Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

24 Feb 2009, 11:39 a.m.

Two 101-Word Stories Inspired By Fred von Lohmann's Talk Last Night

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2009 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

O'Porter

Most clients sounded more stressed and less grammatical than this guy. "Why did YouTube take down a video without soundtrack music? I didn't break any copyrights, did I?"

"You came to the right effing lawyer," O'Porter smirked, though technically EFF had fired him when he kept calling Seth a "Latin hunk." "Let's see it."

The stranger clicked Play and swiveled his laptop. O'Porter watched hamsters and tried to hear the words under the strange hiss --

Seth David Schoen closed the lid, peeled off his mask, and walked away from O'Porter's body. Really, breaking the Content-ID tool was just a bonus.


Venky

"I'm saying, 'Leibnitzian Python wonder-language that contains no ambiguity' was a JOKE, not a spec."

"So he was a jester-philosopher, the Birbal of his day."

"I think Colbert, Haskins or Stewart --"

"If code is law, shouldn't law be code? And who'll port it but us?"

"But it's the Cyc problem. We write legislation using subjective moral distinctions that change over time. Barring Seldon-level sociological prediction, your version 1 architecture is going to include something as abhorrent to future Americans as slavery is to us. Worst. Legacy. Code. Ever."

"Not if CSAIL works with us," said the dean of MIT Law.

Also inspired of course by Leonard and by Brendan. Very much not inspired by anything Seth or anyone at the Electronic Frontier Foundation has ever done.

Comments

Riana
24 Feb 2009, 13:34 p.m.

This is like meta-slash of everything and everyone I hold dear.

Brendan
http://www.xorph.com/
24 Feb 2009, 15:22 p.m.

... Yet!

Brendan
http://www.xorph.com/
24 Feb 2009, 16:42 p.m.

(And I wish I had been at that talk.)