Letters Remain

  • Is it Protected by Copyright?

    Trying to discover whether a work of art (book, movie, song, etc.) is currently in the public domain? The American Library Association’s copyright slide rule, should help.

    [This] simple tool tells you whether or not you need to hunt down a rights owner to use a book, movie, song, or other work in a project. The surprising part? Often times, you don’t—not if the work was made before a certain year, and if the author didn’t follow through. Quick tip: Feel free to go nuts on anything published before 1923

    Outside the US we have different laws, natch, though we are subject to these laws if we sample works that have a US copyright. It would be interesting to see a UK/EU version of this.

    via Lifehacker

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Art of the Title Sequence

    The Art of the Title Sequence is a blog highlighting the best movie (and TV) title sequences. Some great ones on the list so far; some of the best, still to come.

    via Kottke

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Comparison of Maternity Leave Allowances

    The Economist graphically compares OECD maternity leave allowances.

    Sweden is the most generous of the OECD countries, not only offering most time off but also paying 80% of a woman’s salary for 390 days. For fathers, Britain offers a measly two weeks of unpaid leave, whereas in Norway and Iceland, for example, more even division of work between parents is encouraged with “father quotas”, a leave period reserved for dads on a “use it or lose it” basis.

    I’ve always thought that the Nordic countries have this right, or at least more right, than the rest of the OECD countries. Paternity leave in most of the world is embarrassing—it brings to mind a previous post on My Ideal Parenting Model.

    via Link Banana

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Man-in-the-Middle Attacks

    Bruce Schneier on Man-in-the-Middle attacks:

    The Wall Street Journal reported how this gambit played out in Colombia [FARC tricked into releasing 15 hostages]:

    “The plan had a chance of working because, for months, in an operation one army officer likened to a ‘broken telephone,’ military intelligence had been able to convince Ms. Betancourt’s captor, Gerardo Aguilar, a guerrilla known as ‘Cesar,’ that he was communicating with his top bosses in the guerrillas’ seven-man secretariat. Army intelligence convinced top guerrilla leaders that they were talking to Cesar. In reality, both were talking to army intelligence.”

    This ploy worked because Cesar and his guerrilla bosses didn’t know one another well. They didn’t recognize one anothers’ voices, and didn’t have a friendship or shared history that could have tipped them off about the ruse. Man-in-the-middle is defeated by context, and the FARC guerrillas didn’t have any.

    And that’s why man-in-the-middle, abbreviated MITM in the computer-security community, is such a problem online: Internet communication is often stripped of any context.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • 100 Push Ups: The PodRunner for Your Chest

    I stumbled upon One Hundred Push Ups over a month ago and completely forgot about it ’til now. At the time I thought exactly like Lifehacker: it’s the PodRunner Intervals for your chest.

    If you’re serious about increasing your strength, follow this six week training program and you’ll soon be on your way to completing 100 consecutive push ups!

    Lloyd Morgan

  • Viral Videos: Analysis and Classification

    Mike Laurie analyses and classifies classic viral videos.

    There are exactly one hundred million billion new viral marketing campaigns seeded every 10 minutes – the vast majority are completely dire and destined to fail. So what separates success from failure? Well, the best appear to exhibit similar patterns and by using these patterns in your own campaigns you could be on your way to a free buffet and a drunken snog at next Summer’s Revolution Awards.

    via Seth Godin

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Selling Hand-Washing to Africa

    The New York Times on how Dr Val Curtis ‘sold’ hand-washing to Africa:

    Diseases and disorders caused by dirty hands — like diarrhoea — kill a child somewhere in the world about every 15 seconds, and about half those deaths could be prevented with the regular use of soap, studies indicate.

    But getting people into a soap habit, it turns out, is surprisingly hard.

    To overcome this hurdle, Dr. Curtis called on three top consumer goods companies to find out how to sell hand-washing the same way they sell Speed Stick deodorant and Pringles potato chips.

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    Lloyd Morgan

  • Build a Fully Functioning Web 2.0 Business in 66.5 Hours

    In 2007 Matthew Inman created Mingle2, a fully functioning online dating business/website, in just 66.5 hours. From concept to launch. 6 months and 2 million visitors later, it was acquired by a competitor.

    He shared his experiences in the aptly named Mingle2 – How I Built a Web 2.0 Dating Site in 66.5 Hours.

    Let this be a testament to Web 2.0 and the effectiveness of rapid development frameworks: I built a full-featured dating website, from concept to launch, in 66.5 hours.  In a typical 9-5 job this would amount to about a week and a half.

    Lloyd Morgan

  • The Periodic Table of Videos

    The Periodic Table of Videos, from Nottingham University, UK: click on an element to watch an interesting video on it.

    via Kottke

    Lloyd Morgan

  • How Our Bodies Age

    The Washing ton Post has an interesting infographic on How Our Bodies Age (And What You Can Do About It).

    Aging is the natural wear and tear of the body’s component parts. It’s inevitable, and endlessly intriguing. While many age-related changes cannot be prevented, a lifestyle that includes exercise and a well-balanced diet will slow or minimize many problems related to aging.

    Lloyd Morgan