Why buy them before you're going to use them?

This technology is advancing so rapidly that anything you buy *today* will cost half the price in a couple of month's time and be twice as capable.

There's a Moore's law involved here so it seems stupid to tie up capital in something that will be unused and depreciating at such a rapid rate.

Think of all the donuts and coffee they could buy for that money!

What do you mean nobody uses Cobol 60 any more?

WTF?

I knew I shouldn't have taken a nap at the keyboard -- a quick zzz and you wake up with outdated skills!

Yeah, I'm a grey-beard too (started hand-coding 2650 assembler into hex-digits for keypad entry back in the 1970s) and was hardcore programming right up until about 1995 when I got into "content" creation for the WWW.

I still do some coding these days but it's mainly microcontroller stuff (because I also have a strong hardware background). I use C and some assembler for that. I like microcontroller programming -- usually there are fewer human inputs to stuff you up.

I wouldn't go back to coding as a job (I'm 58) because I find that my mind just isn't agile enough to work the way it did 30 years ago when I could keep so much contextual information in my memory at once that it was *easy*. These days, I live in a sea of paper and post-it notes.

No... find something more enjoyable than programming -- there are *lots* of alternatives.

The NZ Prime Minister John Key is *so* in-bed with the US movie industry that it is not funny.

Right now, he's in the USA schmoozing with the members of the MPAA and offering them hundreds of millions of (taxpayer) dollars in inducements to come film their products here.

Meanwhile... the same government ignores pleas from the science and technology sectors here to give them even a small break with respect to their R&D activities. Even when they do have a brain-fart and decide to invest taxpayers' money in some research or development activity they totally screw up and blow almost $1m on a stupid pie-in-the-sky delusion like the Martin Jetpack.

No, it seems that the government is more interested in selling-out (at all levels) to the USA than in helping to actually create some really valuable intellectual property that would be *owned* by NZers.

Kim Dotcom can't win -- because he's fighting the people who make (and break with impunity) the rules.

How long before the citizens of the world wake up to the way in which their governments are colluding with certain big business interests to disadvantage the majority of people?

Surely, in this age of technology, we can do more than simply voice our disgust on forums like this?

What is the next step?

Commentators (including myself) have been predicting the end of the internet (as we know it) for almost two decades now -- but I (and all the others) have been proven wrong.

Yes, the demand for bandwidth is growing at a huge rate -- but so is the provisioning of that bandwidth.

If you live in a country like New Zealand (where I live) you get used to living with capped data plans -- they're just a part of life and, to be totally honest, it's never really been an issue for me -- despite the fact that I do a *lot* of online video, as you can tell by my Youtube Channel.

Sure, the arrival of IPTV will change the picture a little, as TV programming starts to make up an increasingly high percentage of the total traffic -- but hey, nothing's free and many people pay for cable so why not pay for IPTV in a way that includes the bandwidth you use as well? (as will soon be the case).

Uncapped internet? Never had it, never really needed it. I have 120GB a month and that's all I need -- perhaps because I don't like the kind of dross I find on TV anyway. Quality of content is *far* more important than the quality of the image.

The problem I have is that all the issues you raise also apply to pedestrians, yet suggest to a pro-helmet cyclist that they should wear a helmet when walking across the road and they just laugh. I have no problem with people wearing helmets, in fact I would encourage it, but I want the choice for myself.

Thunderbolt uses active cables. There is a circuit at each end of the cable which handles the physical transmission. This means the cables will always be expensive, although costs will probably come down if thunderbolt becomes mainstream and economies of scale kick in. It's also a reason why thunderbolt probably won't become mainstream.

The media here is having a field-day both here (in New Zealand) and in Australian -- with suggestions that you're looking to move to this part of the world.

Are you?

There's some pretty cool tech stuff happening around here right now but this country woefully needs a tech-figurehead to help the government focus on important issues such as getting behind our nascent knowledge based industries. I think you'd be just the man.

Or you could just spend your days skiiing (water/snow), cycling, swimming, relaxing in the peace and quiet of scenic wonders -- or chugging a few brews.

It all happens here! :-)

I also find the idea that there was something unique about Einstein's brain that made him a genius. IMHO what set him apart wasn't his academic brilliance, which was nothing special going by his school performance, it was his ability to think up daft questions like "if I were riding a light beam and shone a torch in front of me, how fast would the light from the torch travel?".

And let's not forget their big non-commitment to creating a knowledge-based economy.

The best they can do is offer to *give* taxpayers money to companies that are already so successful that they don't need it. And the buggers don't even have to pay it back!

Where's the support for fresh new startups created by NZ's best and brightest?

There is none -- so it's no wonder our "best and brightest" head straight from the capping ceremony to the nearest international airport.

And these people (the USA and NZ governments) are right behind moves to overthrow despots in other nations.

Hang on... isn't a despot someone who places themselves and their accomplices above the laws that regular citizens must obey (and are often severely punished for if they don't)?

Kettle black pot -- use these words to create a sentence that describes this situation.

Copyright infringers can't absolve themselves of guilt or legal liability simply by including the original copyright statement or acknowledging the copyright owner -- it's still against the law to use someone else's intellectual property without their expressed (by way of license) permission.

Just try posting a popular movie from Sony or Warner to YouTube and see how you get on when you try to claim "but I left the copyright statement in".

Confession may be good for the soul but it doesn't eliminate the crime.

Our brains are around 30% larger in relation to other primates, hence we need additional nutrients for ours to develop fully.

Nonsense. The fossil record shows that human brain sizes shrunk after the agricultural revolution. We developed large brains through eating large amounts of fat and protein from meat.

I'm in the same boat -- didn't vote because I felt that none of them were worthy of my endorsement.

Choosing the "least bad" is not the same as choosing "the best".

I really can't believe we're still using a political system designed hundreds of years before the internet was invented -- when, thanks to modern technology, we could create a system that introduced the checks and balances essential to real democracy.

Never one to criticize without offering a better solution, I came up with this political system which I call Recoverable Proxy.

It ensures that the people can always have the last word -- but only when necessary. On a day-to-day basis, the political system remains unchanged, except for the fact that the people can stop a wayward government (ie: most of them) from usurping their right to democracy.

It is worth noting that law only prescribes the *maximum* term of copyright protection that applies.

There is no reason why the creator of intellectual property can't define a shorter term if they choose.

The book I'll be releasing shortly will have a clearly stated copyright term of just five years.

I'm hoping that by being *sensible* about the term of protection, those who might otherwise have opted to simply download a copy (it won't be DRMed) without paying the paltry sum being asked, will think again about doing so.

We're not talking a literary work on the scale of Dickens -- but I do expect that it is something which the public domain will benefit from in a few years time (whether it sells in quantity or not) so I'm not going to be stupid about my use of copyright protection.

Copyright is measure of protection - not a weapon!