Dutchie987

That is a brilliant idea for a low-noise spaced repetition solution. Thanks, I'll make good use of this!

Fair enough. I think copyright (and by extension intellectual property) is not all that important to promote the arts, and the actual implementation in the law is (in my opinion) very flawed.

In the modern age it costs nothing to duplicate knowledge. That should be reflected in law. I'd like to see society work towards making life in society better. One of the ways to do that is to give freely to society. If we recognize intellectual property at all (I'd rather we'd not) then the time to reverting to public domain should be significantly shorter.

I'm having a hard time to articulate the exact position I'm defending. Possibly because I'm not actually all that sure of my own position, and I'm reacting more out of feelings than ratio.

Intellectual property is a bit strange, as it can be copied at zero cost and effort. If material goods could be duplicated for free we would have a decidedly different society, I think.

Going back to the example of the furniture maker. If I just copy his designs roughly but procure the wood myself, learn woodworking, put in the work to saw, sand and hammer the wood into shape, would I be in the clear? What if I copy it by carefully measuring all his dimensions? What is the difference to the furniture maker if I just magically copy his furniture instead of toiling in my workshop to recreate it?

I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure if I really agree with it. If everyone just copies everything at zero cost, no-one would make any money. But on the other hand I would never have bought any furniture from the craftsman anyway, so where is the harm?

It's a conundrum. At least for me...

A cabinet maker builds very fine furniture and offers it for sale at a price. I'm not buying his beautifully crafted wares, for any and all reason. Now you come inspect my house, what actual difference does it make if I'm sitting on milk crates or furniture that looks suspiciously like the sculpted wood from the cabinet maker? My copying the furniture or not doing that makes no difference. There is no guarantee someone can make an income from their labor. Nobody has an obligation to buy something just because it was made.

When the world changes through time, perhaps the rules of society can or even should change with them. The fact that some rules were applicable in the past is not a guarantee those same rules can be used immutable in perpetuity.

As I see it, the Constitution should be re-evaluated once in a while and adapted to the modern world. There are (again, just my opinion) a lot of rules in there that were very useful and important in the past but shouldn't be in there anymore, or even state the exact opposite of what they do now.

If I would never buy the digital good, even if I didn't copy it, how am I depriving an author of any income? The act of me making a copy makes no difference at all to the author. I'm either not buying and not copying, or I'm not buying and copying. Net result is the same for the author. The is no cheating, there is no loss. At all.

You could alias egrep="grep -E" to avoid changing existing scripts. Sure, it's not ideal but it might tide you over in the meantime.

Willow shoots were and still are used to reinforce waterworks. Look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascine_mattress or the Dutch word "zinkstuk" for a detailed description.