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Selecting open, free, or commons licenses for content and code

Content and code licensing is a bit of a minefield.

The first thing to remember is that in the UK and USA at least, all creative works are automatically protected by copyright from the moment they are made. The creator retains exclusive rights to their work, and nobody can share, copy, or use the work without the creator’s direct permission unless they are sharing it in fair use (critique, comment, parody, etc.). This is the reasoning behind the classic “all rights reserved” statement you often see in relation to a creative work.

Cover of “Copy This Book” by Eric Schrijver

But it is foolish to believe that “all rights reserved” will always be respected for content online. Tumblr and other platforms have made it so effortless to share others’ work that the public perception of copyright is seriously warped. Creators are very welcome to reserve their rights to all of their work but if they’re releasing it online under such terms, they should be prepared for a lot of violations.

The nature of the Internet created a need for less restrictive copyright licenses, and a whole host of open, free, and commons licenses have filled the void. This is my experience navigating the space for my own work including some of the resources I’ve used, the licenses I have chosen, and my reasoning.

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Ceramic cat by a young David Hockney

Life-size black and white ceramic cat by David Hockney

Ceramic Cat
David Hockney 1955

On loan from Jean and Paul Hockney.

This cat was given to David Hockney’s brother and sister-in-law as a wedding present in September 1955. It was one of approximately four cats made by the artist whilst a student at Bradford College of Art. After the model was produced the mould broke, making this sculpture unique as it was the only one with indentations. Subsequent versions were produced with a smooth finish and in different colours.

This life-size ceramic cat with stubby little legs is in one of the display cases in the ground floor of Salts Mill alongside many other pieces by David Hockney.

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Switching from Google Analytics to Matomo (f.k.a. Piwik) on WordPress

It’s a new decade, time to leave Google Analytics.

A big part of me wants to say screw it, just get rid of analytics altogether. But I find it interesting. I’ve never used it to decide what to write, and I don’t think I ever will, but it’s just fascinating to find out what makes the rounds. I’ll never know why a short post about repairing my mom’s straw bag was my most popular post for years, but I’m glad to know a lot of people checked it out.

So I decided to keep my Google Analytics property in place and just locked it down as much as I could. I adjusted the script to respect users’ Do Not Track browser settings (Paul Fawkesley has a short article about how to do this). I also configured Google Analytics to anonymise IP addresses, and I deliberately disabled Data Collection for Advertising Features, Demographics and Interest Reports, User-ID, and all data-sharing settings. I also set a low data retention policy to make sure old data would get deleted.

None of this changed the fact that I was still sharing data with Google.

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The youngest lifeboat crew rescue airmen

A story from the past via the Whitby Lifeboat Museum.

The museum is at the end of Pier Road just past the arcades in the old Whitby lifeboat station. The station was one of the first, established in 1802. It was taken over by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) after the 1861 lifeboat disaster which resulted in the tragic loss of 12 from a crew of 13. The station was closed and turned in to a museum in 1957 and was temporarily brought back in to service in 2005 while Whitby’s existing station was demolished and rebuilt.

Donate to the RNLI.

YOUNGEST EVER LIFEBOAT CREW RESCUE AIRMEN

25th March 1942

At 10.55 am, a telephone message was sent to the lifeboat station from H.M. Coastguard stating that an aircraft was down in the sea 1 mile off Sandsend and that the lifeboat was 
requested to launch immediately.

The Motor Mechanic Jim Philpott realised that all of the regular crew were at sea fishing, and after the maroons were fired, he subsequently managed to find a retired Coxswain Thomas Welham (71), and mustered 5 more crew who were all just 16 years old.

The lifeboat proceeded to sea in patchy fog and soon found traces of oil on the water. Eventually, after a short search, the lifeboat located a rubber dinghy with four aircrew inside.

The airmen were taken aboard the lifeboat suffering from head wounds and one a leg injury.

All were landed at the fish quay about 30 minutes later and transferred to Whitby Hospital.

The Aircraft was a Lockheed Hudson of the R.A.F. which had earlier sunk.



The photograph below shows, left to right:

F. Russell, P. Storr, T. Lewis, Cox T. Welham, R. Russell, J. Philpott

A photo of R. Murfield is not available.

Each man (and boy) received 19 shillings (95p) for their services.



The Pilot expressed gratitude to the lifeboat crew, and also his surprise at the speed of their rescue.

Young Whitby lifeboat crewmen

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Sandsend → Whitby

Walking from Sandsend to Whitby

This new year, we stayed in a cottage in Sandsend with a bunch of close friends. On the 30th, we walked to Whitby along the beach while the tide was out. Top-notch dog watching. It was gorgeous, sunny and around 50F/10C. We all had to take our coats off. Shame it wasn’t so warm on the 1st, we ended up chickening out of a new year’s dip in the sea.

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To read: “The Ego and Its Own” by Max Stirner

To read: The Ego and Its Own by Max Stirner. Via a black-crowned night heron in a midnight pond:

stirner’s whole schtick was being against ideology in general. […] behaving a certain way in the name of an Idea is therefore completely illogical, because, it’s not real! what’s real is your own happiness and comfort in the world.

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“it is possible to imagine [a critical sensibility] in which social paranoia is not foundational”

The sore winner is a product of the hyper-surveilled and personalized world in which we all now live, one in which people feel both nebulously responsible for everything wrong while also feeling responsible for nothing at all.

From the Outline article “A decade of sore winners” by B.D. McClay. A lot of stuff in this article is spot-on. It also relates directly to the response I received from my Republican representative regarding the impeachment of President Trump.

One of my rep’s many dubious points was that Ukranian leaders publicly attacked candidate Trump in the press, and that this was evidence of Ukranian meddling in 2016 elections. Specifically, he linked to an article in The Hill by Ambassador Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States from 2015 to 2019. I read the article by Amb. Chaly, and all I can see is an opinion piece that fairly criticises statements made by a candidate for one of the most powerful positions in the world.

How do you make the mental leap necessary to conflate principled criticism with personal attack? Furthermore, how could anything in that article be considered meddling in an election? The vast majority of Chaly’s article is a recent history of events in Ukraine.

This is sore winner territory. Here’s how McClay illustrates it in their article:

Worse still than the idea that things are for you is the extension into identification: that these things literally are you. If someone writes books for teen girls, to criticize her books is to criticize teen girls. Expressing something other than support for Taylor Swift guarantees you a place in that special hell for women who don’t support other women. If you like superhero movies and video games, and somebody outlines the reasons they think superhero movies and video games are a waste of time, that’s an attack on you, personally, not a disagreement over aesthetics.

How do we get past this? More critical thinking taught in schools and beyond? More restrictions on social media? Surely it has to be a personal exercise but it seems like such a fundamental and widespread problem, almost a public mental health emergency (one of many).

It is impossible to imagine a critical sensibility that does not exist socially. But it is possible to imagine one in which social paranoia is not foundational, and in which social reception — of work, of ourselves — does not have to determine our reaction to each other.

It’s possible to imagine it, but it’s pretty difficult to picture without some sort of major overhaul in day-to-day life.