How can a law be "homophobic"? Phobia is an attribute of a person. It may have been restrictive to the legal activities of consenting adults but not does not mean it was homophobic. The law was against buggery specifically and indeed at least from the 1956 Sexual Offences Act buggery between any persons was a felony.
Turings activity that he was arrested for would still have been illegal here in 1994 as the age of consent for homosexual buggery was 21 until then when it was reduced to 18. If he'd buggered a girl a few years later it would have still been illegal. So the offence of government in this specific case was either not allowing any member of the population to take part in buggery or allowing homosexuals an alternative option of hormone treatment?!
I wonder why he chose not to go to prison (2 years was noted in the 1865 Criminal Law Amendment Act, not sure if this was changed in the 1912 Act) - that would seem to be the action you would take if you felt your actions were justified; being in prison is entirely reversible. Instead he apparently chose the alternative hormone treatment. Perhaps he felt himself that his actions were inappropriate? Curious.
I'm sure the apology caused Alan Turing to halt for a moment.
You'll never prove it.
Actually, it's doesn't work both ways. You can easily prove that something halts (given an unbounded amount of time to do so in). It's only proving that it doesn't halt that's an issue;)
He did say "you'll never" rather than in a universe with unbounded time it's theoretically impossible to prove. So he was probably right. Also that Turing is dead and so him "halting" has no well defined meaning, but y'know...
I don't know how old Reiser's kids are but if they're old enough they could theoretically be reading this thread - in which case such a comment would be extremely upsetting, IMO. The family could also have friends and relatives that use Slashdot - would you make that joke to their faces? It's not even the joke per se but the remembrance of these people and constant association of that memory with murder.
Putting direct offense aside, there's the setting of a precedent that people are guarding against - if my Brother-in-Law murdered my sister, I'd find it offensive if people were joking about that. I can't explain the particular psychological mechanism, one tends to find death in such circumstances troubling and the inference is that the death is being used simply as a vehicle for someone to attempt to increase their social traction [falsely, Slashdot karma doesn't really give you anything useful] through humour, well it's disturbing. So if I find it would be disturbing to me if I was on the receiving end, following that great moral paradigm of (paraphrasing) "doing to others what you'd like them to do to you", I'd err away from and counsel others to avoid making these sorts of remarks.
Being offended _does_ harm you. But, one can usually choose to be offended or not (either by response or by pre-avoidance).
I posit that it's not truly the murder of Mrs Reiser you [people?] find humorous, but the play on words? Is it worth the risk of offense simply to make a pun?
If you want to know what technology they're claiming a monopoly over then, surprise, you look at the _claims_.
The rest of the document can be used to aid the definition of the claims, but in practise the claims have to be unambiguous and clearly define the area you claim a monopoly on. The spec has to support the claims and provide details as to implementation. Strangely claims are always a single sentence and avoid disjunctions and use as broad a term as possible - not bolts but "fixing means", not brackets but "extending member acting as a mounting point" and with lots of weasel words, "substantially rigid" (ie rigid enough to do the job).
Anyhow, look at claim1 which is usually the broadest claim and try and read your prior art onto that claim.
Claim 1 here looks to broad to me, but the priority date can be assumed to be 2002 and it's hard to put oneself back to that time and think of what was publically around. The doc as a whole appears to be referring to the background processes involved in, say, updating a plurality of pages (contexts) with a particular piece of information (eg wall-to-wall) at the same time. The claim however is more on the lines of tracking a users movements and recording them as metadata, so say I go from FB to slashdot then my FB Wall gets a post saying "bob just left to go trolling on slashdot" or somesuch.
The only reason facebook was initially popular was because it was for college students only. Once they allowed anyone to have a facebook page, it became the crap fest it is now.
Interestingly enough, if the government created a database like facebook to track citizens, people would be outraged, but make it voluntary and it becomes the next new thing.
Does the government run it? No. So it's not just voluntary it's also not run by the government.
Which is just as well, the UK government paid £180,000 GBP recently for a basic website, what would they pay for a social networking site!?!
Slashdot is peer-moderated, which implies that the moderator may not be an expert (or even well-informed!) about the topic of a comment they choose to mod "informative" or "insightful". Duh.
I'd totally agree with your last assertion, but have you read about melanin being used successfully as a semiconductor! Also that eumelanin exhibits the right sort of response curve... it is quite interesting.
Have they been used to make an effective bistable switch? (There's on in the Smithsonian's chips collections apparently, http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/index2.htm).
I'm assuming that this device is a fraud/hoax too, but it's interesting to see that there is actually quite a lot of interesting science behind the story if that's the case - presumably they're using eumelanin (as I suspect it's dark hair mainly in Asia) which makes one think twice when papers like http://www.google.com/search?q=cache%3AwE7RiTJ0DDAJ%3Aarxiv.org%2Fpdf%2F0704.3977 are considered - it seems almost possible, stranger things have happened! We are particularly adept at producing these long thin layered strands.
I used to compile my own kernel, now I just use a small magnet to set the disc platters directly with machine code. Compiling with a computer is for n00bs.
Usually I don't bother with a computer, interfacing directly with an ethernet port to get online isn't that hard if you practice.
[...] lives in a house in the country she built herself from twigs and has very strong ideas on how everything should be and has all her original body hair. The sex is fantastic, but only if she thinks the astrological conditions are perfect. The house has a hand-dug latrine, so she's propped a toilet bowl on top and thinks that's "user friendliness."[...]
You have no idea how a latrine works. Any red-haired hippy worth their salt would use a composting toilet in place of a plain latrine anyhow. Latrines are wet pits full of shit. Composting toilets barely smell as you add dry sawdust which takes away the worst of the odour. Sitting outside, under a tree over a composting toilet is very satisfying, but you may want a little windbreak so the neighbours don't stare. There is absolutely no point putting a toilet bowl over a latrine or compost loo, a toilet seat is essential if you wish to sit instead of squatting - a bowl would just accumulate shit and stink and need cleaning. The inside of a latrine or compost loo only needs cleaning with a shovel every year or two; you may also need to wipe the seat occasionally.
Here's the common sense - advertise unlimited if you have the resources to give me as much as I might ever ask for.
Restaurant: Unlimited Pies, $20
So I start eating pies, they run out after I've eaten 1. Sorry sir, those were the pies allocated under your contract, it's not fair if you eat more than one as we've sold the other pies to other people and told them they are unlimited. That's called fraud - though companies call it "overage" and "marketing" it's still fraudulent.
If the limitation is say the most pies ever eaten by anyone in the world + 1, then fair enough [this would maybe be equivalent to the most bandwidth it's possible to consume with the allowed proportion of CPU time that my account is limited to].
They're all groups dominated by [different branches of] the same big names: Sony, Warner, EMI, etc..
It appears at least that BPI and PRS (who changed their name to "PRS for Music" recently, which shows how much bullshit they're trying to fling) are both fronts for different parts of the interests of the same stakeholders/shareholders. They also have some artists/songwriters involved to various extents that they use to buy good PR.
You're being obtuse - your first sentence is pretty much a truism. The guy doesn't need someone with 20 years experience to tell him the basics of whether he has a patentable invention and if it's a priori going to be anticipated by prior art. Any patent agent could tell you - if you go to speak to the guy with 20 years of experience he'll likely hand it off either to a trained secretary, search professional or to the junior patent agent in his practice. But he'll charge you his fees for doing that.
The 20 years experience will come in handy most if you know your invention is anticipated or excluded but still want to get a patent and still want to defend it in court or frighten off the opposition by threatening to invalidate their patents.
In the UK and AFAIR the EPC states and before WIPO anyone can file for and obtain a patent - I'd be mighty suprised if that wasn't true in the US, patents being enshrined in the constitution and all. Anyone can represent themselves before law courts in most (every?) democracies though it may not always be a good idea.
A Patent Agent is the usual European term for a Patent Attorney. In the UK it is a reserved term, you have to pass professional exams before you can call yourself one.
You don't have to be a lawyer or engineer to become a Patent Agent (here).
The EPC (and the UKPA) both include a specific mention of software being unpatentable "_as_such_". That "as such" is a huge hole through which software patents can leak. Simplifying software in the EPC signatory states (not === the EU) is patentable provided it has a real world effect and is not the mere transfer of a known solution into a computer based solution. There are other exclusions too.
This used to be determined as whether a "technical effect" occurred (define that one!) but has been liberalised a little more - in the UK they now use the Aerotel/Macrossan tests (based on Merril-Lynch) to keep the UK ruling closer in line with the EPO's interpretation of the EPC.
Depending on the specifics, moving to Europe probably wouldn't help.
It's worse - whilst in the US you're allowed a 1 year grace period to submit an application this is not true in Europe (and everywhere else, eg OAPI states) only in the US.
This means that as you've used the thing out in the open anyone in Europe can use that "invention" (assuming it's not encumbered by 3rd party patents).
The classic case on this is called "windsurfer" IIRC, it concerns the guy who developed [one of?] the first windsurfer and did field tests in public... resulting in loss of patentability under the EPC.
You can think this through logically (though of course the law doesn't need to make sense!) - if I see a windsurf (say) being used and think "hey I could make those to sell" then check there are no pertinent patents to avoid, then start up a factory,... I should be free and unencumbered from continuing. You applying for a patent 11 months later and closing my factory and then using the advantage of my market development would be seriously unfair.
When he says "art" he means the list of "prior art", ie the list of previous disclosed methods, systems and apparatus that are considered pertinent to the application and have been revealed in the course of a patent search.
Under the USPTO you're required to divulge this information; this is not true in any other jurisdiction that I'm aware of (put I'm probably a little behind the times here).
Einstein's biological sex appears to have been male - gender in modern parlance appears to be used is some quarters as a statement about sexual preference or personal identification with males or females. So in that sense I haven't a clue; if Einstein were a closet cross-dresser and secretly harboured a wish that he were born a woman then I suspect those things died with him.
Again, it makes no difference to his work on General Relativity, say.
He said he didn't have kids. That's like someone without a driver's license trying to tell me how to drive.
And yet, 5yr olds can figure out how to drive. No, parenting really ISN'T that hard to figure out, and you don't need to have kids of your own to "understand."
Finally, since you are a parent, I would certainly hope you know that having a license doesn't prove you know how to drive, it only means you're legally allowed to by the government.
Having a license in Europe proves you know the rudiments of driving, ie "how to drive". In the UK you have to take a lesson encompassing driving on all types of roads (except motorways but including a fast dual carriageway), you have to demonstrate knowledge of the basic mechanics of a car including what parts need regular servicing, show recognition of a wide range of road signs and signals from police/traffic wardens, know about driving in varied weather conditions and perform basic manoeuvres like reverse parking, 3-point turn (they don't call it that), etc.. If you pass you usually lack experience but to say passing doesn't prove you know how to drive would be wrong.
Anyway, on the parenting point I'm a young parent - becoming a parent blows you away. My friend tried to explain to me as he had his first child a little before we had ours, he just said you won't understand until you have your own. He was so right. Imagine loving a baby and feeling you'd do anything, even give up your life for that child - can you imagine it? It's not at all like loving your parents, or loving a s.o..
Parenting is hard, some parents find it a lot easier (I speak with probably a dozen parents a week of children of all ages from lots of backgrounds) some a _lot_ harder - but it's definitely hard. There is a proviso to that, if you think parenting involves sitting a child in front of TV all day or simply putting it out and forgetting it exists, and think that providing a good meal means macdonalds every night and that discipline is not worth the hassle, then you probably find "parenting" isn't so hard but I wouldn't call that parenting.
OK, this is the comparison I was making - Murdoch Sr. money grabbing rich person, BBC execs and trustees money grabbing posh rich people,... and the difference?
I was pretty much choosing to ignore output.
Do you really believe that News Corp is profligating German National Socialist ideologies of the early 20th century? Really. Delusional ever?
If you're in the UK and pay taxes then you're paying part of the 300million GBP they get on top of the license fee, so it's not quite free. I guess it's free if you consider that I can read Murdoch's newspapers free online (ad supported but run at a loss it seems) or at my local library (tax payer paid as the BBC offerings are).
So, if the only media outlet were the BBC, the others being killed in the Great Depression, do you think we'd be getting unbiased news? How would we know? Don't we need multiple outlets? I don't really trust the posh nobs that form the upper echelons of the modern BBC much more than I trust the Murdoch empire.
Amusingly, Murdoch himself is not always concerned with profit - he runs propaganda instruments such as the New York Post in the red simply to gain influence and push competitors out of business.
So is it all right to run a media company that can't sustain itself (the BBC basically get a 3.5billion GBP bailout from the British public each year) that pushes competitors without that backing to the wall or is it not?
Slashdot Mirror
How can a law be "homophobic"? Phobia is an attribute of a person. It may have been restrictive to the legal activities of consenting adults but not does not mean it was homophobic. The law was against buggery specifically and indeed at least from the 1956 Sexual Offences Act buggery between any persons was a felony.
Turings activity that he was arrested for would still have been illegal here in 1994 as the age of consent for homosexual buggery was 21 until then when it was reduced to 18. If he'd buggered a girl a few years later it would have still been illegal. So the offence of government in this specific case was either not allowing any member of the population to take part in buggery or allowing homosexuals an alternative option of hormone treatment?!
I wonder why he chose not to go to prison (2 years was noted in the 1865 Criminal Law Amendment Act, not sure if this was changed in the 1912 Act) - that would seem to be the action you would take if you felt your actions were justified; being in prison is entirely reversible. Instead he apparently chose the alternative hormone treatment. Perhaps he felt himself that his actions were inappropriate? Curious.
I'm sure the apology caused Alan Turing to halt for a moment.
You'll never prove it.
Actually, it's doesn't work both ways. You can easily prove that something halts (given an unbounded amount of time to do so in). It's only proving that it doesn't halt that's an issue ;)
He did say "you'll never" rather than in a universe with unbounded time it's theoretically impossible to prove. So he was probably right. Also that Turing is dead and so him "halting" has no well defined meaning, but y'know ...
I don't know how old Reiser's kids are but if they're old enough they could theoretically be reading this thread - in which case such a comment would be extremely upsetting, IMO. The family could also have friends and relatives that use Slashdot - would you make that joke to their faces? It's not even the joke per se but the remembrance of these people and constant association of that memory with murder.
Putting direct offense aside, there's the setting of a precedent that people are guarding against - if my Brother-in-Law murdered my sister, I'd find it offensive if people were joking about that. I can't explain the particular psychological mechanism, one tends to find death in such circumstances troubling and the inference is that the death is being used simply as a vehicle for someone to attempt to increase their social traction [falsely, Slashdot karma doesn't really give you anything useful] through humour, well it's disturbing. So if I find it would be disturbing to me if I was on the receiving end, following that great moral paradigm of (paraphrasing) "doing to others what you'd like them to do to you", I'd err away from and counsel others to avoid making these sorts of remarks.
Being offended _does_ harm you. But, one can usually choose to be offended or not (either by response or by pre-avoidance).
I posit that it's not truly the murder of Mrs Reiser you [people?] find humorous, but the play on words? Is it worth the risk of offense simply to make a pun?
If you want to know what technology they're claiming a monopoly over then, surprise, you look at the _claims_.
The rest of the document can be used to aid the definition of the claims, but in practise the claims have to be unambiguous and clearly define the area you claim a monopoly on. The spec has to support the claims and provide details as to implementation. Strangely claims are always a single sentence and avoid disjunctions and use as broad a term as possible - not bolts but "fixing means", not brackets but "extending member acting as a mounting point" and with lots of weasel words, "substantially rigid" (ie rigid enough to do the job).
Anyhow, look at claim1 which is usually the broadest claim and try and read your prior art onto that claim.
Claim 1 here looks to broad to me, but the priority date can be assumed to be 2002 and it's hard to put oneself back to that time and think of what was publically around. The doc as a whole appears to be referring to the background processes involved in, say, updating a plurality of pages (contexts) with a particular piece of information (eg wall-to-wall) at the same time. The claim however is more on the lines of tracking a users movements and recording them as metadata, so say I go from FB to slashdot then my FB Wall gets a post saying "bob just left to go trolling on slashdot" or somesuch.
The only reason facebook was initially popular was because it was for college students only. Once they allowed anyone to have a facebook page, it became the crap fest it is now.
Interestingly enough, if the government created a database like facebook to track citizens, people would be outraged, but make it voluntary and it becomes the next new thing.
Does the government run it? No. So it's not just voluntary it's also not run by the government.
Which is just as well, the UK government paid £180,000 GBP recently for a basic website, what would they pay for a social networking site!?!
I don't know how this got modded insightful.
Slashdot is peer-moderated, which implies that the moderator may not be an expert (or even well-informed!) about the topic of a comment they choose to mod "informative" or "insightful". Duh.
I don't know how this got modded informative.
I'd totally agree with your last assertion, but have you read about melanin being used successfully as a semiconductor! Also that eumelanin exhibits the right sort of response curve ... it is quite interesting.
Horse droppings are a semiconductor.
Have they been used to make an effective bistable switch? (There's on in the Smithsonian's chips collections apparently, http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/index2.htm).
I'm assuming that this device is a fraud/hoax too, but it's interesting to see that there is actually quite a lot of interesting science behind the story if that's the case - presumably they're using eumelanin (as I suspect it's dark hair mainly in Asia) which makes one think twice when papers like http://www.google.com/search?q=cache%3AwE7RiTJ0DDAJ%3Aarxiv.org%2Fpdf%2F0704.3977 are considered - it seems almost possible, stranger things have happened! We are particularly adept at producing these long thin layered strands.
get electrocuted when they go outside?
Is it because the jump leads won't reach that far from the socket? I suppose a taser would do it.
I used to compile my own kernel, now I just use a small magnet to set the disc platters directly with machine code. Compiling with a computer is for n00bs.
Usually I don't bother with a computer, interfacing directly with an ethernet port to get online isn't that hard if you practice.
[...] lives in a house in the country she built herself from twigs and has very strong ideas on how everything should be and has all her original body hair. The sex is fantastic, but only if she thinks the astrological conditions are perfect. The house has a hand-dug latrine, so she's propped a toilet bowl on top and thinks that's "user friendliness."[...]
You have no idea how a latrine works. Any red-haired hippy worth their salt would use a composting toilet in place of a plain latrine anyhow. Latrines are wet pits full of shit. Composting toilets barely smell as you add dry sawdust which takes away the worst of the odour. Sitting outside, under a tree over a composting toilet is very satisfying, but you may want a little windbreak so the neighbours don't stare. There is absolutely no point putting a toilet bowl over a latrine or compost loo, a toilet seat is essential if you wish to sit instead of squatting - a bowl would just accumulate shit and stink and need cleaning. The inside of a latrine or compost loo only needs cleaning with a shovel every year or two; you may also need to wipe the seat occasionally.
Here's the common sense - advertise unlimited if you have the resources to give me as much as I might ever ask for.
Restaurant: Unlimited Pies, $20
So I start eating pies, they run out after I've eaten 1. Sorry sir, those were the pies allocated under your contract, it's not fair if you eat more than one as we've sold the other pies to other people and told them they are unlimited. That's called fraud - though companies call it "overage" and "marketing" it's still fraudulent.
If the limitation is say the most pies ever eaten by anyone in the world + 1, then fair enough [this would maybe be equivalent to the most bandwidth it's possible to consume with the allowed proportion of CPU time that my account is limited to].
They're all groups dominated by [different branches of] the same big names: Sony, Warner, EMI, etc ..
It appears at least that BPI and PRS (who changed their name to "PRS for Music" recently, which shows how much bullshit they're trying to fling) are both fronts for different parts of the interests of the same stakeholders/shareholders. They also have some artists/songwriters involved to various extents that they use to buy good PR.
You're being obtuse - your first sentence is pretty much a truism. The guy doesn't need someone with 20 years experience to tell him the basics of whether he has a patentable invention and if it's a priori going to be anticipated by prior art. Any patent agent could tell you - if you go to speak to the guy with 20 years of experience he'll likely hand it off either to a trained secretary, search professional or to the junior patent agent in his practice. But he'll charge you his fees for doing that.
The 20 years experience will come in handy most if you know your invention is anticipated or excluded but still want to get a patent and still want to defend it in court or frighten off the opposition by threatening to invalidate their patents.
In the UK and AFAIR the EPC states and before WIPO anyone can file for and obtain a patent - I'd be mighty suprised if that wasn't true in the US, patents being enshrined in the constitution and all. Anyone can represent themselves before law courts in most (every?) democracies though it may not always be a good idea.
A Patent Agent is the usual European term for a Patent Attorney. In the UK it is a reserved term, you have to pass professional exams before you can call yourself one.
You don't have to be a lawyer or engineer to become a Patent Agent (here).
The EPC (and the UKPA) both include a specific mention of software being unpatentable "_as_such_". That "as such" is a huge hole through which software patents can leak. Simplifying software in the EPC signatory states (not === the EU) is patentable provided it has a real world effect and is not the mere transfer of a known solution into a computer based solution. There are other exclusions too.
This used to be determined as whether a "technical effect" occurred (define that one!) but has been liberalised a little more - in the UK they now use the Aerotel/Macrossan tests (based on Merril-Lynch) to keep the UK ruling closer in line with the EPO's interpretation of the EPC.
Depending on the specifics, moving to Europe probably wouldn't help.
It's worse - whilst in the US you're allowed a 1 year grace period to submit an application this is not true in Europe (and everywhere else, eg OAPI states) only in the US.
This means that as you've used the thing out in the open anyone in Europe can use that "invention" (assuming it's not encumbered by 3rd party patents).
The classic case on this is called "windsurfer" IIRC, it concerns the guy who developed [one of?] the first windsurfer and did field tests in public ... resulting in loss of patentability under the EPC.
You can think this through logically (though of course the law doesn't need to make sense!) - if I see a windsurf (say) being used and think "hey I could make those to sell" then check there are no pertinent patents to avoid, then start up a factory, ... I should be free and unencumbered from continuing. You applying for a patent 11 months later and closing my factory and then using the advantage of my market development would be seriously unfair.
When he says "art" he means the list of "prior art", ie the list of previous disclosed methods, systems and apparatus that are considered pertinent to the application and have been revealed in the course of a patent search.
Under the USPTO you're required to divulge this information; this is not true in any other jurisdiction that I'm aware of (put I'm probably a little behind the times here).
Einstein's biological sex appears to have been male - gender in modern parlance appears to be used is some quarters as a statement about sexual preference or personal identification with males or females. So in that sense I haven't a clue; if Einstein were a closet cross-dresser and secretly harboured a wish that he were born a woman then I suspect those things died with him.
Again, it makes no difference to his work on General Relativity, say.
In what way do you think it would?
Isn't that because it's entirely irrelevant to the issues surrounding their [computer science] work.
We don't know what colour of underpants Einstein wore either.
He said he didn't have kids. That's like someone without a driver's license trying to tell me how to drive.
And yet, 5yr olds can figure out how to drive. No, parenting really ISN'T that hard to figure out, and you don't need to have kids of your own to "understand."
Finally, since you are a parent, I would certainly hope you know that having a license doesn't prove you know how to drive, it only means you're legally allowed to by the government.
Having a license in Europe proves you know the rudiments of driving, ie "how to drive". In the UK you have to take a lesson encompassing driving on all types of roads (except motorways but including a fast dual carriageway), you have to demonstrate knowledge of the basic mechanics of a car including what parts need regular servicing, show recognition of a wide range of road signs and signals from police/traffic wardens, know about driving in varied weather conditions and perform basic manoeuvres like reverse parking, 3-point turn (they don't call it that), etc.. If you pass you usually lack experience but to say passing doesn't prove you know how to drive would be wrong.
Anyway, on the parenting point I'm a young parent - becoming a parent blows you away. My friend tried to explain to me as he had his first child a little before we had ours, he just said you won't understand until you have your own. He was so right. Imagine loving a baby and feeling you'd do anything, even give up your life for that child - can you imagine it? It's not at all like loving your parents, or loving a s.o..
Parenting is hard, some parents find it a lot easier (I speak with probably a dozen parents a week of children of all ages from lots of backgrounds) some a _lot_ harder - but it's definitely hard. There is a proviso to that, if you think parenting involves sitting a child in front of TV all day or simply putting it out and forgetting it exists, and think that providing a good meal means macdonalds every night and that discipline is not worth the hassle, then you probably find "parenting" isn't so hard but I wouldn't call that parenting.
OK, this is the comparison I was making - Murdoch Sr. money grabbing rich person, BBC execs and trustees money grabbing posh rich people, ... and the difference?
I was pretty much choosing to ignore output.
Do you really believe that News Corp is profligating German National Socialist ideologies of the early 20th century? Really. Delusional ever?
Lol, good catch.
If you're in the UK and pay taxes then you're paying part of the 300million GBP they get on top of the license fee, so it's not quite free. I guess it's free if you consider that I can read Murdoch's newspapers free online (ad supported but run at a loss it seems) or at my local library (tax payer paid as the BBC offerings are).
So, if the only media outlet were the BBC, the others being killed in the Great Depression, do you think we'd be getting unbiased news? How would we know? Don't we need multiple outlets? I don't really trust the posh nobs that form the upper echelons of the modern BBC much more than I trust the Murdoch empire.
Amusingly, Murdoch himself is not always concerned with profit - he runs propaganda instruments such as the New York Post in the red simply to gain influence and push competitors out of business.
So is it all right to run a media company that can't sustain itself (the BBC basically get a 3.5billion GBP bailout from the British public each year) that pushes competitors without that backing to the wall or is it not?