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Michael Weinberg

@michaelweinberg.org
1.4K followers 620 following 731 posts

Exec Dir @nyuengelberg.org, Board Member @oshwassociation.bsky.social, Formerly GC @ Shapeways & many things @publicknowledge.bsky.social NYC/Berlin

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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 11/09/2026
While I am sure they are just as horrible as their competitors, in a world of hack-for-hire companies with ridiculous h4x0r/fantasy novel-inspired names, I appreciate the work that "Sunkissed Organic Farms" is doing to stand out www.techdirt.com/2026/09/10/l...
screenshot of the paragraph "This week, Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Rep. Pat Harrigan, sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, asking him to add Appin and several related companies (CyberRoot, BellTroX, Adaptive Control Security Global Corporate, ABP Holdings, and “Sunkissed Organic Farms” — yes really) to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) “Entity List” — the tool that effectively cuts foreign entities deemed national security threats off from American technology and American business partners. It’s the same designation BIS used against NSO Group in 2021."
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 02/07/2026
Huge list of open access wins in this report from @rammuseum.bsky.social 18 months into their new OA program (developed with support from the GLAM-E Lab) www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour...
The main findings over this 18-month period include:
• A 85% increase in website visits to RAMM’s website around the time of the open access announcement;
• A total of 12,880,510 Wikipedia page views of articles containing RAMM images; RAMM images
featured across 32 different Wikipedia languages, including English, Portuguese, Slovak,
Urdu and Korean;
• A total of 529 downloads of RAMMs open access 3D models from SketchFab;
• A further 11 local cultural heritage organisations uploading works open access in collaboration
with RAMM.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 29/05/2026
Everything I think I know about capitalism means that this job should never be vacant
Poster advertising job vacancies to fire the gun at the saluting battery
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 23/02/2026
I did not realize that the Library of Congress AV Collection Preservation Team filed in favor of a 1201 exemption for breaking DVD encryption
Comment on circumvention, February 17, 2000
Carl Fleischhauer, Technical Coordinator, National Digital Library Program
David A. Francis, Chief, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division
Library of Congress
PREFACE: The following comment is from staff of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded
Sound Division and the National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress regarding the
prohibition on circumvention of technological controls on access to copyrighted works. This comment
pertains to the rulemaking regarding circumvention discussed in 64 FR 66139 and in the “Copyright
Notices” newsletter for December 1999 (page 3). The rulemaking is associated with the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act and is intended to determine if there are classes of works whose users are,
or are likely to be, adversely affected in the user’s ability to make non-infringing uses if they may not
circumvent technological measures.
COMMENT: The Library of Congress audio-visual-collection preservation team believes that it may
be necessary for the Library to circumvent technological controls on access to copyrighted works in
order to preserve digital audio-visual works for the long term. Such preservation of audio-visual
materials has always been part of the mission of the Library and other legitimate research archives, and
the process has always entailed copying. For example, older sound recordings on wire reels and
magnetic tape formats have been copied into new formats as the historical wire recordings and
magnetic tapes deteriorated or were determined to be likely to deteriorate. The staff charged with the
responsibility for preserving audio-visual collections foresees that digital content will also require
copying for preservation. For example, as a compact disk begins to show signs of deterioration, the
digital signal on the disk must be transferred to other media to avert loss.
The Library has not made a definitive study of the copyright protection technolog
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 23/02/2026
Dear Government,
I'm sure you've gotton hundreds of letters from pitifull crybabies whining
about the loss of their puny little freedoms to have access to information.
Information is not a given right in the constitution. They have freedom of
speech, not freedom of writing.
Maybe they are whining because their jobs depend on reverse engineering
software to make sure that it is not doing anything unauthorized to their
computers. Well boo-hoo. What these people have to realize is that unless
tight controls are in place on them by tbe government or large corporations,
anarchy will result.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 23/02/2026
The other major problem with the MPAA's line of reasoning is that distribution of
an illegally digitally copied DVD movie is near impossible. They file size is somewhere
between 1 and 5 GIGABYTES OF DATA. This means that even if one had one's own
web server, with a fancy, incredibly fast Internet connection of, say, 10,000,000 bits per
second (or 1.25 megabytes per second) it would still take an average of 45 minutes to
download a single movie. Now you might say, "Well, 45 minutes isn't really a whole lot
of time.", to which I would add, "But less than .1% of Americans connected to the
Internet have this type of connection." Much more common are the so called "Cable
Modem" or "DSL" broadband Internet services. These can provide a user with upwards
of 200,000 bits per second of download speed. At this rate, it would take about 37.5
HOURS to download a pirated DVD movie. The kicker here is that only somewhere
between 10% and 20% of Internet users have this fast a connection. By far the most
common kind of Internet connection is the so called "56k" modem. A "56k" modem can
provide download speeds of up to 53,000 bits per second, though it is most often lower
than this and can dip as low as 28,800 bits per second. Even at it's maximum rate of
download, it would take a "56k" modem approximately 5.25 DAYS to download a
pirated DVD movie. Why would anybody want to do this when, if you are really bent on
illegally copying a movie, you can got to the local video store, spend $5 to rent a movie
and copy it onto a $2 blank VHS cassette. Adding in travel time to and from the video
store, and if you actually wanted to watch the tape while you where copyng it, this would
take less than 3 hours and only cost you $7
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 23/02/2026
In my opinion DeCSS cannot possibly be used to infringe copyrights because NOBODY is going to put a 5
Gigabyte movie on the internet, I wouldn't even save one on my hard drive. DVD's take up to much space
and have the ability to take up to 17 Gigs! Please stop this unfair treatment of people who simply want to
be able to use their LEGALLY BOUGHT DVD's on their computers.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 23/02/2026
real blast-from-the-past math from the 2000 1201 proceeding:
DVD will be no different. If anything, DVD is even less accessible. Consumer
DVD recorders are far beyond the horizon, and any storage method in the
forseeable future would result in the abuser spending MORE money for a copy of
the tape. At 4 or 5 gigs per video, each video would cost a pirate:
Assumed 200$ for a 20 gig hard drive, 5 gigs per digital video,
(5 / 20) * 200 = 50$ per movie.
Compared to 10-15$ to buy the official DVD, this is somehow a threat?
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 12/01/2026
What does it mean that the caterer that we are required to use for events at NYU Law is offering a promo code?
image advertising a January/February promo code for $10 off my order
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 21/11/2025
"tactics that encourage litigation" from who? the entities being regulated? who, if they were in favor of the regulation, wouldn't need to be regulated in the first place? gothamist.com/news/the-tru...
screenshot of the paragraph "“In the business community, she has the unfortunate reputation of being an ideologue, but a smart one,” said Kathy Wylde, who heads the business advocacy group Partnership for New York City. “Tactics that encourage litigation will not help New York become more affordable.”"
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 02/11/2025
This one feels like it is pushing the limits of puffery
Dominos pizza and touting "a melhor pizza de pepperoni do mundo"
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/10/2025
View of the calculating empires installation from the outside
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 21/10/2025
I appreciate that NYC had Dumbo Boulders, a outdoor bouldering space that was fenced in, was staffed by multiple people, and required an entrance fee while Berlin has a concrete shed on the street that someone bolted holds onto
a pink shed with climbing holds next to an apartment building
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 19/09/2025
I really hope the NYT photo editor chose this image to illustrate how anyone standing next to Robert Redford looks like a giant dork in comparison
Robert Redford, looking cool, standing next to Bono, looking like a dork
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 02/09/2025
Clarence A. Freeman, Champion Checker Player AND Champion Oarsman of the World (only checkers depicted) www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...
Color lithograph of the champion
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 02/09/2025
W.A. Rowe, Bicyclist (uncomfortable position) www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...
Color lithograph of the champion sitting on an old tyme bike
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 02/09/2025
John Wessels, Champion Boy Club Swinger www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...
Color lithograph of the champion
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 02/09/2025
TOC screenshot:

III. COPYRIGHT , THE WEAPON PAR EXCELLENCE .......................... 226
A. Why Copyright? ............................................................... 227
1. Everything Is Copyrighted and Everyone Is an Infringer ................................................................. 227
2. Copyright Disputes Are Expensive and Copyright
Weaponizers Are Motivated ...................................... 229
3. Copyright’s Remedies Allow Suppression of Content
with Limited First Amendment Review....................... 230
4. Copyright’s Extrajudicial Remedy Encourages
Weaponization......................................................... 231
5. Copyright Defenses Fail to Discourage Copyright
Weaponization...........................
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 03/07/2025
This tram logo probably feels slightly less snazzy when the arrow is perpetually pointing away from the side one exits the car
Stylized logo mounted in a team car so that it is pointing right when the exit is to the left
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 17/06/2025
Here’s another chart of the server load during a swarm (they tried to reset the server in the middle)
Here’s another chart of the server load during a swarm (they tried to reset the server in the middle)
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 17/06/2025
The bots often operate like a roving, relatively brief DDOS attack. Here’s a chart from one collection showing how they go from ~500 visits/day to ~10,000 visits/day about once per month
Line chart of user visits over an 8 month period. Traffic is generally at about 500 visits per day. Approximately every month the traffic spikes to 9 or 10 thousand.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 16/06/2025
Years of riding Amtrak caused me to open this "timetable change for your scheduled train" email from Deutsche Bahn with real trepidation
arrival time of 5:01 pm has been updated with an arrival time of 5:00 pm
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 31/05/2025
Things get a bit hectic towards the end of the second day at the @oshwassociation.bsky.social Open Hardware Summit
Increasingly complex slides behind a speakerIncreasingly complex slides behind a speaker
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/05/2025
Another slide, another certification
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/05/2025
Another presentation slide with certified hardware logos
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/05/2025
a product with an OSHWA certification logo
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/05/2025
Another slide with a certification
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/05/2025
Love how many @oshwassociation.bsky.social Summit slides feature certified own hardware logos
Presenter standing in front of two screens with OSHWA logos on slides
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 30/05/2025
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 22/05/2025
Very here for the "no title" option on this registration page
list of titles on a registration page, options are "No Title," "Ms," "Mr," "Dr," and "Prof"
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 05/05/2025
BirdNET-Pi is the most "it just works" open source software/hardware project I have spun up in a long time www.birdweather.com/birdnetpi
Screenshot of birdnet-pi dashboard, including graphs of birds identified that day (by time), new birds, and total birds identified
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 14/04/2025
Looking at this map of the first flight from the UK to Australia (27 days long) makes it seem like that kind of trip was probably simultaneously terrifying and boring. Do any online flight sim communities ever try to reprouce these trips? digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/nodes/view/6...
Map of the flight from the UK to Australia, including all of the places they stopped
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 11/04/2025
3,000 pieces of certified open source hardware, from >60 countries, on every continent except antarctica (c'mon antarctica....)
heat map of all of the countries with certified open source hardware
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 14/02/2025
This poster gets an A+ on its own, but the aipd-partei.de website really takes it to another level
Pink poster with the outline of an alien for the Ausserirdische Invasoren Partei Deutschlands
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 10/02/2025
Each year I use my insider information to buy a copy of the book to be necromanced before we announce the show (therefore sending prices through the roof)
Cover of an hour with the movies and the talkies
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 28/01/2025
Not thrilled that all of the branding around this is "buy now" when the first line in the terms are "DIGITAL BOOKS ARE DIGITAL GOODS THAT ARE LICENSED BY THE PUBLISHER, NOT OWNED BY THE PURCHASER."
red "buy now" button with a lightning boltexcerpt from the digital books ToU:  "DIGITAL BOOKS ARE DIGITAL GOODS THAT ARE LICENSED BY THE PUBLISHER, NOT OWNED BY THE PURCHASER."
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 21/01/2025
High quality german squirrel content from @rbb24.de for anyone looking for that type of thing today www.rbb24.de/panorama/bei...
rbb|24: Hello Mrs. Drenske, if you were an animal, would you like to be a squirrel in Germany?

Sinah Drenske : I think I would like to be a squirrel. And this also prefers in Germany. Because here you have it quite good as a squirrel. You can also hide pretty well from your enemies.

rbb|24: Which enemies would you have?

Sinah Drenske : Marders, cats and various birds of prey are the enemies of the squirrels in this country. Dogs and foxes are not.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 15/01/2025
The graphics for this conference look like example slides from a bias-in-generative-AI-systems talk where the prompt was "create images of AI experts"
photos of speakers: eight white guys with various degrees of hair and relationships to tiesphotos of 5 more white guy speakers, this time tied to a country. even the China speaker is a white guy!
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 11/01/2025
Sideline reporter for the German broadcast of the Texans - Chargers game is not going to make it out of Nakatomi Plaza alive
Photo of very German looking dude on the sideline
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 01/01/2025
First day of 2025 in Berlin, with opinions
White Tesla with "FCKAFD" spray painted in red on the hood
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 19/12/2024
hard to say which of these emails make my heart beat faster
screenshot of two emails. one subject line is "2024 SSRN End of Year Message" and the second is "Happy Holidays from Lexis"
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 17/12/2024
all lawsuits are Serious Business, but this attempt from @questauthority.bsky.social, @akivamcohen.bsky.social, & Dylan Schmeyer to get the parents of a Canadian teenager to make him stop being such a troll in an online game is also kind of hilarious www.courtlistener.com/docket/67890...
screenshot of a complaint "Because M.Z. is a teenager, RRI involved his parents, imploring them to properly supervise their son as the law requires them to do. They refused. RRI therefore brings this action against M.Z. to stop his damaging activities and recover compensation for the damage he has caused.”
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 09/12/2024
1201(a) anti-circumvention claim against Alibaba for hosting allegedly infringing photos. I have no idea what "Plaintiff also disables the right-click copy function on its images prior to distribution" could possibly mean in this context.
705. Plaintiff also disables the right-click copy function on its images prior to distribution.
706. The Alibaba Defendants removed the copyright protection system and enabled the right-click copy function.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 20/11/2024
A+ 404 page from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
screenshot of page text, "40 4th Amendment, Looks like you need a warrant for that content"
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 31/10/2024
SPECIAL LAST DAY OF OPEN HARDWARE MONTH ANNOUNCEMENT (spooky): Early Bird tickers for OHS2025 are Officially on sale! www.eventbrite.com/e/open-hardw...
Edinburgh OHS 2025 logo on a yellow background
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 28/10/2024
If I'm ever in a position where someone needs to my portrait, this painting I just saw on a tour of the Museum Bredius in The Hague will be the one and only style reference I provide
dutch oil painting of some guy who just looks tickled to be there
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 25/10/2024
I mean, sections of their joint autobiography pretty explicitly anticipate the entire game, so yeah? See, e.g., this excerpt from page 155 of the hardcover edition:
Super Mario Strikers is a five-a-side football console video game comprising characters and themes from the Mario series. Each team consists of a captain character from the Mario series and three secondary Mario characters known as "sidekicks".[3] Kritter is the goalkeeper for all sides except the "Super Team", which consists of four captain robots and a Robo-Kritter. Both sidekicks and captains have varying gameplay attributes with "balanced" and "defensive" play types available.[7] Strikers follows the basic gameplay featured in most football video games, including the ability to dash, tackle players, and lob the ball. Despite this,
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 14/10/2024
FAKE DIRECTORIES. Probably the worst infested city in the country, so far as fraudulent direc- tories is concerned, is New York.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 14/10/2024
Speaking of time, is a reminder of the troublous times caused by a peculiar condition incident to the manner of keeping time at Detroit. The city itself still runs by astronomical time, or * local time™ so-called. The railroads and most of the hotels run on **Standard ™ time ; while right across the river, in Canada, “ Eastern ” time prevails. The result is a peculiar mix-up. One is never certain just where he is at, and the endeavor to make the necessary allowances for the differences involve a constant bewilderment. It proves diffi- cult to a stranger to remember what is to be done with the half hour difference —whether it is to be added to or sub- tracted from the time which he may be carrying.
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Michael Weinberg @michaelweinberg.org · 09/10/2024
I appreciate that it takes exactly 3 sentences to deliver on the promise of academic snark
This book has been composed over the course of some fifteen years. Its inception goes back to 1963 when I read Carl Bridenbaugh's presidential address to the American Historical Association. This address which was entited 'The Great Mutation' belonged to an apocalyptic genre much in vogue at the time (and unfortunately still ubiquitous)."
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