38 Fascinating Maps

Enough of the Oscars.  Here are 38 fascinating maps.

Ice Cubes: The Recipe

Ice Cubes. The recipe.

To appreciate fully how special this recipe is, click on "Ratings and Reviews."

"Happy Birthday" -- a Copyright Problem

Although the song "Happy Birthday to You" was written in the 1800's, Time Warner/Warner Music claims that it's still under copyright and demands royalties each time it is publicly performed. While its copyright status is doubtful, Warner still collects $2 million per year in royalties.

There was a contest to come up with a royalty-free alternative. It's not good.  Sadly, "It sounds like Radiohead made a birthday dirge and left out their trademark happy-go-lucky pep."  So it looks like Warner will keep getting its royalties.

Social Media Explained.

As told by #donuts.

My Latest EFF Project: Orphan Works Comments

For my latest project with EFF, I helped write the comments that EFF and Public Knowledge filed with the Copyright Office about "orphan works."  Orphan works are copyrighted works where the copyright owner cannot be contacted.  The orphan works problem arose as a result of the 1976 Copyright Act and subsequent amendments to that act.  The 1976 Act (1) removed the requirement that works be published with a copyright notice, making it harder to identify the author; (2) made copyrights to be effective merely upon creation of the work, rather than upon registration of the work with the copyright office, which also makes it harder to find the author; and (3) lengthened the term of copyright, so that very old works are still possibly covered even though their author is long gone.  The orphan works problem is a serious issue in the United States and throughout the world.

EFF's article about our recent comments is here.  A link to all 91 comments is here.

Super Bowl Commercial Preview

I found a few previews of some more Super Bowl commercials.  Here are some by Doritos (skip ahead to the 2:09 mark).  Here are ten of them, including one of the Doritos commercials and the Samsung classic, which is understandably #1.