2008 — 12 August: Tuesday
Much as I was enjoying the Mark Lawson interview with GF Newman, I've left it recording and I'm calling it a night. Just time for a placeholder picture of Christa and Peter tonight. I'm drooping fast.
Christa and Peter in Old Windsor, 1980
I like to think Peter developed some liking for AA Milne! G'night at 00:11 or so.
Back online...
A sluggish start to the day; I've been dozing on and off since 06:00. I have a lunchtime date with young Iris for which it currently looks bright and sunny. Unlike the 10:00 news chappie who told me that "A"-level students who got a grade "C" in 1988 could expect to get an "A" last year.1 As the last of the breakfast disappears, so clouds are showing up. Midsummer, heh?
This sort of news about the BBC's R&D centre doesn't incline one to cheer, either: "demoralised by poor management and continual changes" — bet that doesn't happen anywhere else! As for the news that "Scotty's ashes fail to reach the final frontier", I find myself agreeing with the comment: "a mean part of me is secretly happy that something launched from Reagan Field failed utterly". (Source.)
The Gridlock Economy
Here's a neat encapsulation of the problem with patents and IP. I wonder if Big Bro was aware2 of the situation outlined here?
In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies — including one owned by Orville Wright — that held patents on the various components that made a plane go. No one could manufacture aircraft without fear of being hauled into court. The First World War got the industry started again, because Congress realized that something needed to be done to get planes in the air. It created a "patent pool," putting all the aircraft patents under the control of a new association and letting manufacturers license them for a fee.
A jolly good job we don't build software like this, isn't it? Just imagine, someone might try to collect a fee for every hypertext link we click. Oh, wait, didn't somebody actually try that?
Back again
Mercy me, it's already 17:36. I rendezvoused with Iris at the Brambridge garden centre for an elegant rarebit at noon, then we set off along the river Itchen for a couple of only slightly muddy brambly hours, arriving back in perfect time for a cuppa or two. Chattering away all the time, of course. She was kind enough to "grade" me at the end of the day, and has decided I'm:
In a good way. Thanks, Iris! Then it was time to swing past Waitrose on the way home and here I am.