Tim Ferriss wrote a book I'm right reading now called The 4-Hour Workweek. He also has a blog (http://fourhourworkweek.com/).
I'm not ready to quite my software development job and take up kick-boxing, but the book will make you challenge some base assumptions about career, retirement, and wealth.
Yup, it's a matter of convenience and immediate gratification.
Also, while $1.30 x (number of tracks) would be more expensive, the press conference mentioned that the non-DRM downloads of the whole *albums* will be the *same* price as the 128kbps DRM'd versions, which is usually a little cheaper than the physical CD.
So, those who want entire CDs get a "free" upgrade to something much more like the quality of the physical CD, and those who buy individual tracks now have a legal way to do so without buying physical CDs and ripping them.
IBM FUD. Comparing two standards by the number of pages is like measuring programmer productivity by lines of code. Many pages is just as likely to mean "complete and well-documented" as it is "unwieldy."
I'm all for open standards and I'm not a Microsoft fan-boy, but Microsoft's flagship product is Office. Excel kicks OpenOffice's ass around the block still in stability, speed, and features, so I'm comfy with Microsoft knowing what the hell it is doing with the standard.
I create XML Spreadsheets all the time without problems in the applications I manage, and I'm comfortable with what I've read of the newer XML standard in Excel 2007. I'm not happy about everything, particularly the separation of worksheets into separate XML files in the zip package, but overall I'm comfortable that we'll be able to support it well before 2-3 years from now when our clients finally upgrade.
The fiberoptic light energy is a *free* service, available to anyone without charge.
However, if you would like the ISP to modulate some well-timed *dark* spots in the line for the purposes of data transmission, *that* is going to cost you.
Since darkness (the absence of light) can't be defined as a product, no VAT.
Problem solved.
Scooters are already efficient...
on
The Hybrid Scooter
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My Vespa LX-150 gets around 60MPG. It's a city bike, and only 150cc, but plenty enough power for city traffic (cruises up to 55-60mph). I spend less than $5/month in gas.
Piaggio, makers of the Vespa, are actually working on two hybrid models, but the rumor is the under-seat storage will be reduced or eliminated for batteries, so I have no interest in upgrading.
I'm all for a free market, but Adam Smith's Invisible Hands are tied here.
Most people are lucky to have two broadband options: DSL and cable. These companies are granted monopoly status on broadband services by governments by being given access to our public right-of-ways and subsidized by taxes for rural build-out.
In return for allowing them to string wires and fiber all over the place, it is perfectly reasonable for us, the public, to demand that the services they provide be neutral to the content we want to access over those connections.
There is such a thing as a natural monopoly. Streets and sewers are other examples--a city simply can't sustain competition, either because of limited land, or because the linear increase in maintenance costs for each additional competitor would make it impossible for competitors to make a profit.
Wifi, WiMax, etc. are no solution, they are merely a stop-gap. Wireless connections, for all their technology advances, are no match for the 1:1 connection of computers over a wired network once they become saturated with users. They also depend on unlicensed spectrum, another limited resource that should be protected from being usurpted by yet another large company who decides that "he with the most APs wins" at the expense of all other personal and business wifi networks (cf: airport terminals).
Speaking of Starship Troopers, I'd love to see a movie based on Stranger in a Strange Land.
I also want to see television series based on Methuselah's Children and the other books in that series, done as a true serial, with no forced episode plots.
- Basic hardware. CDs, DVDs, hard drives, flash memory devices, monitors. Broad concepts, not specific formats.
- Networks, drives, folders, files, file formats, DRM, icons, and shortcuts. If someone doesn't grok these concepts, they'll ALWAYS be lost. Explain some general pros/cons to various common file formats (JPEGs, etc.).
- Operating systems, drivers, applications, windows, and dialogs. Installing, upgrading, removing, and replacing. File associations and "default" Internet applications.
- Exercises with every chapter burned on a CD included with the book. Not movies, but actually interacting with their own PC using the files provided.
- Practical security: updating the OS, using OSS web and email programs, antivirus, spotting phishing and likely emailed viruses/worms, backing up personal files, the difference between freeware and malware, avoiding snake-oil products like firewalls, registry and memory "optimizers", cookie cleaners, etc.
- Net 101. Connections, web browsing, email management, replying, forwarding, hoaxes, urban legends.
- Basic mousing: double-click, single-click, drag/drop, right-click, etc.
Probably a lot of other topics, but these are a few that the true N00Bs I know have had issues with.
0: Geared for a young Harry Potter or Princess Bride audience, nowhere near as dark as LoTR. +1: They followed the book closely. +1: They didn't butcher the allegory for the sake of over-sensitive non-Christians. +1: They didn't play up the allegory for the sake of over-sensitive Christians. +1: Effects were near flawless, even though the film had much more daylight than others in the genre (underexposure is SO forgiving). -1: The animals in a few scenes near the end seemed to lose a little fur realism. The airplanes at the very beginning seemed too cartoonish as well. Cheetas don't run like that either, IIRC. -1: Too much of the beavers. -1: Didn't do nearly as good a job as LoTR in giving a sense of "place." Narnia is smaller than Middle Earth, but it felt a little cramped. So did the Professor's house. 0: Soundtrack was ok. +1: Great live and voice casting, other than Titmus, who seemed way too young than I imagined him. 0: One thing I never liked about the book was the appearance of Father Christmas. An allegory should not be tainted by its own archetype.
I like the overall idea, and I commend Microsoft for releasing the idea under a CC license, but my problem with SSE is that it requires RSS as the underlying grammar. Shoe-horning arbitrary XML data into RSS just to take advantage of SSE is seriously short-sighted.
SSE should be an aspect-oriented namespace that can be used to synchronize any XML data without regard to the underlying semantics, not one that requires bludgeoning XML data into a channel/item/headline/story format to take advantage of it.
1. America is now a nation of idiots. A good chunk of our "research" is done by foreign students studying here in the US. We aren't going to be the ones making the big advances here, or by multinational companies that have no patriotism and would simply choose to do the work where it will be unencumbered by such restrictions.
2. How can we keep our ol' friend Tony over in Britain in the dark? After all, he needs 90 days to lock up citizens uncharged so he can crack their passwords.
3. Obviously, quantum computers will break current DRM. The problem is, quantum encryption (via polarized photons and other means) will ensure that all our base are owned by RIAA/MPAA.
That's right. We all know that quantum computers will evolve spontaneously from raw quanta. After all, quantum computers can evaluate billions of possible random design combinations in mere polynomial time, so they can simply spontaneously design themselves at any time in a form, and then improve themselves until they becomes our ROBOT OVERLORDS.
License is a legal grant to "use" the program. Copyright is the legal protection to limit "distributing" the program (in original or derivative form). Ownership is the "bundle of rights" (First Sale doctrine, etc.) associated with legitimate physical posession of copies of the software.
Apples, calculators, and bears. In this case, the *license* was oral, the *copyright* was assumed to be with the programmer, but the *ownership* rights trumped the other two claims based on the types of changes made to the source code by the company.
Paying for the the development was not the only test for "ownership." Possession was the key, as was the oral license that allowed the company to "use" the program in perpetuity. The rights of ownership upheld by the court in this case uses the same tests as the next paragraph in the statute (the one that lets you make archive copies).
In other words, this is likely a very good precedent for anyone who purchases an expensive box of bits and then finds it riddled with bugs, incapable of essential functions, or incompatible with their current or future platforms.
This ruling is not out of line with the non-software world. Barring DMCA claims, car companies can't keep you from modding your car, and architects can't protect thier buildings from future modification or physical relocation. Posession still is 9/10ths of the law.
However, it remains to be seen how the courts will deal with DMCA-covered protections that prevent the user from exercising the very rights of ownership that this decision affirms.
The word "utilize" came from the statute, not the court decision (and certainly not from the SC).
"Utilize" is not the same thing as "use", which is why you see so many grammarians getting their collective panties in a wad over seeing it in print. To "use" something denotes action in conformance with the thing's designed purpose. To "utilize" something means to use in a way that differs from the as-designed purpose. I can't "utilize" a hammer to drive a nail, I can only "use" it. However, I can "utilize" a screwdriver handle to drive a nail.
The fact that the word "utilize" was, er, used, actually played an important part in the district court's ruling. Use of that word specifically means that the owner can "stretch" a computer program to other purposes without violating copyright, as long as the principle use is the same (e.g., same sort of transactions being processed).
"Titleserv initially asserted that the programs were "works made for hire" within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. 201(b). It later asserted entitlement to summary judgment regardless of whether Krause was an independent contractor or employee. For the purposes of its summary judgment ruling, the district court, adopting the magistrate judge's report, assumed arguendo that Krause was an independent contractor and owner of the copyright in the programs he developed."
The bandwidth fairy does exist--it's called "broadband P2P."
All we need to do is figure out how to use P2P as a platform for distributing web content to normal browsers rather than as a way to share gigabytes of Linux distros and "pirated" music. Something like a downloader/proxy utility on steriods that would intercept HTTP calls and collect the content from other users--but easy enough for Grandma@AOL to install and use.
If everyone could chip in with the broadband connection they are already paying for with little more than the click of a button (think BitTorrent, SETI, etc.), millions of popular forums, blogs, wikis, galleries, etc. could move from the ad/subscription world back to a free distribution model.
I skip television advertising (using my HDTV card and my two ReplayTVs) because it's loud, annoying, and completely irrelevant to my current purchasing needs.
Case in point: I am currently looking into getting a Vespa. My car was crushed in Hurricane Rita, and I have a 5-block commute that's just long enough in the hot Texas sun to eliminate human-powered locomotion. I've never seen a Vespa commercial. But if I watch the commercials tonight on television, I have no chance of hearing of it or of alternative bike brands. Instead, I will be inundated with 15 minutes of advertising for big Texas trucks, Viagra, diapers, feminine hygeine products, and television shows I don't watch. Give me 3 minutes per hour of targeted, privacy-protected advertising and I'll be all ears. Give it to me on BitTorrent in HD and I'll even pinky-swear that I won't skip the ads or take my copyright-infringing potty break.
On the web, I do not block Google-like advertising, or even graphic banner ads. I block Flash because of their secret non-cookie-cookies and other abuses. Magazine advertising does not magically follow you from one page to the next, making noises and throwing itself on top of the article print. It does not force me to fill out a form with my personal information before I can turn the page, and it does not send messages back to the mothership. If it did any of these things, I would forego buying magazines (or, alternatively, switch away from whatever brand of brownies might have accompanied the experience).
I am not opposed to advertising. Well-done, it answers a consumer need. Even poorly-done, it is a necessary evil until open-source, distributed P2P applications can take over many services (search, publishing, hosting, communication, etc.) that are currently centralized out of technological necessity and commercialized out of market necessity. Once a year, I even put my ReplayTV in the undocumented "Superbowl mode" so I can watch all of the burping frogs and sock puppets without the pesky football getting in the way of my party.
But advertising is not about eyeballs: it is about gaining the *respect* of the consumer, not simply their *attention*. Respect my privacy, respect my space, respect my computer, respect my bandwidth, and I might give you the Internet equivalent of an elevator pitch. Fail on these counts, and it doesn't matter whether I find a way to block you or not, I won't be purchasing your dancing monkeys or secret cameras or casino games.
Mo Rocca's a funny dude (and that was a great show of WWDTM), but I think Wil could take him.
Actually, if Wil wants another good way to to whore out his books, I'd for one love to see him do an interview on The Daily Show (he and Jon both being child-actors-beyond-acting, liberal-leaning, funny guys with missing consonants from their first names).
The problem isn't who retains copyright: under the law, the PHOTOGRAPHER owns the copyright UNLESS they are a bona-fide employee ("work made for hire" does not apply to contractors) OR you make them sign a contract that transfers copyright to you. This is also true of other creative works made by contractors, such as software.
This is the law, and as a part-time professional photographer (and a full-time software developer), I have no problem with it.
The problem is that most pro photographers are so entrenched in the old business model of cheap fees + expensive prints that they are having to play "copyright cop" to make money.
Those of us with a little sense, however, have a different business model: you pay for the time, I retain copyright, but you get the originals on CD *and* a printed release to make as many prints as you wish (I also include a shorter release in the EXIF copyright).
I see this as a *value-added* service. For about the same total price as a traditional pro, my customers get CD/DVD with final JPEGs cropped for various print sizes and even versions specifically created for online use (email, web upload, wallpaper, IM icons, etc.). I include every good shot taken, they don't have to pick and choose which ones they want to keep.
This resizing/cropping work is 90% batch-scripted on my side, but it ensures that every digital copy that they share or print has the best possible quality and is a free advertisement for me.
This business model works for family photography much better than it would for, say, music or movies because the audience for any *particular* photograph is generally limited to the family/friends of the photographed subjects, and yet the chance of any of that limited audience actually ordering prints is relatively small.
This is simply not true. You cannot "commission" a work simply by retaining a photographer, and paying a photographer does not make his work a "work made for hire" under the legal definition unless the contract explicitly says so.
Slashdot Mirror
Tim Ferriss wrote a book I'm right reading now called The 4-Hour Workweek. He also has a blog (http://fourhourworkweek.com/).
9 /the_4_hour_workweek_secrets_of_doing_mor
I'm not ready to quite my software development job and take up kick-boxing, but the book will make you challenge some base assumptions about career, retirement, and wealth.
Here's a quick sample from his SXSW talk:
http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/03/1
Yup, it's a matter of convenience and immediate gratification.
Also, while $1.30 x (number of tracks) would be more expensive, the press conference mentioned that the non-DRM downloads of the whole *albums* will be the *same* price as the 128kbps DRM'd versions, which is usually a little cheaper than the physical CD.
So, those who want entire CDs get a "free" upgrade to something much more like the quality of the physical CD, and those who buy individual tracks now have a legal way to do so without buying physical CDs and ripping them.
IBM FUD. Comparing two standards by the number of pages is like measuring programmer productivity by lines of code. Many pages is just as likely to mean "complete and well-documented" as it is "unwieldy."
I'm all for open standards and I'm not a Microsoft fan-boy, but Microsoft's flagship product is Office. Excel kicks OpenOffice's ass around the block still in stability, speed, and features, so I'm comfy with Microsoft knowing what the hell it is doing with the standard.
I create XML Spreadsheets all the time without problems in the applications I manage, and I'm comfortable with what I've read of the newer XML standard in Excel 2007. I'm not happy about everything, particularly the separation of worksheets into separate XML files in the zip package, but overall I'm comfortable that we'll be able to support it well before 2-3 years from now when our clients finally upgrade.
The fiberoptic light energy is a *free* service, available to anyone without charge.
However, if you would like the ISP to modulate some well-timed *dark* spots in the line for the purposes of data transmission, *that* is going to cost you.
Since darkness (the absence of light) can't be defined as a product, no VAT.
Problem solved.
My Vespa LX-150 gets around 60MPG. It's a city bike, and only 150cc, but plenty enough power for city traffic (cruises up to 55-60mph). I spend less than $5/month in gas.
Piaggio, makers of the Vespa, are actually working on two hybrid models, but the rumor is the under-seat storage will be reduced or eliminated for batteries, so I have no interest in upgrading.
I'm all for a free market, but Adam Smith's Invisible Hands are tied here.
Most people are lucky to have two broadband options: DSL and cable. These companies are granted monopoly status on broadband services by governments by being given access to our public right-of-ways and subsidized by taxes for rural build-out.
In return for allowing them to string wires and fiber all over the place, it is perfectly reasonable for us, the public, to demand that the services they provide be neutral to the content we want to access over those connections.
There is such a thing as a natural monopoly. Streets and sewers are other examples--a city simply can't sustain competition, either because of limited land, or because the linear increase in maintenance costs for each additional competitor would make it impossible for competitors to make a profit.
Wifi, WiMax, etc. are no solution, they are merely a stop-gap. Wireless connections, for all their technology advances, are no match for the 1:1 connection of computers over a wired network once they become saturated with users. They also depend on unlicensed spectrum, another limited resource that should be protected from being usurpted by yet another large company who decides that "he with the most APs wins" at the expense of all other personal and business wifi networks (cf: airport terminals).
Speaking of Starship Troopers, I'd love to see a movie based on Stranger in a Strange Land.
I also want to see television series based on Methuselah's Children and the other books in that series, done as a true serial, with no forced episode plots.
- Basic hardware. CDs, DVDs, hard drives, flash memory devices, monitors. Broad concepts, not specific formats.
- Networks, drives, folders, files, file formats, DRM, icons, and shortcuts. If someone doesn't grok these concepts, they'll ALWAYS be lost. Explain some general pros/cons to various common file formats (JPEGs, etc.).
- Operating systems, drivers, applications, windows, and dialogs. Installing, upgrading, removing, and replacing. File associations and "default" Internet applications.
- Exercises with every chapter burned on a CD included with the book. Not movies, but actually interacting with their own PC using the files provided.
- Practical security: updating the OS, using OSS web and email programs, antivirus, spotting phishing and likely emailed viruses/worms, backing up personal files, the difference between freeware and malware, avoiding snake-oil products like firewalls, registry and memory "optimizers", cookie cleaners, etc.
- Net 101. Connections, web browsing, email management, replying, forwarding, hoaxes, urban legends.
- Basic mousing: double-click, single-click, drag/drop, right-click, etc.
Probably a lot of other topics, but these are a few that the true N00Bs I know have had issues with.
0: Geared for a young Harry Potter or Princess Bride audience, nowhere near as dark as LoTR.
+1: They followed the book closely.
+1: They didn't butcher the allegory for the sake of over-sensitive non-Christians.
+1: They didn't play up the allegory for the sake of over-sensitive Christians.
+1: Effects were near flawless, even though the film had much more daylight than others in the genre (underexposure is SO forgiving).
-1: The animals in a few scenes near the end seemed to lose a little fur realism. The airplanes at the very beginning seemed too cartoonish as well. Cheetas don't run like that either, IIRC.
-1: Too much of the beavers.
-1: Didn't do nearly as good a job as LoTR in giving a sense of "place." Narnia is smaller than Middle Earth, but it felt a little cramped. So did the Professor's house.
0: Soundtrack was ok.
+1: Great live and voice casting, other than Titmus, who seemed way too young than I imagined him.
0: One thing I never liked about the book was the appearance of Father Christmas. An allegory should not be tainted by its own archetype.
I like the overall idea, and I commend Microsoft for releasing the idea under a CC license, but my problem with SSE is that it requires RSS as the underlying grammar. Shoe-horning arbitrary XML data into RSS just to take advantage of SSE is seriously short-sighted.
c dc97850-c187-41e2-aaba-2875e457bcb1
SSE should be an aspect-oriented namespace that can be used to synchronize any XML data without regard to the underlying semantics, not one that requires bludgeoning XML data into a channel/item/headline/story format to take advantage of it.
More:
http://www.tallent.us/blog/CommentView.aspx?guid=
1. America is now a nation of idiots. A good chunk of our "research" is done by foreign students studying here in the US. We aren't going to be the ones making the big advances here, or by multinational companies that have no patriotism and would simply choose to do the work where it will be unencumbered by such restrictions.
2. How can we keep our ol' friend Tony over in Britain in the dark? After all, he needs 90 days to lock up citizens uncharged so he can crack their passwords.
3. Obviously, quantum computers will break current DRM. The problem is, quantum encryption (via polarized photons and other means) will ensure that all our base are owned by RIAA/MPAA.
That's right. We all know that quantum computers will evolve spontaneously from raw quanta. After all, quantum computers can evaluate billions of possible random design combinations in mere polynomial time, so they can simply spontaneously design themselves at any time in a form, and then improve themselves until they becomes our ROBOT OVERLORDS.
CD: $17 (used $5)
Hard drive space for 400 CDs of uncompressed WAVs: $200 ($0.50/CD)
Knowing I'll never have to re-rip and encode my music collection: Priceless
For portable music, lossy compression is fine. For everything else, there's CDEX.
License is a legal grant to "use" the program. Copyright is the legal protection to limit "distributing" the program (in original or derivative form). Ownership is the "bundle of rights" (First Sale doctrine, etc.) associated with legitimate physical posession of copies of the software.
Apples, calculators, and bears. In this case, the *license* was oral, the *copyright* was assumed to be with the programmer, but the *ownership* rights trumped the other two claims based on the types of changes made to the source code by the company.
Paying for the the development was not the only test for "ownership." Possession was the key, as was the oral license that allowed the company to "use" the program in perpetuity. The rights of ownership upheld by the court in this case uses the same tests as the next paragraph in the statute (the one that lets you make archive copies).
In other words, this is likely a very good precedent for anyone who purchases an expensive box of bits and then finds it riddled with bugs, incapable of essential functions, or incompatible with their current or future platforms.
This ruling is not out of line with the non-software world. Barring DMCA claims, car companies can't keep you from modding your car, and architects can't protect thier buildings from future modification or physical relocation. Posession still is 9/10ths of the law.
However, it remains to be seen how the courts will deal with DMCA-covered protections that prevent the user from exercising the very rights of ownership that this decision affirms.
The word "utilize" came from the statute, not the court decision (and certainly not from the SC).
"Utilize" is not the same thing as "use", which is why you see so many grammarians getting their collective panties in a wad over seeing it in print. To "use" something denotes action in conformance with the thing's designed purpose. To "utilize" something means to use in a way that differs from the as-designed purpose. I can't "utilize" a hammer to drive a nail, I can only "use" it. However, I can "utilize" a screwdriver handle to drive a nail.
The fact that the word "utilize" was, er, used, actually played an important part in the district court's ruling. Use of that word specifically means that the owner can "stretch" a computer program to other purposes without violating copyright, as long as the principle use is the same (e.g., same sort of transactions being processed).
From TFCD (court decision):
"Titleserv initially asserted that the programs were "works made for hire" within the
meaning of 17 U.S.C. 201(b). It later asserted entitlement to summary judgment regardless of
whether Krause was an independent contractor or employee. For the purposes of its summary
judgment ruling, the district court, adopting the magistrate judge's report, assumed arguendo that
Krause was an independent contractor and owner of the copyright in the programs he developed."
The bandwidth fairy does exist--it's called "broadband P2P."
All we need to do is figure out how to use P2P as a platform for distributing web content to normal browsers rather than as a way to share gigabytes of Linux distros and "pirated" music. Something like a downloader/proxy utility on steriods that would intercept HTTP calls and collect the content from other users--but easy enough for Grandma@AOL to install and use.
If everyone could chip in with the broadband connection they are already paying for with little more than the click of a button (think BitTorrent, SETI, etc.), millions of popular forums, blogs, wikis, galleries, etc. could move from the ad/subscription world back to a free distribution model.
I skip television advertising (using my HDTV card and my two ReplayTVs) because it's loud, annoying, and completely irrelevant to my current purchasing needs.
Case in point: I am currently looking into getting a Vespa. My car was crushed in Hurricane Rita, and I have a 5-block commute that's just long enough in the hot Texas sun to eliminate human-powered locomotion. I've never seen a Vespa commercial. But if I watch the commercials tonight on television, I have no chance of hearing of it or of alternative bike brands. Instead, I will be inundated with 15 minutes of advertising for big Texas trucks, Viagra, diapers, feminine hygeine products, and television shows I don't watch. Give me 3 minutes per hour of targeted, privacy-protected advertising and I'll be all ears. Give it to me on BitTorrent in HD and I'll even pinky-swear that I won't skip the ads or take my copyright-infringing potty break.
On the web, I do not block Google-like advertising, or even graphic banner ads. I block Flash because of their secret non-cookie-cookies and other abuses. Magazine advertising does not magically follow you from one page to the next, making noises and throwing itself on top of the article print. It does not force me to fill out a form with my personal information before I can turn the page, and it does not send messages back to the mothership. If it did any of these things, I would forego buying magazines (or, alternatively, switch away from whatever brand of brownies might have accompanied the experience).
I am not opposed to advertising. Well-done, it answers a consumer need. Even poorly-done, it is a necessary evil until open-source, distributed P2P applications can take over many services (search, publishing, hosting, communication, etc.) that are currently centralized out of technological necessity and commercialized out of market necessity. Once a year, I even put my ReplayTV in the undocumented "Superbowl mode" so I can watch all of the burping frogs and sock puppets without the pesky football getting in the way of my party.
But advertising is not about eyeballs: it is about gaining the *respect* of the consumer, not simply their *attention*. Respect my privacy, respect my space, respect my computer, respect my bandwidth, and I might give you the Internet equivalent of an elevator pitch. Fail on these counts, and it doesn't matter whether I find a way to block you or not, I won't be purchasing your dancing monkeys or secret cameras or casino games.
1. Stick a wiki up where you can get to it from anywhere.
.plan.
2. Use your favorite source code control application to sync text files with your
Gee, if only there were a way to transform various XML documents into a common XML specification so we only have to build one import processor...
*cough*XSLT*cough*
Here, here.
Faith is the substance of hoped future, the evidence of invisible present. It is separate from and not in contradiction with scientific reality.
Mo Rocca's a funny dude (and that was a great show of WWDTM), but I think Wil could take him.
Actually, if Wil wants another good way to to whore out his books, I'd for one love to see him do an interview on The Daily Show (he and Jon both being child-actors-beyond-acting, liberal-leaning, funny guys with missing consonants from their first names).
Adapt or go into hordiculture.
The problem isn't who retains copyright: under the law, the PHOTOGRAPHER owns the copyright UNLESS they are a bona-fide employee ("work made for hire" does not apply to contractors) OR you make them sign a contract that transfers copyright to you. This is also true of other creative works made by contractors, such as software.
This is the law, and as a part-time professional photographer (and a full-time software developer), I have no problem with it.
The problem is that most pro photographers are so entrenched in the old business model of cheap fees + expensive prints that they are having to play "copyright cop" to make money.
Those of us with a little sense, however, have a different business model: you pay for the time, I retain copyright, but you get the originals on CD *and* a printed release to make as many prints as you wish (I also include a shorter release in the EXIF copyright).
I see this as a *value-added* service. For about the same total price as a traditional pro, my customers get CD/DVD with final JPEGs cropped for various print sizes and even versions specifically created for online use (email, web upload, wallpaper, IM icons, etc.). I include every good shot taken, they don't have to pick and choose which ones they want to keep.
This resizing/cropping work is 90% batch-scripted on my side, but it ensures that every digital copy that they share or print has the best possible quality and is a free advertisement for me.
This business model works for family photography much better than it would for, say, music or movies because the audience for any *particular* photograph is generally limited to the family/friends of the photographed subjects, and yet the chance of any of that limited audience actually ordering prints is relatively small.
This is simply not true. You cannot "commission" a work simply by retaining a photographer, and paying a photographer does not make his work a "work made for hire" under the legal definition unless the contract explicitly says so.