Timothy Geigner

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Timothy Geigner

It was a couple of weeks ago when I was stupidly watching one cable news channel or another when I witnessed some GOP talking head say that Donald Trump likes to build a team of competing viewpoints that fight with one another as a way of producing the best results. I think it was Scott Jennings, but I can’t be sure. You’ll forgive me if I can’t recall which husk of a person with their soul on loan said something so profoundly ignorant.

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Timothy Geigner

It’s time for yet another reminder that HHS Secretary RFK Jr. is an incapable leader at odds with the scientists who actually know what they’re talking about. At the CDC specifically, we recently discussed the government’s decision to do away with the team that was helping to identify, track, and remediate elevated levels of lead appearing in the blood of children throughout the country.

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Timothy Geigner

I’ll start this off by acknowledging that, sure, there are times when it is perfectly reasonable to say, or even shout, “We’re all going to die!” Say you’re on a plane that has just lost all engine power and is hurtling towards the ground, for instance. Or perhaps someone has asked you the question, “Name one thing every human being has in common.” In each of those situations, the phrase is fairly appropriate, and I’m sure there are others.

3 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Timothy Geigner

With all the conversations we’ve had in the past few months about the decline of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the leadership, or lack thereof, of RFK Jr. and Donald Trump, you might have been left with the impression that everything at HHS is broken beyond repair. But that’s not entirely true. Despite the rash of budget, staff, and grant cuts that have kneecapped HHS, you can still get a great deal of information from the HHS website, for instance.

4 weeks ago | techdirt.com | Timothy Geigner

There’s a great deal that is absurd about copyright law in America, but its most basic absurdity remains the length of time for which the copyright monopoly applies. The length of copyright protection a work gets depends on a number of factors. Was the work published before or after 1978? Was it renewed, if the former? Was it published anonymously or by a named individual? Was it work for hire? The answer to all of these impact the term length of copyright for an individual work.