OPL for a start. It was a surprisingly robust language back in the day, although when I created a stock control reporting app (the Psion dumped its data to a CSV file that was read into dBase for DOS - high tech shit indeed) in OPL on the Psion II (yeah, yeah, get off my lawn you damned kids) access to a UV EPROM eraser was almost mandatory... :o)

OK, I'm joking. I think it's more likely to be "not pretending it's something it isn't." Small sub-notebooks (and these are not a new idea- the Tosh Libretto was a fair example of the genre, although "cheap" from the SCC acronym was never something you could apply to a Libretto) are either woefully inadequate for anything more than a little web surfing, e-mailing and putzing around with a few productivity apps or just too small to be thermally stable and have decent battery life. I think the reason for the popularity of these devices right now has little to do with the form-factor, as we've established it is not new, but more the parallel proliferation of affordable mobile connectivity. Who the hell wants to lug about a full 7 or 8 lb notebook just to check the twits on twitter?

Psions were presented as a small, neat form-factor with a small, neat embedded OS that was useful for a small subset of what a larger machine could do and, more importantly, were ready for use right after you hit that power button and only required another press to go into almost full off (the RTC remained powered, the memory was, if I recall, non-volatile). They also had battery life that wipes the floor with anything about today; a Psion 3 ran for what seemed like ever on two AAs - providing the battery cover didn't fall off, the sight of batteries rolling off being a familiar one to Psion 3 users. Not sure about the 5mx as I never was fortunate enough to own one. The Psions, however, never pretended to be fully featured machines in small cases, something some of these "netbook" manufacturers are guilty of portraying their wares as and I think that was the GP's point. Why do we need a full Windows or Linpus install when something like the Asus ExpressGate (Splashtop) with a bit of storage would do just as well and be available far faster and less power hungry to boot? That's the sort of thing Psion (the original version) would have been more than likely to come up with had they progressed logically with what they were so good at and "netBook" would have been an ideal name for the thing as that's what you'd do with it: Open it, tweet on the bus describing the liver spots (one of which looks like Australia) on the back of the bald guy's head sitting in front of you, close it and get on with getting to wherever you're going. Sadly, (or, perhaps, luckily for the rest of us) it was not to be.

That said, this does sound to me more like "we missed the boat, so let's get some money off these bastards" chagrin than Psion actually wanting to use the mark again. They should be used to it by now; if The Register is to be believed, they missed quite a few boats.

I probably didn't make it clear that the tangible item that I present is the original CD/Jewel case and receipt, not a burned-to-disk copy. The only other copy is the set of FLAC files that reside on my music partition.

Quite right, I agree fully with the selective buying of music that we actually enjoy, although Theaetetus has a point. You're quite right that I don't create a second tangible copy of a CD. However, as the law stands right now in the UK it is still technically (and technicalities are the soul of UK law) illegal to format shift. However, there are changes coming which will hopefully rectify this amazingly stupid situation and I haven't heard of a single prosecution of someone buying a CD to rip. Indeed, the police advise people to make backups of their CDs for use in the car as they are seen by thieves as less valuable.

What you actually get when you buy a CD is a licence to reproduce the audio. The polycarbonate frizbee is simply a device that allows you to exercise the privilege the licence bestows upon you. Hopefully, UK lawmakers will soon remove the disparity between the advice of the police, the format-shifting necessity given the proliferation of personal media players and current UK copyright law. It is probably the first sensible review that the current UK legislators have undertaken in their entire time in office.

But what if the recipients reject the education? One response I regularly come across with the norms is "This really doesn't matter to me at all. Why should I need to be aware of an issue that I couldn't care less about?" This generally appears on topics such as this, along with net neutrality, Phorm, Nebuad and the likes and just how much power and information Google has. Really, hardly anyone cares.

The bottom line is that some of us will eschew DRM because it limits our rights. That's our group and we can realistically only change OUR behaviour and decisions because we're a minority and, the way things are going, we will remain such. Then there will be those that protest against DRM because they think it makes piracy more difficult. This is the hardest of the three groups to understand because DRM does not make piracy harder, it simply restricts the rights of those who try to play fair. The norms will consume without a thought simply because they don't care. That's the vast (and, looking around me, I really do mean VAST) majority of people. There are advantages to both of the sane points of view, most notably that we tend to have lower blood pressure despite the stress of trying to swim upstream ;o)

My solution to DRM is and probably always will be to buy polycarbonate frizbees and rip to FLAC for my music collection. Not only do I get a very acceptable quality recording, I also have something tangible to wave at the copyright policeman when he starts giving me hassle. I really don't see a better alternative despite the Internet's potential to revolutionise music distribution. I either put up with a crap recording on a lossy, proprietary codec and pay nearly the same as I would have for DRM-free, lossless audio with a nice master backup if I lose my collection, regardless of whether it's DRM free MP3 or not, or put a little effort in to do it this way. The advantages are clear. I also refuse to use P2P applications and share the results. Sorry, I paid for these. You want them, you know how to get them: The same way I did.

Before anyone points out that audio CDs are mostly copy protected these days, not when you don't use Windows and autorun, they're not. A track is still a track on a standards-compliant CD. There are also some rather nice FLAC enabled, inexpensive personal media players coming out of the Far East right now, for example this is a rather nice little gadget if you're more interested in quality audio than being seen with white earbuds on the bus...

In other words, the revolution that replaces the current music industry will probably not be based around the Internet at all unless some folks change their ideas. Piracy is NOT acceptable, regardless of the Robin Hood wannabe crowd. Accepting low quality crap that removes your fair-use rights is also not acceptable. People need to realise these facts. The likelihood of that happening, as the GP poster suggests, is slim.

general purpose computer and my sysadmin chooses the software appropriate for the job. I'm one of the most powerful and versatile electronic devices ever conceived by humankind and, providing my owner isn't blindly sworn to a corporate entity or software movement (commonly referred to as a "fanboi"), there is almost nothing I cannot do.

Yeah, give us light weight single person vehicles now!

I would want one of these KMX trikes with electronic motor:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oK4FOv4FD1Q

Good enough for my purposes, just put a plastic wind shield / roof and some bags on it to.

Since it's winter now just the trike would be sufficient to, less risk of crashing than on a two wheeler.

I have to agree with that comment (except for schools; until such time as they concentrate on knowledge rather than stripping the individuality and ability to think from our children and forcing them to all look the same, they can take their own chances). That, and the bloody "Arts Council" which has leeched the lottery fund dry, yet we still have homeless people on the streets and people living in poverty. One "Angel of the North" (which looks like a rusty satellite has crashed near Newcastle, doing £500,000 worth of improvements) could have funded 10 or 12 drop-in centres or a few hostels (numbers from my arse, but you get the general idea).

This country is screwed up. As long as the top 5% can keep going to the bank with all the money nobody cares, it seems.

Indeed. I'm surprised more people don't just use this instead. Oh, and about:config is your friend if you're concerned about privacy at all. Fx isn't privacy-safe by default. It leaks all manner of personal information. Open source, it seems, no longer means the developers have your best interests at heart. My first thought when reading the synopsis was "Fx does this by default and removal of the associated Google URLs is non-trivial." so I can see exactly what you're saying about Moz vs Apple.
 
As for Apple being Evil? ALL corporations have one goal: Make their shareholders money on their investments. That includes Google, Microsoft, Novell, Apple et al. None of these companies exist to make you happy or give you free shit without some strings attached and the sooner some people realise this the better off we'll all be. Then we can start discussing ways to mitigate these breaches of privacy and security instead of whining constantly that they're there. It's not going away. Corporations will never stop trying to "monetize" the web. In my opinion, Google are the worst of the lot, yet they're still everyone's blue eyed boy. Do we actually care about privacy or do we just want to stiff one company and tolerate another? Duplicity is no way to say "I have principles."

OK, all good points, especially that quoted above. I'm just pissed at seeing ordinary people having years of their lives ruined over something that, in the grand scheme of things, is simply not that important to anyone but those making money out of it and certainly not worth the penalties some people are paying.

Anyway, you're right: Putting obstacles in the way of progress and making blinkered rules up, especially with regard to the Internet, is likely to destroy the very things that make the Internet unique. Thanks for the thought provoking reply and I withdraw my overly-broad comment on P2P.

But even in that case, the damages awarded are totally disproportionate to the act. I suspect we wouldn't be having this conversation if the end result was "What's the retail price for a copy of that album? OK, judgment for the plaintiff for the sum of $15.99. Defendant ordered not to use P2P software for the purposes of obtaining copyrighted works."

But that's not what's happening, is it? What I'd also like to know is how MediaSentry validate the time of their "discoveries." They're using, mostly, dynamic IPs and ISP logs to "prove" their cases. Now, I may be a little picky, but if I've been assigned an IP for ten minutes and the watch that you glanced at when someone with that IP was downloading some track by Men Without Testicles isn't accurate, where's the damned proof? How does the ISP validate its logs?

Basically, what we have here is a virtual map+pin and the threat of huge damages just to scare the crap out of people. I don't agree with ripping off music on the Internet, if only for the fact that we all get tarred with the same brush, helping the RIAA state that everyone's guilty and they don't need to prove anything, just catch them in the act. However, what they do to people is destroy them as an example. Regardless of guilt, the end result, especially for people like Thomas who have hardly anything to start with, is a portion of their lives devastated over what amounts to a few bucks for a CD. Most of it is crap, anyway, and *this* is the real reason their sales are tanking.

Can I also say a big thanks to the P2P software houses, with a special "fuckwit of the century" mention to the original Napster, who have lured these easily led people into considering these activities in the first place, leaving people like Thomas in financial ruin and stressed for years on end? If anyone deserves a good kick in the pants over "piracy," it's these knob-ends. Yes, Thomas was stupid. As far as I know, regardless of my own feelings about removing the labels on dangerous things and letting Darwinism run its course, being stupid isn't an offense. Advertising software as being able to access music and such when the company doing so knows fuck well that it's illegal and will probably end up with some poor schmuck having to take out a mortgage to pay the poor, poor RIAA who desperately need these enormous amounts of single parents', dead folks', computerless people, students' and children's money bloody well ought to be. I suspect they're left alone simply because doing this to ordinary people is so lucrative that the P2P software is actually seen as a good thing within the various Asses of America.