Older blog entries for aicra (starting at number 30)

Yesterday, I took the LSAT.

I'm going to law school. Finally.

Something I should have done 3 years, but for my lack of desire. It all happened when I couldn't help myself in a probate matter. I actually did more than the lawyer, but, my hands were tied due to distance and financial matters.

But then, one day, my mother informed me she was doing some translating at the court for a japanese kid who was in jail and had nothing but a Public Defender. The case was this: someone used this kid's email to send a nasty letter to the school teacher. The kid insists he didn't do it. The person who did it confessed but... they are still going after this one guy as an "accomplice". She wouldn't give me all the details.

I thought of this 17 year kid in jail. I thought, "that PD doesn't know jack. He's going to rot." Then I started thinking about the kid who committed suicide because he was afraid of going to jail because he got into the school network. I started to think about Chip, Dima, and even Kevin. I wondered, "who will help them and this community?" The answer came to me:

Let justice begin with me.

I know who I am and I know I will not be one of these underhanded lawyers. I have made a solemn vow to give myself reality checks!

The most amusing section of the test was the writing sample. There was an argument and the conclusion was... the only way to solve the decline in morality in business is to teach ethics courses in college.

I refuted this 10 ways to Sunday. In the end, I wrote, there are other alternatives: Eliminate business entirely, or Eliminate Business Executives :)

Now, law school for 3 years. Then, when there are cases, as in the past, when people come for help, I can really make a substantial difference.

Whoa... is it already the end of November?

Wow, this book is really coming along. It is very difficult to choose which cases to include. I can include some at great length, but there is no way to include all of the people I know of that have been adversely affected by the DMCA. That would be... wow, huge.

I'd be interested in anyone's input at this point as to what to include. I'm taking yet another copyright class this semester.

I met with David today for 4 hours. He's great! We talked about the good old days in comp sci. He had such funny stories about Brazil. I'm glad he's back, even if it is only for another month. I hope to visit with him at least one more time before he leaves but I'm starting a new contract on monday. He helped me get a little focus and peer reviewed some of the book.

Wow this tech writing thing really worked out for me. My last job was not so great. I can say that, now that I quit. Mark left and they moved me from QA to Customer Support??? Like, whose going to find the defects now? But, since I quit on Friday, I got a contract in 3 days making substantially more money. It's only one month and will carry me until the end of the semester so I can take the time I need to finish this book! woot

Finally got Nicole to go rock climbing with me tonight! She's so afraid of heights. I said to her, how will we ever be able to go skiing or skydiving or even horseback riding if you don't get over your fear of heights! Her response was, you'll have to get Tess to go with you.

She's encouraging me to go out and meet more people, maybe even meeting and going on... a date? Like I have time for that! I know she's just trying to get out of doing these sport-like things!

Well, gotta get back to the book.

Well, I'm almost done with the DMCA book and the documentary is going well. WE still need community and haven't got much but I figure once we get some content on the site, we will get help, once they see what we've accomplished.

Tonight I found out someone had finished their trailer of a copyright documentary. I was devastated... until I saw it. It was nothing in comparision to ours. Nothing!

So, Again, I slowly truck along. Nate and Emmett have been very patient and working hard but after I read this comment by someone on that "other documentary producer" site, I thought, HEY, I WISH!

This is what the person wrote:

"I just got a truly inspiring idea from this short preview clip:

If you're a filmmaker making a documentary about free culture, instead of just going out and interviewing the "Lessigs" ('The Pear Shaped Men' as Larry would say), and adding remixed public domain/copylefted footage to illustrate the narrative...

Invite the world to submit original and remixed material for the documentary.

That, That, would truly be in the spirit of free culture. You'd be pleasantly suprised at what people would sumbit. Don't just do what everyone up to this point does when they document the emerging culture libré. Don't just interview Stallman and Lessig and fawn over Dangermouse. Invite the next Dangermouse to come out of the woodwork."

I want to be pleasantly SURPRISED!!!!!!

Tonight, I converted a bunch of mp3s to ringtones on Debian. A lot of fun, even though I had to use something I believe is more than likely.. not free.

First, Take MP3 Open in audacity or wavesurfer. Splice (30-45 seconds). Convert to 16bit, 8KHz, mono.

save as a ...shudder - wav.

use pvconv - Purevoice by Qualcomm.

./pvconv Filename.wav

Enter and tada - qcp file.

Upload ringer - I use sprint so go to sprintusers.com/focus

and hah! ringtone.

Lots of fun! Thanks to Daniel G. for the app. and info.

Also, wireless mouse works fine on GNU/Linux. It rocks.

Started a study on Fan Fiction and Copyright/DMCA. Coming along quite well.

Soon will have an awesome camera to finish documentary.

NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

Well, this bug finally caught up with me. I didn't know what it was. And, since I had no other machines set up, had to go out into the world and find a networked computer to find out!

So, first, I said, well, let's try a live CD. That was painful. Though my friend Daniel had several he was willing to burn and give me, they didn't really help. I thought I could at least get online and get the module I needed, right, thinking it was a via issue. But you know, went back to Debian, and after I played around a little, ran modprobe * and unplugged. The thing worked fine.

That was a lot of fun.

The computer tech at work wants to try GNU/Linux. Maybe someone will get some use of those live CDs after all.

Wow. Xvidcap rocks. Except with the external usb. Can't get ffmpeg to work with it either. However, changed the slot for the sb live internal card and xvidcap is working with sound now. I must know why it didn't with the external. I think it has something to do with OSS emulation. I tried for days. Literally. Recording worked in other apps. Sound worked. It was the first time I could not manage to get ffmpeg to work. Ever. I must know. If anyone reads this... and was able to get xvidcap sound to work with an external sound card, please let me know what you did.

Daniel's First GPL

Today, Daniel Garcia GPL'd his code. Technically, it was always GPL'd because he had used GPL'd code to write it and modified it for the modules he wrote. He was not aware that the derivative work was to be GPL'd as well. Once he realized what had happened, he exclaimed how happy he was.

Daniel: i'm so happy

Daniel: my code is GPL'd

Kaoru: Is this your first one?

Daniel: Well, technically, no ;). It's always been GPL'd

Kaoru: So tell me how you feel about this first GPL thing

Daniel: It's like Pam over at Groklaw said, "I feel like I'm home"

Daniel: "before it felt like I was a guest"

Daniel: "a well treated guest, but a guest nonetheless"

Daniel: now I feel "freer"

Daniel: it's hard to explain

Daniel: it's almost as if I had nasal congestion and all of a suddenly I could breath

Daniel: are there any good links to advantages and disadvantages of the GPL that I could show my friend?

Kaoru: Well, SURE!

Well, today was interesting.

Emmett Plant's song we posted on Amazon went up to #42 on the Indie Charts. This has been quite interesting as I only put it there to get more people on the mailing list for Third Grade Crush and I was only testing it. It's licensed under the Creative Commons. That was his choice... I really like the EFF's Open Audio License, but oh well.

He put on the mailing list: "I have no idea how this happened, mainly because I never, ever link people to an Amazon site. I usually link people directly to music, because if they get it directly from me, they don't have to 'sign in' to anything. If you're interested in seeing the Amazon site for 'Eight Bits,' copy and paste this link:

http://tinyurl.com/5m72o

So anyways, there's the link for anyone interested.

The song is called Eight Bits and it's about video games. All in all it's a pretty fun song, and the nahnah part is Tetris theme music. So, it's really fun.

Other than that, just bombarded with school, chasing down vindaloo sauce and cleaning.