Who, me?

Is everyone moving here, now that LiveJournal has finally been killed by the Russians, as we expected it to be?

I have been mostly reading-only here for ages. But this account is still live.

Copy this sentence into your LiveJournal if you're in a non-same-sex marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

If anything hurts marriage it's idiots who think that marriage is something you do while drunk in Vegas.

And while you're at it, donate, because the Yes people are getting big bucks and blanketing the state.

So I got an offer for Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 for $100, and I'm thinking of trying it. Has anyone tried Dragon? Is it worth it? The offer appears to be open to everyone & a pretty good deal (Amazon is selling it for $170, and this is $100).

This may be too esoteric a joke to be enjoyed by anyone not a lawyer, but it amused me to no end today.

So the Republican National Committee has a registered trademark on the elephant with three stars in it, and the "GOP" name. They sued CafePress, which allows various folks to design their own items, for the use of these trademarks.

When Politico, a political blog, pointed this out and the blogosphere started picking up the story, the RNC settled. But HOW did they settle?

They settled by allowing everyone to continue selling their products, except vendors whose designs consist solely of the trademarked elephant logo or the initials “GOP” without any other expressive elements. Those without such expressive elements will have to go through the RNC's licensing process.

To clarify, if your products only said Yay GOP or have the elephant, you have to get a special license. If your product includes the elephant with a red slash, or a comment that says "The GOP Sucks!" that's additional expressive elements. So, critical of the RNC? No problem, you can continue selling. Pro-GOP and wanting simply to express your appreciation for the Republican party? Please jump through licensing hoops.

I really hope they continue this level of idiocy through the election season.

It's for work, to redesign my firm's web site. It's paid. It'll be using mostly data pulled from a database (configured & provided by the designer), to let people search for lawyers and such. Not very exciting work, but pays reasonably well. We are in phase II of searching for someone. So if you have a recommendation, preferably local to Silicon Valley, and someone who has worked with a law firm before, let me know.

I rarely rant on LJ. I mostly use it to keep up with friends and occasionally post notes about my life or invites to various events. But the current BoobGate mess that has taken over my friendslist has triggered me to rant. I've been ranting in responses to the original post now locked, and in various friends' LJs (sorry cynthia1960). ( And now, I'm about to rant here. )

I must also add as someone who evaluates the validity of open source licenses professionally, this isn't open source. It's not even public domain. At most it's a share-alike license.

We happened to be on Castro street today when they closed it off for some sort of festival.  Within 20 minutes of the street being closed to cars, people started walking in the street instead of using the sidewalk.  Within an hour, there were dozens of kids playing chase in the middle of Castro, and having a fabulous time.  It was amazing to me how quickly the street became a promenade, and how much the kids enjoyed the freedom of not having to worry about cars. The cops patrolling on bicycles also seemed to enjoy themselves. I wonder if we could have more walking streets.  I think kids would enjoy it, and adults might too. 

We have two tickets to see General Clark speak on 4/5/07 (Thursday) at 8 p.m. at DeAnza College. This is part of the Celebrity Forum Series. It's been an interesting series, and the speakers have been good (well, mostly, I could've lived without seeing Bill Cosby play the daft old man). We will not be able to make it to the lecture for obvious reasons.

Please let me know if you'd be interested in getting these tickets. They are open seating, and have a $35/ticket face value. FYI, for good seats you do have to go a bit earlier than 8 p.m.

Comments screened for your protection. :)

ETA: No more tickets from us, sorry. If you are looking for tickets you can find them at the ticket exchange at their web site.

This article discusses the reality of why women "opt out" of the workforce when they have children. It's quite long, but worth a read.