2012 — 16 January: Monday
Aah, Monday morning,1 after a full night's sleep. What could be finer? Well, a nice, hot, cuppa, for starters, to warm up these old bones. "Bones", by contrast, had a couple of dud episodes on the trot last night. Still, Season #1 has turned out pretty good overall with 20 down and two to go.
Meanwhile, back in the 'real' world, I suppose I'd better get dressed before I freeze to death. It's 18.1C here and looks a lot colder out there at 08:56 though the sky is cloudless.
Having been tinkering...
... with the Asus Tablet PC, I look up only to find that it's 12:58 and I'm getting somewhat hungry. Amazing. The sun's still shining, too.
I note that what "LoveFilm" regards as an urgent problem (the expiry of [I assume] Junior's credit card) and what I regard as an urgent problem (the expiry of [I assume] Junior's credit card) are two entirely different things. Funny, that. Still, I hope he sorts it out, if only to stop the daily email reminders. I appreciate it was a birthday present, but I never managed to convince myself that they offered me anything I actually wanted. And nor do I much like being signed up to something without consultation, if I'm honest.
How many lawyers...
... can dance on the head of a pin, I wonder?
So why are previously-owned CDs allowed to be resold without there being a breach of the copyright laws? This is down to the 'exhaustion of rights' principle which allows an 'original' copy of
something to be resold... But it doesn't extend to digital files because the act of transmitting the file from one person to another necessitates the making of a copy, which is in breach of the
rights holder's copyright.
If the original file was downloaded onto an external hard drive or a memory stick in the first place, and not onto a computer's hard drive, then that actual hard drive or memory stick could be sold
with the material on it without the law being broken. This is because their sale would not necessitate the making of a further copy.
Can anyone say "specious"?
How's this for an interesting caveat?
Amazing what you...
... can do on Android. I just set out to look for a webserver but found parts of this very interesting. (Link.)
I've actually done...
... something vaguely useful for a change. I'm a member of my GP surgery's "virtual patient group" and have just spent some time trying to help with the design and formulation of a survey they intend to roll out. It will be amusing to see if they accept any of my advice (which, I admit, dates back nearly two decades to some customer survey work I did in the Hursley software Lab). I wonder how many people remember Structured Brainstorming and the Evaluative Survey Technique.
I also managed to upload a set of files from BlackBeast wirelessly on to the Tablet PC via my web browser. Much easier (and quicker) than dragging it out of its nest and hooking it up to a USB port — thank you, WiFi File Explorer.
I see twilight is pretty far advanced, and it's again jolly cold outside. I predict a nice, hot batch of crockpotted magic in my near-term future. It's already 17:23 after all. [Pause] Next thing you know, it's 23:38 and I'm thinking maybe another batch of that sleep stuff might be a good idea. Meanwhile, my chum Chris tells me his 1TB backup drive has failed on him. Now there's a project... Or do I mean a challenge?