Posts by Keir Leslie
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
That link rather definitely has an agenda that it pushes hard. As a general rule, any discussion of the economics of copyright that doesn't have the words `public good problem' in it is missing something out (also beware of any discussion without `marginal cost'). In this case they are obscuring the fact that the marginal cost of a book off a trad press is very very low.
Personally speaking, I think conceptually it is quite messy, and I especially reject the notion that there is an Internet experiment to be carried to completion in that naive sense they seem to be using it.
(Networks make enforcement of copyright very expensive; that is the real change.)
And by the way, one of the big reasons Stallman was able to make the FSF work was a really really massive subsidy from the US & Massachusetts governments called the MIT AI Lab. I think that it was one of the best investments they ever made, but it's important to remember that the FSF had a huge amount of help from the state. I would also argue it's a large part of why free software works: it is in many senses the academy in the world. Pop music doesn't have an MIT or a Berkeley yet.
-
I don't for a moment think he did.
Well, exactly. Next up, Chinua Achebe: you didn't say ``things fall apart'' first, did you?
-
I love the image of someone listening to Venus in Furs and going: fucking Chris Knox, you sly dog, why did you think you'd get away with nicking that line?
(Next up: Barry Hogan didn't come up with All Tomorrow's Parties...)
-
It probably betrays my libertarian past, but I believe that their individual wishes are just as valid as that of the NDU, for instance
But what about the individual wishes of (say) the NDU members?
-
There's a difference between being for the benefit of the workers, and being for the benefit of the workers in spite of what the workers want.
Well yes, but the application of that to the Easter trading laws rather assumes facts not in evidence, doesn't it? It isn't like the NDU's out there campaigning for repeal, is it?
-
If people don't want to drink or work on the Friday and Sunday then DON'T DRINK ON THE FRIDAY AND THE SUNDAY AND LEAVE THE REST OF US ALONE!!!!
Hint: not working isn't as easy as not drinking.
-
This has actually been tried and worked in Barcelona during the Spanish Revolution. It was crushed by the forces of state and traditional capitalism (in particular the Soviet Union and the fascist states of Europe).
In other words, it didn't work. I mean, really, if you want to explain how the anarchists will avoid getting robbed by nasty men with guns, Barcelona is not a good example.
-
Safety rules, possibly, and assigned seating?
-
So why the dry-up in art school gossip? That stuff was pretty awesome.
(Not that I'm volunteering to start writing despatches from my institution, so yeah.)
-
Yes, I know, neither the first person not the last around here.
David Cauchi always said he wanted more feuds in the NZ art world; this is a pretty scary foretaste of what that might look like.