Finally we have the chance to lobby elected representatives rather than aetherial bureaucracy! Don't let's waste it, guys...

If anyone in the UK wants to write to their MEPs about this resolution (you should), you can use this page to do so. I'm sure similar services exist in other countries, or you could just post the MEPs a dead tree version of your complaint.

According to a tentative theory mentioned in Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction, it's possible that the early Ancient Egyptians heard about the technology of "written languages", and then got their top scientists onto replicating the concept, in order to try to correct the economic and military disparity that would result from being illiterate in a literate world.

I'm not sure how well accepted this hypothesis is, but I find it an intriguing idea. It certainly fits in with the behaviour of nations today, as they scramble to try to replicate nuclear technology, say, or high quality Internet search engines.

Does it matter? I mean, are you saying you believe everyone has the right to face their accuser and defend themselves - unless the evidence is really convincing?

This isn't the first time a dog has managed to wangle its way to a degree.

Go to this page for one of the funniest articles on Wikipedia. Basically, there are a lot of disreputable correspondence courses out there.

That's a perfectly cromulent ending, but I think AC was going for "extinguish".

Unless, of course, you live in Australia.

Duh.

I'm as pro-technological advance as the next /.er, but I've never really bought this kind of argument.

Civilizations wax and wane, ebb and flow. If Roman technological and economic advance had continued unabated, there may have been a Europe-wide steam train system by 700 AD, perhaps. But it didn't.

Maybe, just before the Sun's increased emissivity becomes a serious problem, our descendants will fall back into some sort of dark age/world war/counter-enlightenment. Who knows?

I just think it's a bit silly to assume that Moore's Law will be obeyed continuously for the next billion-odd years, without considering that maybe there will be sociological forces that come into play.

Hypothetical question:

Supposing there are a series of photographs of portraits that are in the public domain, but the images all have the frames in shot.

I don't think the frame should be in shot, so I write a bash script to remove the frames in bulk. Not only has a great deal of technical sophistry gone into this (I'd be surprised if 2% of the general population were capable of doing that), but the resulting .jpegs are set up in a way that I have dictated, based on my personal artistic preferences.

Are these new images in the public domain?

My gut feeling says they should be, but I don't see the difference between your actions and mine.

Whilst I don't know enough copyright law to know if the NPG is in the right or not, as a UK taxpayer I'm firmly against this legal action. Our culture is enriched by these images; let them be free!