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this is excellent!
The British Library has uploaded one million public domain scans from 17th-19th century books to Flickr! They’re embarking on an ambitious programme to crowdsource novel uses and navigation tools for the huge corpus. Already, the manifest of image descriptions is available through Github. This is a remarkable, public spirited, archival project, and the British Library is to be loudly applauded for it!
(tags: british-library libraries public-domain art graphics images history 19th-century 17th-century 18th-century books crowdsourcing via:boingboing github)
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Fantastic long-form blog post by Jay Kreps on this key concept. great stuff
(tags: coding databases log network kafka jay-kreps linkedin architecture storage)
Difference Engine: Obituary for software patents
The Economist reckons we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel where the patent troll shakedown is concerned:
If the use of state consumer-protection laws to ward off frivolous patent suits were to catch on, it could give the trolls serious pause for thought—especially if their mass mailings of threatening letters to businesses were met by dozens of law suits from attorneys general demanding their presence in state courts across the land. One way or another, things are beginning to look ominous for those who would exploit the inadequacies of America’s patent system.
(tags: the-economist patents swpats trolls us east-texas law)