(4) the secure network, then people's habit will really change. As long as the secure network is missing, I don't think the internet alone will change much of anything.
I'd love to say you're right - but I can't. The "secure" physical network (separate from all other network infrastructure) does exist - but is rapidly being subsumed by IP infrastructure - some of which is over the subsumed pieces of ATM and other physical layers.
The only secure network that will be created in the future will be done using encryption over an insecure physical (and maybe logical as in TCP/IP) infrastructure because the days of any single entity owning end-to-end responsibility for physical layer are at an end. The field is simply too broad when you take into consideration the fact that the communications world is no longer an isolated bunch of physical entities but instead is a homogeneous whole of anyone who wants to play. Even China is having problems keeping the stuff in Pandora's box from leaking out. The couldn't with FAX and now are having to work extremely hard with TCP/IP, I know, I helped put some of the first ISP hardware into Beijing in 1995.
IMHO the only thing missing is easy to use and personally manage Certificate Authorities and the user paradigms to allow easy issue/revocation - integrated into the end-user software services that make sense.
We already have P2P networking and I've seen examples of secure ad hoc networking but the administrative stuff hasn't been worked on enough. At some point I expect to be able to meet someone in a social situation, exchange keys with them in some easy fashion and thereafter have completely secure interaction with them and their avatars over any medium from carrier pidgeon to wireless to Ethernet to copper/analog voice - and retain the ability to selectively revoke my key any time I wish without having to check with some company in South Africa or wherever that I don't know from Adam.
You don't need and I don't want a secure separate network - I want secure wherever and whenever I interact with anyone at a distance - from my mother to somebody I met in a bar when on a business or pleasure trip half-way around the world; no matter what method I choose or they have to deal with locally.
You're right, he didn't - and Nicola Tesla didn't invent electricity either - he just made it useful to someone who didn't understand it - a far harder feat.
Having lived through the evolution of the Internet from teaching neophytes the rudimentary commands at a Unix shell prompt, to batch-ftp (tell the system what files you want and hope they are in your home directory the next day/week), to crafting WAIS databases and Gopher hierarchies, to finally being able to just tell people to "run mosaic" on their MAC and eventually their PC; I can honestly say that TBL came to us just in time, with just the right solution.
The possibility of having to continue teaching non-computer people how to use, let alone craft new, Internet sources of information with the diverse and incompatible facilities of 198x-93 (when the Web really came out of Cern and into its own right) leaves me shuddering.
Looking back I can only thank TBL for my minorly remaining sanity.
On the other hand, there are times when I despair that anyone really understands that something can exist without "www" in front of it - but even that's changing.
The "Internet" as a closed, tight-knit, techy facility started long before 1991 - but it became the public, international, business and social force that it is today starting about 1993 for two major reasons:
1 - The US Government allowed the previously exising Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) to fall by the wayside as it pushed the baby out of the nest by handing over administration to InterNIC
2 - The general public, with no computer skills, could navigate around the older FTP, WAIS, GOPHER sites just as easily as they could the new HTTP sites - from a single "browser" (Mosaic) and on their home PC - starting with the diskette that came in the book "The Internet for the MAC" and proceeding about 6 months later with "The Internet for the PC" which had similar software for Windows.
TBL rides on the back of things like the MAC's hypercard database and the fact that the Internet existed - but it took his spark to make it work together.
I echo another poster - he deserves to be a Knight - but they also should make him an Url!
OK - I should have qualified that and said "that can turn a corner":)
the new Honda 1800(have not yet ridden one) is 120+lbs lighter than the one I ride (1998 GL1500) and sports a solid Aluminum machined frame instead of the tubular steel one I have - another one of them thar new-fangled inventions of the speed freaks;)
Back in the days before they'd invented zero there was a new technology called the automobile. In the beginning it was used only by the rich and crazy but as time wore on the things these idiots invented found their way into commodity products that you, me or the guys working for Mr. Ford over there could purchase and enjoy - despite the fact that most of us couldn't design a car engine let alone the rest of the car's bits and pieces.
Today I get to enjoy a day at the Vancouver Molson Indy watching some of the second fastest (fastest are F1) race cars in the world as their teams vie for kudos in the form of winnings.
Companies like Ford, Honda etc. use these tests to perfect new ways of making things go faster and if you think the stuff they do doesn't get into production products you're wrong - my GoldWing has an engine in it that uses many of the same techniques and design elements that Honda's Indy/CART engines have.
So... you never know what might end up being used out of all of the various techniques and technologies these guys had to invent. You only see the CPU - I see the power supply mods, the heat sink mods and many other things.
Yeah - and you know, once you've gone through that kind of cycle a few times, you know the real reason for writing code that doesn't crash the machine.
What I liked about it was that it gave you time to think about the finer points of life. This fast-paced life we lead now is just too much sometimes. I long for the times of watching the paper tape reader shred my last tape; having to sticky-tape it together enough that I could read it by eye and punch a new one. You just can't get a better reason for slacking off than "the computer ate my boot tape"
Regardless of whether the empowered editors are qualified to know whether the information that has evolved over several/many versions of the page is good or not, most people can detect real screw-ups and even if they can't, many of us have pages on "watch" list so we see what has changed with our particular specialties and we can ask for a roll-back.
The point is that in most cases the people who are contributing are truly knowledgeable in the specific subject. The idiots who screw things up are not smart enough to really fool people - they just like spray-painting grafitti over the walls and leaving.
The site allows anyone to add content it's true - but there are editors and of course your peers (the other contributors) and peer pressure.
Yes, it is possible to go in and mangle pages if that's what turns your crank - but the system maintains a version by version history and the editors can roll back - and disallow you from further changes.
There is an area for each page for discussion of what is on or should be on it - and each contributor can "subscribe" to pages to see when they change or see new comments.
All in all, I'm pleased with the way things are set up. I've used WIKIs in several business settings over the past few years and like how this one is set up. I sincerely hope they can find ongoing sponsorship of some kind. In the mean time I for one will be blowing their horn to get people to recognize them.
better than what I bought 11 years ago - $3000
on
Wikipedia Needs $20K
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Back when our kids were about to enter high school I inheritted enough money that (amongst other things) we could afford an encyclopedia. I shopped around a bit - and gave many of the sales droids heck because I couldn't get what I wanted on CD or the Internet.
We finally ended up with a medium priced Britannica set - including the index on CD and the Britannica Junior. Note that at the time I was working in the budding Internet at the time - gopher and WAIS being just getting going and the Web only just starting to find its way out of Cern.
The books ended up in a separate room in our new house that we lovingly called the Library - and I actually got our two boys to use them once in a while for the first couple of years.
Of course we had full time connection to the budding 'Net during this time and I also helped them learn about it too.
We ended up donating the books to the High School - no tax write-off or anything - and giving the Juniors to my brother/sister-in-law for their younger kids to try. Our boys have found anything they've needed in the intervening years on the 'Net - but have had to have help to colate and interpret it. Nothing like what is in this project.
I wish I had the money now to give to Wikipedia. I've given some, and will try to give more in the not too distant future - and will continue to add articles as I see a need (and can fulfill it).
Even now that the major encylopedias are available via subscription on the 'Net, they lack the depth and immediacy that I've seen in WikiPedia. In some areas they are still ahead - but I expect that to change in day or weeks, certainly within months.
In the mean time - this is one of the best projects I've seen in my 15+ years connected with the 'Net - give if you can, please!
I haven't (yet) seen the trailer but drove through the Cassiar connector tunnel (takes Highway 1 under Hastings street on the way to the Ironworkers' Second Narrows Bridge) several days during the time they were shooting (done late nights). They had one entire tunnel set up with new lights and such.
One can always hope that this will be the start of an epic number of films following the path to the stars that concludes with the Foundation series
The CPCC distributed something over $20 million just about the time that the Levy hearings were being held back in February 2003 - who to and on what basis is not yet a matter of record as far as I know - but the distro was supposedly based on "air-play" and sales - which leaves all the old artists from the 60s and 70s (and 50s and before) who were copied via download by the likes of my brother-in-law because he couldn't find them anywhere else and the radio station where he is (not a large city) didn't play the stuff he wanted. Really fair - not!
The Canadian government has already shown that when the law puts a significant percentage of the population in the position of being an un-caught felon, it recognizes that they have voted for change with their actions and moves to do something to remedy the situation.
Sometimes there are external (to Canada) influences that clog up the works and slow things down. Other times they do something that demonstrates the "law of unintended consequences" quite nicely;)
We have pretty much recognized gay marriage
We are working on de-criminalizing (note: not legalizing) pot (much to the consternation of the US DEA - one of those external influences we get)
We recognized that "private copying" was a fact and was not likely to go away - so came up with the Blank Media Levy which might actually be a reasonable solution if the Copyright Board continues to show restraint
I make no guess as to what our dear government will do about "uploading" if anything; but they might.
In the mean time it should be noted that most of the large retailers selling music have lowered the prices significantly (the small retailers are being frozen out by the distributors and not getting the discounts "because they don't buy enough copies..." - a rant for another time). It remains to be seen if the number of units goes up. I expect it will - even though the total dollars may go down or stay even - and that is the point!
The dollars spent on music will likely stay even or maybe decline a bit - but this is not due to downloading, private copying, or whatever - it is due to external forces in action.
For example - the chocolate bar industry noted a decline in sales during the late 90s and early 2000s - and found that the reason was that their prime targets/customers (the teenagers) were using their disposable income to purchase cell-phone cards for text messaging and phone calls - leaving less to spend on chocolate.
Another influence - the music industry has released less music in recent years than they did previously - there is less to choose from and people are resisting (by downloading - "I've paid for 14 songs but only like 2 on this CD so I'll download another 12 to make up for it" maybe not done consiously - but it makes them feel better). The music publishers have also "perfected" the art of slicing and dicing the repetoir to force (or at least try to force) their target audience to pay for multiple CDs in order to get all the music they want, one or two songs per CD at a time - along with lots of crap put out as filler. I've suggested (to the Copyright Board) that this is in fact "tied selling" and should be viewed as a negative in adjusting the rate for the music levy - derating the "average" earnings per song in the calculation - they didn't bite this time but...
We've also had a bit of an economic turn-down recently too - but of course during such times people will always choose music over food won't they?;)
The music distribution system is headed for a collapse - with the publishing companies and the industry associations losing out. Problem is that they don't want to lose their profit and influence so are fighting hard to lobby the governments to keep them around. This is what we have to fight. The continuation of an inefficient distribution system in the face of a complete paradigm change and disruptive technologies. It is the job of government to do what the population as a whole needs done in order to survive economically (and other ways but...) and if this means allowing one particular segment of an old industry to founder (the publishers) to the benefit of another segment (the artists) while keeping the general population from being all put in jail or saddled with onerous civil penalties for doing what "everyone is doing" then so be it - that's what we pay them the big bucks for.
There is no guarantee to any business that they will survive doing the sam
Note that there is one minor exception to this - taking counterfit stuff across a country's border.
Purchase a really good fake Rolex in Canada from your "friend" - wear it in good health and flash it in front of any cop you want; no problem. Take it across the US border and have it on your wrist when you hand over your passport - watch out; you might even lose your car - as well as the watch.
Same with a Guchi purse or whatever - the Customs and Excise people are specifically empowered to protect the trademarks and design patents of companies selling goods in their country from fakes coming in from other countries - no matter whether in a shipping container or on your body.
OK - want to collaborate on a script;>
I like it - problem is that the Hobbit is long enough on its own that adding the stuff about the battle of the Shire would push it into enough to do at least 2 films... oh... wait... that might be a GOOD idea!
Well, if nobody else has thought about it, you heard it here. The Hobbiton battle would make an excellent 4th (or 5th if you consider that they're talking about redoing the Hobbit) in the series. I expect that adding some retro scenes and maybe some of the things that didn't make it into the previous 3 would allow it to be fleshed out. It might not cater to the average viewer but those of us who grew up on Tolkien would certainly add it to our collection.
Actually, in this case the government simply acknowledged something that was already happening, and that was essentially unenforceable application of a law which made a large portion of the Canadian population "felons" waiting to be caught.
Rather than allowing for the type of thing that RIAA is currently doing - random application of law against the general citizenry - they simply removed the problem in return for "compensation in respect of" (i.e. the levy) the private copying that they (the government) couldn't stop. This lowers the possibility that the population will hold the law as contemptuous because it is not applied - something that many other governments should do more of (remove the laws on the books about a bathing suit having to have x yards of material as they used to state here in Vancouver up until recently for example)
I'm of the opinion that this is an excellent example of what government should do - "government should do for us as a group that which we as individuals cannot or will not do because it is not in our individual best interests, but which is in our collective best interests" - i.e. resolve the "tragedy of the commons" problem and similar situations.
This may branch of into a whole other discussion but I think it needs to be aired.
One of the "interesting" items found deep (p21) in the ruling is the note that "However, an audio recording medium to which no tariff applies because the Board has decided that such a medium is not of a kind ordinarily used by individuals for recording music is, in the Board's opinion, removed from the ambit of the exemption" (bold is mine) (i.e. you can't legally copy other's music onto it) which they specifically apply (p43) to DVDs. "As previously explained, this determination means that copying music onto a DVD infringes copyright"
The discussion on the digital-copyright.ca mail list is running to the opinion that since the Board didn't rule on whether things like normal hard drives are "blank audio media" this still leaves open the right to use them for now, but that in the future (next round of levy determination for 2005-2006 for example) they (the Board) may rule that the hard disk isn't a blank audio medium and therefor Canadians may no longer copy music to them - or they may rule that hard disks are blank audio media and apply a levy to them which will confirm thier use for private copying - or they may rule that they are blank audio media but not leviable and therefor no longer allowed for private copying of music. Same applies to FLASH cards and micro-hard drives - they were not specifically ruled upon this time so still in a grey area.
In Canada, this is exactly what it means. Making a copy of music from wherever you can get it for your own use is legal here.
The question posed farther down the list about copying lots here in Canada then taking the CDs to the US is an interesting one - would the RIAA have any case?
Note that the levy is not collected by the government - it is collected directly by the Canadian Private Copying Consortium (CPCC) and nothing goes to the government, not even GST. If we have to have this type of thing, this seems the best way to do it. I don't necessarily agree with any/all of the way it is done, but it doesn't go near the government at all and this is a good thing.
The Canadian Copyright Act has specifically exempted "private copying" from being illegal, and provided a method (not the best one, but at least a method) to compensate the artists for the expected (and so far proven but how much is still an issue) loss of revenue.
It is a levy and the Board has an unenviable task in dealing with it, but I actually think they've done a pretty good job this time.
I don't know about other jurisdictions (not even my own here in BC) but in California "lane splitting" is legal - as long as you don't go over 10mph faster than the traffic. This means that as a matter of policy, California is encouraging motorcycles by allowing them to get ahead of other traffic.
The guys I have problems with are the ones who think that just because they can't cram more cars across the highway we (on bikes) should sit there when there are spaces more than ample for our width - especially since many of the bikes are air cooled and sitting for hours in traffic jams is devastating. I ride a 'Wing which is wide enough that I rarely take advantage of lane splitting but it is a legitimate idea and as noted above, legal in at least one jurisdiction.
Purchasing from the US is easy and getting less expensive (for shipping and handling) all the time. Purchasing from the US and getting the vendor to lie is effectively impossible and not worth doing.
The Free Trade Agreement (such as it is - don't try to apply it to softwood lumber, but that's a different rant) means there is no duty on most stuff now but the CCRA (Canada Customs and Revenue Agency) collects both GST (Goods and Services federal tax) and any provincial tax for the destination province (PST)
Depending on who you purchase it from and how they send it, the shipping and handling can be as little as about CDN$8 for a tube of 100 CD-Rs and so the landed cost is lower than what it costs (with the levy) of purchasing them here. Not so for smaller quantities, since the shipping for them is the same pretty much and so the gain isn't enough to offset the price difference.
Since the levy on an iPOD is now set at a maximum of CDN$25/unit (for units with 10 or more Gigs of storage, and the Canadian dollar is now getting closer to the US in exchange (what are you guys doing to your dollar?;) the difference isn't enough to make the average Canadian want to bother - they'll still walk into Future Shop or Costco or... and pick the one they want in person. This is in contrast to the potential levy the CPCC wanted which was $21/Gig which would have made that 10Gig iPod $210 more expensive instead of just $25 more as the ruling has set. THAT would have gotten a lot more people to shop on line IMHO.
The Copyright board issued its ruling at 10AM Ottawa time today.
Overview(all amounts in Canadian $)
The old levy amounts are now the new levy amounts with some additions
40 minute cassette tapes or longer - $0.29
CD-R/RW $0.21
CD-R Audio, and Minidiscs $0.77
New Items:
non-removeable memory in MP3 players(aka digital audio recorders):
$2 per unit up to 1Gbyte capacity
$15 per unit from 1Gbyte to 10Gbyte capacity
$25 per unit over 10Gbyte capacity
No levy on DVD-R/RW, removeable memory (Flash or micro-hard drive)
This is a clear win for the over 1500 people who made submissions to the board, the 100 who officially objected and the 30 who saw the process all the way through to the end.
Only if it is hooked to something that sends the info to the govn'mnt (or you die and the GPS survives and is entered into evidence showing that you were in fact doing 180mile/hour on that hairping) - and then who cares?
Wife has a Chevy Cavalier - Son has a Z24 - so I know them well. I have a 'Wing and have ridden stuff from 90cc on up including side-cars.
Riding on 2 wheels you have to achieve situational awareness - know who is in front, to the side and behind in all lanes - and be afraid of what might jump out at you from side streets and lanes.
Difference between power bike and chopper is how long it takes you to get "white-finger" (vibration induced loss of blood in the extremities, i.e. the fingers of your hands) - compounded by the style of gloves you wear.
On a crotch-rocket you get white finger from hanging on for dear life and near misses with little old ladies and (in our neck of the woods) tractors on the back roads. On choppers you get white finger from riding more than about 300 miles unless you have fairly thick gloves on.
On my 'Wing I can ride all day with bare hands and only get white-finger when the temperature gets below about 10C;>
Well... if you got a "real" bike - like my 'Wing, you'd get self-canceling turn signals. On the other hand, I followed an old VW bug most of the way home tonight and it had its 4-way flashers on the whole way. I wasn't sure he was trying to make up for the lack of other lighting on the beast or afraid I'd crawl up his tail-pipe because he was leaving 1/2 mile between him and the car in front;)
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I'd love to say you're right - but I can't. The "secure" physical network (separate from all other network infrastructure) does exist - but is rapidly being subsumed by IP infrastructure - some of which is over the subsumed pieces of ATM and other physical layers.
The only secure network that will be created in the future will be done using encryption over an insecure physical (and maybe logical as in TCP/IP) infrastructure because the days of any single entity owning end-to-end responsibility for physical layer are at an end. The field is simply too broad when you take into consideration the fact that the communications world is no longer an isolated bunch of physical entities but instead is a homogeneous whole of anyone who wants to play. Even China is having problems keeping the stuff in Pandora's box from leaking out. The couldn't with FAX and now are having to work extremely hard with TCP/IP, I know, I helped put some of the first ISP hardware into Beijing in 1995.
IMHO the only thing missing is easy to use and personally manage Certificate Authorities and the user paradigms to allow easy issue/revocation - integrated into the end-user software services that make sense.
We already have P2P networking and I've seen examples of secure ad hoc networking but the administrative stuff hasn't been worked on enough. At some point I expect to be able to meet someone in a social situation, exchange keys with them in some easy fashion and thereafter have completely secure interaction with them and their avatars over any medium from carrier pidgeon to wireless to Ethernet to copper/analog voice - and retain the ability to selectively revoke my key any time I wish without having to check with some company in South Africa or wherever that I don't know from Adam.
You don't need and I don't want a secure separate network - I want secure wherever and whenever I interact with anyone at a distance - from my mother to somebody I met in a bar when on a business or pleasure trip half-way around the world; no matter what method I choose or they have to deal with locally.
Having lived through the evolution of the Internet from teaching neophytes the rudimentary commands at a Unix shell prompt, to batch-ftp (tell the system what files you want and hope they are in your home directory the next day/week), to crafting WAIS databases and Gopher hierarchies, to finally being able to just tell people to "run mosaic" on their MAC and eventually their PC; I can honestly say that TBL came to us just in time, with just the right solution.
The possibility of having to continue teaching non-computer people how to use, let alone craft new, Internet sources of information with the diverse and incompatible facilities of 198x-93 (when the Web really came out of Cern and into its own right) leaves me shuddering.
Looking back I can only thank TBL for my minorly remaining sanity.
On the other hand, there are times when I despair that anyone really understands that something can exist without "www" in front of it - but even that's changing.
The "Internet" as a closed, tight-knit, techy facility started long before 1991 - but it became the public, international, business and social force that it is today starting about 1993 for two major reasons:
1 - The US Government allowed the previously exising Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) to fall by the wayside as it pushed the baby out of the nest by handing over administration to InterNIC
2 - The general public, with no computer skills, could navigate around the older FTP, WAIS, GOPHER sites just as easily as they could the new HTTP sites - from a single "browser" (Mosaic) and on their home PC - starting with the diskette that came in the book "The Internet for the MAC" and proceeding about 6 months later with "The Internet for the PC" which had similar software for Windows.
TBL rides on the back of things like the MAC's hypercard database and the fact that the Internet existed - but it took his spark to make it work together.
I echo another poster - he deserves to be a Knight - but they also should make him an Url!
the new Honda 1800(have not yet ridden one) is 120+lbs lighter than the one I ride (1998 GL1500) and sports a solid Aluminum machined frame instead of the tubular steel one I have - another one of them thar new-fangled inventions of the speed freaks ;)
Funny cars are just that -
Today I get to enjoy a day at the Vancouver Molson Indy watching some of the second fastest (fastest are F1) race cars in the world as their teams vie for kudos in the form of winnings.
Companies like Ford, Honda etc. use these tests to perfect new ways of making things go faster and if you think the stuff they do doesn't get into production products you're wrong - my GoldWing has an engine in it that uses many of the same techniques and design elements that Honda's Indy/CART engines have.
So... you never know what might end up being used out of all of the various techniques and technologies these guys had to invent. You only see the CPU - I see the power supply mods, the heat sink mods and many other things.
What I liked about it was that it gave you time to think about the finer points of life. This fast-paced life we lead now is just too much sometimes. I long for the times of watching the paper tape reader shred my last tape; having to sticky-tape it together enough that I could read it by eye and punch a new one. You just can't get a better reason for slacking off than "the computer ate my boot tape"
The point is that in most cases the people who are contributing are truly knowledgeable in the specific subject. The idiots who screw things up are not smart enough to really fool people - they just like spray-painting grafitti over the walls and leaving.
Yes, it is possible to go in and mangle pages if that's what turns your crank - but the system maintains a version by version history and the editors can roll back - and disallow you from further changes.
There is an area for each page for discussion of what is on or should be on it - and each contributor can "subscribe" to pages to see when they change or see new comments.
All in all, I'm pleased with the way things are set up. I've used WIKIs in several business settings over the past few years and like how this one is set up. I sincerely hope they can find ongoing sponsorship of some kind. In the mean time I for one will be blowing their horn to get people to recognize them.
We finally ended up with a medium priced Britannica set - including the index on CD and the Britannica Junior. Note that at the time I was working in the budding Internet at the time - gopher and WAIS being just getting going and the Web only just starting to find its way out of Cern.
The books ended up in a separate room in our new house that we lovingly called the Library - and I actually got our two boys to use them once in a while for the first couple of years.
Of course we had full time connection to the budding 'Net during this time and I also helped them learn about it too.
We ended up donating the books to the High School - no tax write-off or anything - and giving the Juniors to my brother/sister-in-law for their younger kids to try. Our boys have found anything they've needed in the intervening years on the 'Net - but have had to have help to colate and interpret it. Nothing like what is in this project.
I wish I had the money now to give to Wikipedia. I've given some, and will try to give more in the not too distant future - and will continue to add articles as I see a need (and can fulfill it).
Even now that the major encylopedias are available via subscription on the 'Net, they lack the depth and immediacy that I've seen in WikiPedia. In some areas they are still ahead - but I expect that to change in day or weeks, certainly within months.
In the mean time - this is one of the best projects I've seen in my 15+ years connected with the 'Net - give if you can, please!
Keep up the great work - all of us/you :)
One can always hope that this will be the start of an epic number of films following the path to the stars that concludes with the Foundation series
The CPCC distributed something over $20 million just about the time that the Levy hearings were being held back in February 2003 - who to and on what basis is not yet a matter of record as far as I know - but the distro was supposedly based on "air-play" and sales - which leaves all the old artists from the 60s and 70s (and 50s and before) who were copied via download by the likes of my brother-in-law because he couldn't find them anywhere else and the radio station where he is (not a large city) didn't play the stuff he wanted. Really fair - not!
Sometimes there are external (to Canada) influences that clog up the works and slow things down. Other times they do something that demonstrates the "law of unintended consequences" quite nicely ;)
We have pretty much recognized gay marriage
We are working on de-criminalizing (note: not legalizing) pot (much to the consternation of the US DEA - one of those external influences we get)
We recognized that "private copying" was a fact and was not likely to go away - so came up with the Blank Media Levy which might actually be a reasonable solution if the Copyright Board continues to show restraint
I make no guess as to what our dear government will do about "uploading" if anything; but they might.
In the mean time it should be noted that most of the large retailers selling music have lowered the prices significantly (the small retailers are being frozen out by the distributors and not getting the discounts "because they don't buy enough copies..." - a rant for another time). It remains to be seen if the number of units goes up. I expect it will - even though the total dollars may go down or stay even - and that is the point!
The dollars spent on music will likely stay even or maybe decline a bit - but this is not due to downloading, private copying, or whatever - it is due to external forces in action.
For example - the chocolate bar industry noted a decline in sales during the late 90s and early 2000s - and found that the reason was that their prime targets/customers (the teenagers) were using their disposable income to purchase cell-phone cards for text messaging and phone calls - leaving less to spend on chocolate.
Another influence - the music industry has released less music in recent years than they did previously - there is less to choose from and people are resisting (by downloading - "I've paid for 14 songs but only like 2 on this CD so I'll download another 12 to make up for it" maybe not done consiously - but it makes them feel better). The music publishers have also "perfected" the art of slicing and dicing the repetoir to force (or at least try to force) their target audience to pay for multiple CDs in order to get all the music they want, one or two songs per CD at a time - along with lots of crap put out as filler. I've suggested (to the Copyright Board) that this is in fact "tied selling" and should be viewed as a negative in adjusting the rate for the music levy - derating the "average" earnings per song in the calculation - they didn't bite this time but...
We've also had a bit of an economic turn-down recently too - but of course during such times people will always choose music over food won't they? ;)
The music distribution system is headed for a collapse - with the publishing companies and the industry associations losing out. Problem is that they don't want to lose their profit and influence so are fighting hard to lobby the governments to keep them around. This is what we have to fight. The continuation of an inefficient distribution system in the face of a complete paradigm change and disruptive technologies. It is the job of government to do what the population as a whole needs done in order to survive economically (and other ways but...) and if this means allowing one particular segment of an old industry to founder (the publishers) to the benefit of another segment (the artists) while keeping the general population from being all put in jail or saddled with onerous civil penalties for doing what "everyone is doing" then so be it - that's what we pay them the big bucks for.
There is no guarantee to any business that they will survive doing the sam
Purchase a really good fake Rolex in Canada from your "friend" - wear it in good health and flash it in front of any cop you want; no problem. Take it across the US border and have it on your wrist when you hand over your passport - watch out; you might even lose your car - as well as the watch.
Same with a Guchi purse or whatever - the Customs and Excise people are specifically empowered to protect the trademarks and design patents of companies selling goods in their country from fakes coming in from other countries - no matter whether in a shipping container or on your body.
OK - want to collaborate on a script ;>
I like it - problem is that the Hobbit is long enough on its own that adding the stuff about the battle of the Shire would push it into enough to do at least 2 films... oh... wait... that might be a GOOD idea!
Well, if nobody else has thought about it, you heard it here. The Hobbiton battle would make an excellent 4th (or 5th if you consider that they're talking about redoing the Hobbit) in the series. I expect that adding some retro scenes and maybe some of the things that didn't make it into the previous 3 would allow it to be fleshed out. It might not cater to the average viewer but those of us who grew up on Tolkien would certainly add it to our collection.
Rather than allowing for the type of thing that RIAA is currently doing - random application of law against the general citizenry - they simply removed the problem in return for "compensation in respect of" (i.e. the levy) the private copying that they (the government) couldn't stop. This lowers the possibility that the population will hold the law as contemptuous because it is not applied - something that many other governments should do more of (remove the laws on the books about a bathing suit having to have x yards of material as they used to state here in Vancouver up until recently for example)
I'm of the opinion that this is an excellent example of what government should do - "government should do for us as a group that which we as individuals cannot or will not do because it is not in our individual best interests, but which is in our collective best interests" - i.e. resolve the "tragedy of the commons" problem and similar situations.
This may branch of into a whole other discussion but I think it needs to be aired.
One of the "interesting" items found deep (p21) in the ruling is the note that "However, an audio recording medium to which no tariff applies because the Board has decided that such a medium is not of a kind ordinarily used by individuals for recording music is, in the Board's opinion, removed from the ambit of the exemption " (bold is mine) (i.e. you can't legally copy other's music onto it) which they specifically apply (p43) to DVDs. "As previously explained, this determination means that copying music onto a DVD infringes copyright"
The discussion on the digital-copyright.ca mail list is running to the opinion that since the Board didn't rule on whether things like normal hard drives are "blank audio media" this still leaves open the right to use them for now, but that in the future (next round of levy determination for 2005-2006 for example) they (the Board) may rule that the hard disk isn't a blank audio medium and therefor Canadians may no longer copy music to them - or they may rule that hard disks are blank audio media and apply a levy to them which will confirm thier use for private copying - or they may rule that they are blank audio media but not leviable and therefor no longer allowed for private copying of music. Same applies to FLASH cards and micro-hard drives - they were not specifically ruled upon this time so still in a grey area.
The question posed farther down the list about copying lots here in Canada then taking the CDs to the US is an interesting one - would the RIAA have any case?
Any lawyers out there?
Note that the levy is not collected by the government - it is collected directly by the Canadian Private Copying Consortium (CPCC) and nothing goes to the government, not even GST. If we have to have this type of thing, this seems the best way to do it. I don't necessarily agree with any/all of the way it is done, but it doesn't go near the government at all and this is a good thing.
It is a levy and the Board has an unenviable task in dealing with it, but I actually think they've done a pretty good job this time.
The guys I have problems with are the ones who think that just because they can't cram more cars across the highway we (on bikes) should sit there when there are spaces more than ample for our width - especially since many of the bikes are air cooled and sitting for hours in traffic jams is devastating. I ride a 'Wing which is wide enough that I rarely take advantage of lane splitting but it is a legitimate idea and as noted above, legal in at least one jurisdiction.
Anyone know of the law in other places?
The Free Trade Agreement (such as it is - don't try to apply it to softwood lumber, but that's a different rant) means there is no duty on most stuff now but the CCRA (Canada Customs and Revenue Agency) collects both GST (Goods and Services federal tax) and any provincial tax for the destination province (PST)
Depending on who you purchase it from and how they send it, the shipping and handling can be as little as about CDN$8 for a tube of 100 CD-Rs and so the landed cost is lower than what it costs (with the levy) of purchasing them here. Not so for smaller quantities, since the shipping for them is the same pretty much and so the gain isn't enough to offset the price difference.
Since the levy on an iPOD is now set at a maximum of CDN$25/unit (for units with 10 or more Gigs of storage, and the Canadian dollar is now getting closer to the US in exchange (what are you guys doing to your dollar? ;) the difference isn't enough to make the average Canadian want to bother - they'll still walk into Future Shop or Costco or... and pick the one they want in person. This is in contrast to the potential levy the CPCC wanted which was $21/Gig which would have made that 10Gig iPod $210 more expensive instead of just $25 more as the ruling has set. THAT would have gotten a lot more people to shop on line IMHO.
Overview(all amounts in Canadian $)
The old levy amounts are now the new levy amounts with some additions
40 minute cassette tapes or longer - $0.29
CD-R/RW $0.21
CD-R Audio, and Minidiscs $0.77
New Items:
non-removeable memory in MP3 players(aka digital audio recorders):
$2 per unit up to 1Gbyte capacity
$15 per unit from 1Gbyte to 10Gbyte capacity
$25 per unit over 10Gbyte capacity
No levy on DVD-R/RW, removeable memory (Flash or micro-hard drive)
This is a clear win for the over 1500 people who made submissions to the board, the 100 who officially objected and the 30 who saw the process all the way through to the end.
The board's ruling is at: Main Page and News Release
Only if it is hooked to something that sends the info to the govn'mnt (or you die and the GPS survives and is entered into evidence showing that you were in fact doing 180mile/hour on that hairping) - and then who cares?
Riding on 2 wheels you have to achieve situational awareness - know who is in front, to the side and behind in all lanes - and be afraid of what might jump out at you from side streets and lanes.
Difference between power bike and chopper is how long it takes you to get "white-finger" (vibration induced loss of blood in the extremities, i.e. the fingers of your hands) - compounded by the style of gloves you wear.
On a crotch-rocket you get white finger from hanging on for dear life and near misses with little old ladies and (in our neck of the woods) tractors on the back roads. On choppers you get white finger from riding more than about 300 miles unless you have fairly thick gloves on.
On my 'Wing I can ride all day with bare hands and only get white-finger when the temperature gets below about 10C ;>
Well... if you got a "real" bike - like my 'Wing, you'd get self-canceling turn signals. On the other hand, I followed an old VW bug most of the way home tonight and it had its 4-way flashers on the whole way. I wasn't sure he was trying to make up for the lack of other lighting on the beast or afraid I'd crawl up his tail-pipe because he was leaving 1/2 mile between him and the car in front ;)