Thank you for your insights. I wonder what case Mr. Lucas is using, as the prop designer is using casts that he himself made, based on his own designs to meet a concept drawing. Thus his sale ought to be legitimate, as far as I can tell. He is offering the buyer a chance to own a casting made from the same moulds used in the first movie, but is not claiming ownership of the trade mark. Mention of "Star Wars" ought to be legitimate, as long as it is not suggested that it is some sort of official merchandise.
I think that's the loophole Mr. Lucas is trying to claim, portraying the sales as pretending to be "official" or otherwise exploiting the Star Wars trademark. I think it's all bollocks, but that's my personal opinion.
Oh, to clarify: what I meant about this being considered a possibility was that none of the signatories of that original prop contract ever considered the chance that the moulds could be valuable for making fan costumes. They probably considered the legal framework sufficient, not thinking beyond the next two to three years. It's the same short-sightedness that left the Daleks in Terry Nation's possession, forcing the BBC to go ask permission to use them.
Merci beaucoup! Again, my apologies for the impression of rage when I was going for wit. I just feel it's being taken to silly lengths: a euphemism for an affectation of a translation of a developer's login name, and before long, even "G-d" will be considered a valid name, and need an affectation for it as well...;)
Thank you for the clarification. I hope I didn't come off as too harsh, as I was trying to be witty about it. With a moniker like mine, I tend to drew irate condescension.
I am aware of the prohibition, but as I also recall the name is normally considered already buffered. You could say it was like protecting, say, Commander Taco's real name, phone number and address, to keep it from getting spammed or letting it get out to those he didn't trust it with. His online handle is better known than his real name, but that real name is still more powerful. Identity theft protection was a concern even in the biblical days, I guess you could say. Your ancestors kept God's username and password safely hidden.;)
But I can see you belong to the other camp that argues that the reference eventually can become the name. I acknowledge that it is a valid faith, but logically it opens a vicious circle: the affectation will also eventually have to be abandoned...
I'm sorry that I am replying twice, but this thought hit me after I had tapped the "submit" button...
In the episodes that I have seen where churches are involved, often it is chosen as a refuge not so much because the Doctor expects God's grace to help him, but because it's the closest defensible structure around. Take "Father's Day", for instance, where the attack happened in front of the church itself: it was the closest building available. Otherwise, the series does make it a point not to come down too hard on one side or the other of belief, neither proving nor disproving God's existence. All beings claiming to be God are imposters, but nowhere does it state unequivocally that there is (or is not) a god. Even "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" sidestepped the question.
If anything, the series is smartly written to maintain a neutral stance, offending only the more literal fundamentalists (who hate all science fiction anyway). Questions of belief and religion are always granted wiggle room. I suspect even Dr. Dawkins' appearance won't change the show's agnostic position.
Just to be a nit-picker, but what is the reason for treating "God" like a curse-word? It's not the name of the deity in question, nor is it being "taken in vain". Is it some sort of badge thing, a way of saying "coo-ie! Lookie here, I'm being pious!"? Is it an attempt to be annoying so that later you can claim you're being persecuted when people ask you to cut it out? Because I really, really find it annoying, mate, even more annoying than emo haircuts.
That's the problem right there. The designer as artist also has unalienable rights, and most likely he signed a boilerplate contract selling Lucas' production company the suits without addressing the issue of derivative designs or casting new suits. Such a thing was probably not even considered a possibility all those thirty-odd years ago.
The article states that a California court already ruled in favour of Mr. Lucas, but that ruling doesn't apply since Mr. Ainsworth is a Briton and most likely signed his contract under British law. That suggests to me that there may be some merit to the claim, possibly hinging on Ralph McQuarrie's concept design drawings/paintings, but Mr. Ainsworth is also a designer, and I think he could successfully argue that his designs are a derivative but separate artwork, and his counter-suit could have merit.
I think the real reason for Mr. Lucas' suit is as a warning shot to all of those prop designers who worked for the original Star Wars movies, in an attempt to maintain total control over his merchandising empire. It's not about the money, but keeping control, and I personally feel that it's a very selfish act.
You really don't understand a connoisseur mentality, do you? It's the search for the perfect sensation, the desire to capture the optimum experience. I do it with whiskey: not to impress others, but my senses when sipping whiskey (not whisky, I prefer Irish) are highly attuned, and the cheap stuff is worse than not sipping at all. The enjoyment is a very personal, almost solitary experience.
There's nothing noble or ignoble about it. I really do not care if you can see my whiskey selection, or if some whiskey guru approves or not. If I hobnob with others, then it is not to show off but to trade experiences, to learn from them ways to improve my own experience.
Now I am not saying there aren't people that act like connoisseurs merely for the status kick, but those people are not by definition connoisseurs.Their mind isn't on the whiskey, but on the status it brings. These people will buy the anniversary blends with the decorative bottles. To them, it is only a vehicle to achieve recognition, to collect the mental trophy, to gain status in the herd/pack/flock. Apparently you are one of them, otherwise you wouldn't be so fixated on this aspect...
Um... your commandments only make sense if you can quantify "use" and "waste" properly. Some of these gadgets have added value in entertainment, you do realise, or like the MacBook Pro bring enough to the table so that the investment in money beats the investment in time building your own.
As for your second statement, well, I just haven't seen it in the real world. People really do buy nice stuff for themselves without intending to show off. We call those people "connoisseurs". Those people who really do look for the best experience in X, be it wine, or cars, or computers or whatever.
It is folly and insulting to denigrate how others spend their money, really. We all get enjoyment from different things, and from different aspects of those things. To look down at someone as "wasting" their money merely because you personally don't see the benefit is silly.
I almost agree, as the parent company lost this battle back in 2001. Apparently there are strict guidelines as to "trade dress" such as Coca Cola's red, UPS' brown, Tiffany's blue and so on.
What further complicates this is a loophole in German law which allows lawyers to file for trademark infringement – without having to get the approval of the supposedly injured party. This has led to a new breed of trademark trolls, filing injunctions and sending out cease-and-desist letters without the knowledge of their "clients". This depresses me, as part of why I left the USA was to get away from the lawsuit mentality.
So yeah, it's a joke, but the people behind it are unfortunately all too earnest.
If you had read the article, he states that he doesn't have any logfiles, that he won't hand over anything due to privacy concerns and the overreaching aspect of the subpoena.
Note also that he hasn't been ordered by the court yet, only that the lawyers representing the city demanded the info through a scary-looking nastygram.
It's all in the chosen metaphor... gatekeeper. Bouncer.
Jailer.
Instead of being guides leading you through the jungle, the established players want to restrict who actually can have contact with you. Thus the desire to keep the listener, the consumer as ignorant as possible so that they can maintain their Authority. The more information you have, the less you need them to play gatekeeper.
It's the primary issue I mentioned: convenience. Although Amazon's MP3 files are convenient for residents of the USA to purchase (it hasn't gone global yet), it's still not quite as convenient as the iTunes Store is. The Terms of Service that Amazon uses are also draconian, in parts unenforceable but scary enough to give people pause. It's also worth mentioning that these trends are gradual, so whilst Amazon's sales creep upward, you might feel like you're watching the hour hand on the clock. Finally, like I stated, EMI and others have removed the DRM, offering so-called "iTunes Plus" files.
Right now, though, Apple's FairPlay DRM is the only DRM to have gained acceptance. If a band started offering its songs only in WMA or otherwise would be unplayable on current devices, then that band would not sell many copies. I predict that in the long term, this erosion will over the years make DRM a blip on the screen.
You seem to be missing my point: music fans will stick with what they have, and will not be happy when companies start slapping new DRM and formats on them. The missing migration to Amazon bolsters that facet (note also that more and more tracks from the iTunes Store are also being sold without DRM, even though they use the.m4a format).
The hassle with DRM was more evident with WMA files, which were also hobbled by not being compatible with the market's most popular player. MP3 files were still popular, though, and can be loaded on to the iPod with no hassle. Thus they all foundered, unable to convince music buyers that they really offered any added value. In all of the years since Napster, only iTunes was able to sell copy-protected music, but even Apple didn't really like it due to the effort required.
Besides, it's important to remember that the most popular file format is still the audio CD, and those are still free from all DRM...
Digital music formats are gravitating to DRM-free formats, for the simple reason that newer acts are using DRM-free formats to distribute their work. Consider it digital busking. The kicker, though, is that once those files are in the wild, fans will expect future releases to be consistent, in the same format. The band will want to keep the fans happy, so the wishes of their distributor will have to meet their desires.
Note that I did not say the recording studio. Due to the plummet in the cost of quality recoding technology, the recording studio will become even more of a flat fee service, and no longer royalties-driven. The role that the recording studios filled will be splintered, with bands relying more on agents to guide them through choosing recording studios, distributors, merchandising manufacturers and concert organisers. Some studios may survive, repositioning themselves as one-stop shops, and others will splinter as their conflicting interests cause them to be broken apart into individual companies.
In fact, there has always been a sort of uneasy truce between those two groups. In the beginning of the relationship, the music publishers cried bloody murder about radio stations playing their songs for free, since there was no legal requirement then to cover a case like that. Then, once a royalty system was finally in place, some studios realised that "air time" had a positive effect on sales, and payola was born. Today, there exists an equilibrium due to cartels on the publishing side and on the broadcasting side, and companies like Clear Channel ruling over a publisher-friendly airwave monopoly.
That's why I prefer internet "radio" when at home, listening to streams that friends make for friends. I don't want a gatekeeper to keep me from being flooded, I prefer a guide to help me to navigate on my own. Making it all about gatekeepers twists the argument, hides the fact that the self-appointed gatekeepers want to control all traffic, and aspire to be not merely bouncers but also jailers.
But hey, if you want to defend your employers, go right ahead. Just don't denigrate the fact that I prefer to listen outside of the prison they have prepared for me.
The graph supports the meta-argument that health care (in this case, the NHS since we're talking about UK politicians) provides metrics that the politician can use. As the poster said, "good health care for half the cost". The politician could use statistics like this to justify NHS spending. This was less the case with manned spaceflight, making it harder for the politician to show direct benefits from the programme.
Very well. I shall not argue this point any more. I only wished not to argue, but to point out that there is not merely one interpretation. Comments here tend to be worded ambiguously, and I only thought it wiser to be generous in interpreting. Most likely I took you as more earnest, and left no room for interpreting your comment as playful. The ironic part is that I ignored the very advice I wanted to give!
True. The machine is no longer Sequoia's, really. If a state or a municipality buys a machine, they should have full title to it, and that means the rights to inspect and test their own property. The rights of Sequoia are restricted to the right to prevent copies being made of the software for agencies other than the purchaser. The only rights Sequoia should have is the right to void any warranty agreements.
Well, that's the way it should be. The vagaries of the DMCA make it possible for Sequoia to engage in this sort of thuggery, exploiting legal loopholes to threaten and blackmail. It is now up to us to ensure that this boomerangs against them and scares off future customers.
I'm sorry, but you're really stretching it there. To assume that his one-sentence quip referred exclusively to the NHS budget and was not comparing it to the US model is absurd. There is not enough information in his one sentence to support your claim.
His sentence could be interpreted in many ways. He did not claim "halves the budget" but "is half the cost", and is thus open to interpretation. The one I showed would have been a more valid debate point, but you have chosen to parse it in a way that makes you look smug. Your lack of generosity is revealing.
Ah, living up to your moniker again! But before I rebut you, let's explore where you might be right...
Let's see, we are talking about EADS, so this would mean most likely expanding the ESA launch site at Kourou to allow for the bigger people-carriers. More tourism to get to the launch site, perhaps more resorts for the entourage such a rich tourist would bring, paparazzi, and so on. So much for the little tropic location.
What about space junk? That could also ruin a tourist flight if it meant pollution from orbital debris keeps threatening to puncture the craft. Imagine the bitter irony of being struck by the discarded waste from the preceding flight!
But these and other concerns are, let's be honest, decades away. The advantage of taking money from adventurous millionaires weighs far heavier on the scale: we can finally shoot them off of the Earth like we always wanted! Only this time, we have to ensure that they don't come back...
I think you parsed his argument wrongly. As I understand it, the argument is that the NHS allows the UK to provide comparable care to the USA at approx. one-half to one-third the cost per capita.
I will not state that the argument is correct or not, only that you misinterpreted it. In my opinion, he is correct in that it is "measurable" as far as an elected official is concerned - he can provide metrics to bolster his claim. Other metrics might be longevity, time spent in hospitals, and so on. That is less the case with a space programme.
I have to disagree about the relevance. Past history has suggested that companies do use DMCA as a threat, even though the actual chances of the law applying are slim. Thus it is plausible that a "cease and desist" would be sent, in the hopes of scaring the other guy. The implied threat is one of high legal costs whether the victim wins or not, and the harassment involved in getting dragged to court and having to answer the barrage of nastygrams.
I've been trying to see this, but the fine print I saw talked about distribution, not development. So that means a VoIP that uses EDGE as well as 802.11 won't get into the distribution net. Granted, if you didn't pay the $99 registration fee it wouldn't get on there anyway, but there's no other way to distribute. Apple's way of protecting you from malware.
But actually, you could distribute it... as source code. With the devkit, the people you give it to can compile it themselves and load it on to their phones themselves as they help you to test your code, or modify it themselves. Granted, only those with a devkit themselves can play, but it's one way to distribute...you just have to accept that what the others do with your code is out of your hands.
Granted, I could be reading the agreement wrong, but that's the impression I have: Apple is paranoid about trojans and malware getting on the iPhone, so non-developers will have to go through approved channels. If you know what you're doing, fine, hack away, void the warranty, but Apple isn't going to risk Joe Sixpack bricking his phone by mistake...
Well, considering that the Wiki is the one place many go to get first-hand info, I could see a special sort of advertising, where the company overtly contributes to articles about themselves, pay a fee to have an alternative to the normal Wiki page. The advert would come in one of those little Wiki disclaimer tags, for quick linking to the "corporate bullshit disguised as an article" version.
Let's say FUBAR Widgets decides to buy a sponsored article. On the Wikipedia article, there would then be a link that says "This company has its own self-maintained article, which you can see here." On the purchased page, then, the article would be headed with a disclaimer, perhaps "This is a sponsored page owned by the company. The contents of the page are edited by the company itself, and cannot be edited by others."
Of course, companies who abuse this for of advertising should have their pages removed without refund. The actual terms of service, though, are left for the lawyers to haggle. It all boils down to in exchange for having their corporate pages free from editor tyranny, they in return have to play nice elsewhere.
The advantage for the company is that they get to maintain their own entries in the Wiki (not really, but close enough), and the advantage for the Wiki is that it makes it easier to "sandbox" corporate shenanigans on the main entries.
I suppose even another variation is conceivable, where specific pages could be sponsored that are not directly linked to the company. At the bottom of the page, the sponsors could then be listed. "This article about roses is officially sponsored by the following companies: Foo Flowers, Bar Blossoms, Snafu Seeds"
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Thank you for your insights. I wonder what case Mr. Lucas is using, as the prop designer is using casts that he himself made, based on his own designs to meet a concept drawing. Thus his sale ought to be legitimate, as far as I can tell. He is offering the buyer a chance to own a casting made from the same moulds used in the first movie, but is not claiming ownership of the trade mark. Mention of "Star Wars" ought to be legitimate, as long as it is not suggested that it is some sort of official merchandise.
I think that's the loophole Mr. Lucas is trying to claim, portraying the sales as pretending to be "official" or otherwise exploiting the Star Wars trademark. I think it's all bollocks, but that's my personal opinion.
Oh, to clarify: what I meant about this being considered a possibility was that none of the signatories of that original prop contract ever considered the chance that the moulds could be valuable for making fan costumes. They probably considered the legal framework sufficient, not thinking beyond the next two to three years. It's the same short-sightedness that left the Daleks in Terry Nation's possession, forcing the BBC to go ask permission to use them.
IIRC most of the set scenes in the original movie were filmed at Pinewood Studios in the UK. I'm too lazy to check, to be honest.
:)
Oh, hell. *googlegooglegoogle*
I was right.
Merci beaucoup! Again, my apologies for the impression of rage when I was going for wit. I just feel it's being taken to silly lengths: a euphemism for an affectation of a translation of a developer's login name, and before long, even "G-d" will be considered a valid name, and need an affectation for it as well... ;)
Thank you for the clarification. I hope I didn't come off as too harsh, as I was trying to be witty about it. With a moniker like mine, I tend to drew irate condescension.
;)
I am aware of the prohibition, but as I also recall the name is normally considered already buffered. You could say it was like protecting, say, Commander Taco's real name, phone number and address, to keep it from getting spammed or letting it get out to those he didn't trust it with. His online handle is better known than his real name, but that real name is still more powerful. Identity theft protection was a concern even in the biblical days, I guess you could say. Your ancestors kept God's username and password safely hidden.
But I can see you belong to the other camp that argues that the reference eventually can become the name. I acknowledge that it is a valid faith, but logically it opens a vicious circle: the affectation will also eventually have to be abandoned...
I'm sorry that I am replying twice, but this thought hit me after I had tapped the "submit" button...
In the episodes that I have seen where churches are involved, often it is chosen as a refuge not so much because the Doctor expects God's grace to help him, but because it's the closest defensible structure around. Take "Father's Day", for instance, where the attack happened in front of the church itself: it was the closest building available. Otherwise, the series does make it a point not to come down too hard on one side or the other of belief, neither proving nor disproving God's existence. All beings claiming to be God are imposters, but nowhere does it state unequivocally that there is (or is not) a god. Even "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" sidestepped the question.
If anything, the series is smartly written to maintain a neutral stance, offending only the more literal fundamentalists (who hate all science fiction anyway). Questions of belief and religion are always granted wiggle room. I suspect even Dr. Dawkins' appearance won't change the show's agnostic position.
Just to be a nit-picker, but what is the reason for treating "God" like a curse-word? It's not the name of the deity in question, nor is it being "taken in vain". Is it some sort of badge thing, a way of saying "coo-ie! Lookie here, I'm being pious!"? Is it an attempt to be annoying so that later you can claim you're being persecuted when people ask you to cut it out? Because I really, really find it annoying, mate, even more annoying than emo haircuts.
That's the problem right there. The designer as artist also has unalienable rights, and most likely he signed a boilerplate contract selling Lucas' production company the suits without addressing the issue of derivative designs or casting new suits. Such a thing was probably not even considered a possibility all those thirty-odd years ago.
The article states that a California court already ruled in favour of Mr. Lucas, but that ruling doesn't apply since Mr. Ainsworth is a Briton and most likely signed his contract under British law. That suggests to me that there may be some merit to the claim, possibly hinging on Ralph McQuarrie's concept design drawings/paintings, but Mr. Ainsworth is also a designer, and I think he could successfully argue that his designs are a derivative but separate artwork, and his counter-suit could have merit.
I think the real reason for Mr. Lucas' suit is as a warning shot to all of those prop designers who worked for the original Star Wars movies, in an attempt to maintain total control over his merchandising empire. It's not about the money, but keeping control, and I personally feel that it's a very selfish act.
You really don't understand a connoisseur mentality, do you? It's the search for the perfect sensation, the desire to capture the optimum experience. I do it with whiskey: not to impress others, but my senses when sipping whiskey (not whisky, I prefer Irish) are highly attuned, and the cheap stuff is worse than not sipping at all. The enjoyment is a very personal, almost solitary experience.
There's nothing noble or ignoble about it. I really do not care if you can see my whiskey selection, or if some whiskey guru approves or not. If I hobnob with others, then it is not to show off but to trade experiences, to learn from them ways to improve my own experience.
Now I am not saying there aren't people that act like connoisseurs merely for the status kick, but those people are not by definition connoisseurs.Their mind isn't on the whiskey, but on the status it brings. These people will buy the anniversary blends with the decorative bottles. To them, it is only a vehicle to achieve recognition, to collect the mental trophy, to gain status in the herd/pack/flock. Apparently you are one of them, otherwise you wouldn't be so fixated on this aspect...
Um... your commandments only make sense if you can quantify "use" and "waste" properly. Some of these gadgets have added value in entertainment, you do realise, or like the MacBook Pro bring enough to the table so that the investment in money beats the investment in time building your own.
As for your second statement, well, I just haven't seen it in the real world. People really do buy nice stuff for themselves without intending to show off. We call those people "connoisseurs". Those people who really do look for the best experience in X, be it wine, or cars, or computers or whatever.
It is folly and insulting to denigrate how others spend their money, really. We all get enjoyment from different things, and from different aspects of those things. To look down at someone as "wasting" their money merely because you personally don't see the benefit is silly.
I almost agree, as the parent company lost this battle back in 2001. Apparently there are strict guidelines as to "trade dress" such as Coca Cola's red, UPS' brown, Tiffany's blue and so on.
What further complicates this is a loophole in German law which allows lawyers to file for trademark infringement – without having to get the approval of the supposedly injured party. This has led to a new breed of trademark trolls, filing injunctions and sending out cease-and-desist letters without the knowledge of their "clients". This depresses me, as part of why I left the USA was to get away from the lawsuit mentality.
So yeah, it's a joke, but the people behind it are unfortunately all too earnest.
If you had read the article, he states that he doesn't have any logfiles, that he won't hand over anything due to privacy concerns and the overreaching aspect of the subpoena.
Note also that he hasn't been ordered by the court yet, only that the lawyers representing the city demanded the info through a scary-looking nastygram.
It's all in the chosen metaphor... gatekeeper. Bouncer.
Jailer.
Instead of being guides leading you through the jungle, the established players want to restrict who actually can have contact with you. Thus the desire to keep the listener, the consumer as ignorant as possible so that they can maintain their Authority. The more information you have, the less you need them to play gatekeeper.
It's the primary issue I mentioned: convenience. Although Amazon's MP3 files are convenient for residents of the USA to purchase (it hasn't gone global yet), it's still not quite as convenient as the iTunes Store is. The Terms of Service that Amazon uses are also draconian, in parts unenforceable but scary enough to give people pause. It's also worth mentioning that these trends are gradual, so whilst Amazon's sales creep upward, you might feel like you're watching the hour hand on the clock. Finally, like I stated, EMI and others have removed the DRM, offering so-called "iTunes Plus" files.
Right now, though, Apple's FairPlay DRM is the only DRM to have gained acceptance. If a band started offering its songs only in WMA or otherwise would be unplayable on current devices, then that band would not sell many copies. I predict that in the long term, this erosion will over the years make DRM a blip on the screen.
You seem to be missing my point: music fans will stick with what they have, and will not be happy when companies start slapping new DRM and formats on them. The missing migration to Amazon bolsters that facet (note also that more and more tracks from the iTunes Store are also being sold without DRM, even though they use the .m4a format).
The hassle with DRM was more evident with WMA files, which were also hobbled by not being compatible with the market's most popular player. MP3 files were still popular, though, and can be loaded on to the iPod with no hassle. Thus they all foundered, unable to convince music buyers that they really offered any added value. In all of the years since Napster, only iTunes was able to sell copy-protected music, but even Apple didn't really like it due to the effort required.
Besides, it's important to remember that the most popular file format is still the audio CD, and those are still free from all DRM...
Digital music formats are gravitating to DRM-free formats, for the simple reason that newer acts are using DRM-free formats to distribute their work. Consider it digital busking. The kicker, though, is that once those files are in the wild, fans will expect future releases to be consistent, in the same format. The band will want to keep the fans happy, so the wishes of their distributor will have to meet their desires.
Note that I did not say the recording studio. Due to the plummet in the cost of quality recoding technology, the recording studio will become even more of a flat fee service, and no longer royalties-driven. The role that the recording studios filled will be splintered, with bands relying more on agents to guide them through choosing recording studios, distributors, merchandising manufacturers and concert organisers. Some studios may survive, repositioning themselves as one-stop shops, and others will splinter as their conflicting interests cause them to be broken apart into individual companies.
In fact, there has always been a sort of uneasy truce between those two groups. In the beginning of the relationship, the music publishers cried bloody murder about radio stations playing their songs for free, since there was no legal requirement then to cover a case like that. Then, once a royalty system was finally in place, some studios realised that "air time" had a positive effect on sales, and payola was born. Today, there exists an equilibrium due to cartels on the publishing side and on the broadcasting side, and companies like Clear Channel ruling over a publisher-friendly airwave monopoly.
That's why I prefer internet "radio" when at home, listening to streams that friends make for friends. I don't want a gatekeeper to keep me from being flooded, I prefer a guide to help me to navigate on my own. Making it all about gatekeepers twists the argument, hides the fact that the self-appointed gatekeepers want to control all traffic, and aspire to be not merely bouncers but also jailers.
But hey, if you want to defend your employers, go right ahead. Just don't denigrate the fact that I prefer to listen outside of the prison they have prepared for me.
The graph supports the meta-argument that health care (in this case, the NHS since we're talking about UK politicians) provides metrics that the politician can use. As the poster said, "good health care for half the cost". The politician could use statistics like this to justify NHS spending. This was less the case with manned spaceflight, making it harder for the politician to show direct benefits from the programme.
Very well. I shall not argue this point any more. I only wished not to argue, but to point out that there is not merely one interpretation. Comments here tend to be worded ambiguously, and I only thought it wiser to be generous in interpreting. Most likely I took you as more earnest, and left no room for interpreting your comment as playful. The ironic part is that I ignored the very advice I wanted to give!
True. The machine is no longer Sequoia's, really. If a state or a municipality buys a machine, they should have full title to it, and that means the rights to inspect and test their own property. The rights of Sequoia are restricted to the right to prevent copies being made of the software for agencies other than the purchaser. The only rights Sequoia should have is the right to void any warranty agreements.
Well, that's the way it should be. The vagaries of the DMCA make it possible for Sequoia to engage in this sort of thuggery, exploiting legal loopholes to threaten and blackmail. It is now up to us to ensure that this boomerangs against them and scares off future customers.
I'm sorry, but you're really stretching it there. To assume that his one-sentence quip referred exclusively to the NHS budget and was not comparing it to the US model is absurd. There is not enough information in his one sentence to support your claim.
His sentence could be interpreted in many ways. He did not claim "halves the budget" but "is half the cost", and is thus open to interpretation. The one I showed would have been a more valid debate point, but you have chosen to parse it in a way that makes you look smug. Your lack of generosity is revealing.
Ah, living up to your moniker again! But before I rebut you, let's explore where you might be right...
Let's see, we are talking about EADS, so this would mean most likely expanding the ESA launch site at Kourou to allow for the bigger people-carriers. More tourism to get to the launch site, perhaps more resorts for the entourage such a rich tourist would bring, paparazzi, and so on. So much for the little tropic location.
What about space junk? That could also ruin a tourist flight if it meant pollution from orbital debris keeps threatening to puncture the craft. Imagine the bitter irony of being struck by the discarded waste from the preceding flight!
But these and other concerns are, let's be honest, decades away. The advantage of taking money from adventurous millionaires weighs far heavier on the scale: we can finally shoot them off of the Earth like we always wanted! Only this time, we have to ensure that they don't come back...
like they kept coming back from Waikiki...
I think you parsed his argument wrongly. As I understand it, the argument is that the NHS allows the UK to provide comparable care to the USA at approx. one-half to one-third the cost per capita.
This graph supports that interpretation... http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/images/figure-1.gif
I will not state that the argument is correct or not, only that you misinterpreted it. In my opinion, he is correct in that it is "measurable" as far as an elected official is concerned - he can provide metrics to bolster his claim. Other metrics might be longevity, time spent in hospitals, and so on. That is less the case with a space programme.
I have to disagree about the relevance. Past history has suggested that companies do use DMCA as a threat, even though the actual chances of the law applying are slim. Thus it is plausible that a "cease and desist" would be sent, in the hopes of scaring the other guy. The implied threat is one of high legal costs whether the victim wins or not, and the harassment involved in getting dragged to court and having to answer the barrage of nastygrams.
I've been trying to see this, but the fine print I saw talked about distribution, not development. So that means a VoIP that uses EDGE as well as 802.11 won't get into the distribution net. Granted, if you didn't pay the $99 registration fee it wouldn't get on there anyway, but there's no other way to distribute. Apple's way of protecting you from malware.
But actually, you could distribute it... as source code. With the devkit, the people you give it to can compile it themselves and load it on to their phones themselves as they help you to test your code, or modify it themselves. Granted, only those with a devkit themselves can play, but it's one way to distribute...you just have to accept that what the others do with your code is out of your hands.
Granted, I could be reading the agreement wrong, but that's the impression I have: Apple is paranoid about trojans and malware getting on the iPhone, so non-developers will have to go through approved channels. If you know what you're doing, fine, hack away, void the warranty, but Apple isn't going to risk Joe Sixpack bricking his phone by mistake...
Well, considering that the Wiki is the one place many go to get first-hand info, I could see a special sort of advertising, where the company overtly contributes to articles about themselves, pay a fee to have an alternative to the normal Wiki page. The advert would come in one of those little Wiki disclaimer tags, for quick linking to the "corporate bullshit disguised as an article" version.
Let's say FUBAR Widgets decides to buy a sponsored article. On the Wikipedia article, there would then be a link that says "This company has its own self-maintained article, which you can see here." On the purchased page, then, the article would be headed with a disclaimer, perhaps "This is a sponsored page owned by the company. The contents of the page are edited by the company itself, and cannot be edited by others."
Of course, companies who abuse this for of advertising should have their pages removed without refund. The actual terms of service, though, are left for the lawyers to haggle. It all boils down to in exchange for having their corporate pages free from editor tyranny, they in return have to play nice elsewhere.
The advantage for the company is that they get to maintain their own entries in the Wiki (not really, but close enough), and the advantage for the Wiki is that it makes it easier to "sandbox" corporate shenanigans on the main entries.
I suppose even another variation is conceivable, where specific pages could be sponsored that are not directly linked to the company. At the bottom of the page, the sponsors could then be listed. "This article about roses is officially sponsored by the following companies: Foo Flowers, Bar Blossoms, Snafu Seeds"