Thanks and sorry, Les

Those of you who have visited google’s homepage today no doubt found their logo had a “strummable” guitar, in honor of Les Paul’s 96th birthday. Les Paul helped shape the guitar, and I have him to thank for some of the heavy sounds I really love. But he also contributed to recording and signal processing: he is one of the innovators of multitrack audio, and experimented with signal processing devices. He is very much responsible for creating the impossible spaces that are now so common in music recordings.

I had a hour and a need for diversion today, so I “strummed” the google doodle with my mouse (I found it hard to keep time), recorded it, dropped it into Live, ran it through a bunch of stuff and added a beat. It’s pretty rough, but there you go. Some things are meant to be finished quickly.

Sorry, Les!

Good IP Practice

Since I routinely use this space to complain about the intellectual property practices of various academic publications, I thought I would say something nice for a change. I recently signed publication agreements with Duke University Press (for a coauthored piece with Tara Rodgers that’s going in differences) and the Canadian Journal of Communication. Both had clear publication agreements, were not unnecessarily restrictive, and allowed me to retain my basic rights as an author. Also, I just signed a contract with USC for the summer humanities institute, and it had a really noxious intellectual property clause, but when I inquired, I was told to just cross it out. Which is the next best thing to no noxious clause, I suppose.

Duke asks for copyright but immediately returns basic rights to the author:

The Publisher, as assignee, grants to the Author the right to quote from this article in any book or article that he/she may later write, the right to photocopy the article for his/her own use (including use in his/her own class), and the right to republish the article in any book he/she may write or edit after the journal has appeared. In case of republication, notice of previous publication in this journal must be given.

Believe it or not, a lot of presses are not automatically granting those rights.

The CJC agreement is especially nice–kind of incredible, really–so I reproduce it below. Insert Canadian joke here. The author not only retains all sorts of rights–which are enumerated clearly–including turnaround time for publication (again, all too rare).

Canadian Journal of Communication
c/o Simon Fraser University
515 West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C. V6B 5K3

Copyright Licence

Title of Manuscript (Please print): __________________________________________

Author (Please print):_____________________________________________________

Address (Please print:_____________________________________________________

Preamble

Congratulations! Your article has passed the rigors of peer review and has been accepted for publication in the Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC). The Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation is party to this contract with you as it is the legal entity that owns and operates the journal. It is a non-profit corporation under the Canada Corporation Act. This letter of agreement requests that you, as the creator(s)/(author(s) of the above named article, grant an exclusive licence to the CJC for the publication of your article for one year in print and electronic form, followed by a non-exclusive licence allowing the CJC to make the work available in print and/or electronic form in perpetuity. The CJC undertakes to publish your article in print and electronic form and, in general, to pursue its dissemination throughout the world. This licence assists you, as author(s), and the CJC as publisher, to be recognized and, in some cases, compensated for use of your article.

More specifically, the terms of the licence the CJC offers are as follows:

1. The exclusive right to publish your article hereinafter called “the work” in print and electronic form or in any form it may choose that is in keeping with its role as a scholarly journal with the goal of disseminating the work as widely as possible for one year; and thereafter the non-exclusive right to continue to publish the work in perpetuity making it widely available to potential readers;

2. The right to make the work freely available to the public within a period of 24 months, as determined by relevant journal staff under the Creative Commons Licence form (Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives). The reason the journal suggests a period of 24 months is to balance the CJC’s need to maintain subscription revenue with the goal of not unnecessarily standing in the way of public access;

3. The right to negotiate and grant republication rights to itself (for example in an anthology) or to others in print, electronic, or any other form, on behalf of you and the journal. Any revenues earned in this activity will be shared equally between you the author(s) and CJC (the journal);

4. The right to administer permissions to others to use portions of the article. The CJC will seek recompense for commercial and educational use when it is common to receive such funds and the fees involved are substantially more than the costs of their administration.

5. The right to take advantage of opportunities to have the article included in databases aimed at increasing awareness of the article, for example, the Synergies or EBSCO databases;

6. The right to accrue any revenue based on reprography, digital reproduction, or print reproduction and to share that revenue at the discretion of the journal. Large single payments for single article usage (greater than $200 will be shared 50/50 with authors);

7. Notwithstanding the exclusivity requested in the preamble and in clause #1, the CJC wishes you to retain the right to republish the work, with acknowledgment of the CJC as the original publisher. You may republish the work in whole or in part, for example in a scholarly monograph, in any other publication of your own, including any anthology that you might edit with up to three others;

8. The CJC wishes you to retain the right to place your final submitted version of the work on your personal Web page or that of your university or institution with an acknowledgement of its original publication in the CJC. The CJC expects that you will include this notice: A fully edited, peer-reviewed version of this article was first published by the Canadian Journal of Communication, , , , to . You are free to determine the exact style of the citation.

9. You will be given an opportunity to proofread the final edited version of your article however you must return a proofed copy to the journal within the time period specified. In any event, the CJC will proceed to publication after the time period for proofing has elapsed.

Should you be approached to allow a reprint or a digital reproduction of your work, the CJC requests that you direct inquiries to the CJC. Should you have a strong desire to grant permission personally to a request, you may do so as long as the work and its original publication in the journal is properly cited, you inform the CJC, and any fees received are shared equally with the journal. If you are of the strong opinion that your work did not benefit from first publication in the CJC in attracting a request for republication rights or permissions, you may pursue such opportunities on your own without recompensing the CJC.

MY (AUTHOR’S) SIGNATURE BELOW CONFIRMS THAT THE MANUSCRIPT IN QUESTION, THE TITLE OF WHICH IS NOTED ABOVE, HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE IN WHOLE OR IN PART AND THAT NO AGREEMENT TO PUBLISH THE WORK IS OUTSTANDING; THAT IT CONTAINS NOTHING THAT IS LIBELLOUS OR OFFENSIVE, NOR DOES IT INVADE THE PRIVACY OF ANYONE, AND THAT I INDEMNIFY THE JOURNAL AGAINST ANY DAMAGES THAT MAY BE BROUGHT FORWARD AS A RESULT OF ITS PUBLICATION.

SHOULD THE WORK CONTAIN MATERIAL WHICH REQUIRES WRITTEN PERMISSION FOR INCLUSION, I AGREE THAT IT IS MY OBLIGATION IN LAW TO IDENTIFY SUCH MATERIAL TO THE EDITOR OF THE CJC AND TO OBTAIN SUCH PERMISSION. THE CJC WILL NOT PAY ANY PERMISSION FEES. SHOULD THE CJC BE OF THE OPINION THAT SUCH PERMISSION IS NECESSARY, IT WILL REQUIRE ME TO PURSUE SUCH PERMISSION PRIOR TO PUBLICATION.

AS AUTHOR, I WARRANT THAT THE WORK IN QUESTION IS ORIGINAL TO ME. SHOULD THE WORK NOT BE ORIGINAL IN WHOLE OR IN PART, AND SHOULD WHAT IS NOT ORIGINAL BE NOT FULLY AND PROPERLY CITED, THE CJC RESERVES THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW THE WORK FROM PUBLICATIOIN AND, IF IT CHOOSES, TO POST A NOTE OF EXPLANATION.

Provided the foregoing terms are satisfactory, and that you are in agreement with them, please sign and date this letter and return it to my attention at the address above as soon as possible.

For the CJC:

, ,

I, ____________________________________________ agree to accept and abide by the terms and conditions described herein.

Name_____________________________________ Date_________________________

Rebuilding a Macbook Pro (inside a new one)

It made no sense to get a fancy new desktop and run off to California, so last summer I hotrodded my out of warrantee 2007 Macbook Pro laptop. I replaced the CD drive with a solid state hard drive for the system files (it makes the computer feel faster) and I upgraded the RAM and regular hard drive. Everything was great until last Wednesday. I skyped with a student, had dinner, and came back to the computer to find it nonresponsive. Apple has a whole stack of troubleshooting procedures online so I went through those. Eventually, I had to take it into the Apple store. They confirmed what I had surmised — the logic board (aka “motherboard”) was dead. A repair would be over $900 before taxes. I went outside the store, googled a couple local places and called. Same price, if they were willing to do it at all.

In a way, I was relieved. Although all my work documents are religiously backed up and synced with Dropbox, my music was not — and I’d just spent a few hours two days before tracking vocals for a 20-minute medley some CASBS fellows put together for graduation. (Yes, I know I need to write more about CASBS, which I will.) Somehow, in all the commotion, I hadn’t plugged in my external hard drive and so the data existed in only one place. A hard drive failure would have wiped that out.

The whole thing was a mixed emotional experience for me. The new laptop is a little more than twice as fast in real world processor intensive applications (ie, audio), but since it’s under warrantee, there will be no hot rodding by me (Apple: please give us a laptop with a two hard drive option like the iMac–I don’t really need an internal DVD drive). I also hadn’t really planned to buy a powerful laptop this time around, but I needed something that would allow me to do my audio, not only for fun, but for whatever I come up with for my book website during this summer’s digital humanities institute.

Once I got the new computer out of the box, what to do next was a little less clear. Time Machine (Apple’s automatic backup software) doesn’t like it when you split the system across two drives; it didn’t appear that I was going to be able to do a system restore that way. It had been several years since I really cleaned out my file system and applications anyway, so I did something a little more radical. I reinstalled all my software manually and moved files manually.

When I say “manually” I do actually mean by hand in some cases. The first step was an autopsy of my old laptop. I took the case apart and removed the hard drives. Since my computer surgery tools are all in Montreal, I had to go to Fry’s to pick up a bare hard drive firewire interface and the appropriate screwdrivers. By the time I was done, it did actually look kind of like an autopsy.

Once I had the hard drive with all my files hooked up, doing everything for work and standard consumer use was pretty quick: MSOffice, Firefox, Endnote, OpenOffice, Bookmarks, Mail files, Cyberduck, music library and a few other things. I installed dropbox and synced it as well.

At least so far it looks like everything’s okay.

The audio software was a different story. Looking at the directory, I see that in an average session, I have access to products from about 30 different companies (I don’t use them all at once but they’re all stuff I have used and expect to use again). Some of these companies share installation protocols and copy protection schemes, but many do not. My own file management structure for audio could also clearly use some work. I’d never tried to reinstall it all from scratch in a single go. Given that it wasn’t the only thing I did, it took the better part of three days, between redownloading everything, reauthorizing everything, trying it out to make sure it works, troubleshooting and reconfiguring everything. It appears to be up and running now, but I was surprised at what a hassle that was. I did get rid of a bunch of demos and stuff I don’t use, though, so when it’s time to switch again — when I finally get that rocketship desktop — it will be a much easier switch.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Canada: What a nice country . . .

A few days ago, we received letters from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) giving us notice to appear at citizenship tests . . . on June 3rd! That was about two months earlier than I expected.

Unfortunately/fortunately, we’ll be in Oregon as Carrie’s giving two talks at UO, so I called their toll-free number. I got an agent, explained that our stay in the US was extended by fellowships at USC, and that we really really want to do it at the end of August. She told me we simply had to write a letter to CIC’s office in Montreal asking for a later test, and that they would send us new dates. Simple. I immediately composed the ingratiating letter, which will go out tomorrow. Apparently, so many people miss the first date given for their citizenship tests that they are automatically rescheduled — you don’t even have to do anything about it. Amazing.

For anyone wanting to study along with us, the study guide is here.

Sometimes when you think you see a zebra in an unlikely place, it’s actually a zebra

Slow blogging the week before the end of the world.

Actually, we were away for a few days, plus I’m cooking up some stuff. We went down to the wine region in Central California — Paso Robles. Carrie got to visit and taste at her favorite winery — which is also beautiful — and we went to Hearst Castle. It is a singular place and impressive, but apart from the spectacular pools, neither of us was as blown away as we thought we would be (compared with, e.g., the ocean). We did learn that the zebra we though we saw in the fall while driving up Highway 1 was not some kind of optical illusion. There are some wild zebras left over from Hearst’s private zoo.

More next week. In the meantime, I leave you with this excellent explanation of dubstep for the uninitiated (don’t turn up your volume too much–trust me):

Things I Don’t Miss About the United States, Part I

Being back in the US for more than a couple days has brought into focus some things I haven’t missed since moving to Quebec in 2004.

Top among them would have to be all the crazy forms of religion that freely suffuse public life here. For instance:

As we have traversed various California highways over the last couple weeks, we’ve been seeing stickers and billboards about how the world is going to end on May 21st. That’s right, there’s a specific date planned. And it comes with an advertisement for something called “family radio,” though I’m guessing there’s nothing really “family” about it. Salon has a nice explanation here.

There’s so much wrong with this that I don’t even know where to begin. But the main question I have is influenced by another thing I don’t miss, which is American money culture. Why there isn’t a line in Las Vegas or a futures market where I can make some money off this proposition? Futures traders bet against harvests and things like that. Can I somehow bet a lot of money against the human race being annihilated on the 21st of May? That would be awesome, since I either make a lot of money on the proposition or it doesn’t matter. I suppose that’s why there’s no angle to it.

As it stands, either a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they wake up on May 22nd, or I’m going to be really surprised on the 21st.

Canadian Census Review

This afternoon, I filled out the Canadian census and the voluntary Canada Household Survey. I’m not sure how close the latter is to the Long Form census that Harper nixed, but it was certainly more thorough than the short form, which asked almost nothing demographically, sociologically or historically useful. The survey asked questions about religion, education, ethnicity, employment, income, cost of housing and utilities, and use of services like schools (including public transit, which is particularly great–or would be if anything approaching a representative sample fills out the survey). Given what was included, I was surprised that there were no questions on other matters of public interest or concern: healthcare, public space, voting, etc. I did appreciate that they spared me 14 questions about household income by saying they could pull it from tax filings.

My favorite part? This is the first non-science fiction document I’ve encountered that mentions the 22nd century in a serious context. Per Canadian law, our complete answers will be available to researchers in 2103. Awesome. That’s actually a year that’s going to happen.