Media

All of the large corporations spend a lot of time and money telling anyone who will listen that patents are a vital component to innovation. They use it in PR for the education system to indoctrinate kids, the political system to extend IP laws and treaties. Patents in fact are the path to stagnation.

Every Christmas period brings more propaganda about "counterfeit" or "fake" goods, bringing the same old reheated arguments that it's like a stale greatest hits of excuses. Every year they find the same establishment outlets to run these stories. Here's another, dutifully brought to you by the BBC.

The premise as always is about "rogue traders" who undermine "legit traders" and sell goods that (tick all that apply):

While listening to the latest episode of Dan Carlin's Common Sense audiocast about it being a good thing that governments fearing their own people it struck me that the example he uses about the King beating caught on tape, LAPD acquittals sparking the LA riots is a US domestic one, it also applies to the US governments relationship with other countries too.

This post is about expanding some thoughts and discussions I've been having on Identi.ca this morning around the epub format and the new Amazon Kindle 3. Calibre does convert a great many formats, it also optionally manages your collection, lets you edit metatags, transfer ebooks to and from your device. Converting epubs to a format the device accepts is no problem. It's about registering a preference for me.

A large part of what I enjoy in the Star Wars Expanded Universe is that it spans multiple generations and many different story threads. The timeline stretches from Darth Bane's days to 1,000yrs later as Darth Sidious starts to make his influence felt with the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo and beyond. Major characters arrive, play their part and have an ending, except one; or I can't find her ending at any rate. How does Asajj Ventress meet her end?