PS:  I voted 2 weeks ago with an absentee ballot.

Conference speakers include Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome and Monica Guzman of the Seattle P-I’s Big Blog. And some others — more details to come.

Looks like a great event for local blogger. I will be missing it though, I will be in San Francisco for the Students for Free Culture Conference.

Most Recent Post:

Urgent Action Needed- Stop the Execution of Troy Davis

September 20, 2008 @ 4:21 pm · Filed under Action Item, Death Penalty

The State of Georgia is scheduled to execute Troy Anthony Davis on September 23, despite strong evidence suggesting his innocence.  There is no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, no weapon has been found,  and the entire case against him was based on witness testimony.

Seven out of nine of the witnesses who testified against Mr. Davis have recanted their testimony, many stating that they were pressured or coerced to testify against Mr. Davis.  Multiple witnesses have said that one of the two witnesses who has not changed his testimony, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, has admitted to the killing.

To date, no federal court has reviewed the evidence against Mr. Davis.  The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to make a decision on whether to hear Mr. Davis’ appeal on September 29th: 6 days after he is executed.

On September 12th, the Board of Clemency denied clemency for Mr. Davis, even after stating last year that they would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.”

Seattle University faculty member Rob Smith is in Georgia gathering evidence to support a stay of Mr. Davis’s execution.  More information will be posted about this case in the coming days, but your urgent action is needed to ensure that Georgia does not wrongly execute Mr. Davis.

Click here to contact the Board of Clemency and urge them to reconsider their decision.

Click here to learn more about the case of Troy Davis

More about the Seattle Human Right Network:
The Seattle Human Rights Network is an independent student led organization that focuses on activism in the area of international human rights law. The network promotes human rights activism and awareness by organizing or sponsoring forums, debates, films and inviting guest speakers. The Seattle Human Rights Network also works actively to build the local human rights community through education and outreach.

Disclaimer: I am a proud Board member of the Seattle Human Rights Network.

Here is the abstract:

This work is an attempt to sort out the relationship between virtual property and common law property. How are we to understand the relationship between a virtual table and an actual table? What does property in this context mean exactly? While many have written about this topic from a myriad of perspectives, we took a slightly different approach. We wanted to see what property elements were being used inside one virtual space - Second Life. We sought to understand the relationship between common law property and virtual property by combining our knowledge as a property professor with a cultural history background with an avid gamer turned law student. We called it the Fizzy Experiment.

I recommend downloading the paper and reading it. Townsend-Gard is a great professor with a a vision of where cyberlaw is going. She was my first copyright professor, I audited her copyright class my 1L year, it was one of the most progressive classes I have had at law school.

Where: Avvo’s offices on the 3rd Floor at 217 Pine Street (between 2nd & 3rd Avenue) in Downtown Seattle

When: Thursday, June 26 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

What: Legal Blogger Meetup - proposed agenda to include

• What have you done to attract more readers?
• What widgets or other features have made your blog more functional?
• What resources do you consult when trying to improve your blog?
• What are your strategies in developing new content?
• What is your favorite blog (ok, other than your own), and why?

Will there be treats?

• Why, yes - beer, wine & sushi maki!

Central to the theme of NTTT is the contemplative aspects of the body and the mind. Over the course of this conference we will engage in a conversation focusing on how to establish a better balance in these over busy times.

The opening panel Moderated by Geoffrey Bowker (Santa Clara University), participant were;

Janice Giteck (Cornish College of the Arts): Tech heads v. traditional song writing musicians. The clash of ideas

Don Horowitz (Former Superior Court Judge): Making decisions immersed in music or the shower, caves of contemplation and the need to listen to others.

Eric Nalder (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) : Meditation and interrogation… Take a moment of silence before action

J. Lee Nelson (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center): We keep losing space to think.

Stephen Sundborg, S.J. (Seattle Univeristy) : I think through writing. The yearly 8 days of jesuit silence also focus me on contemplation. Green lake is like taking your mind for a walk

Vinton Cerf: opening clips: I do not feel responsible for where the internet has gone since inception, we were wise to not over regulate the net, the internet makes it possible to postpone action till the last minute, the acceleration of life limits our contemplativeness, stratagems are need to focus on what is important instead of waiting for the next email or the onslaught of information.

The opening session was videotaped I will see where it is posted.

Quote of the panel “I mean really listening not just waiting of your turn to speak”

PS is it wrong to blog a conference called No Time to Think… ?

My first day at CC I was able to start directly on legal projects, my supervisor Diane Peters, the General Council, had sent me a few project to start on the week before. The first research project I started on was “Can I license different versions of a work under different licenses?  For example low resolution images under CC-BY and High Resolution version under CC- BY-NC  or 128k version of a song under CC-BY-NC and a Free Lossless Audio Codec under All Right Reserved?” The answers will be published in an FAQ and other educational material to help people navigate their options with copyright licenses; it will be published in the next week or so. It feels great to do research and see it impact a community of authors through free practical recommendations right away. Technology and copyright are strange bed fellows. Copyright applies to new technology or the works created with them but not in a coherent way. The law is crafted to deal with today, and as new developments arise in tech we get the opportunity to explore uncharted realms, this is what makes digital copyright such a challenge and a love for me.

San Francisco has been a great place to start the summer; both the technology and nonprofit communities are very strong here. I look forward to getting out in the community more as the weeks pass. I am back in Seattle currently for a 4 day visit. I spent the weekend with my partner and daughter; it is great to see them, and then Monday and Tuesday at the No Time to Think Conference at University of Washington’s Ischool and Law School. Wednesday I am headed back to San Francisco for a Copyright 2.0 Technology Summit at Google and a CC reception at Stanford Law. Exciting week to come! 

The most recent Informatics cohort put has put a YouTube to try and explain the major to prospective students:

Brian Reyes, one of the grads talking in the video, did a great Drupal site for WSBA last year it is the ATJWeb.org site. Pass it on to your friends who might be interested in applying to Informatics! The application date is coming up on April 15. And of course, feel free to post it on your social networking pages, etc. (I need to talk to them about putting the video under CC). For more information about Informatics check out the Ischool website.