face legal action is therefore not just a chilling effect on free speech but legally shaky.

The EFF, to their credit, point this out here -

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/wikipedia-threatens-

And details on an artwork and lawsuit that provide an important precedent can be found here -

http://www.barbieinablender.org/

Wikimedia's response has been to disparage the concerns of the artists and the EFF -

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-April/051505.html

Other web sites have picked up on this, and are supporting the artists -

http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2009/04/wikipedia-threatens-artists-for-fair-use.html

http://freeculturenews.com/2009/04/23/wikipedia-accuses-web-site-of-trademark-violation/

The problem with Wikimedia's over-reaching application of their trademark to the material detrement of artists is a chilling effect on freedom of speech. Wikimedia owe the artists and the EFF an apology. This behaviour really is beneath such an excellent organization.

#!/bin/bash

# Copyright 2009 Rob Myers <rob@robmyers.org>
# Licenced under the GPL 3 or, at your option, any later version.

# Produce a Plucker version of Free Software, Free Society
# Some texinfo errors not fixed

# Convert eps images to GIFs

convert images/clib.eps images/clib.gif
convert images/code.eps images/code.gif
convert images/flex.eps images/flex.gif
convert images/free_software_song.eps images/free_software_song.gif
convert images/headMain.eps images/headMain.gif
convert images/party.eps images/party.gif
convert images/richard.eps images/richard.gif
convert images/philosophical-gnu.eps images/philosophical-gnu.gif

# Fix texinfo problems

perl -pe 's/@heading\{(.*)\}/@heading $1/' -i fs_for_freedom.texi 

perl -pe 's/^\\input texinfo_times.tex//' \
    -i rms-essays.texi

echo "\
@ifnottex
@alias unnumberedfootnote = footnote
@end ifnottex

@ifnottex
@macro sp1
@sp 1
@end macro
@end ifnottex

@include rms-essays.texi
" > rms-essays-html.texi

# Convert to plucker

makeinfo --html --no-headers --no-split --force -o rms-essays.html \
    rms-essays-html.texi

perl -pe 's/^(<a href="#.+)$/$1<br \/>/' \
    -i rms-essays.html

plucker-build --zlib-compression --stayonhost --bpp=1 --maxwidth=320 -p . \
    -f rms-essays -N "Free Software,Free Society" file://`pwd`/rms-essays.html

#!/bin/bash
# Copyright 2009 Rob Myers 
# Licenced under the GPL version 3 or, at your option, any later version.

if [ "$1" == "" ]; then
   echo "Please enter name of manual directory on server (e.g. FlossManuals)."
   echo "You can find this by going to the printable version of the manual."
   exit 1;
fi

plucker-build --zlib-compression --stayonhost --bpp=8 -p . \
  -f $1 --staybelow=http://en.flossmanuals.net/floss/pub/$1/ \
  http://en.flossmanuals.net/$1/print

• 
  
  Ghost of a flea: Wolf Cave
  
  
  "It appears the birthplace of Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus, has been unearthed. "
  
  
  (tags: rome wolves cave)
  
  

• 
  
  Infringement Nation: we are all mega-crooks - Boing Boing
  
  
  "There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John's activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential da
  
  
  (tags: ip-maximalism notes-towards-free-culture essay)
  
  

• 
  
  OnTheCommons.org | Post-Autistic Economics
  
  
  "How refreshing to discover an online economics journal that tries to re-integrate economics with the real world. "
  
  
  (tags: economics journal progressive)
  
  


• 
  
  NEWSgrist - where spin is art: Blessed or Blasted?
  
  
  Excellent NewsGrist post that starts "At a friend's party last year, while leaning with glass of wine in one hand against a bookcase bulging with many fantastic things, I came across a facsimile of BLAST II, the "war number" of Wyndham Lewis's Vorticist j
  
  
  (tags: newsgrist joy_garnett vorticism war blog-entry)
  
  

• 
  
  Kremlin uses software piracy laws to shut down dissident media outlets - Boing Boing
  
  
  "The difference is that this time, the anti-piracy laws were enacted at the behest of the US trade representative, [...] Imagine that: Russia reinstates state control over the press at the behest of the US government!"
  
  
  (tags: notes-towards-free-culture ip-maximalism censorship oppression russia)
  
  


• 
  
  Marking - CC Wiki
  
  
  "Best Practices for Marking Content with CC Licensing." And resources for doing so in various media.
  
  
  (tags: creative-commons howto best-practice)
  
  


• 
  
  Comic Book Resources - CBR News: Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"
  
  
  "the current landscape of fiction in comparison with what has gone before is a very sparse and relatively dull place. Orwell was almost exactly wrong in a strange way. He thought the world would end with Big Brother watching us, but it ended with us watch
  
  
  (tags: alan-moore interview)
  
  

• 
  
  MIS
  
  
  "The University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples were created by Lawrence Fritts, Director of the Electronic Music Studios and Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Iowa in 1997."
  
  
  (tags: string instument samples repository free-culture)
  
  


• 
  
  Running Common Lisp behind Apache | Lisp, Networking | New Artisans LLC
  
  
  "It's hard for me to think of a more ideal platform for web design than Common Lisp. Imagine having a system that runs indefinitely, with the ability to “snapshot” its running state and restore exactly where you left off, and where updates can be ap
  
  
  (tags: lisp webdev web hunchentoot apache)