onfocus

the dog thought the beach was the best thing ever

YADPP

Journalism.co.uk: Reuters launches content tracker: "Reuters has announced the launch of a new software system that will allow it to monitor the web for re-publication and copyright infringement of its news content." bloggers, you have been warned. Reuters is going to make sure your fair use is actually fair. A good rule of thumb: don't copy and paste an entire article into your weblog. Just quote relevant sections. (Photos may be a different story, I don't know.) They're also going to use this system to track the popularity of Reuters stories—which will most likely be a private system. It'd be nice to see a Reuterdex with pointers to weblogs citing Reuters articles, but that's not very likely. I bet there will be more and more private, specialized weblog-tracking tools. (And more people willing to pay for that data.)

The stairs at Devil's Punchbowl

The beach at Devil's Punchbowl near Newport

Saturday night sk and I went to hear Dennis Kucinich speak at the Old World Deli here in Corvallis. I hadn't heard more than a couple soundbites from him on TV before, so I didn't really know what to expect. I was very impressed with his message, his speaking ability, and the way he related to the crowd. Here are a few photos from the talk:



Even though Kerry is the party's foregone conclusion, Kucinich explained that he's still in the race to try to get the Democratic party to adopt a more progressive platform. If Kucinich wins one or two states at the end of the primary, (Oregon votes late on May 18th) it could impact the positions Kerry has to take to win the election. His speech was energizing and it was great to hear a national politician taking positions that I believe in. It was also surprising to me to be in a crowded room full of people with similar views. You mean I'm not the only one?

Here's a local story about the event: Kucinich rallies Demos in Corvallis.

Today sk said, "It doesn't feel like spring without pictures of flowers on your site." Here are a few so it can feel that much more like spring around here.

What's happening to the music portion of the South by Southwest festival? If I would have stayed for music, I know I would have been at the Ozomatli show. They're one of the best live bands I've seen. But it sounds like things got out of control at the end of the night. Taking the music out to 6th street after the bar closes isn't anything new. Brave Combo took their encore to the street in 2000 when the bar said stop, and it rocked. They played for 20 minutes or so with no amps, and there was no riot gear required. Maybe Austin is cracking down now, but arresting band members and spraying the audience with pepper spray seems excessive.

There are eyewitness accounts and some conversation about what this says about the character of Austin at the Ozomatli discussion board. There's video of the event at News 8 Austin: SXSW band's arrest raises questions about noise ordinance.

A couple of animated pictures of Austin during the day vs. night: downtown (344 kB), highway (343 kB). These were taken at the new Hilton downtown. I wish I would have taken both day and night photos of this new building:



The top lights up.

These are sad times for developers in Oregon. I just spotted this job listing on craigslist:

We are looking for a developer/designer who is highly skilled of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ASP.NET, PHP, Java, C++, C, Unix/Linux, Windows, Macintosh OS X, SQL (Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL & PostgreSQL please),UML. Must have BS in Computer Science, marketing,sales, business and writing experience a plus, preference given to those with an MBA. Must also have excellent design and artistic skills, video (filming and editing) experience a plus.

Compensation: $10/hour

Maybe it's a joke/typo, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't.