technology

Ideas. not intellectual property

This entry was posted in copyright patents on by (updated 6387 days ago)

Last weekend Mark Helprin published an op-ed piece in the New York Times that essentially argued that copyrights should exist in perpetuity. The essence of his argument is that if he writes something, his descendants for all time should be able to earn a living off of that. That’s kind of like saying that my current employer should continue paying my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren ad infinitum for the work I do now. This is an absurd argument on the face of it and Helprin comes across as a fool for even putting the idea forward. Today Techdirt has a wonderfully articulate rebuttal of Helprin’s idea starting from an explanation of the difference between physical and intellectual property.

The purpose of property is to better manage the allocation of scarce resources. Since the resource is limited and not everyone can have it, property rights and property law make complete sense for a civilized society, allowing those with rights to the property to buy, sell and exchange their property. This allows for resources to be efficiently allocated through commerce and the laws of supply and demand. It’s a sensible system for the best allocation of scarce resources. However, when it comes to infinite resources, there’s simply no need to worry about efficient allocation — since anyone can have a copy.

Perhaps what we need to do to make some progress in this whole discussion is to change the terminology to words that are more accurately represent what we are talking about. The whole term intellectual property should be discarded immediately in favor of Ideas. Once we are talking about Ideas the tone of the argument changes. When a company like HBO or Disney starts talking about getting a perpetual monopoly (and a copyright or patent is a government granted monopoly) on an Idea, it might start getting average people’s attention so that they stand up and say NO MORE! Check out the rest of Techdirt’s article here.

Ypsi Schools Tech Blog 2

This entry was posted in schools technology Ypsilanti on by

I’m on the Ypsilanti Public Schools technology committee, and right now we’re trying to figure out what the technology needs of the district are in preparation for the upcoming bond vote.  The technology in the schools hasn’t been significantly updated since the last bond 10 years ago.  Although much of what was implemented at the time was pretty state of the art, ten years on, the computers are aging and a lot of stuff needs to be updated.  The timing of a bond, assuming it passes of course, means that it’s going to be probably another two years before we get any infusion of new hardware.  Nonetheless we need to determine a direction and figure out what our needs are going to be now.

Right now we are looking at what the kids need to learn and be able to do and figure out how technology can make that happen.  We’re also looking at the district’s tech infrastructure needs to determine what will be needed to support that both to optimize productivity and minimize operating costs going forward.  As part of this effort, I set up a special blog at ypsdtech.wordpress.com as a place where anyone who’s interested can participate in the discussion.  We’ll be posting questions on there and looking for the community’s input.  If you have some ideas about how technology can be useful, please feel free to head over there and participate by commenting in response to the questions.  The comments are moderated, and if you have any suggestions about what questions we should be asking, send me an e-mail.

Soldering success 2

This entry was posted in hardware repurposing technology on by

I finally managed to successfully combine a old Palm III sync cable with a USB cable, which in partnership with some open source software tools allows me to use a CVS camcorder repeatedly. CVS Drugs (and some other drug stores) sell a video camera made by a company called Pure Digital for $29. The camera records to internal memory and has a capacity of 20 minutes. When you buy one, the connector is covered with a sticker and the battery compartment is locked. Normally, after you record to the camera, you take it back to the store, pay them another $13, and they will put the video on a dvd for you. They then keep the camera, put a new sticker over the connector, and sometimes fresh batteries, repack it and sell it to someone else. Once you have a cable made, you just peel off the sticker, plug it in to your computer, and download the videos. The camera uses AA batteries and has pretty decent video quality.

Downtime

This entry was posted in technology this and that on by

If you’ve been trying to access the site in last day and a half you’ve been out of luck. Shortly after I put the last post and the poll on the Volt, my hosting provider started having DNS issues that made all my sites and mailboxes inaccessible. Hopefully it will stay up now, but I’m going to start looking for a new host. Any recommendations?

Would you buy a Chevy Volt, and how much would you pay?

This entry was posted in cars electric environment Hybrid technology on by (updated 3390 days ago)

volt revealI’ve put a new poll in the right sidebar about the Chevy Volt. I’ve written a lot about the Volt recently which if you haven’t checked out AutoBlogGreen is an electric car with an on-board gasoline powered battery charger. The articles on ABG have generated a lot of comments, and I’m curious about how much people might be willing to pay for such a car. Such a car has the potential to dramatically reduce fuel use and carbon emissions. None of the EVs built up until now have appealed to me personally, but this is definitely one that I’d buy.

My story on GM’s new electric car, the Chevy Volt

This entry was posted in cars electric Hybrid technology on by (updated 3390 days ago)

Chevy VoltI wrote a series of stories that went live today on the new GM electric car, the Chevy Volt and it actually made it to the front page of Digg this morning. Go check out the articles here, here and here and their’s more coming later today. Don’t forget to hit the Digg this button on the story. This is a very cool car and a great example of what’s coming to the road in the next few years.

No zunes here

This entry was posted in drm technology on by

If you’re in the market for a digital music player this season, I would strongly recommend avoiding the new Zune from Microsoft at all costs. Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t like the ipod (and there are some of you out there, although I’m still not sure why) don’t buy a Zune, there are other choices. Aside from all the technical reasons which I’ll get to in a minute, the absolute most important reason not to buy a Zune is Doug Morris. Doug is the CEO of Universal Music Group, the largest record label on the planet. He has managed to extort Microsoft into paying UMG at least $1 and maybe more for every Zune they sell. This is not for the actual music, since you don’t get any for that money. This is essentially a protection racket. At the launch of the Zune Morris said “These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” when talking about digital music players. How much do you want to bet that no musician ever sees a dime of that money?

In addition, between Microsoft and the record companies they’ve managed to strangle the only potentially noteworthy feature of the Zune, it’s wireless capabilities. The device has built in Wifi so you can share music with other Zune owners. However, when you send a song to someone they can only listen to it three times or for three days whichever comes first. After that the song is gone. You can’t however use the wireless to get online and buy the song directly from the player, you can’t use it to sync the player to your computer, you can’t do anything else with it. It’s a complete waste of space and battery life. The Zune is also a victim of drm in another way. If you have bought any music online from iTunes or any other store that sells copy protected song files (such as Napster or MSN or Real) you won’t be listening to those songs on the Zune. After pushing a scheme called “Plays for Sure” (it should have been labeled PlaysMaybe) for the past couple of years, the Zune uses a new completely incompatible scheme. So you can either violate the DMCA and crack your old music, or start all over again.

Overall the whole device is so indebted to the big record labels that combined with all the technical problems described all over the net in the last couple of weeks, the insane drm just makes it more trouble than it’s worth. I would recommend that you vote with your money and buy any other player and also refuse to buy any CDs or music downloads that are copy protected. Demonstrate to the big labels and the bands that are associated with them that you want to buy music at a reasonable price, and only buy from places like EMusic, Mp3Tunes, AudioLunchbox and MaganTune. They sell straight up MP3s with no DRM. If the bands want your money they should sell the same way. Doug Morris has enough money and he should not be in charge of what we listen to, where we listen and how.

Diebold continues to prove that they are idiots

This entry was posted in politics technology on by

Continuing on the discussion that has been going on here and over on Mark’s site, comes yet another example Diebold’s utter incompetence. HBO has a new documentary premiering tomorrow night called Hacking Democracy. The film is apparently critical of Diebold and other voting systems companies. Needless to say Diebold is not happy about it and doesn’t want people to see it. According to TechDirt, Diebold not having seen the film they are trying to get HBO to cancel it. However, their complaints about inaccuracies in the film actually relate to a completely different movie called Voter Gate. If they can’t get something relatively straightforward like this right why would anyone trust them to run a voting system?