Recent Comments

1. about 4 hours ago on Super-Fun-Pak Comix

   And the computer is just a virtual machine running on another computer that’s a virtual machine running on another computer that’s a virtual machine running on another computer that’s a virtual machine running on another computer that’s a virtual machine running on another computer that’s…∞

2. about 4 hours ago on Doonesbury

   I’m not sure Trump is bothered by reminders of past criticism by people like Vance, Cruz, Rubio etc. He probably sees them as vanquished enemies who have bent the knee to him, and the fact that they hate him probably makes their obeisance that much sweeter.

3. about 1 month ago on Speed Bump

   A number of the founders supported publicly funded education for all. Sure sounds like “equity” to me! Also, The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, after all of the founders had died.

4. about 1 month ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Then California governor Ronald Reagan® signed the Mulford Act in 1967, banning public carry of loaded firearms without a permit, after members of the Black Panthers started armed “copwatching” patrols in Black neighborhoods. The NRA also supported the bill, so I guess they aren’t 2A absolutists after all!

5. about 2 months ago on Wizard of Id

   The way things are going, they’re going to have to bar comments on every strip!

6. about 2 months ago on FoxTrot Classics

   You can trademark single words, and also symbols, though not individual letters in a pre-existing alphabet. Dictionaries can be copyrighted, even though they consist of a list of words that can’t be.

   This brings up an interesting (to me) fact; to prove copyright infringement, the makers of works that consist of lists, tables, charts etc. of non-copyrightable facts purposely include errors, so if the allegedly infringing work includes them it will prove plagiarism. When I was in middle school I encountered one of these while pretending to study in the library by looking up words in a dictionary. I found a word whose definition just said “see [second word]”. That word’s definition was “see [third word]”, and so forth for a few more redirects until one said “see [first word]”. I can’t remember what any of the words were, but I was perplexed by this and remembered the bare facts of the incident when I first heard about copyright traps many years later. I understand the game Trivial Pursuit contains some of these, but I don’t know what they are.

7. about 2 months ago on FoxTrot Classics

   Does anyone know when this edition of this strip was produced? I’m wondering if the artist got the idea from Rubin & Riehl, if they got their idea from this strip, or the similarities are coincidental.

   To save you from searching, Rubin & Riehl are a music producer and a lawyer who started a project to use computers to generate every possible musical melody incorporating certain constraints of rhythm and range. Their goal was to point out that the number of such melodies is finite, and that similarities in songs are not necessarily due to plagiarism. I think there was also some talk about making it impossible to copyright new melodies by putting them all into the public domain. I don’t know what became of the project.

8. 2 months ago on Mike Luckovich

   So if you pay a prostitute afterwards it’s just a tip, not a fee for sex? How has nobody thought of this before?

9. 3 months ago on Super-Fun-Pak Comix

   I thought it was Ruben Bolling?

10. 3 months ago on Super-Fun-Pak Comix

    Why does it say “Efron” at the bottom of the first panel?