Ignorance is bliss

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Yep. See this report from the Register…

The Economist has failed in its attempt to gain control of the internet address theeconomist.com.

The address was not transferred to it because the owner claimed that he had never heard of the magazine when he registered the name.

The site simply carries a picture of Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, and a note calling him “the economist of the century”.

The Economist took a case under the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)’s dispute resolution service. Under WIPO rules a domain name can only be transferred if the name is identical or confusingly similar to a trade or service mark owned by the body trying to gain control of the address; if the person holding the address has no rights in it, and if the address was registered and used in bad faith.

Anyone hoping to gain control of a domain must prove all three of these elements in order to be handed the address. The Economist failed to show that the address owner Jason Rose registered the domain name in bad faith.

Rose claimed that he had never heard of The Economist in 1996. The Economist disputed this, claiming it would be almost impossible for someone interested in current affairs and economics not to know the magazine, but WIPO panelist Sir Ian Barker, a QC, said that he had to be believed.

Barker said that the claim was hard to believe, but that the WIPO system was not designed for ruling on such questions of fact.

Social mobility

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Ah, the proved advantages of scholarship

whereas his dad took cold tea with his snap

he slaves at nuances, knows at just one sip

Chateau Lafite from Chateau Neuf du Pape.

Tony Harrison, Collected Poems, Viking, 2007.

Quote of the day

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“The problem is time,” offered Walter Hurney, a real estate developer. “There just isn’t enough time. Men won’t spend a whole day away from their family anymore.”

[Source]

ASUS (contd)

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The little ASUS sub-notebook continues to amaze me. Tonight I just plugged my 3G HSDPA modem into one of the USB ports. The machine instantly detected the model and I just followed the instructions in the Network dialog box and, bingo! — I was on the Net. This is the way Linux machines ought to be. In fact, it was easier to set up for the modem than was the MacBook Pro.

Jane Fonda’s rude word shocks US

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What a weird country is the US. Many of its conservative citizens think nothing of launching a war that kills maybe half a million Iraqis but are profoundly scandalised when an actress uses plain language on television.

Middle America is none to pleased with veteran thespiatrix [sic] Jane Fonda who yesterday entertained viewers of NBC’s Today show with “a four-letter word for female genitalia”.

Host Meredith Vieira had asked Fonda about her appearence in stage play The Vagina Monologues, which contains a section entitled “Cunt”. In her answer, the actress referred to the segment by name, and the rest is history.

Vieira offered a swift on-screen apology, saying: “You know, before we go to break, in our last half-hour we were talking about The Vagina Monologues and Jane Fonda inadvertently said a word from the play that you don’t say on television. It was a slip, and obviously she apologises, and so do we. We would do nothing to offend the audience, so please accept that apology.”

No wonder they tried to keep Ulysses out.