<Angered Brackets /> » Ethan

DIY: $5 bicycle dashboard and GPS

Ethan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:33:49 +0000

Riding my bicycle for over an hour a day as I make my way to work and back and around the city, I've often felt the need for a GPS. At other times, I would want a speedometer, so I'd have some idea at what speed I'm taking that slope.
In this post, I'll show you how to safely attach your cell phone to your handlebar for less than $5.

Ever since I got my Nokia 5800, it dawned on me that this device would be a great addition to my bike. Like many other smartphones, it has a built in GPS and a huge screen. If only there were some way of easily and safely attaching it to the bike...
In my search for a solution to this need, I found this cheap universal cell-phone mount and went and ordered it. Unfortunately, this mount is really bulky and as a result shakes wildly with every bump in the road. I did not feel safe having my phone in it. In addition, its big thumb screw makes it an easy target for thieves. This was clearly not the solution for my needs. I envisioned the phone flush with the handlebar. This was far from it.

I ended up making my own phone-mount, and it was as easy and cheap as can be. I took a detachable flashlight mount (similar, though not identical to this one), and glued it onto a silicone case I bought for my phone.

Remove the clamp that's meant to hold the flashlight. I used a pair of scissors to cut off most of the unneeded plastic, and then sanded the rest down with a leatherman. If you buy this one ($2.98, free shipping), it looks like the clamp unscrews, and you can use it for some other project (attach it to your helmet, maybe?)

I lightly sanded down the area on my silicone case where I was planning to glue the mount, in order to make sure the surface was free from chemicals & coatings, and to make it a little rougher, so the glue sticks better. Apply a thin, even layer of superglue, and firmly press the mount into place. Let it dry for about 20 minutes, and slide your phone into your new bike accessory.
You can find good silicone cases for almost every imaginable phone here; many for under $2.

So what does one do with a large-screen dashboard on one's bike? I've used MGMaps to get directions and navigate unfamiliar neighborhoods; Nokia Sports Tracker as a big-lettered speedometer and odometer (and as a bonus, it records your route so you can later analyze and share it); and Waze for voice turn-by-turn navigation. In addition, having your phone on your handlebar rather than your pocket allows you to see who's calling you. Video calls also work with the phone on the handlebar, pointing up at you.

I've been stopped by fellow cyclists on several occasions and asked about the GPS on my bike. I hope that this guide will get some of you guys out there to try this for yourselves. Just the bewildered looks you'll get from drivers around you will be worth it.

Can I have my Google Universal Translator now?

Ethan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:20:51 +0000

There have been a lot of changes and additions to services offered by Google in the past couple of weeks, and the way I see it, we’re no more than 6 months away from having a Google phone, that allows you to talk in English, and have your partner across the globe hear you in Chinese – and vise-versa.

As far back as two years ago, Google looked bid on an auction for American airwaves. Had they won this auction, they would have had the option of becoming a mobile carrier then and there. Android may never have been developed, or (more likely), would have come to be very differently.

Even without its own airwaves, with Android, Google has gotten quite a serious foot in the mobile door, and this week rumors of a phone developed by Google (rather than just the OS), have arisen. More accurately, these rumors say this won’t be so much a phone, as much as a 3G enabled hand-held computer.
(On a side note, let me say that I’d be very pleased to see this happen – the differentiation of voice from other data-transfer services has lasted far longer than it should have, since this is the milking cow of the mobile industry. Well, that and text messages)

But having an operating system for mobile phones is not enough, if you want to offer an end-to-end mobile service. This is where Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5 last week comes in: Take an Internet-only mobile device, install on it a SIP client that can communicate with Gizmo5, rout your Google Voice phone number to your Gizmo5 account, and you have end-to-end voice communication from any telephone to your mobile device. And as a bonus – there’s no per-minute charge.

Voice is definitely a big deal for Google at the moment. Over the past six months, Google has significantly improved it’s voice transcription technology. As has been the case with Google Voice from day one, and as they incorporated into YouTube this past week, Google can take any sentence, and transcribe it automatically, with amazing accuracy. It’s possible that for now this only works — or works best — for English, but it’s just a matter of time till it’s the case for the world’s 20 most spoken languages (And Klingon and Elvish, no doubt).

Google have also made huge strides as far as text translation goes. The new design of the Google Translate page is more intuitive, includes an Auto Detect option for the language of the text you’re inputting, and offers a translate-as-you-type feature. This same simultaneous translation was rolled out in Google Wave from the start, and two weeks ago they launched a translation service in Google Reader.

Putting it all together
So Google now has the ability to transcribe the spoken word to text, the ability to simultaneously translate text from one language to another, and the ability to read text out loud. And they have a growing influence on mobile communication. I think it’s trivial that putting all these together will lead to a mobile universal translator, where you speak in your native language on your end, Google detects the language your speaking, automatically translates it to your peer’s language of choice, and speaks it out loud to her on her side of the world.

The only thing missing for now, to make this perfect, would be for the reading out loud to be done in your voice. However, I have no doubt that Google are already working on developing the tech for this, or looking to buy any startup in this field.
If you want to get bought by Google, I think this is a field where you should be investing your R&D.

The best thing about Google’s tech, is that even if Google themselves don’t put all the pieces together to create a UT, it’s a rather simple mashup for anyone else to do so with their tech.

Along with water, there’s a woman on the moon

Ethan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:36:51 +0000

The media is all abuzz over NASA’s discovery of ice-water on the moon. This is great news, because it means the moon can potentially sustain more life than was earlier thought.
However, upon further ispection of NASA’s data, I have come to learn that there’s a woman on the moon (in addition to the man in the moon)
Have a look:

woman's face in moon

That ghostly image looks to me like a silhouette reflecting off of a pane of glass – as though this woman was standing in the room from which this photo was taken, with the moon right out the window.
The original image is:

Lunar south pole

Just to be clear, I don’t think this actually is a reflection or the image of a real person. Just a very convincing case of pareidolia. What do you think? Is the finding of water staged, just like the moon landing?

מוות לאלימים. ולהומואים. ולמקוששים בשבת

Ethan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:23:53 +0000

בעקבות הצעה של מספר חברי כנסת לעגן בחוק את האפשרות לגזור עונש מוות על אדם המורשע ברצח של קטין עד גיל 13, התפתח דיון ביני לחברתי. עלתה השאלה האם אין זה מנוגד לרוח היהדות.
מתוך ידיעה שעונש מוות מופיע תדיר בתורה, הסתקרנתי לראות בדיוק באילו מצבים התורה מצווה על עונש מוות.
חיפשתי באתר של מכון ממרא מופעים של המחרוזת הפופולרית “מות יומת”. הנה התוצאות לפניכם:

וְהִגְבַּלְתָּ אֶת-הָעָם סָבִיב לֵאמֹר, הִשָּׁמְרוּ לָכֶם עֲלוֹת בָּהָר וּנְגֹעַ בְּקָצֵהוּ: כָּל-הַנֹּגֵעַ בָּהָר, מוֹת יוּמָת. (שמות י”ט, 12)
וּמַכֵּה אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ, מוֹת יוּמָת. (שמות כ”א, 15)
וְגֹנֵב אִישׁ וּמְכָרוֹ וְנִמְצָא בְיָדוֹ, מוֹת יוּמָת. (שמות כ”א, 16)
וּמְקַלֵּל אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ, מוֹת יוּמָת. (שמות כ”א, 17)
כָּל-שֹׁכֵב עִם-בְּהֵמָה, מוֹת יוּמָת. (שמות כ”ב, 18)
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם, אֶת-הַשַּׁבָּת, כִּי קֹדֶשׁ הִוא, לָכֶם; מְחַלְלֶיהָ, מוֹת יוּמָת–כִּי כָּל-הָעֹשֶׂה בָהּ מְלָאכָה, וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִקֶּרֶב עַמֶּיהָ. (שמות ל”א, 14)
שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים, יֵעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה, וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן קֹדֶשׁ, לַיהוָה; כָּל-הָעֹשֶׂה מְלָאכָה בְּיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת, מוֹת יוּמָת. (שמות ל”א, 15)
וְאֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, תֹּאמַר, אִישׁ אִישׁ מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּמִן-הַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יִתֵּן מִזַּרְעוֹ לַמֹּלֶךְ, מוֹת יוּמָת; עַם הָאָרֶץ, יִרְגְּמֻהוּ בָאָבֶן. (ויקרא כ’, 2)
כִּי-אִישׁ אִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יְקַלֵּל אֶת-אָבִיו וְאֶת-אִמּוֹ–מוֹת יוּמָת: אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ קִלֵּל, דָּמָיו בּוֹ. (ויקרא כ’, 9)
וְאִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יִנְאַף אֶת-אֵשֶׁת אִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יִנְאַף, אֶת-אֵשֶׁת רֵעֵהוּ–מוֹת-יוּמַת הַנֹּאֵף, וְהַנֹּאָפֶת. (ויקרא כ’, 10)
וְאִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב אֶת-אֵשֶׁת אָבִיו–עֶרְוַת אָבִיו, גִּלָּה; מוֹת-יוּמְתוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם, דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם. (ויקרא כ’, 11)
וְאִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב אֶת-כַּלָּתוֹ–מוֹת יוּמְתוּ, שְׁנֵיהֶם: תֶּבֶל עָשׂוּ, דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם. (ויקרא כ’, 12)
וְאִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב אֶת-זָכָר מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה–תּוֹעֵבָה עָשׂוּ, שְׁנֵיהֶם; מוֹת יוּמָתוּ, דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם. (ויקרא כ’, 13)
וְאִישׁ, אֲשֶׁר יִתֵּן שְׁכָבְתּוֹ בִּבְהֵמָה–מוֹת יוּמָת; וְאֶת-הַבְּהֵמָה, תַּהֲרֹגוּ. (ויקרא כ’, 15)
וְאִשָּׁה, אֲשֶׁר תִּקְרַב אֶל-כָּל-בְּהֵמָה לְרִבְעָה אֹתָהּ–וְהָרַגְתָּ אֶת-הָאִשָּׁה, וְאֶת-הַבְּהֵמָה; מוֹת יוּמָתוּ, דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם. (ויקרא כ’, 16)
וְאִישׁ אוֹ-אִשָּׁה, כִּי-יִהְיֶה בָהֶם אוֹב אוֹ יִדְּעֹנִי–מוֹת יוּמָתוּ; בָּאֶבֶן יִרְגְּמוּ אֹתָם, דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם. (ויקרא כ’, 27)
וְנֹקֵב שֵׁם-יְהוָה מוֹת יוּמָת, רָגוֹם יִרְגְּמוּ-בוֹ כָּל-הָעֵדָה: כַּגֵּר, כָּאֶזְרָח–בְּנָקְבוֹ-שֵׁם, יוּמָת. (ויקרא כ”ד, 16)
וְאִישׁ, כִּי יַכֶּה כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ אָדָם–מוֹת, יוּמָת. (ויקרא כ”ד, 17)
כָּל-חֵרֶם, אֲשֶׁר יָחֳרַם מִן-הָאָדָם–לֹא יִפָּדֶה: מוֹת, יוּמָת. (ויקרא כ”ז, 29)
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, מוֹת יוּמַת הָאִישׁ; רָגוֹם אֹתוֹ בָאֲבָנִים כָּל-הָעֵדָה, מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה. (במדבר ט”ו, 35)
וְאִם-בִּכְלִי בַרְזֶל הִכָּהוּ וַיָּמֹת, רֹצֵחַ הוּא: מוֹת יוּמַת, הָרֹצֵחַ. (במדבר ל”ה, 16)
וְאִם בְּאֶבֶן יָד אֲשֶׁר-יָמוּת בָּהּ הִכָּהוּ, וַיָּמֹת–רֹצֵחַ הוּא: מוֹת יוּמַת, הָרֹצֵחַ. (במדבר ל”ה, 17)
אוֹ בִּכְלִי עֵץ-יָד אֲשֶׁר-יָמוּת בּוֹ הִכָּהוּ, וַיָּמֹת–רֹצֵחַ הוּא: מוֹת יוּמַת, הָרֹצֵחַ. (במדבר ל”ה, 18)
אוֹ בְאֵיבָה הִכָּהוּ בְיָדוֹ, וַיָּמֹת–מוֹת-יוּמַת הַמַּכֶּה, רֹצֵחַ הוּא: גֹּאֵל הַדָּם, יָמִית אֶת-הָרֹצֵחַ–בְּפִגְעוֹ-בוֹ. (במדבר ל”ה, 21)
וְלֹא-תִקְחוּ כֹפֶר לְנֶפֶשׁ רֹצֵחַ, אֲשֶׁר-הוּא רָשָׁע לָמוּת: כִּי-מוֹת, יוּמָת. (במדבר ל”ה, 31)

אז יש לפחות 25 מקרים (עם חזרות) בהם אנחנו מצווים להרוג פושעים. וזה רק עם המונח “מות יומת”. יש עוד עשרות אם לא מאות מצבים שעליהם גם יש עונש מוות, אבל בניסוח אחר.

אם זה הפרמטר היחיד על פיו בית המחוקקים שלנו היה מקבל החלטות, אבוי לנו.
כיום עונש המוות בישראל שמור רק לנאצים ולמשת”פיהם. אני רוצה לחשוב שאנחנו חיים במדינה מתוקנת שמכירה בערך החיים ולא מרגישה עצמה כבעלת ריבונות על חייהם של אזרחיה, עד לרמה של נטילתם.

האם ניהול זכויות קניין (נז”ק) הם עבירה על חוק המחשבים?

Ethan — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:01:14 +0000

לאחר שקראתי באנשים ומחשבים על שינוים המוצעים בחוק המחשבים, חיפשתי את לשון החוק הנוכחי.
פרק ב’ של החוק מגדיר מהם עבירות מחשב, לרבות:
“משבש את פעולתו התקינה של מחשב או מפריע לשימוש בו;
מוחק חומר מחשב, גורם לשינוי בו, משבשו בכל דרך אחרת או מפריע לשימוש בו.”
דינו של העובר עבירות אלה, אגב, הינו מאסר של שלוש שנים.

עכשיו נשאלת השאלה, מה נכלל תחת ההגדרה של שיבוש פעילות תקינה של מחשב או הפרעה לשימוש בו. האם חלונית ה-WGA של חלונות, המזכירה לך ש(אולי) הגרסה המותקנת אצלך של מוצר מיקרוסופט זה או אחר אינו מקורי לא מהווה שיבוש לפעילות של המחשב? מה לגבי מקרים שבהם יכולות מסויימות של מערכת ההפעלה מנוטרלות בשל אבחנה (נכונה או לא) של WGA?

ולגבי מחיקת חומר מחשב, רק לפני שבוע אמאזון מחקה מרחוק ספרים ממחשביהם של לקוחות שרכשו את 1984 וחוות החיות.

אני לא יודע אם חוק זה עמד במבחן בית המשפט למעט במקרה הסוס הטרויאני, אבל אני חושב שבניסוח הנוכחי שלו, החוק הזה אוסר על הרבה מההגבלות המובנות במנגנוני DRM (או נז”ק, בעברית). לדעתי שווה שמישהו שמבין קצת יותר בתחומים האלה יבחן את העניין.

XKCD Knockout Comic Downloader

Ethan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:00:57 +0000

XKCD, for those of you who don’t know, is a webcomic about (as it testifies of itself) romance, sarcasm, math, and language. In my opinion, it’s the best webcomic out there. I wanted to download the complete comics archive, for the sake of a local backup, and as an idea for a printed, coffee-table style book. However, I didn’t want just the comic’s image file – the best part of XKCD is often the alt-text that shows up as a tooltip when you mouse-over the comic. And of course there’s the comic’s title, as well.

There are several scripts out there that others have written before me that download the comic, and some even do a pretty good job of getting some of the extra data. However, I wanted more. I wanted a downloader that would get ALL the data available about the comics, and store it in an easily-retrievable, transformative manner.

This led me to write my own downloader, which I have dubbed the XKCD Knockout Comic Downloader (or XKCD, for short). I have relied to some degree on those who have come before me, and have modified their code.
Off the top of my head, I used some code by John Lawrence to find the latest comic number; and this discussion on Ubuntu forums got me started with getting the meta-data.

My downloader the most complete I’ve seen so far. of it’s notable features:

Store meta–data, including path to image, in XML file.
Choice of downloading the images or not.
Can append to an existing XML file, and update it since you last downloaded your personal batch of XKCD.
Will store all data about the comic, including seldom or never before used attributes, such as href, src, etc. (more on that later.)

Sure, this script isn’t a nifty one-liner that does all the work, but instead, it does more work, and does it well:

#!/bin/sh #-----user configurable----- append_to_file=true # continue from previous download download_path=~/xkcd/ image_path=images xmlfile=xkcd.xml download_images=true #--------------------------- #------configuration-------- i=1 latest=`wget -q -O - http://www.xkcd.com | grep 'link to this comic' | sed 's/.*xkcd.com.$[^\/]*$.*/\1/'` #--------------------------- if [ ! -d $download_path ] then mkdir $download_path fi cd $download_path if $download_images && [ ! -d $image_path ] then mkdir $image_path fi if $append_to_file && [ -f $xmlfile ] then sed -i '/\/xkcd/ d' $xmlfile i=$(tail -8 $xmlfile | grep '' | sed 's/^.*>$[0-9]\+$.*/\1/') i=`expr $i + 1` else echo "">>$xmlfile echo "">>$xmlfile echo "">>$xmlfile fi while [ $i -le $latest ] do echo " ">>$xmlfile echo " $i">>$xmlfile wget http://xkcd.com/$i/ img=$(grep http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/ index.html | head -1) params=$(($(echo $img | tr -dc '"' | wc -c)/2)) for ((j = 1; j <= $params; j++)) do param=$(echo $img | cut -d\" -f$(($j*2-1)) | sed 's/>*<*[a-z]*\ $[a-z]*$\=/\1/') val=$(echo $img | cut -d\" -f$(($j*2))) echo " <$param>$val">>$xmlfile if [ $param = src ] then filename=$(echo $val | cut -d\/ -f5) if $download_images then wget $val mv $filename "$image_path"/"$i"_"$filename" fi echo " $i"_"$filename">>$xmlfile fi done echo " ">>$xmlfile rm index.html i=`expr $i + 1` done echo "">>$xmlfile

Rather than explain all the regexs used, and the logic in the script, if you have any specific questions, please ask.
What distinguishes this script from others (of the rare few that download the meta-data) is that I’m not assuming any attributes exist, but am downloading all of them. This is useful for the irregular comics such as House of Pancakes or Lojban. In fact, I just ran a search for href in the XML file I created today, and found a few nuggets I’ve missed in the past.

The fact the data is stored in an XML file means it’s transformative. write a script to tweet the alt-text (why you would do that is beyond me), or create a tag cloud of frequently used words. My intention is to create an XSTL file that will display all the comics in a pleasing manner and bring it to print. (Dealing with Randal’s irregular image sizes is something I’m still working on, and am open to suggestions).

Let me know if you use this script and what creative ideas you have in mind for your stash of XKCD.

‫החדרת תגי תמיכה בדו-כיווניות (BiDi) בשדות טקסט‬

Ethan — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:38:25 +0000

הקדמה: פוסט זה הוא תגובה לפוסט של לירון נוימן בנושא הנ”ל. לירון שואל “מכירים את זה שאתם כותבים בעברית באתר בינלאומי כלשהו שלא תומך בכיווניות טקסט (למשל פייסבוק), ואז, לא רק שסימני הפיסוק שלכם יוצאים בצד הלא נכון, אלא גם שאם עירבתם גם אנגלית בטקסט, כל הסדר שלו מתחרבש?” הוא מסיים את הפוסט שלו ושואל “מי מתנדב להרים את הכפפה ולבנות איזה תוסף לשועל שיאפשר להוסיף את התווים האלה איפה שצריך…?”
ובכן, התשובה שלי היא ‘טוב, נו, אני אעשה את זה…’

הקדמה 2: פוסט זה הוא תרגום לעברית של הפוסט הקודם שלי, למקרה ואתם רוצים לקרוא את זה באנגלית או לחלוק עם אנשים בניכר.

הנה דוגמא לבעיה המתוארת:

ובכן, הפתרון (הנכון) לבעיה הזו היא כזו: יש לעטוף את הטקסט שאנחנו רוצים לשנות את הכיווניות שלו בתווי היוניקוד המציינים הטמעת כיווניות ימין לשמאל (או לחילופין שמאל לימין) בתחילת המחרוזת, ותו היוניקוד שמציין את סוף הכיווניות בסופה.
למידע נוסף, ראו כאן.

בשעתו, כשלירון כתב את הפוסט שלו, חשבתי לעצמי שזה עשוי להיות פרוייקט קטן וחביב – לכתוב תוסף לשועל, או סקריפט לקוף הגריז שמאפשר לך לעטוף טקסט שאתה כותב בתווים האלה, לטובת אלה שיבואו אחריך ויקראו את הטקסט שלך. אך מאז התוודעתי לבוקמרקלטים (סימניונות? יש לזה שם בעברית?), ולמדתי להעריך אותם עד מאד. אני חושב שסימניונת היא הדרך הטובה ביותר לפתור את הבעיה הזו, מאחר והן קטנות, קלות להתקנה ועריכה, ו(לפחות בתיאוריה) נתמכות על ידי כל הדפדפנים.

כשניגשתי לפתור את העניין, ידעתי שאני צריך להחדיר מחרוזת של תווים לפני ואחרי הטקסט המסומן בשדה-טקסט. ידעתי שראיתי את זה נעשה איפהשהו… אה, כן! ממש כאן, במערכת של WordPress, כשרוצים לסמן טקסט כמודגש או נטוי.
אז הלכתי למצוא את קוד הג’אווהסקריפט שעומד מאחורי היכולת הזו (זו פונקציה בשם edInsertTag), והוצאתי את החלקים שרלוונטיים לצורך שלי ולפיירפוקס (הרבה מהפונקציה המקורית נועדה לתאימות דפדפנים).

ללא דיחוי נוסף, אני גאה להציג בפניכם את RTL ואת LTR.

פשוט קחו את הקישורים האלה, וגררו אותם לסרגל כלים של הסימניות שלכם (אני יצרתי לעצמי תיקיה של סימניונות שימושיות), ובפעם הבאה שאתם כותבים טקסט דו-כיווני, סמנו את הקטע שזורם בכיוון הלא-נכון ולחצו על הסימניונת הרלוונטית.
תוכלו לנסות זאת כאן:
לחץ על RTL על מנת לתקן
use the LTR כדי לתקן this text

אשמח לקבל משוב על הסימניונות האלה. הן נוסו אך ורק בפיירפוקס, ולדעתי לא יעבדו בדפדפנים אחרים, מאחר ומהפונקציה שלקחתי מ-WP השארתי רק את החלקים שרלוונטיים לשועל. אם הם עובדים גם בדפדפנים אחרים, או לא עובדים כראוי בשועל, אנא יידעו אותי.

Inserting BiDi support tags in online Textareas

Ethan — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:34:44 +0000

This post will only be relevant to readers of right-to-left languages, and to developers who develop for such languages. As such, my next post will be a translation of this one into Hebrew.
A bit over a year ago, a friend of mine wrote about embedded unicode right-to-left and left-to-right characters in a flow of text. In a nutshell, when writing text that contains both LTR characters (like English) and RTL characters (like Hebrew), the flow of the text can wind up messed up. Here’s an example:

The (proper) solution to this conundrum is this: wrap your text, which you want flowing in the opposite direction from it’s encapsulating element, in the unicode characters for left-to-right embedding (or right-to-left embedding), and the Pop Directional Formatting character. For further reading, go here.

Back when Liron wrote that post of his, I thought it would be a nice little project to tackle – write a Firefox plugin or Greasemonkey user-script that allows you to encapsulate your text in these characters, for the sake of all those who will follow and read it. I have since then become familiar – and very fond of – bookmarklets. I think a bookmarklet is the best way to distribute the solution to this problem, because it’s lightweight, easy to install and modify, and (at least in theory) cross browser.

Coming to tackle this issue, I knew I needed to insert a string of characters in front of and after the selected text in a textarea. Where have I seen this done before?… Oh, right, right here in WordPress, when I want to make text I’m writing bold or italicized.
So I went about finding the Javascript behind that functionality (it’s the function edInsertTag), and I pulled out of it the bits that are relevant to this situation, and to Firefox.

With no further ado, I present to you RTL and LTR.

Simply drag those two links to your bookmark toolbar (I actually have a bookmark folder just for bookmarklets), and next time you’re writing bidirectional text, select the wrongly-flowing part, and align it properly.
You can try them out here:
לחץ על RTL על מנת לתקן
use the LTR כדי לתקן this text

I’d be happy to get feedback on these bookmarklets. They’ve only been tested in Firefox, and I think they will not work in other browsers, seeing how I only used one of the three cross-browser-compatibility parts of the wordpress JS I cannibalized. If they do work in other browsers, or do not work as expected in Firefox, please let me know.

Let There Be Light is a registered trademark of SAP’s Business Objects.

Ethan — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:58:47 +0000

Reading a post on Boingboing pointing out that God is a registered trademark, I was reminded of one of those little bits of information I assimilated along the way, but that was usually of little significance. Namely, that “Let There Be Light” is a registered trademark of Business Objects, which is owned by SAP.

© 2008 Business Objects, an SAP company. All rights reserved. Please refer to the user guide for a list of Business Objects’ patents. Business Objects and its logos, Business Objects, business Process On Demand, BusinessQuery, Crystal Applications, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Reports, Crystal Vision, Desktop Intelligence, Inxight and its logos, Star Tree, Table Lens, ThingFinder, Timewall, Let There Be Light, Metify, NSite, Rapid Marts, RapidMarts, Voyager, Web Intelligence, and Xcelsius are trademarks or registered trademarks in the United States and/or other countries of Business Objects and/or affiliated companies. SAP is the trademark or registered trademark of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

So if you didn’t have a good enough reason not to use god®’s name in vein, now you do.
Goddammit!

Measuring copyright duration in man-years, the only way it really matters

Ethan — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:22:49 +0000

As anyone who’s interested in a free culture knows, copyright law has been getting more and more restrictive over the past 100 years or so. When an author published a book one hundred years ago, she enjoyed the exclusive right to reproduce her work and distribute it for a maximum of 42 years. Less, if she did not jump through all the red-tape hoops of renewing copyright after the initial 14 years, and again after 28. The copyright acts of 1831 and 1909 amended copyright law, extending it – including for works already published and still under copyright – from 28 years prior to 1831 to a maximum of 42 and then 56 years. This trend of extending the protection of copyright has been going on ever since, with the latest being the copyright act of 1998, which extended the duration of copyright to 95 years.

So copyright has been getting increasingly extended, and while 200 years ago you would have had monopoly on your work for a maximum of 28 years, today it’s four times that, and encompassing more types of intellectual property. But I would like to argue that over the past 100 years alone, copyright has become over eight times as restrictive. How? Because I don’t think measuring the length of copyright in years is of as much meaning as measuring it in man-years, and the population is growing constantly.

The following chart by Tom W Bell shows the duration of copyright over the past 200 years, including the retroactive extensions. This chart refers to works of art created by individuals, and there are some minor differences between the duration of copyright for hired works (AKA created by companies like Disney and Time worner):

This is what the population size in the US has looked like over the same period of time:

I took these and combined these two datasets. I went and added some population size projections from the U.S. Census Bureau’s site, and added some extrapolations of my own. This gave me a chart with the duration of copyright from 1790 to 2009, and the number of people living in the US since 1790 through 2100. Combining the two, I got to the number of manyears a work is under copyright:

Man years, in respect to copyrighted works, represent the number of opportunities you have to sell your content to the public and return your investment in it.. Alternately, you can think of it as the opportunities the public has to buy and consume your work. If you have enough time to read two books a month, you’ll consume two books. If the population is one person, only two books will be consumes. If it’s a million, then two-million books will be consumes. I’m ignoring, for the sake of these calculations, the fact that over the past two centuries a greater percentage of people have become literate, and thus potential consumers of intellectual works of art. In addition, the cost of distributing your content and exposing it to a larger number of people has dropped significantly on a per-person basis. These two facts further strengthen my point, but I’m leaving them out, for the sake of simplicity.

What this all means: If I were to publish a book in 1800, I’d have a consumer base of 5 million people in the US (Let’s pretend everyone is literate and has a B&N or Amazon in their little town). At the time of the publication, copyright law would give me 28 years to sell my book, and thus – adding up the number of people in the US for the next 28 years – My book is under copyright for a total of 230 million man-years. that’s 230,000,000 man years in which no-one is allowed to do anything creative or transformative with my work.

It’s now 1900, 100 years later. There are now 76 million US citizens. At the time of writing my new book, copyright would offer me 42 years of monopoly. I take this into account when deciding to publish my book, and conclude that this is adequate time to recoup my investment. Fortunately for me (or not?), just 9 years after publishing my book, the copyright act of 1909 come round, and gives me an extension on my copyright, so that now I have monopoly on my book till 1956.
Over these 56 years, two world wars will occur, and 6.5 billion man hours will go by in the US, all without the right to do a thing with my book. Yes, that’s 30 times more restrictive than a century ago.

Fast forward to the year 2000. It’s a whole new millennium, and I’m producing a documentary movie about book publishing in the early 1900s. It’s a fascinating topic and I have hands-on experience. US population is above 280 million people, and (assuming copyright does not get extended again during the next 90 years), Americans will have 43 billion man years in which to watch my 90 minute movie. All proceeds go to me.

Copyright law is meant to strike a balance between the interests of ~~publishers~~ creators and of the general public. That balance, in 1790, meant that an American publisher had the right to deprive the public from free access to a work he owned for 171 million man-years, during which he would try and sell his works and gain a profit off of them. 200 years later, with the growth of the population, that same author can recoup his investment so much faster. You’d think copyright term would actually be shortened.

But in fact, with the US population growing 100 fold in the past 200 years, and copyright term getting quadrupled over that time, we are now 300 times more restricted then we would have been six generations ago.

I think we’ve been short-changed out of our culture far more than anyone ever realized, and it’s time to bring copyright law back into balance.