Text 1124, 107 rader
Skriven 2004-10-25 12:42:36 av Gary Wiltshire (1:379/45)
   Kommentar till text 1099 av Adam Flinton (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Article on WIPO & the public good
=============================================
From: "Gary Wiltshire" <gaw@sover.net>

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 01:29:03 +0100, Adam Flinton <adam@NOSPAM_softfab.com>
wrote:

> Gary Wiltshire wrote:
>>> Because it's fast. The cheapest form of transport is still shipping.
>>   Not for PEOPLE it's not and I was quite specific about that.
>>
>
> You can build a very large ship which can carry a great number of
> passengers. You can build a number of such ships. People have mass like
> any other item which needs transporting.
>
> People fly over oceans because of the speed & lack of sea-sickness.
>

You have to feed and otherwise maintain the comfort of those people for the
long ocean trip on a ship.  The TIME of the passenger also represents money to
the PASSENGER.

> The problem with Concorde was that it was too capable. Sales were killed
> not by a request that it not fly due to noise at the airport (an
> American concern), but the request from a middle eastern country that it
> be fitted with a retractable refuelling probe.

Too capable?  Laughable.  They were inefficient fuel wastrels.

> Now the concorde does mach 2+ at a nice height above the planet &
> outperformed most mil aircraft. If the concorde knew the fighters were
> coming then only a foxbat could catch it. Remember it cruised at mach2+
> where the fighter would be on full afterburn.

A sure sign that the concorde was uneconomic.

> Terrific. The only real metallurgical advance was the useage of
> titanium. Lot's of other little steps but compared to say bessemer &
> steel....? The cast iron/steel revolution affected the entire planet
> deeply.

Composite materials, too.

> The germans had guided missiles during the war.

Which fell almost at random.

> Yup. One of the few advances. But the pill won't keep you safe from aids
> etc where the good old condom on the whole will.

The "good old condom" is pretty fragile.

> Is this large chunk the majority?

Second only to coal here.

> You are talking about a weapon. Economics leave by the back door when
> talking about weapons.

Not totally.  A tank that gets 5mpg has a real advantage over a similar one
that gets 2mpg.
>
> Only a few B2 were built in part because of cost & in part because they
> are destabilizing.

Cost, yes.  I.e., uneconomic., i.e., impractical.

> It is not imperceptable, that is the point. Can you remember 20 years
> ago? Now the aim appears to be to impede travel where possible (e.g. at
> airports in the pursuit of natioanl security & immigration).

Those are not technological issues, but a political ones.
>

> So then it would be OK for them to drop all copyright in those countries
> such that their people may learn unhindered?
>
> After all they have no ip to protect.

If they don't want to protect ip generated in THEIR countries, ip won't take
off in THEIR countries.

>>> Compare the western societies to the eastern asian ones & ask why so
>>> little production occurs in the western societies.
>>   And what technological innovation and publishing of any note is
>> happening  in, say, China?

> Really cheap but good mini dvd players for one.
>
Mere copies of technology developed in Japan.  Likewise the Chinese space
program is a copy of the Russian.

>> Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, on the other hand, I would include in
>> the  ranks of the "West."
>>
>
> How big of you. Maybe at some point they might return the compliment &
> consider the US in the ranks of the "East".

Nope.  A world civilization has been under construction for many decades which
will certainly have eastern flavoring, but is predominantly western.


--
Gary Wiltshire

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