Cory@Google

So, cruising through BoingBoing on the first day of my vacation@home netted me this talk that Cory Doctorow gave at Google.

It has in it a few things that I've heard or watched him speak about in the past, but also quite a bit of about how 'intellectual property' has changed our economy. It clarified for me something that I've long thought about in a new perspective. That is the reason that government is so pro-business when it comes to ip. Rather than just chalking it up to congresspeople and senators as beholden to the lobbyists and campaign contributions, it makes a kind of (the kind I disagree) with economic sense to ensure that revenues continue to follow the stream into our economy.

Rather than restate what he's already said more effectively to lay out the groundwork of the argument, here's the talk itself:

Boredom...

It's by no means new, and I want to stress that I have no love for NASCAR whatsoever. But I do love my Geico commercials. Especially this one:

Semantic Bookshelf?

I added a little listing of random books from my librarything.com collection to the sidebar last weekend. I discovered the site listening to the podcast of Open Source Radio entitled Weinberger's Miscellany. The site intrigued me as both a way to sort and organize my own books (I had been planning on building a small database), but also to seek out recommendations based on what I own, display them here, and peek into friends' libraries as well as seek out new friends with similar interests.

So far, I've gotten a handful of friends hooked on it as well. If you don't do anything like this for a while, you forget how attached people are to the books they've read and love. Its been amazing to realize just how upset I am that there are half a dozen or so (all my Nick Hornby, some Douglas Coupland, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick) books that I've either had go missing on me, or simply lost over the years and moving around.

Its also given me a bit of a shake-up as I realize just how many graphic novels I've accumulated. That doesn't even begin to get into the comics that line shelves in my bedroom; though some of the better series' I've started to pick up graphic novel forms of, because its more convenient to loan those out to friends who aren't already into comics, or haven't read certain series, etc.

Also started a tumbelog this weekend, although its mostly feeds from this page and my shared items in google reader, through Tumblr, and I'm adding a link to that on this page as well.

Comics!

Okay, so its Free Comic Book Day, and I haven't bought comics in well over a year. I've been reading some of them again recently, though, and in honour of the holiday, I decided to visit the two comic book stores near me. Also, today was an awesome day to get out even if it was just to drive to a little town, then back past my apartment the other way to a shopping center. At least I took the scenic route.

The first one, Funnybooks, in Lake Hiawatha, is a tiny little store, was packed with high school boys (yeah yeah, no girls), and the owner didn't stop talking to people the entire time I was in the store. That last bit was far less annoying than it sounds, in fact, it was really cool to see him interact with these kids, you could tell they'd grown up going to the store, and he made the effort to know them personally.

The other was Fat Moose Comics & Games, which is closer to work, has a bigger selection, more space .. and I liked it a whole lot less. Not that it was in any rational way deficient, but the hometown feel of Funnybooks will probably keep me coming back -- at least if they have a subscription service so I can get the books I want.

Oh my god. Comics!

And yes, I totally missed my 'Hockey!' post. I've been meaning to do it since the first round of the playoffs started, but I'll hold it back for a Rangers! post after game 7.