Mar 26, 2018

Digital Scavenger Hunt. Subject: “Heavy Metal Music”

Entered into Google Ngram Viewer as “Heavy Metal Music” (included “Music to avoid periodic chart type heavy metals). Zooming focus revealed term first appeared in 1976. Other searches revealed many of what we refer to today as “Heavy Metal’ were called “Hard Rock” previous to ~1976. For example, AC/DC formed in 1974. I’d chalk it up to the evolution of the English language in popular culture.

Mar 28, 2018

Copyrighting and the Birthday Song. I’m all for protecting the intellectual art and written work of others, but this issue has reached ludicrous velocity. Apologies to the late Hill sisters and their descendants.

Balancing openness vs. profit regarding intellectual property is one messy problem to ponder. The only solution is to set a reasonable period for copyrights. The definition of “reasonable” can be debated at length, but I do know what is unreasonable: the Disney Act of 1998. The Washington Post characterized the Copyright Term Extension (Disney) Act of 1998 as “…starving the public domain of new works for 20 years…”

Intellectual property vs. physical property. I can build a fence around my livestock, but the computer code I wrote can never truly be fenced-in. The physical world is so much easier to maintain.

The concept of corporations as disembodied immortal beings. That really adds another dimension to how I view corporations from now on. It’s both cool and creepy at the same time.

Bonus fact learned today: Before modern medicine and nutrition, average lifespan figures were skewed by high infant mortality rates.