I was greeted with sunshine when I walked onto campus this morning, so this could well mean a glimmer of hope for getting a sail in this weekend, but I guess time will tell - its a little too soon to get any kind of concrete forecast. I’m certainlygetting excited at the prospect of not having any more exams though it must be said.

I say all of this while sitting in the Roger Stevens cafe with coffee and such basically waiting for my exam this afternoon at 1pm. Normally I’m grateful for haing a sleep pattern that permits me to get up early and make the most of the day, but when you went to bed at 3am, this does tend to cause some problems.

In addition to a possible sailing trip I have a fair few things planned for the next few days. After the exam we’re going to hit the terrace bar for a few beers and then I’m off to the wardrobe later this evening for a spot of quality jazz, group called organ doner (lots of organ, no surpirises there, lol) apparantly drawing on infuences from Jimmy Smith, an artist I rather like. Thursday afternoon should see an Otley run (fairly large bar crawl for those not in the know) and then its home for a few days and hopfully to sail. Speaking of going home, I really should book my train ticket……

At long last a court ruling that the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) can be proud of; online journalists and bloggers officially have the same rights under law as conventional journalists the US court has ruled, hopefully setting a legal precedent in favour of the smaller journalists on a previously grey area which debated if online journalists and bloggers had the same right to protect their sources as the conventional media. Apparently they do, which is good news for those who want to report on something but don’t have the backing of a big news agency. Free speech appears to have been reinforced rather than being eroded for once

You can read the article on the BBC here

In an article on the bbc today a leading professor of law has spoken out about how old fashioned copyright laws are ruining the average persons chances of being able to creatively modify and make use of coprrighted works in order to create useful derivative works for personal and non-commercial use, in his words “turning kids into pirates”.

All I can say is its about time someone spoke out about this issue. Not only are these laws out-dated, but they are broken every day, and for those who try to comply the costs are usually prohibitive to the extent where superb derivative work is bombarded out of existance. To cite a real-world example, a film created using clips and other material from a variety of sources cost a little over £100 to make, but cost over £250,000 in the end due to copyright laws. Is this fair on those who have a creative imagination and great tallent? In this case the film won high acclaim at Cannes in 2004.

Its time that these laws were reformed. We no longer live in a world where creative work is done by the select few. We all have access to resources and tools to create, and all you need is imagination. It surely isn’t fair to price people out of existance purely for having an imagination and a little spare time - we deserve more than that.

Came into uni today to have a look at some java in the computer labs and everything is closed. Confusion reigned supreme as I had to use the code to get into the lab while the department and all the stariwells were all locked. I know yesterday was a bank holiday, but today as well? How much holiday do they need! Some people seem to be on holiday all the time; I swear that over the last few days the whole world seemed to stop, and for what, so we could all do 15 times as much work on Tuesday or Wednesday to make up for what we didn’t do on the days we had off? Can’t really see the point in it all myself.

I just had to blog about this now as I’ve just had a text message from a friend of mine saying that she has a new phone and new number because she managed to put her old one through the washing machine. While this is funny in it’s self (if not a little unfortunate), its not the first time I have had news of phones being broken in the most bizare ways.

So far I have seen or heard about phones going through the following traumas; owner being thrown into a swimming pool (along with phone, resulting in complete ruination), having your bag (complete with phone) run over by a car, sitting on it (causing the screen to crack), plugging it into the wrong kind of car charger and it melting (I was as amazed to hear about this one as I’m sure you are to read it!) and last but not least flipping the flip clean off the phone (complete with screen, rendering it completely useless).

So remember folks, when out and about, or even at home, take care of your phone - you never know when you might be putting it in grave danger!