Everyone's a nerd about something. What are you a nerd about?

https://lemmy.world/post/11799303

Everyone's a nerd about something. What are you a nerd about? - Lemmy.World

I know it’s an unpopular opinion given current circumstances, but I’ve always been a huge nerd about Russia. The history, the geography, the music, etc. And as an American, I’ve always found it fascinating how U.S.-Russian relations have fluctuated over time. We’ve gone from allies, to enemies, to frenemies. This doesn’t mean I support Z or Putin, of course. What are you a nerd about?

Well, about the typical things. I write software. I play TTRPGs and video games and watch Star Trek and Star Wars. (Hell. I’ve been watching Red Dwarf lately and it’s amazing. There’s a niche thing for you.)

But aside from the more stereotypical nerd things, I’ve been really studying the fuck out of U.S. (because that’s where I live) intellectual property and contract law lately. I’ve been watching law school study aids kind of content and reading this book that’s basically just the text of tons of legal rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts on the subject of intellectual property.

The most interesting things to me in that space at the moment are:

  • The history of the duration of copyright in the U.S., the 1998 “Sonny Bono” Copyright Term Extension Act and the case “Eldred v. Ashcroft” which (unsuccessfully 🙁) challendged its constitutionality.
  • The case “Software Freedom Conservancy v. Vizio, Inc.” and how the courts are agreeing to interpret the GNU GPL not just as a copyright license but also as a contract and the strategic benefits that could offer for GPL-enforcement cases moving forward.
Open Intellectual Property Casebook | Duke University School of Law

The 2018, 4th edition of Intellectual Property: Law & the Information Society—Cases and Materials by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins is now available for sale or free download under a Creative Commons license.

I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice~
Red Dwarf is awesome. I think I can count myself as a Red Dwarf nerd…