always mount a scratch mare

jwz: "Robert Lefkowitz looked at the old question of whether software is a product or a service by turning to an even older field: horse studs. In days of yore, if you had a mare that you wanted bred with a high-quality horse, you paid for the 'service' of the stallion's owner bringing it over and performing the deed.

Nowadays, it's all about artificial insemination. So instead you browse through, ahem, a seed catalog, and purchase however many milliliters of semen from whichever stallion strikes your fancy. Now of course, if you had sufficiently small tweezers (and modern technology does), you could make millions of horse babies from even a tiny sample of semen.

But, according to the law and to the terms that you purchase the semen under, you are buying not a product (the semen itself) but... a service. You own the physical material, but you do not own the rights to it. You license the genetic material of the stallion. You perform your own artificial insemination with the material you purchased, but (this is true) you are allowed to make only two copies.

Lefkowitz's point was that the subtle product-service distinction is not unique to software, but I found myself wondering if, somewhere, there is a Jack Valenti of the horse-stud cartel, lamenting backup foals."

Comments

EELSTHEBAND.COM

NEWS : "The 40-year-old Mr. Everett was raised in McLean, Va., with his sister Elizabeth, mother Nancy and father Hugh Everett III, a quantum physicist who in 1957 proposed a formal theory of parallel universes known as 'The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.' 'Everett's work has boggled minds inside and outside physics for more than four decades,' reported Scientific American in last month's issue. Mr. Everett said his brilliant father wasn't communicative at home. When I asked him what the conversation was like around the breakfast table, he replied, 'There wasn't any.' 'Physicists and geniuses don't always make great family men. I lived with him for 18 years and I learned more about him from the Internet.' Mr. Everett's family was a heartrending source of inspiration for his most notable work, the 1998 album 'Electro-Shock Blues' (DreamWorks), written after his sister committed suicide and h...

Digital Cam media safe to fly with

Technocrat.net : "Recent tests found no evidence of X-ray scanner damage to digital camera media cards or to the images they hold. The tests of scanner models currently in use in the U.S. transportation industry were jointly conducted by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), the leading global association for the imaging industry; SanDisk Corporation, a manufacturer of digital media cards; and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). These findings mean that digital cameras and their image storage media can travel safely in either checked or carry-on bags, which will be reassuring to holiday travelers. And though they were not explicitly tested, it is likely that images on camera-phones will be safe in either situation as well. More care is needed for cameras with film, however, as the X-ray scanners for both checked and carry-on luggage can fog both developed and undeveloped film."

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

Sophont

Search This Blog