Slashdot Mirror

Theres an advert for the new Audi A6 in the UK http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/br/article/ 597521/audi-campaign-compares-a6-evolution-space-r ace/ They say that NASA has only filed 6,5K patents ever whilst Audi filed 9,6K patents just developing the A6.. When I saw that it actually made me angry, how can there be that many available ways to patent something in a car? And if they _have_ developed something truly ingenious, like a way to make the engine more efficient, why is it beneficial for Audi to keep it to themselves? Shows what the patent system is being used for these days...

No that was a misquote from the BBC. Eccleston did not say anything about only working a single season - he was only hired to play a single season. The BBC wanted to bring in a darker Doctor and then have him regenerate into something like Tom Baker so the old fans would not be screaming that they were ripping ideas from the original Dr. Who (does anybody remember the first season of Star Trek the Next Generation). When the news leaked that Eccleston was was only going to be out for one season the BBC initially tried to cover it up by saying that he only agreed to one season. This caused alot of bad blood between Eccleston and the BBC forcing a later (very quite) retraction.

http://www.bowjamesbow.ca/2005/04/06/hello_audienc e.shtml

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/media/artic le/469186/bbc-forced-apologise-eccleston-doctor-ex it-gaffe/

Being in the US we have not seen the second season yet (it comes on tonight) so I am a little sad on the mixed reviews. Having seen all the Tom Baker Dr. Whos I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Just give bogus information.

Everybody does!

This latest legal assault on bloggers is "normal" in Chinese society.

Look at what happened in China. Yahoo! and its founder, Jerry Yang, assisted the Chinese government in arresting and imprisoning a reporter for 10 years, including periodic torture sessions. What is interesting is that Mr. Yang is a Chinese from Taiwan.

You see the same pattern, over and over, in all societies where Chinese culture dominates. Mr. Yang is a Chinese immigrant living in the USA. It is a shame that he never picked up American values along the way. If Yahoo!, not IBM, had been around in 1935, Yahoo! would have helped Hitler to alphabetize the names of Jews destined for termination in the gas chambers.

Actually the only cut in the Honda cog is at the exhaust (muffler) section when it rolls across the floor (because they couldn't fit all the components in), apart from that and the 606 takes later, its all real, we discussed this here when the advert was first released

Of course the big hoo-haa was Honda (or their agency) was taking all the credit and collecting numerous prestigous creative awards when they (or their ad company) blatently "borrowed" the idea from Rube Goldberg's "Lauf der Dinge" (the way things go) without giving any credit to Rube, all while giving some bullshit story about being inspired by Mousetrap (the board game) if you see Rube's film (1987) you will see the plagiarism for yourself.
I guess Picasso was right ? "good artists copy, great artists steal"

That is, award winning multi million dollar production companies certainly do.