gopal

gopal, 3 months ago to design

A good book and accompanying DVD is Designing Interactions / Bill Moggridge. They covers some of the earlier days of computing. On them it shows a few other Xerox mouse designs that are totally different from what is used today. Also shows the first laptop. The book and DVD also cover up-to mid-2000s interviews looking back. Also has more than one interview / perspectives more than one for the mouse and palm pilot.

#computinghistory
#design
#photography
#games

#dvds
#book

@pluralistic

petergleick, 3 months ago to random

From my new LA Times op-ed.

"Atmospheric rivers and bone-dry droughts are like earthquakes and wildfires — challenges Californians have to face. We know they’re coming; we just don’t know exactly when or where. An earthquake-resilient house or a more flood-resilient community won’t stop the ground from shaking or the rain from falling, but it can mean the difference between weathering the storm or cleaning up after a disaster."

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-31/california-atmospheric-river-flood-rain-snow

bicmay, 4 months ago to ukteachers

“What we’re hearing from some teachers is that they often struggle with getting students to understand the standards because the materials they’re using, the texts that they’re using, are either abstract, or have a different relevance, and so there’s an added sort of translational work that needs to happen in the classroom to talk about how to get to the standards and learning objectives,” Chang said.

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-this-state-is-creating-an-asian-american-curriculum-and-why-its-doing-so/2024/01

#aapi #aanhpi #education #UShistory #aapihistory

Morgan, 4 months ago to random

Please note: Mickey Mouse is NOT public domain. The trademark and intellectual property rights for the character and name of “Mickey Mouse” are still owned by the Walt Disney Company.
If you use that name, you are liable to be sued by Disney for trademark infringement.

It is true that “ideas” cannot be copyrighted, but designs, stories and media can be. Ideas can, however, be trademarked, and those rights don’t expire as long as the holder keeps using the mark commercially.

What is public domain this year is the actual footage of the “Steamboat Willie” cartoon published in 1928, as well as another Mickey Mouse cartoon called “Plane Crazy” which also premiered in 1928.

Some have suggested that in order to play it as safely as possible and avoid any potential legal issues with Disney, anyone who wants to use the mouse in their works should try and differentiate between the Mickey Mouse still owned by Disney— red shorts, yellow shoes, white gloves, tan face, small eyes, 1940s+ (modern) Mickey— and their depiction of the mouse as much as possible.

I saw one artist recommend using the design from Plane Crazy (no shoes, no gloves, gray shorts, large eyes) and I’ve also heard at least one artist refer to the Public Domain design as “Steamboat Willie” to avoid saying the trademarked name that is still protected. Technically Steamboat Willie is the name of the boat, but I think calling him Steamboat Willie isn’t a problem.

One should also be careful using the silhouette of the mouse, as the standard “three circles” shape is also trademarked by Disney.

Essentially, what you can unambiguously use without fear of being sued are as follows:
• The actual footage, or a frame of the same, from the “Steamboat Willie” and “Plane Crazy” films,
• The music from said films,
• The storylines from said films

You may be able to use, separately from the context of said films:
• The specific character designs of the characters featured in said films,
• The names “Mickey Mouse”, “Minnie Mouse”, “Pete the Cat”, with reference to said designs featured in said films

What you unambiguously CANNOT use without getting sued, unless used in a fair manner:
• The name and likeness of the Mickey Mouse character, or any other said character, from any other film,
• Any of these said things if used to imply a connection to, affiliation with, or approval of the Walt Disney Company in any way.

helenczerski, 7 months ago to climate

Just finished Chris vT's excellent book Ultra-Processed People & found these two paragraphs. They ring so true, because this is not just tobacco or health or food, but it's exactly the problem we have with COP28, with the UAE's national oil chief in charge:

"No-one thinks that tobacco legislation should be written by charities funded by British American Tobacco... the relationship cannot be one of partnership"

This needs to be written everywhere: regulators CANNOT be partners

#climate #COP28

arrdem, 11 months ago to random

.... how do people listen to and manage plain old mp3/4s these days. Is Plex any good at it?