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On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 17:42 +0100, Ryan Cartwright wrote:<BR>
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<TT><FONT COLOR="#000000">Really? It didn't show ;o)</FONT></TT><BR>
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You should see me when I am in a REALLY bad mood! Seriously ... grew up in the toughest part of the toughest steeltown in Canada in a single parent family, no social security or health services then, and only got educated in mid 20s. The middle class veneer can be surprisingly thin. You can get the boy out of the slum but not the slum out of the boy. One fights back or one is prey - the tricky bit is being moral and not being a predator. I dedicated my life to social justice politics so I suppose you could call me a third outcome - retaliator (e.g spent 14 years in *real* grass roots community politics in Brixton in 70s and 80s, but no gentle pastures there). <BR>
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But the opiates and other medications I need to keep me going do create a problem of intemperance and wandering coupled with a high level of articulacy and very fast touchtyping - not a good combination for the most succinct of list contributions, alas. So cut me a bit of slack guys, sometimes I'm labouring under a heavy load of nasty problems :-( and heavy medications just to keep enough steam up to look after young kids.<BR>
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But also seriously, Apple - they've patented stuff I've been in talks in pubs and email what-ifs dating back to the mid 80s and my time with 3rd world technology development - people were talking about first PVs and Baylis generators, then thin film stuff plastered all over mobile electronic equipment and in monitor display covers over 10 years ago when organic flexible stuff was just beginning to be developed (now reaching maturity, they said it would take a decade or more to reach commercial production, and that was accurate). Same thing with cases entirely made of OLDP membranes in a matrix.<BR>
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Its a "Pirate Patent" just like biopiracy of plant seeds by US firms - blatant stealing of the "commons" which has been talked about for 20-25 or more years! <BR>
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And free computers with free and open designs and low costs were *always* part of the free software movement scenario - I was well into my late 30s when Stallman kicked the whole thing off and around places like Greenet and BBS's we were talking about the need to get out of proprietary hardware design as an extension of the software movement, to create an electronic commons (within the resource of the cash starved 3rd world movement in which I worked for from time to time in the 70s and 80s). <BR>
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So thats the connection with free software - an OVERALL electronic free commons available to anyone (check out MIT Fab Lab whilst you are about it). <BR>
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They've just enclosed the common through a corrupt act of "patent office" - stolen the common from the goose...
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