February 28, 2006
Quick Hits P.S.: It’s California
Forgot to mention this below, but it’s official: I’m going to stick around for June and July to study for and take the California bar before heading back to D.C. Huzzah!
Posted by Rob Courtney at 11:42 AM
Quick Hits: Katrina, D.C., BeatnikPad
What’s been going on? What hasn’t!
- Met up with Davis and Lauren for dinner at the Old Pro. When we leave here, I’ll miss that place—but I won’t have to miss Davis & Lauren who are moving to D.C.! Davis has accepted a job at DOJ’s environmental division.
- Attended Assessing Katrina: Rebuild or Abandon? with C and Sue last night. Buzz Thompson chaired a panel discussion among a disaster response planner, a civil engineer, and a sociologist on how to assess rebuilding in the Gulf Coast. The thing they all seemed to agree on was the very hardest to achieve: ensuring that the residents of destroyed areas feel included in the policy decisions about what to do next. More on this later.
- The Olympics ended. My feelings of sportsmanship and fair play went back into hibernation.
- Hail BeatnikPad, and its G4- and G5-optimized versions of Firefox. Suggestion: If you go this route, try building a new Firefox profile (i.e., delete or rename ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/profiles.ini) after you’ve installed the recompiled version.
- Dan W. emailed out a list of MySpace pages from OPHS alums. Surreal.
Out.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 11:16 AM
February 24, 2006
Book review: Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web
Ha ha! When the history of U.Id. is written, the team of responsible kindergartners will take great satisfaction in pointing out that the first book review was not a novel or biography, but technical manual that is likely to make most readers sprain their finger clicking the “Back” button. However, this is a genuinely useful book and I wanted to say a quick word about it.
Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web (2nd ed., 1999), by Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos
For starters, Håkon Wium Lie was W3C’s pointman for years on CSS (the book credits him as the original proponent of CSS way back when); Bert Bos is a longtime W3Cer as well. I mention this because when you read this book you are getting CSS from the horse’s mouth. These guys not only know how to practice CSS, they are believers in the theory as well. This book not only teaches you how to use CSS, but why. Just a few days with it brings across CSS’s three goals of (1) enabling very precise control of page display for designers, while also (2) letting users “tweak” display to suit their own needs, and (3) creating clean HTML in which content and presentation are truly distinct. I am the kind of person who is much more comfortable learning a new skill when I understand why, and this book helps confer that.
What the book doesn’t really do is give you design tips. Once you know what you want to do, this book will help you do it, but if you’re directionless then you’re on your own. That’s why U.Id in the last few days has seen a few tweaks around the edges of the default MT format, but it hasn’t gone further. I’m no designer.
If you’re more interested in the How than the Why, there are probably better books out there for you that will get you to functional CSS faster. But I confess—I actually enjoyed reading Wium Lie and Bos’s entire chapter on the many virtues of defining elements using the em unit (which is defined relative to the preferences set by the viewing browser) rather than px or pt (which are defined absolutely). I actually converted U.Id. to use em. Go ahead, try increasing the font size in your browser. Notice how the layout doesn’t break? Eh? EH? (Note: If you hated the previous three sentences, get a different book.)
Up until this point, I had approached web design in two ways. First, I stole a lot of code from Drew. Second, I went to a lot of free resources. But there is no substitute for an integrated paper text in front of you. Wium Lie and Bos’s book serves that purpose for me.
There’s a new edition of this book out now, the third. I assume it’s real nice. I didn’t use it because Stanford’s library didn’t have it yet. And honestly, it’s not like U.Id is using real advanced code here.
I give Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web (2nd ed.) four em units (out of five).
Posted by Rob Courtney at 11:17 AM
There can be only one (?)
Witness the strange circumstances pitting two of my favorite things against one another… In this corner, wearing the blue trunks stitched by Norwegian bachelor farmers from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota Public Radio! And in this corner, also wearing blue trunks and accompanied by the lovely Tipper, Al Gore! Touch gloves please. Now come out fighting!
Honestly, how did it come to this? Al Gore’s got a new “librul” TV network called CurrentTV. MPR’s got a (fantastic) music-only public radio station called “The Current.” Both are accessible online, I guess. (Note to MPR: Why do you not have an iTunes-capable stream feed? Windows-only feeds are so red-state.) Apparently sharing is out of the question, so litigation is necessary. What a wonderful way to expend energy on both sides. Here’s hoping for a speedy resolution.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 09:52 AM
February 22, 2006
Thumbnails should be fair use
By now you’ve probably heard, Perfect 10 has obtained/is obtaining an injunction from C.D. Cal. against Google relating to the Google Image Search. You can read the order here. P10 brought a series of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement claims against Google, but the only one that seems to have stuck is its claim that when Google creates and posts thumbnails of the images identified by the engine, that’s a direct infringement of P10’s copyright.
It sounds like what tipped the scale for Judge Matz was the fact that Google derives revenue from Image Search by dint of the AdSense and AdWords programs, and that counsels against a finding of fair use. Moreover, he seems to have been convinced that some cell phone users will download Google’s thumbnail-sized porn instead of the thumbnail-sized porn made available under license from P10.
This order shows just how badly the fair use test needs to be updated. While Judge Matz’s application of the test is basically reasonable, it leads him to miss the spirit of what Google is doing, and the economics of search. Thumbnailing makes search work better. In the case of image search, it basically makes it work at all. Giving P10 (and others like it) a property interest in things like thumbnailing achieves nothing more than to make the net harder to search for users, while conferring practically nothing to P10, since transaction costs will prevent real search tools from emerging in such a completely propertized world.
A liability rule is such a better answer here. Or even, gasp, a compulsory license. Oh well.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 02:05 PM
February 19, 2006
Learning by losing at Go
High on my list of hobbies to develop is Go. The game’s intricacy and subtlety is mind-blowing, but there’s a rush that goes along with detecting an opponent’s strategy that keeps me coming back. One of the quotes on the page linked above is, “Lose your first fifty games as quickly as you can.” I’m on my way, but it’s hard not to feel a little intimidated. Divining an opponent’s intentions simply from the pieces on the board is like looking through a cage, and it’s easy to overthink.
My goal is to become comfortable enough with the fundamentals that I can start to think about the more humanistic elements of the game. Hiroki Mori’s Interactive Way to Go has been invaluable in that search. 35 lessons, most driven by Javascript, that help develop pattern-recognition and strategic thinking. So much fun.
But my goal now is real opposition. The computer’s fine (I use Goban) but it doesn’t teach. I crave humanity. So if you’re willing to work with a rank amateur, drop me an email. I think I’m configured for Internet play of various kinds. Or if you’re in the area, let’s meet up. Drew gave me a board that I have only used twice.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 03:44 PM
February 17, 2006
Sen. Wyden on warrentless surveillance
SLPR hosted a panel on domestic surveillance today, keynoted by Sen. Ron Wyden, and with Pam Karlan, Kris Kobach, Alan Morrison, and Laura Donohue on panel. Sen. Wyden’s keynote mostly revolved around a call for better information from the White House and NSA about what exactly is going on, and a reminder that the White House has a duty to respect the balances Congress has struck in the past—i.e., FISA. He also spent some time burnishing his technocratic cred (Even if it wasn’t related to surveillance, my heart grew three sizes when he mentioned net neutrality).
Of course, this was all happening in the shadow of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s refusal to hold an inquiry into the administration’s warrantless surveillance. The Senator wouldn’t go into detail on that… but if the Senate isn’t going to pony up (and it’s unclear what the House will do), where’s this information going to come from? At Drew’s suggestion I mentioned the words “special prosecutor,” but he didn’t rise to the bait.
Listening to the panel highlighted just how murky the waters are. Kobach gave the administration line: warrantless surveillance for national security purposes is within the President’s inherent authority under the war and foreign-affairs powers. He went on to question FISA’s constitutionality—if the authority to protect the nation is inherent to the President, where in the Constitution is Congress empowered to limit that authority? Senator Wyden mentioned the power of the purse; no one really followed up. Kobach went on to argue that even if warrantless surveillance isn’t within the executive’s inherent power, it’s authorized by the Post-9/11 Joint Resolution. But it begs the question: What in this world wasn’t authorized by that Resolution? And who is going to enforce those limits? How? Excellent questions.
And it was great fun to hear Alan Morrison point out that, even if a lot of these intercepts aren’t being actively scrutinized (i.e., they’re going “unflagged”), they are almost certainly being kept… and to what end? The Privacy Act and the Federal Records Act have an application here that no one’s talking about.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 06:17 PM
February 16, 2006
Email never dies
If you are a young lawyer, try not to send emails like these. You will regret it.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 01:29 PM
about.html
My name is Rob Courtney, and I am a near-attorney (bar passed, awaiting court action on my petition for admission in California) in Washington, D.C. My interests are in technology law and policy, intellectual property, and ecology. My hobbies are hiking, attending bluegrass shows, playing the five-string banjo, and the wide wide world of video games. I grew up in Orchard Park, New York (OPHS ’96), and attended Dartmouth College (’00). I graduated from Stanford Law School in 2006, and I currently work at the law firm of Fish & Richardson P.C., and live with my wife Catherine in Alexandria, Virginia.
My email address is rob@courtney5.us.
Visit my del.icio.us bookmarks here.
Visit my Amazon.com wishlist here.
Unique Identifier is © Rob Courtney, 2006–07. All rights reserved except where indicated.
This site is the personal creation of Rob Courtney, and reflects only my personal opinions and positions. It does not reflect the opinions or positions of Fish & Richardson P.C. or any of its present or former clients.
[ This entry was last updated on February 13, 2007. ]
Posted by Rob Courtney at 05:57 AM
February 15, 2006
Posner: No controls needed over executive data mining
Discussing the domestic surveillance program, Richard Posner:
The collection, mainly through electronic means, of vast amounts of personal data is said to invade privacy. But machine collection and processing of data cannot, as such, invade privacy. Because of their volume, the data are first sifted by computers, which search for names, addresses, phone numbers, etc., that may have intelligence value. This initial sifting, far from invading privacy (a computer is not a sentient being), keeps most private data from being read by any intelligence officer.
The data that make the cut are those that contain clues to possible threats to national security. The only valid ground for forbidding human inspection of such data is fear that they might be used to blackmail or otherwise intimidate the administration’s political enemies. That danger is more remote than at any previous period of U.S. history.
I read this as Posner saying, “It doesn’t matter what the data says, or who has it, or how they got it. The flow of data in and out of the executive should be entirely unregulated. All that matters is what the executive does/does not do as a result of accessing that data; we’ll regulate those behaviors directly.” It’s shades of Scott McNealy. But does it make sense?
No. First of all, Posner’s blunt assertion that the only risk here is political blackmail is unsupportable. What about discriminatory enforcement of domestic law? Or people within the executive converting the data for personal gain? Or the risk that the databases assembled by NSA will be compromised, thus enabling any number of malfeasances against millions of people?
Second, Posner’s equally startling assertion that the risk of political blackmail/intimidation is vanishingly small seems incredibly detached from modern politics. Campaigning on both sides of the aisle is ruthless, and there’s every reason to believe that a database with potential to reveal politically-advantageous information would be exploited to its fullest—particularly if that database lacks the procedural safeguards that come with legislative oversight. As mining tools get more and more sophisticated, and the database grows, the possibility of someone extracting political advantage from such a system approaches 1 incredibly fast.
Posner’s judicial empiricism is sometimes frustrating, but it does teach one thing—think seriously about the costs and the benefits of a chosen policy. Sweeping costs under the rug doesn’t help anyone.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 03:26 PM
It’s-A Me, Gameplay!
Yesterday All Things Considered discussed Marc Ecko’s new game, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Robert Holt gave a telling and pithy review.
Now that we’re done talking about [this game], I probably won’t play this, but I will actually go get a book on graffiti art… .
The music is fantastic, the fashion is fantastic, the graffiti is awesome, the gameplay, not so much.
In other words, the best thing about MEGU:CUP is its capacity to redirect you to other, non-interactive forms of entertainment. While Marc Ecko might make a good book, jacket, sneaker, or CD, here he has made a Bad Game. And the thing that made it a Bad Game was Bad Gameplay.
When a game has Bad Gameplay, it doesn’t matter that it has a cool-sounding plot or narrative; the shelves are overflowing with games that Sound Cool but are Bad. Plot, graphics, sound, and all the rest are just window dressing, and what makes a game good or bad is gameplay. Pretty much every gamer understands this.
Critics—at least most critics—certainly understand it too, but they have a hard time communicating it. I suspect this is because either the critics or their editors analogize game criticism to movie criticism. Thus, they fall into the trap of thinking that the core questions are What’s It About? How Does It Look? How Does It Sound? You can answer these questions for a video game, but your answers won’t cohere into any real concept of the game experience.
The question How Does It Play? comes closest to capturing Gameplay, but it’s not an easy question to answer. It is extremely subjective, and only the best critics can convey it without sounding pretentious. Take a look at some of the video reviews on Gamespot to see what I’m talking about. It’s a tough racket. These are regular guys, probably very likeable in person, making terrible and honestly creepy efforts to help others make game buying decisions. They flounder because they are out of their element. You can tell by looking at them that these are not men who are normally inclined towards sharing things personal to them. Games are personal though—when you play the game it’s just you and the controller, so the only way we know what you thought is if you share your feelings. The Gamespot guys are not great at this; as a result most of the reviews include a lot of pedantic discussion abut framerates, poly counts, Dolby sound, etc.
Reviewing MEGU:CUP, Holt shied away, and said only that the gameplay was “Bad.” That’s not much of a review, but it’s not his fault, since we hardly even have a vocabulary for describing gameplay. The best we can often do is to apply gameplay categories, like Platformer, Puzzle Game, FPS, RTS, RPG, etc., but (a) there is so much crossover among these categories now as to render them useless, and (b) applying these categories doesn’t help us achieve better precision along the spectrum of Good Gameplay/Bad Gameplay.
Critics of other media, at least the good critics, will often try to answer the question How Does It Feel?, which should inform how we approach How Does It Play? The great Roger Ebert analyzes how a movie makes him feel in each of his movie reviews, and often the number of stars the film receives derives from what he feels, and how effectively the movie helps him feel it. [ 1 ]
Ebert is on the right track. Why do we play games if not for the way they make us feel? Analyzing those feelings might help us separate Good Gameplay from Bad. But we should not expect too much. For better or worse, nearly all games today have a core gameplay mechanism of “winning,” and that really does place limits on where the game can go.[ 2 ]
I sympathize with Robert Holt. He felt in his heart that he had been handed a Bad Game to review, and he faced an audience unaccustomed to video game criticism—and deeply infused with movie and music criticism—and about two minutes in which to convey his impressions. Plus he’s got a game that’s cursing like a sailor in the background while he’s trying to speak, which blows like twenty seconds right off the top. In the circumstances, I think he did well. Listeners come away with the sense that, while the existence of a game like MEGU:CUP challenges in some small way conventions surrounding graffiti art, this is not a Game that one Plays. That’s pretty good criticism.
[ 1 ]: Interestingly, Ebert recently stated that, in his opinion, games aren’t art, since the medium cannot convey an author’s intent sufficiently to trigger an emotional response in the viewer/player. He is probably right, at least for the time being, but not permanently right. More on this later, I have no doubt.
[ 2 ]: The only exception I can think of right now that’s had any kind of real distribution is Second Life, which, though fascinating in theory, in practice is completely uninteresting in any real sense.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 11:22 AM
February 14, 2006
Well, that was a pleasantly understated credits sequence.
I enjoyed the cheesy retro ambience.
Posted by Rob Courtney at 04:47 PM