Outside the Queen’s ‘working palace’ in Noordeinde, the Hague, on a Wednesday — the day she receives new ambassadors to the Netherlands.
Daily Archives: November 27, 2007
At the window
This window reminded me of one of my favourite pictures — Bill Brandt’s photograph of a posh window with a uniformed parlourmaid opening the curtains. But instead of a parlourmaid, all I have is a lampshade. Sigh.
Come to think of it, one of my favourite piano pieces is Jimmy Yancey’s “At the Window”. Hmmm…
Social networking in meatspace
At a departmental meeting, one of my colleagues wanted to illustrate a point about the complexity of social networking. Everyone present was given five pieces of coloured string and then told to give one end of each to five people they knew well. You can imagine the result. Good fun; and instructive.
Don Norman: kids aren’t smarter than us; they just have more free time
Interesting CNET interview with the guru himself:
For years I used to say, “We shouldn’t have to adapt to technology, it should adapt to us.” I now believe that’s wrong. We shouldn’t have to adapt to arbitrary technology. On the other hand, so much of our modern life has been a major adaptation to the technology surrounding us, whether it’s heating systems, lights, telephone, or television.
If you’d asked me to predict texting I’d have said, “No, it’s really too hard. Jeesh, you need to type three times to get a ‘C.’ That’s ridiculous.” Not only did people learn it, but (they) learned it so well…So, there’s an adaptation for you.
Now, just as an aside, I think it has not to do with the age…I think it has to do with how you live your life…In my case, it was easy because I grew up helping develop the technology so I learned it as it was developed. For many, it suddenly sprung on them and it’s true, it’s hard to keep up.
As people, we should not care about the technology. We should care about the benefits it gives us.The issue is not how tech-savvy you are, or how quick you pick up to it. I believe these are things that often take many hours to master…You just didn’t want to spend the next 20 hours of your life mastering it. But a lot of the kids, they have that kind of time to devote to it…
Is eBay guilty of “contributory infringement”?
From a New York Times report…
In a weeklong bench trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan that ended last Tuesday, lawyers for Tiffany & Company argued that the online auction house was far more than that: it is a distribution network that enables the trading of counterfeit Tiffany items.
If Tiffany wins its case, not only could other lawsuits follow, but eBay’s business model could be threatened because it would be difficult and extremely expensive for the company, based in San Jose, Calif., to police a site that now has 248 million registered users worldwide and approximately 102 million items for sale at any one time.
Tiffany has requested injunctive relief that would require eBay to alter its procedures to eliminate counterfeit silver Tiffany merchandise from its auctions. Judge Richard Sullivan instructed both sides to file post-trial briefs by Dec. 7.
“I will hopefully turn this around quite quickly after that,” he told the lawyers.
Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman, said eBay was not responsible for determining whether each product sold on the site was fake.
“As a marketplace, we never take possession of any of the goods sold on the site, so it would be impossible for us to solely determine the authenticity of an item,” Mr. Durzy said. “And we go above and beyond what the law requires us to do to keep counterfeits off the site.”
But in his closing argument last Tuesday, James B. Swire, the lawyer for Tiffany, told Judge Sullivan that eBay directly advertised the sale of Tiffany jewelry on its home page, and “because eBay profits from the sales generated by these and other actions,” Tiffany considers its actions direct copyright infringement.
Mr. Swire added that “there’s certainly much in the record to show that eBay is liable for contributory infringement.”
William Boot, RIP
The memorial service for Bill Deedes was held yesterday. Andrew O’ Hagan was there.
One night at the Hay Literary Festival, the novelist Monica Ali and I quizzed Bill about how much Evelyn Waugh had exaggerated when making up the character of William Boot, the hero of Scoop, who is said to be based on the young Bill Deedes. “Oh, quite a lot,” he said. “I wasn’t that into cleft sticks, though I did pack an absurd amount of stuff. But Waugh wasn’t such a good reporter you know. Frightfully good at other stuff, but not much use to a paper, I must say.”