Here’s an interesting idea in the Los Angeles Times: the logical extension of the argument that intellectual property is real property that can be owned (as opposed to pwned, that is) is that ‘IP’ should incur a property tax, just like other properties. If set properly, this should prevent the frivolous acquisition of ‘IP’ (actually a misleading term covering several very different legal areas), in particular copyrights and patents, where the sole purpose is to generate revenue for an indefinite period for no actual creativity. Furthermore, once the ‘IP’ is of no profit to the owner, they stop paying the tax and the ‘IP’ in question lapses into the public domain where it can be used in perpetuity, rather than being forever locked up (at zero cost).
All copyright is (not) theft?
February 27th, 2008Silents are Golden
January 27th, 2008Last weekend saw the culmination of the Bristol Silent Film Festival, now in it’s fourth year. Four days of silent films and talks by officionados and actors from the period including a gala evening at the Colston Hall at which Paul Merton introduced a restoration of Chaplin’s 1925 The Gold Rush accompanied by a newly commissioned version of the original score, for a 15-piece orchestra. The evening, which included shorts by Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, was a huge success; the auditorium was packed and the atmosphere was electric. If you’ve not seen a silent film in the way it was originally meant to be shown, you’re missing out on a real treat!
Back from beyond the Rim (oo er)
November 14th, 2007What was it, you ask, that finally drew me back to my blog (well, one of them, anyway)? Has my muse compelled me to write on matters of National importance? Have I been moved to the pen by some bowel-clenching happenstance?
No.
By smugness.
Tawdry my motives may be, but they are real, at least. And so, to the tale:
IT news round-up
March 2nd, 2007A smattering of interesting news for the IT bods out there (and for my reference too):
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s statement to Congress about keeping the ‘Net neutral contains a loverly metaphor from a senator. TB-L pointed out that rather than restricting people’s actions with DRM, they should be given the opportunity to do the right thing. Senator Mary Bono asked if that wasn’t like having a speed limit and not enforcing it. TB-L repolied that it was much more akin to not having your car cut out when you got to 70 mph. Cars give people the choice to do the right thing and are quite successful;
Petitions that work
February 26th, 2007I recently had an unsurprizingly disappointing experience with the Government’s e-Petitions; specifically, the one concerning ID cards. The petition was summarily closed and a ‘personal’ reply from Tony was posted, and e-mailed to signatories. The reply makes it clear that ID cards will be going ahead, because they can catch some criminals and won’t cost much (honest). Nowhere does it address concerns that the police are to be given free reign to rummage through the biometrics to find criminals, that your details will forcibly be added to the National Register when you get a passport whether or not you object, that there are no provisions yet advanced to govern the future use or ’sale’ of your data by other ‘approved’ groups (‘remember the selling of the Electoral Register data?) or worst of all, that no large-scale project has proven that it can keep detailed personal information secure for any sensible timescale. For all these reasons, and more, the PM’s reply was simply fobbing off the signatories with the same-old same-old.
Software with true “Wow!”
February 12th, 2007Here are a couple of lists of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open-Source Software) that are decent (in most cases) replacements for other proprietary software that you may use. The review at Simple Dollar lists 30 essential applications that you really should be using; OS-Alt has a more extensive list that you can search for software that serves a precise need. Bear in mind that although it may not be as fully featured as something you pay for from a big corporation, you’re getting it for free, it’s likely to be less invasive and more secure than more heavily integrated software, and that if you want to contribute an improvement or a bug, the whole community of users will benefit.
M$ Vista
January 30th, 2007…launches today. There are plenty of reasons not to upgrade, but if you’re worried about the ability of M$ to stop you watching things you’ve paid for at their whim, fret no more, the DRM controls of Vista have just been successfully (and as far as I can determine, permanently) bypassed: which just goes to show that there’s no point spending money on digital protection when you should be spending it on better marketing strategies. From another direction though, there’s a lot of hidden legalese in the EULA (End-User License Agreement) that is making some lawyers rather concerned.
Some wonderful modern culture
January 24th, 2007Just a few links today, but they’re to things I’d be pleased to own in that they stimulate the observer. First some T-shirts:
In the non-wearable corner, there’s this exquisite paper-cut art by Peter Callesen. I love the large-scale papercuts, but they’re all so beautifully imaginative!
Just a little bit more free than we might have been
January 23rd, 2007There have been a few new items about DRM and ID cards out on the electron sea since Christmas. I’m happy to report that the Government have said that they’ll be storing less information on their ID cards; ‘format shifting’ (copying CDs) should be legal; the term of Copyright won’t be being extended to 95 years (thus upsetting Sir Cliff); and there’s a detectable undercurrent in the music industry that is beginning to realise that customers don’t like DRM. All good news for the New Year.
Daguerre would have been amazed…
December 20th, 2006… if he could have understood what was being pictured. Here is a rendering of our Sun using not visible light, or X-rays, or IR photons. This picture was constructed using neutrinos. This is a ‘neutrinograph’ of the Sun. Neutrinos, like photons, are produced in the nuclear reactions that drive the Sun; unlike photons, neutrinos interact with matter only very weakly (typically taking light-years thickness of lead to be stopped rather than a thin piece of paper). These Solar neutrinos were captured by one of the few neutrino detectors to have some directional capability, enabling a picture to be accumulated from individual neutrino detections.