The Daily Parker

At lunch I thought more about the copyright case against timezone data that the crazy astrologers have launched. I believe Arthur Olson and Paul Eggert, the volunteers who coordinated the tzinfo database for years and who now find themselves sued for doing so, have two principal defenses, one of which may allow them to get the case dismissed.

First, copyright law does not protect strictly-factual information. The Copyright Act only protects the expression of facts. 17 USC 102(b) clearly states:

In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

Massachusetts (!) attorney Ronald B. Standler analyzed the copyrightability of factual information in a 2009 essay that relies heavily on the 1991 Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications v Rural Telephone. In the case, a publisher blatantly copied and republished directory listings from a telephone company's white pages. The Supreme Court found that the directory information was not protected by copyright, because it was strictly factual data.

In a later case, Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com, the defendant had used a bot to scrape event information off Ticketmaster's website. The trial court found that the event information was not protected, and the temporary copying required for the bot to operate (it had to download a copy of each page in order to parse it) was fair use.

This brings up the second defense, should the first not win the case for Olson and Eggert. 17 USC 106 allows certain uses of copyrighted works "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research..." and requires consideration of "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

In this case, the tzinfo database (technically a publication of the U.S. government thanks to Olson's employment at the National Institutes of Health) lists historical time zone rules to enable any consumer of the data to find local wall-clock time for any point on earth back to the institution of standard time there. Who cares about this? Well, how about historians? Meteorologists? Frikin' astrologers?

And earlier today I pointed out that, if anything, the Olson database creates a market for the time zone atlas, by referring to it and even providing links to the author.

Oh, and a bonus third defense (which will probably be raised first): the infringement, if any, started waaaay back in the 1990s; 17 USC 507 prohibits a lawsuit "unless it is commenced within three years after the claim accrued." Of course, each time they published a new version of the tzinfo database, it might constitute a new infringement, so I'm not sure about this.

This case stinks. Don't even get me started on the plaintiff's attorney, who's not the cleanest dog in the pound according to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. (Molloy "admitted that she had violated the conflict of interest law by appearing before the Sandwich Zoning Board of Appeals on behalf of her private law clients to oppose a special permit application after she had participated in her capacity as a Planning Board member in formulating comments on the same special permit application." Oopsi.)

If this case gets past initial motions I'll be shocked. And as soon as I find out where to send checks, I'll post information about Olson's and Eggert's legal defense funds.

The National Institutes for Health, through a quirk of history, maintainsed the worldwide-standard time zone database until today. A Massachusetts-based company, Astrolabe, Inc., has sued the people who maintain the database for copyright infringement. The company claims to have purchased the rights to The American Atlas, from which the time zone database derived some of its data. From the complaint:

Defendant Olson’s unauthorized reproduction of the Works have been published at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/tzarchive.qz, where the references to historic international time zone data is replete with references to the fact thatthe source for this information is, indeed, the ACS Atlas.

Here are a couple of examples from the database:

# From Paul Eggert (2006-03-22):
# A good source for time zone historical data in the US is
# Thomas G. Shanks, The American Atlas (5th edition),
# San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (1991).
# Make sure you have the errata sheet; the book is somewhat useless without it.
# It is the source for most of the pre-1991 US entries below.

Here's an example from the data itself, in the Newfoundland section:

# Rule	NAME	FROM	TO	TYPE	IN	ON	AT	SAVE	LETTER/S
Rule	StJohns	1917	only	-	Apr	 8	2:00	1:00	D
Rule	StJohns	1917	only	-	Sep	17	2:00	0	S
# Whitman gives 1919 Apr 5 and 1920 Apr 5; go with Shanks & Pottenger.

I don't think anyone will deny that Arthur Olson, Paul Eggert, not to mention the hundreds of other people who have maintained the database for years, have used the book in question as a key reference. So here are the questions which, unfortunately, will take the court a couple of years to work out:

1. Is data about when time zone rules changed throughout history protected under copyright?
2. If so, who owns it?
3. If someone owns it, is the Olson database a derivative work under copyright law?
4. If the Olson database does, in fact, derive from the work in question, is it a fair use?
5. Just how stupid are these astrologists, anyway?

Because what you may not know, dear reader, is that almost every Unix-based computer in the world uses this database to set its clock to local time. (All of the applications I've written, starting with Weather Now, use the database as well.) Shutting down the database project will require individual system administrators to update their local copies when rules change. It's not onerous, but it will lead to gaps, particularly in global applications like Weather Now.

What's even stupider about this lawsuit is that comments in the database encourage people to buy the book. So even if Astrolabe owns the copyright to the facts about time zone rules—a troubling proposition—their republication in the Olson database increases the likelihood that they'll make money off it.

Only, facts as such are not protected, so I can't see how Astrolabe can possibly win this suit. I will be contributing to Olson's and Eggert's legal defense fund once they get it set up.

Astrolabe doesn't need to look to the heavens to see how this will turn out.

Update: More here and here.

I do not like programmer certification exams, and I have used this space to rant about them before. The topic came up again today during a conversation with a colleague, so here follows a distillation of the reasons why I can't stand the stupid things.

Imagine you are taking a driving test, so that you can put "Certified Chicago Driver" on your CV. Never mind that you've done a great job driving in Chicago without this credential; never mind that you've gotten one parking ticket and no moving violations in 20 years of driving. For whatever reason, you think getting this credential is a good idea. Maybe someone told you it would look good on your résumé. For whatever reason, you want the CCD logo on your business card, so you fork over the money and go to the testing center.

Now, imagine you get there, and rather than put you in a car, they plop you in front of a computer that is running—I am not kidding—Windows 3.1. Then you begin the multiple-choice, computer-scored test that will determine whether you get your CCD. Here is the first question:

You're driving from 1200 West Fullerton Parkway to 741 West Cornelia Avenue. What is the route you follow?

A. East on Fullerton, North on Halsted, West on Cornelia.

B. East on Fullerton, North on Clark, North on Sheffield, East on Cornelia.

C. West on Fullerton, North on Western, East on Addison, South on Halsted, East on Cornelia.

D. East on Fullerton, North on Clark, North on Broadway, West on Cornelia.

Do you know the answer? You have 60 seconds, closed book.

The correct answer is C, because the other three are illegal. Of course, no one would ever, ever, ever, choose C in real life, because it takes you three miles out of your way. But that's not the point. Certified Chicago Drivers may not know how to use a manual transmission, but they absolutely know all the one-way streets in the city.

See, in order to get this question right you need to know several things. First, Halsted is 800 West, so you need to be East of it to get to 741 W. Cornelia. Second, Cornelia is a one-way street that goes East and West from Halsted. In other words, if you're on Halsted, you can go either East or West on Cornelia, away from Halsted.

Further, if you got the question wrong, so what? So you're going up on Halsted and you turn the wrong way on Cornelia. Oops: you're on the 800 block of Cornelia, the numbers are getting bigger, so you waste maybe 15 seconds turning at the next street and trying again in the other directon.

And even more: Anyone who has ever spent time in that neighborhood knows you won't find a parking space on the 700 block of Cornelia unless you get really, really lucky. So you may want to turn West on Cornelia anyway, because it's sometimes easier to find parking over there.

Ready for Question 2? Good.

You are at the Eastern end of Hugh Hefner Way. How many traffic lights are between you and the Water Tower?

A. 4

B. 24

C. 118

D. 0

So, wanna-be-Certified Chicago Driver, what's the answer? You have 60 seconds, and if the test center catches you banging your head on the keyboard they'll throw you out.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what the answer is. There are two major problems with the question. First, Hugh Hefner Way doesn't appear on any maps of the city that I'm aware of, because it's an honorary street name (on Walton Street between Michigan and Rush). So the Eastern end of it is, therefore, at the corner of Michigan and Walton, which is three blocks above the Water Tower. Only I'm not sure if it ends on the East or West side of Michigan, because "end of a street" isn't defined in the Chicago Municipal Code anywhere.

This dovetails with the second problem. How do you count traffic lights? Does the question want you to count intersections, actual light structures, or the lights themselves? Do you start counting with the ones nearest you? What does "between" mean, and anyway, doesn't it depend on where your car is sitting? Finally, if you want to split hairs, a car sitting at the point described should be pointing West, again because of the one-way street business Chicago has all over the place.

OK. You've spent an hour slogging through 40 questions like that, and you've got five to go. So you get to question 41, the only one of its kind on the exam, the only one with absolute relevance that every Chicago driver should know without thinking too hard about it:

What is the maximum legal speed, in miles per hour, for non-emergency vehicles on any street, road, or expressway inside the Chicago city limits?

A. 25

B. 30

C. 55

D. 65

Please tell me you answered C. This hasn't changed in my lifetime. It's important to remember, because speed limit signs are scarce on the expressways. If you don't know the answer you probably shouldn't earn any kind of Chicago driving certification.

But look what's happened: Only at Question 41 have you finally gotten something that everyone should know cold. Something that real people wouldn't need to look up. Something that's not necessarily obvious everywhere in the city, but that is nonetheless important to know. It's relevant. It's appropriate to ask in a multiple-choice format. It MAKES SENSE.

Then comes Question 42:

You are parking in zone LV-2 on the second Monday of July. Which of the following does not apply?

A. You must have a permanent LV-2 sticker or a 24-hour LV-2 pass to park overnight.

B. You may park without a zone pass any time between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm.

C. You must have a permanent LV-2 sticker, not just a 24-hour pass, on this particular day between 5:00 pm and 10:00 pm.

D. If you violate the LV-2 zone restrictions, you could get fined $60 by the city.

Think...really...hard...

Before I tell you the correct answer, can you think of any reason why a normal person who can read parking signs would ever need to have this information memorized? I only know it because I used to live in that zone, and even then, I forgot from time to time and had to look at the big red signs posted every half-block along Cornelia.

The correct answer is C. Here's why: The LV-2 zone surrounds Wrigley Field. When there is a night Cubs game, parking is prohibited to all but permanent LV-2 sticker-holders between 5pm and 10pm. However, the second Monday of July is night before the All-Star Game, the one day of the year when there is no possibility of a professional baseball game anywhere in the U.S. or Canada.

It's important to note that the night-game regulation is posted on the corners of every block in the zone, on big yellow signs, that have the exact dates of all the season's night games listed. If you get a night-game ticket it's because you are illiterate or because you were at the game and felt that the $120 ticket was a better value than the price-gouging lots near the park.

Aren't you happy you took the Certified Chicago Driver test? And don't you see how Certified Chicago Drivers are more skilled drivers than you?

The lesson, for those considering employment in software development, should be clear. Forget certification exams; learn the art and science of the profession. Unless you want to work for the kind of company that values the kind of knowledge the exams test, in which case you and I won't work together much anyway.

Via TPM, search-engine watcher Danny Sullivan says former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum hasn't been Googlebombed; he's simply lost the war:

In a classic Googlebombing — which Google did crack down on when it was used to tie searches for “miserable failure” to George W. Bush back during the Republicans administration — pranksters tricked Google’s algorithm into sending (for lack of a better term) the “wrong” results for a search. An example could be you entered “apple” in the Google bar and got back a page about bananas thanks to people purposefully tricking the algorithm.

This is not what happened to Santorum, Sullivan explained. [Columnist and LGBT advocate Dan] Savage literally created a new definition for the word “Santorum” and then made a website explaining it. That explanation has become accepted and — “in some quarters,” Sullivan said — a topic people actually go searching for when they enter santorum into Google.

And how did Santorum lose this battle? In a nutshell, committing homophobia while in national office. And what is the colloquial definition 'santorum?' You're on your own there...

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 5-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in February, but some things have changed. In the interest of enlightened laziness I'm starting with the most powerful keystroke combination in the universe: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V.

Twice. Thus, the "point one" in the title.

The Daily Parker is about:

• Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on 1 September 2006.
• Politics. I'm a moderate-lefty by international standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States.
• Photography. I took tens of thousands of photos as a kid, then drifted away from making art until a few months ago when I got the first digital camera I've ever had that rivals a film camera. That got me reading more, practicing more, and throwing more photos on the blog. In my initial burst of enthusiasm I posted a photo every day. I've pulled back from that a bit—it takes about 30 minutes to prep and post one of those puppies—but I'm still shooting and still learning.
• The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than ten years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. Many weather posts also touch politics, given the political implications of addressing climate change, though happily we no longer have to do so under a president beholden to the oil industry.
• Chicago, the greatest city in North America, and the other ones I visit whenever I can.

I've deprecated the Software category, but only because I don't post much about it here. That said, I write a lot of software. I work for 10th Magnitude, a startup software consultancy in Chicago, I've got about 20 years experience writing the stuff, and I continue to own a micro-sized software company. (I have an online resume, if you're curious.) I see a lot of code, and since I often get called in to projects in crisis, I see a lot of bad code, some of which may appear here.

I strive to write about these and other things with fluency and concision. "Fast, good, cheap: pick two" applies to writing as much as to any other creative process (cf: software). I hope to find an appropriate balance between the three, as streams of consciousness and literacy have always struggled against each other since the first blog twenty years ago.

If you like what you see here, you'll probably also like Andrew Sullivan, James Fallows, Josh Marshall, and Bruce Schneier. Even if you don't like my politics, you probably agree that everyone ought to read Strunk and White, and you probably have an opinion about the Oxford comma—punctuation de rigeur in my opinion.

Another, non-trivial point. Facebook reads the blog's RSS feed, so many people reading this may think I'm just posting notes on Facebook. Facebook's lawyers would like you to believe this, too. Now, I've reconnected with tons of old friends and classmates through Facebook, I play Scrabble on Facebook, and I eagerly read every advertisement that appears next to its relevant content. But Facebook's terms of use assert ownership of everything that appears on their site, regardless of prior claims, which contravenes four centuries of law.

Everything that shows up on my Facebook profile gets published on The Daily Paker first, and I own the copyrights to all of it (unless otherwise disclosed). I publish the blog's text under a Creative Commons attribution-nonderivative-noncommercial license; republication is usually OK for non-commercial purposes, as long as you don't change what I write and you attribute it to me. My photos, however, are published under strict copyright, with no republication license, even if I upload them to other public websites. If you want to republish one of my photos, just let me know and we'll work something out.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy The Daily Parker.

For the last three years running—including, it seems this one—my ability to find passably-interesting topics to write about plummets in September and picks up again mid-October. Any hypotheses about why? I haven't got any, except maybe that the shortening days do something.

Which is all just a longer way of saying, chirp...chirp...chirp...

On this day in 1986, I got my first PC: an original, 1982-vintage IBM PC, with a 1 MHz 8088 processor, 256 kB of RAM, twin 360 kB drives, a 30 cm 80 x 25 character green monochrome monitor, and a steel clickety-clackety keyboard.

The laptop I'm writing this on, 25 years later, has a 3 GHz Intel Core 2 processor, 4 GB of RAM, an internal solid-state 250 GB drive, a 36 cm 1280 x 800 pixel monitor with 16 million colors, and a silent keyboard. And this laptop cost less than half what the PC cost in nominal terms, which makes it about one-sixth the cost in real terms.

Twenty five years of computing, and I still don't have a fast-enough computer.

I don't have all the details, but it looks like an employee at one of the hospital's vendors did something really stupid:

A medical privacy breach led to the public posting on a commercial Web site of data for 20,000 emergency room patients at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., including names and diagnosis codes, the hospital has confirmed. The information stayed online for nearly a year.

Since discovering the breach last month, the hospital has been investigating how a detailed spreadsheet made its way from one of its vendors, a billing contractor identified as Multi-Specialty Collection Services, to a Web site called Student of Fortune, which allows students to solicit paid assistance with their schoolwork.

Gary Migdol, a spokesman for Stanford Hospital and Clinics, said the spreadsheet first appeared on the site on Sept. 9, 2010, as an attachment to a question about how to convert the data into a bar graph.

One can easily see how this happened: someone on the billing contractor's staff was taking a class of some kind and decided to use real, live, HIPAA-protected data for a project. My law-school Wills instructor, Jerry Leitner, would explain this by the "omnibus explanation," the thing that explains nearly every human endeavor that ends badly: stupidity.

The article mentions Stanford got fined $250,000 from the breach. I wonder if they'll be able to get a contribution award from the contractor?

Do you ever eat fish? If so, are you aware that many fisheries are unsustainable, that popular fish species have high incidence of contamination, and that while generally good for you, some sushi can give you heavy metals with your wasabi?

For years I've carried around a pocket sustainable seafood guide the Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes semi-annually. Now they've got a smartphone app for both iPhone and Android. No more printing it out on paper! W00t!

From the World's Greatest Newspaper, aka WGN-Chicago: