on the flip side, you are apparently allowed to do covers and adaptions regardless of whether the original author wants you to or not. you still have to pay, but they can't stop you from doing it. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/290/must-you-get-permission-to-record-someone-elses-song

i'm a designer and illustrator and i own a toshiba satellite tablet PC - i love it; it's got a big screen (14 inches) and it runs photoshop and all the other art/drawing tools i want, and drawing directly on the screen is so much nicer to me than using a wacom pad or something.

but it's getting old, and it's starting to show its age, and full-OS tablet PCs nowadays are just getting smaller (hard to find one with more than a 12-inch screen anymore) and more expensive ( i paid about $1100 for mine), while the cheaper ones are less useful. i was excited by the rumors of a mac tablet, because i thought maybe given apple's traditional position with designers and artists that the mac tablet might be something i could actually use.

it's true that tablets are a niche product, but it's MY niche, and it bums me out that it's not being better served.

Years back I worked for a company who did a very successful display at the Louisiana Children's Museum in New Orleans: http://www.bentmedia.com/case_studies/teamturtle.php

The computers were all touchscreen enabled and put into cabinets like kiosks, and they were scheduled to automatically restart if a crash was detected and relaunch the multimedia presentations. The exhibit itself was bright, colorful, and interactive.

I wasn't directly involved with the implementation of this project so I don't know all the details, but maybe from the photos in the case study you can get a sense of how it was set up. I remember it being a pretty big hit - and while I don't know the extent of any "unpleasant surprises" that are sure to occur with a project like this, when I visited the exhibit I recall everything working very smoothly.

And yet the people "at the top" - in business, in government, in organized crime, everywhere - play these same games with each other, and have played these games with each other for centuries. Somehow, the whole thing still "works" and they manage to stay "on top". How do they pull that off? How do they keep the house of cards from falling when every one of them knows that every other one of them would turn on them if the moment was right? It doesn't sound like it would be possible to keep an organization going in an environment like that, but somehow they do it.

I think the Whitest Kids U'Know said it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Aqfp5iMnw

that very thing happened a few years ago - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5152740.stm

pepsi declined the offer and reported it as a theft of trade secrets.

The article keeps referring to what was stolen as "codes". Does that mean "source code" or are they talking about some kind of access codes or authentication keys or something, like the way people call their bank PIN their "secret code" ?

But you see, the point is that someone still DOES make horse buggies. People still go to Central Park to ride the buggies, and SOMEONE has to create them.

That's the great thing about a niche market - if you're the only one in a certain business, be it horse buggies or resurrecting Polaroid film, you might very well be able to get enough customers who are interested in your product to stay in business.

If they think that enough people still find the old-school Polaroid film appealing, then they'd be stupid NOT to take their money, since no one else wants to.

If you put the users to work, you "get" the value of the work they're performing in exchange for your content. It might not be "money", but you might be getting enough value from their menial tasks that it could be worth your while.

I guess that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. I just wonder why nothing has yet filled that need, if the Libertarian party has diverted so far from that completely reasonable path. If the answer is "no one really wants that", then I suppose that answers the question about Americans and the things they really cherish, as opposed to what they claim to cherish.