I'm a lasagna boy!

In which we preserve the environment for innovation

This afternoon I attended a talk by Wendy Seltzer of Electronic Frontier Foundation and Chilling Effects Clearinghouse fame. She spoke about endangered gizmos and other abjecta of intellectual-property law; about cease-and-desists notices, which are archived and available for analysis through Chilling Effects; about the anti-technology tendency of US law (well, she did not phrase it like that, but that is what I heard); and about brand dilution, or why I cannot, for example, sell Intel-branded chewing gum, or Levi-Strauss-branded microprocessors ... unless I move to Italy.
She did not explicitly discuss today's SCOTUS decision against Grokster.

In which I do not take our resources for granted

Thanks to a hookup from the CTA (akahttp://keepchicagolandmoving.com/), I received a neatly-rolled package of posters bearing images of an apple, a plastsic water bottle, a gas-pump, and a CTA train, with the legend "Let's not take our resources for granted." Very nice. I am sending a copy to my Supervisor, Mr Ross Mirkarimi, with the intention that he use it to better understand how to push San Francisco's transit-first agenda.