Why does my address appear as part of my name 2501

Steve O'Hara-Smith

Yes, I see. I have had a computer since June 5, 2001, and it took me some time to learn which side is up. To beginners it is immense, so there always remain very basic things one did not know.

I also did not know.

That is what motivated the objections?!!

Yes, I have understood that.

Yes.

But at present Google is uncontrolled, too. The archives are in their hands. For high profile people, those for instance who are politically active, this could one day be a problem. What somebody says here is not necessarily what he would maintain in public since nearly all language conforms to the audience.

I have not even started to try and get music or films or peer-to-peer file sharing.

Yes, I did not see clearly that Google might get a monopoly. There are search services at Yahoo and Alta Vista, and there are discussion groups everywhere, for instance on the sites run by large newspapers. They are just a little boring, because the audience is too much of one kind. They are to Google what a kennel is to a zoo.

I tried to get information about that, but not surprisingly, laws are only beginning to be formulated and cannot be enforced.

I even read that some large manufacturers might give up trying to maintain patent rights (menaced by the internet the same way as author's rights) because law enforcement is too expensive and slow to pay off.

It does look alarming.

I think lawyers are divided on that. Most hold that there is no implicit permission and that, on the contrary, unless you state otherwise, your invention or your text is yours, your own, and protected by the law.

This sounds logical or even obvious, but in fact it would be almost impossible to enforce.

Yes. I think I have understood it. So the responsibility would be the individual poster's who of course would lack the resources to go after people who steal his ideas, texts, drawings.

Yes, but not so neat. I think the law cannot prevail, because things change too fast in too many places that are not within the reach of any single State.

Good! But I thought the problem was how to *store* the energy.