coffee.geek.nz

i quite like this quote:

it is better to avoid terms like “copyright industries”. To call music making and movie-making “copyright industries” is to cast a business which is about people, imagination, fun, and creative energy in a money-centred, legalistic light. It is like calling car-making a patent industry.

-- Geofrey Yu, Assistant Director General in charge of Copyright at WIPO

i like it, because it elevates those that are into their craft for love of their craft above those that are there because it pays the bills.

In my own "industry", software writing, I enjoy working with those programmers who love to write software over those that are *only* in the industry because they can earn a living from it. I don't mean workaholics, i mean code-a-holics.

Open Source (and Free Software) abounds with people who write code because they just gotta and because they love doing it. Hence the "code is speech".

Likewise can usually pick out those people who, if they suddenly came into enough money, would retire and never write another line of code.

and now a baby photo:

I'm willing to be challenged on this one, as I have only the basic details, but here's something that doesn't sound right going on in this tale.

Red Cross goes into Haiti following a massive earthquake - puts out the plea saying "send infant formula, we need it"

Across the Lactivist communities, (mostly) western white middle class women bloggers cry foul. Formula is evil, they need breastmilk, not formula. Don't send formula! boycott any charity sending formula!

and they're mostly right - the World Health Organisation STRONGLY advocates breastfeed exclusively because most of the world does not have access to a clean later supply. Haiti included

but - something feels wrong here. The Red Cross are there, on the ground, and they say that infant formula is what they need. It doesn't take much imagination to work out scenarios where formula is necessary. The mother being dead or missing comes to mind first.

Likewise, an island in Samoa recently asked for supplies, such as infant formula, to help them through the next cyclone.

I also ponder how much breastfeeding is a privilege. You need to be nearby a hungry child in order to successfully breastfeed, or have access to refrigeration, a breastpump, and sterilisation equipment. How many people in developing and impoverished nations have this access?

I've been through a lot of bluetooth headsets in the last decade. The scifi/spy/actionWoman notion of talking with your handsfree, using a protocol with such a cool name "bluetooth" caught my imagination early

I'll skip most of the decade of headsets, cos that's just boring, but i will describe my first: Sony Ericsson HBH-65. It was small, light - and didn't have that long microphone all the way to your mouth. It also fit well and had a nice holster. When i upgraded to my phone to one with an MP3 player, i could hear podcasts in one ear while walking down the street looking like an idiot.

There was also a reasonably good jabra along the way:

several shoddy quality headsets later, (they started coming free with bluetooth phones) - i got a stero headset. Actually i got several stereo headsets, but only one is worth recommending: the Plantronics 590c. In fact i liked them so much, and took it so many places that when i broke one i got the same one again.. but that also broke. So very comfy, pretty good audio for a bluetooth link, good mic.. but FLIMSY!