Slashback: Cameos, Sculpture, Brimstone

Slashback this evening provides updates on recent Slashdot stories about BBC podcasting, the impact of GPL'd fonts on documents and programs which make use of them, Moore's Law, the much-anticipated "Hitchhiker's" movie, and more -- read on below for the details.

What if my ship is under the GPL, and it crosses the International Dateline? innocent_white_lamb writes "A participant on the Scribus mailing list has posted a reply that he received from the FSF regarding the recent GPL font-licensing discussion, i.e. when does your document become subject to the GPL if you use GPL licensed fonts."

In short, it's less of a worry than some people made it out to be in the earlier Slashdot discussion, but it's not a merely imaginary issue.

They should offer MP3 players shaped like tiny fish. ProsperoDGC writes "The BBC is offering more shows as podcasts. While only non-music programs will be available (due to potential copyright problems with music-based shows), the variety of content is representative of BBC radio's output, including news, interviews, documentaries, and sport."

Every year, the artist has to double the bottom-most layer. Qbertino writes "The online version of the German news-magazine Der Spiegel has a short photo-bulletin on a sculpture in the Heinz-Nixdorf-Museumsforum of Paderborn. The sculpture represents Moores Law, formulated 40 years ago by Intel co-founder Gorden Moore. It states that the amount of transistors on a chip doubles every 24 months while at the same time the size of the chip halves. The law still applies to this very day. Bulletin and thumbnail here (text in German) and a larger picture here. An impressive visualization."

Look very carefully for that fellow from 'The Office.' jangobongo writes "In an interview with SciFi Wire, Garth Jennings, director of 'Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy', reveals some hidden in-jokes and homages in the movie. Among them: Simon Jones, who played Arthur Dent in the original TV series, can be seen and heard briefly as a Magrathean announcer - in 3D (get out your red & green 3D glasses!); the original Marvin robot can be seen in a queue of volunteers lining up to save Trillian; and in several places, head shots of Douglas Adams can be seen. Look for one, as the characters are flying through the planet factory, where Douglas' whole head is a giant planet. "It's quite lovely," says Jennings."

Popping trial balloons as they slink up the flagpole. bonch writes "Sony is now backpedaling on a recent CEO's slip of the tongue about a recently reported iTunes-like movie-download service. Steve Banfield, vice president of Sony Connect, says Sony is digitizing its movies and will allow some video clips to be used royalty-free for video 'mash' projects, but that Sony is not planning to to create an 'iTunes for Hollywood.'"

Dino alive, kicking, and annoying. Last May, we posted a story about the dino-shaped cam surviving under harsh conditions on New Zealand's volcanic White Island.

fraygos writes "Counting on the sulphur and high acid environment to deal to the creature has yielded little as Dino refuses to die. It's been almost a year and our darling dinosaur shows little erosion."

Re:NZ: Geological AND Nuclear Sciences?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought was "How can a country that declared itself a nuclear-free zone have a Department of Nuclear Sciences???"

the real problem with the HHG movie

[illuminatedwax]

"The original Marvin robot that was used in the TV series, we managed to track down at the BBC studios. It was all in pieces, like this dismembered body. It was really grim. And they got him out and polished him up and made all his lights work and everything, and it was great. We put him on set in the queuing group,..."

"He had cyberscanned his head for a computer game," Jennings said. "We had access to his data, so when we built the Temple of Deep Thought, which is this giant nose and nostrils, etc., it's actually Douglas' nose, perfectly rebuilt 30 feet [high]. Not that anyone is going to go, 'Hey, that's Douglas' nose,' but it just felt like quite a fun thing to do."

"At the end, the final improbability effect is Douglas' face."

Translation: They were more focused on making cute in-jokes and references to Douglas Adams than making good decisions about the movie. "Improbability effect? Perfect! Go with it!"

HHG movie - something for everyone

[option8]

what the BBC is saying here:

for non-fans, it's a fun romp with some gags and plenty of fun effect to look at. ooh! a cute, crazy little robot! buy the plushie!

for those that are already fans of the books (and whatnot) you're going to hate it with a passion! but come back twice - there's more in jokes that you missed the first time because you were crying in your popcorn over the sheer bloody stupidity of it all. and look! there's douglas adams' nose! again!

(from TFA: "There are tons of things crammed in there. Basically if we needed a prop or a name for something we just used the original material as a reference.")

it seems to me that, in reality, when they needed a prop or something to fill in the space, they used bits of the author's corpse, and the money-grubbing whores that are his surviving family [planetmagrathea.com].

BBC

[Lord_Dweomer]

I really wish they WOULD find some way to release the music. As an avid listener of the Essential Selection and the Essential Mix, I am forced to download the shows I want through various P2P services. Thankfully, Freshly-Mixed has all of the Essential Mixes I need, but I need to rip the Essential Selection streams and convert them myself, which is a major time sink and a PITA.

There's huge demand for that, and I think the labels are nuts. They could even charge for those downloaded shows and the labels could split the proceeds.

Re:Font faces not copyrightable?

[prizog]

Actually, you raise a good point. I've just been researching this issue for my final writeup (based on the letter I sent to Scribus), and it's a little more complex than I first thought. Basically, there's (effectively) a circuit split, although the opinion (effectively) supporting font face copyright (a) claims not to and (b) is unpublished. Also, the copyright office reportedly disagrees with itself, but (of course) none of the rules are online from the office itself; they're buried in federal archives which are only available on dead trees.

I'm not in a position to offer a final analysis yet, but that's what I've learned so far.

Anyway, that only applies to the US; plus there are design patents to contend with.

Re:This bodes ill

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine how long that pink piece of plastic would last in a friggin landfill.

No - this is a good thing!
After the conservative religious movement in America and elsewhere helps plunge the world into another Dark Ages, in another thousand years or so, the new human societies will be able to get a very accurate representation of our disposable, plastic-ridden society!

They certainly won't get that information from any present day records. Those will all be non-recoverable since our beloved corporate masters have ensured everything is going to be DRM-loaded, encrypted, and impossible to release into the public domain.

Re:Moore's Law

[modemboy]

Well, both you and the submitter are way off base as to the definition of Moore's law. Try a quick google and read intel's page or maybe even Moore's original paper.
He observed that the number of transistors or "components" per i.c. would double every 2 years. That's it. So technically it could keep going forever. But you'll end up with a big i.c. eventually. He said nothing of the size afaik.

Source:
http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/m ooreslaw.ht m