From TFA:
It's been internationally famous since before the Berlin Wall fell
World famous among the readers of the Nashua Telegraph, maybe...
I've been reading Hall's articles and articles about him and his projects since... oh, around 1993 or 1994, and this is the first time I think I've read anything about his damned car!
It's an insignificant anecdote, trotted out by some backwater rag on a slow news day.
Move along! Nothing to see here!
K.
And what exactly are you supposed to do if you do not hold a driver's license?
And what of that rather large number of US citizens who don't hold a passport?
K.
Too big to fail.... where have I heard that recently?
K.
Gold in hand is what you want not the "promise to deliver gold".
I have, in my hand, a Piece of Paper, signed by Mr. Bailey, whereupon he promises to pay me, upon presentation of his Note, the Sum of Twenty Pounds.
I am sorely tempted to present this Note at his Banca, in the hope of receiving Twenty Pounds Troy Weight of pure Gold.
It is my Suspicion, however, that Mr.Bailey will simply substitute the Promissory Note I currently hold for another bearing the same Promise.
K.
They don't WANT to compete
Of course they don't want to compete! This is not some sort of idealistic Coubertinian Olympic Games, where simply taking part and making the best attempt is the most important aspect of the competition.
In business and commerce, winning is the be all and end all of the game.
K.
It's sickening to watch massive corporations give up on the ideals of commercialism (competing for the consumer's dollars on the basis of quality, service, and price) and instead simply doing business through legislation (make it illegal for your competition to exist...). I feel like I'm watching someone's Cyberpunk or Shadowrun campaign come together as megacorps take control of governments... It's all sickening...
A corporation that exists to make profit will use any means available to make those profits. If lobbying and back-room deals pay better than R&D, then that's where the corporation will put its efforts.
I don't like that any more than you, but we have to face the facts: that's how it works.
If you want corporations to compete on value (i.e., cost/benefit for the consumer), then you need a system where R&D gives better returns than lobbying.
This kind of stuff has been going on for ever. In feudal times, there were monopolies, guilds, charters; in the renaissance there monopolies, guilds were less influential, but there were still charters; in the 18th century, businessmen like Boulton and Wedgwood would petition parliament for extensions of patents in order to corner markets and build monopolies... TWC is behaving somewhat like the Dutch or British East India Companies... just taking care of business in the most efficient way that the system allows, and if that means using political influence then so be it.
You can't wish it away. If you want to think of TWC as the enemy and defeat it, you need to understand the strategy and tactics available to your enemy and adapt your own strategy and tactics in consequence. If TWC has access to those who write and enact bills, then get access for yourself, or block TWC's access to that resource.
K.
Copyright on things like the Mona Lisa, or Eiffel Tower are "perpetually" held, even though they were created and "discovered" during "modern" copyright terms.
Not quite true.
In French law, which applies to the Eiffel Tower, the architect of a building owns the rights to the commercial reproduction of images of that building for a set period of time (being 70 years after the death of the architect IIRR).
The case of the Eiffel Tower is particularly illuminating, in that the tower can be photographed during the day and that the image can be used for commercial purposes, yet a similar photograph taken at night may not be used so freely...
The problem is that the lights on the tower are protected by the same laws as the tower itself.
This question is posed quite frequently in French photography magazines (e.g. Chasseur d'Images) and there are plenty of references on the web. Below is an very good article. http://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/temoignage/temoignage/24557/ai-je-le-droit-d-utiliser-l-image-d-un-batiment-public-tel-que-la-tour-eiffel-par-exemple-pour-l-integrer-dans-le-graphisme-d-un-site-internet/
K.
Ideally, yes.
In reality, it would take far too much time for each school to examine each site, report on it, discuss whether or not to block it, and then finally vote, then update the list.
Imagine how long it would take to vet 1000 sites...
Imagine in my town, with four elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.
The first rationalization would be to say "a single common blacklist for the elementary schools", rather than repeating the same job four times.
The next would be to say "if a site is on the high school blacklist, it goes automatically on the middle school blacklist; if it's on the middle school blacklist, it goes automatically on the elementary school blacklist".
Then, my town's schoolboard joins forces with two or three neighbouring towns, to keep a single set of lists for, let's say, eight elementary schools, four middle schools and four high schools.
Great, we've reduced the overhead from keeping sixteen separate lists to just three lists with a high degree of commonality.
So how about an open common project to maintain list? To block or allow a site is put to an online vote of parents (or combination of parents and school principals, maybe district superintendants). This is bound to provoke "lively discussion"...
K.
When I go to McDonalds and the bill comes to $5.58 and I give the brain dead clerk $6.08 and she starts to cry because she can't figure out the change we have a seriously under educated populace.
Srsly!
If the manager couldn't even figure out how to train her to press "amount tendered" then punch in $6.08 so the machine can figure out your change (I'm not doing the math, sorry), that really is sad!
Anyway, why are you paying cash in the first place? You should be putting that on your card, like a good patriotic consumer!
K.
Not quite right...
shove all the problems [of parenting] onto someone else
But that is the very point behind the existence of these software companies. They are in business to provide a service. Leaving aside the moral question of abandoning an aspect of parental guidance to some other entity, there is a demand for this software and the market proposes a service. If the proposed service fails to deliver what it promises, then the provider of the service can be sued for failure to homor its contractual obligations.
When your child is in school, the school is acting in loco parentis. Now I may be able to keep a close eye and provide good guidance to my own two kids, but you just try keeping a close eye on 25 to 30 at a time. Now give each of them a computer and an internet connection, and tell me you know what they are all doing, and that you can have a frank and honest discussion with each of them about everything out there.
Talking with a friend recently, about 'net filtering on kids' computers at home, he told me what another friend had recommended.
no filters, but the kid knows that I look in the cache and history... if they are cleared, it means he's hiding something... so he polices his own usage
This approach covers not only about things that a parent might consider "inappropriate" for a particular child, but it also catches things like watching Sponge Bob instead of researching Vaco de Gama's expeditions...
K.
Zombies in the ice?
K.
Your arguments are well expressed and I agree with almost everything you stated.
Until you get to this:
My own view is that as a society we should be encouraging people "to work", rather than "have worked", copyright protections encourages people to stop working and live of their past actions. Look at some of the old rock bands going around, they make money of "Performance" (the present) rather than "recordings" (the past)
So far as I can see, almost everybody gets paid for past work.
Currently, I get paid for the work I did two weeks ago. I used to be paid for the work I had done the previous month.
And my bonus was paid for the work I had done a year earlier...
Very, very few people get paid a salary up-front for future work. Corporations might make me pay up-front for stuff, but need to give me an incentive (e.g. a product costing me $150 if I pay after consumption, but $100 if I pay in advance).
K.
Four legs good - two legs better
Four legs good - two legs better
...
Four legs good - two legs better
Four legs good - two legs better
K.
Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer
