Posts by Andrew Orlowski 1435 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2006
So you're not really disputing anything of substance, you just want "a more "wholistic energy policy".
I'm not sure what your idea of "a range of technologies" means, but whatever is in that range has to be cost effective. Presumably it doesn't include hamsters on treadmills.
This was addressed in the Bridcut Report.
Since you're new I'll quote it for you:
"These dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as "Flat Earthers" or "deniers", who "should not be given a platform" by the BBC. Impartiality always requires a breadth of view: for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space. ‘Bias by elimination’ is even more offensive today than it was in 1926."
Here's the bit that the BBC forgot:
"The BBC has many public purposes of both ambition and merit – but joining campaigns to save the planet is not one of them."
Sounds reasonable to me.
Software can do this now - I've seen demos of exactly what you describe, using PicScout.
1. Type in a search term
2. Loads of pics come up with clear licensing and payment options - from Getty to J.Random.Photographer to Creative Commons
3. Pay for the pic, or use a free one.
Simples. Orphan problem solved.
And we'll have working systems fairly shortly.
You've really confused yourself here. While you can quibble over semantics all day Terry (and you probably will), the fact is: international treaties recognise IP as a property right. A pseudo-property right perhaps, but "stuff" with the qualities of property. One of those qualities is exclusive use: "get off my stuff", "stop using my stuff".
If you want your country to opt-out of this international system, you have to take the consequences on the chin. Economic retaliation, litigation etc. And redefining the meaning of words, in international treaties, don't butter no parsnips.
Alex:
These are really good questions, we need to a proper business/pro focussed roundup that gives them answers. It just didn't seem to be a priority for MS getting fixes into WP8.
Flagging an IMAP message isn't even a particularly 'pro' feature, its absence is a killer for me.
I agree with almost all of that Captain. DRM books
Computers are copying machines, yes indeed. I want my licensed P2P service where I can copy music to others in the club. We very nearly got that in the UK four years ago. I don't expect it to be free, just another paid option.
The removal DRM from music hasn't caused an absolute implosion, but it didn't give it much of an uplift either. Which suggest hardly anyone gives a crap about DRM, no?
" Are we willing to give up our privacy to make content creators happy? I don't think so."
You have no privacy if you can't assert permissions on "your stuff". Your stuff = your photos you post to Flickr, your data trail, your identity. It belongs to you. If you can't assert ownership and permissions, privacy ceases to exist.
You're confusing two copyrights. One has a fifty years term, the other is Life+70.
I have some sympathy with Life+70 being too long for songs - but it's not going to change without upsetting the authors, so it's not going to change.
The problem you describe isn't a problem though. You can hear new music made in the 1950 by buying - it is very cheap.
Everything you propose could be achieved by stimulating the wholesale capital market through (for example) cap gains tax changes, eg, persuading the superrich to have a flutter.
"£1 spent via VC will be rapidly injected into the economy via startup spending"
If the economy was comprised of Shoreditch bars serving mojitos to Nathan Barleys, you well be right. It doesn't, and money doesn't grow on trees. Budget choices must be made.
1) There is no shortage of VC funds for good ideas
2) There always are more bad ideas than capital available to fund them
3) Increasing the amount of capital increases the number of bad ideas that get funded
4) The taxpayer therefore subsidises bad ideas
So please tell me: when social services are being cut, should why should Nathan Barley get a subsidy?
Of course you support weaker IP. Your hobby is cloning someone else's. MRD therefore applies:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=MRD%20applies
Special pleading apart, The Economist recommends taking justice away from juries (citizen peer review) and giving it to an elite (judges).
To understand patents you need to spend time outside the software world, and look at what other industries think. You'll get a very different picture.
"Against Intellectual Property" is exactly what I had in mind when I referred to the armchair warriors, who've never been in business, never invented anything, and live on tenure.
There's even a chapter called "The Devil In Disney"
I shit you not. It's beyond parody.
So you say that Dyson needs stronger support for his inventions, but he must be forced to give away his inventions for a fee to anyone who asks.
Removing the ability of a James Dyson to profit for a limited period from his invention would destroy the incentive to invest in innovation and result in fewer James Dysons.
This is fairly typical of the incoherent rhetoric patent debate.
SK: As I said in the article above, I think the iOS user interface has gotten unwieldy and is a general PITA to use.
If Apple wants to throw good money around protecting this, ahem "crown jewels" that it thinks it has - then why don't we let it? Rivals are forced to innovate, and Apple gets manacled to a simplistic UI. Both Apple and rivals will be forced to compete elsewhere in the value chain.
It's a win-win.
I think what you're saying (and it's a fair point) is that Apple's rivals haven't got any traction from doing it differently yet. That's certainly true for WP. I'd just one word to that: 'yet'.
Or perhaps Samsung will clock the message that copying Apple is lame, but coming up with a much better user interface that (say) helps people communicate better, can unlock value and create profits.
A case in point: the current iPhone will probably be my last - and the clunky iOS UI has a lot to do with that decision. It's now years behind the competition in terms of convenience and ease of use. If Apple wants to guard this, then hell, let it.
Patents simply force rivals to innovate. That's the point. The system is working.
No, sir.
I can think of 50 things wrong with the patent system - maybe I should write about the first 20 improvements we need to make next. There is a lot that needs to be done - some of it quite urgent.
But the armchair "patent system is broken beyond repair" position doesn't stand up. You have to quantify the damage ("cost to society") and then demonstrate that this is greater than the innovation the IP system produces, and the value it unlocks. Will our kids be better off? How?
I am keen to hear alternatives that fulfill those criteria - but I'm sorry, but all I hear is whining.
A cautious scientist would be expected to go through the peer review process. You, by contrast, haven't even published this work yet. It is not available for scrutiny. Nevertheless, you are willing to appear on the national media making dramatic long-term claims, based on *new* data of less than two years observations.
You have been anything but cautious.
Your science may be well turn out be sound, but until it has been independently scrutinized, we just don't know. Your argument boils own to: "Trust me, I'm a scientist."
If you don't like oil then a high oil price (I'm not sure why you need to put scare quotes around "large profits") is the best thing you can wish for.
Because investments are pouring into oil alternatives now. They didn't when oil was cheap.
As a green, you should be praying for large profits every night.
"Sorry people - whatever tech you believe in we will all HAVE to learn to use far less"
That argument was lost a long time ago.
" but I understand that in order to get to the deep geothermal sources, you need to drill through the surface and through these pockets of methane?"
The methane in Gaslands is at the surface. So, no.
Methane is produced as part of the shale process, comparable to conventional gas extraction. See Howarth (2011) and Cathles (2012) for differing views on how much this might be.
I thought this was very interesting. From p54:
"Recent and future advances in fracturing technology offer the potential for step change reductions in per-well and therefore – due to the major capital cost of wells – electricity generation costs. Fracturing technologies stand to benefit from the major R&D expenditures in development of vast US and Canadian (and other worldwide) shale gas resources. Improvements in resource exploration and assessment methods will also reduce costs."
So gas will be the cheapest power. But that's the only mention there is. As Simon wrote, factoring in cheap gas wouldn't give the answer the politicians and bureaucrats are looking for. In other words, Aussie energy bureaucrats have done exactly what our energy bureaucrats have done in the UK. If you think your country should cut its carbon emissions, gas is the cheapest way to do it.
I can't help thinking how lucky Aussies are - Western Australia has some of the largest shale resources in the world, you'll be exporting gas, and you've got all that sun. That should be enough to get you through those freezing cold winters.
* Adele is still very much with XL Recordings, which is ONE OF the four Beggars Group labels (Matador, 4AD, Rough Trade are the others).
* Beggars helped set up AIM and Impala and derailed the Sony BMG merger. It is fighting the Universal EMI merger.
* Beggars is not a member of the BPI
* CBS doesn't exist except as a brand name for Sony Music, and hasn't existed as a label since 1988.
If you ever visit Beggars HQ or XL you will know what a small indie label looks like. "Big" in indie terms means fifty people in a crowded room, with no office for the CEO. Major labels send five times that to the Brits every year.
Perhaps it's ignorance of the music business on tech sites that explains the politics people choose?
Martin Mills interview: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/martin_mills_beggars_group/
Or maybe you just don't like music :)
The angriest pseudo-masochists, people who whine the loudest about being victims of the GIANT OPPRESSIVE ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX only have a passing interest, IME.
* http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/10/pseudo_masochism_explained/
Everyone else is out shopping... or not.
"I'm less likely to ignore your invoice once you do register it."
UN Human Rights Act - Article 27(2):
"Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."
You ignore invoices at your peril. The court system needs a fast-track for small copyright claims. Hargreaves heard this and ignored it.
All your proposal does is weaken univeral rights, and create the expense of a vast bureaucratic overhead with additional costs.
Technology means everyone is now a creator. Automatic rights make more sense than ever.
"Democracy doesn't work"
You think? Time for the capes, then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUpbOliTHJY
Democracy is good for at least one thing, though - it obliges people to come out of their garden sheds, and present their most nutty ideas before their fellow citizens. Who can then judge them for rationality, prejudices etc etc.
Here's Article 27:
"endeavour to promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address trademark and copyright or related rights infringement while preserving legitimate competition and, consistent with that Party's law, preserving fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy."
"A Party may provide, in accordance with its laws and regulations, its competent authorities with the authority to order an online service provider to disclose expeditiously to a right holder information sufficient to identify a subscriber whose account was allegedly used for infringement, where that right holder has filed a legally sufficient claim of trademark or copyright or related rights infringement, and where such information is being sought for the purpose of protecting or enforcing those rights. These procedures shall be implemented in a manner that avoids the creation of barriers to legitimate activity, including electronic commerce, and, consistent with that Party's law, preserves fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy."
Bugger all new there, and no compulsion on a member state to pass new laws on IP address disclosure.
But it's 2012, and angry freetards say the sky is falling each time they see the word copyright - ignoring the other words around it.
You're doing exactly what the numpties did here:
'Don't care if you inspect farmers - STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING'
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/freetard_sopa_fail/
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