Llama DOES NOT have internet permission. Your data isn't going anywhere
Whether or not you believe them is a different issue, but that reassured me at least somewhat. I've been using Llama for a few months now, and really enjoy its functionality.
Undoing moderation to post.
When was the last time the spirit of the 2nd amendment, the "security of a free state", was maintained with a firearm in the US?
Dunno if there are more recent examples, but in 1946 some WWII veterans used guns as private citizens to help ensure free elections. Now, this doesn't address your other questions, of whether or not such protection from (real or imagined) tyranny is worth it. I tend to be somewhere in the middle: I think people should have the right to bear arms, but that requiring licensing, registration, and training do not infringe on those rights.
A legit question, and one that deserves an honest answer. I like to think of myself as a moral pirate. I try to buy books, music, and movies from artists I respect, when I can afford it. When not, or when it's something where I don't feel the artist(s) or creator(s) particularly needs my money (an entirely subjective and problematic scale, I know) I pirate it.
I feel justified, able to sleep at night, because Big Media (music, movies, TV, books, etc) have failed to hold up their end of the copyright bargin. Copyright is a deal: You (the content creator) gets a limited monopoly on distribution, and are allowed to place whatever restrictions you see fit. In exchange, I (society at large) eventually get entirely free and unrestricted access, when the work enters the public domain. Big Media has failed to hold up their end of the bargin by continually extending copyright terms beyond "reasonable' (another subjective term, I know), retroactively extending copyright for works that have already been created, and using their lobbying might to continue to push laws in their favor. As such, I see little moral or ethical problems with failing to hold up my end of the bargin; namely, respecting their copyright.
So I infringe. I download TV shows, movies, and books, and seed them back to the Internet at large. Were copyright 14 years, 50 years, or even the life of the creator, I'd like to think I would behave differently. But I'm not holding my breath the length of copyright to be reduced anytime soon.
-Rebecca
PS - I do have a problem with people who make money off of the work of still-living artists, by selling pirated copies or movies or books. But non-commercial copyright infringement is morally acceptable in my worldview.
PPS - For what it's worth, I try to practice what I preach. I'm a working artist, making a living off of what I create. Nevertheless, I have my book available for free on my website, along with videos of my shows.
Tim Robinson, the man behind the Meccano construction you link to, is a trustee of the Plan 28 charity mentioned above.
You are quite correct that we have not built a single demo part. In the two years since I started talking about this project the following has happened:
1. Persuaded the Science Museum to digitize all of Babbage's plans and notebooks (this in itself was a non-trivial task involving a great deal of effort at all levels and they should be thanked for taking on the task).
2. Got the leading Babbage experts to join and work with me (Doron Swade who built the Difference Engine No. 2 and Tim Robinson)
3. Started a UK-based charity (again these things take time as there are legal requirements and the recruitment of a board of trustees)
4. Started research on the Babbage archive itself
5. Begun fund-raising.
No. 4 is non-trivial because there are literally thousands of pages of notes and > 230 large scale plans to decipher. Plus there's a hardware description language to work with. And the archive is not well documented. There are a number of different cross references that conflict with each other. I realize that all this stuff is boring and people would like to see an immediate result, but that's not going to happen. It's years of work to properly study this stuff and build a historically accurate machine.
Note that we have not proposed building the 1,000 memory location machine. That's far too much to demonstrate that it would work and would add to the cost and size. As for the number of parts, until we've deciphered all the plans and come up with a definitive plan that it's hard to answer but we believe there will be roughly 40,000 to 50,000 components to be made.
You are correct that I care about the PR side of things. I need to because I need to raise a substantial amount of money.
But it's far from all PR. There's now a registered British charity with a board of trustees and the pre-eminent Babbage expert, Doron Swade, who built the Difference Engine No. 2 at the Science Museum is running the technical side of the project.
Study of the digitized plans has been underway since February and some first results will be announced this summer. We actively want to build a 3D working model in a tool like Autodesk.
For example, they could better disambiguate between Santorum the tool and santorum the frothy mixture of blood, semen and feces.
I realize this isn't the main point of your post, but if you're doing it right there shouldn't be any blood...
The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
