I read that book when I was an English-monolingual kid, living in Portugal, and /consequentemente/ that story really stuck in my head when I was struggling for Portuguese words: https://southerncrossreview.org/81/feynman-brazil.html
> I now pay more per month for music than I did at any other time in my life
Me too, but I don't feel that that's a win for the music industry, I see that as a win for me.
I didn't engage with a business model that didn't work for me, like millions of others; and eventually a business model emerged that I was willing to support. Maybe Napster lost, but I still got what I wanted, and it seems like the record labels did too.
Why would you assume the same thing is impossible for online publishing?
Probably because it's the same principal of creative content consumption.
Sure you've got your go-to artists and albums, but music discovery is so much easier when you have an all-access pass to everything.
Same goes with the news - you'll always have your BBCs, Reuters, etc. but you also want to see something new and creative, which [probably] wouldn't have got off the ground if it required paid consumption models.
Even presuming we accept "trademark erosion" as a thing, it's still irrelevant here: the author wasn't using a trademark to describe a generic good (i.e., they didn't mean "a 'large-format' movie theatre with surround sound"), they were literally referring to the product (or, rather, one of the confusingly different products) traded under the "IMAX" mark (i.e., they meant, literally, AN IMAX THEATRE).
> I think the quotee (not the article author, mind you) was, albeit indirectly, comparing the VR product to IMAX.
Yes, everyone agrees that they were refering to IMAX. It is also legal for them to do so (and for Ars to publish this opinion) without seeking permission from IMAX first. Some people on HN are surprisingly disagreeing with this (or at least condoning IMAX's response)
Both parties are guilty here. Ars should put at the bottom of its article "IMAX is a trademark of <whatever the entity that owns it>" which acknowledges the IMAX trademark. And IMAX's lawyers should be less obtuse in their writing when there's such a simple solution.
Also, the law shouldn't be that trivial uses of the mark like this work to erode it, but the law is not precise on the issue so mark holders tend to have to be verzealous in showing their defense of the mark.
This letter is just a lett-er not worth the non-paper it's not-written on.
The whole purpose of the letter is to be able to show diligence in court if the mark is threatened... not to attempt to get Ars to do anything different.
Are should know that too... but I guess they feel this is good link bait. (personally I think it adds tarnish to Ars's reputation, by making them look like rubes.)
>Both parties are guilty here. Ars should put at the bottom of its article "IMAX is a trademark of <whatever the entity that owns it>" which acknowledges the IMAX trademark.
No, this is absolute bunk. There is no reason for this. At least in the US this is protected by Nominative Use, which guarantees that "a person may use the trademark of another as a reference to describe the other product, or to compare it to their own."
Further: "Nominative use does not require that ownership of the trademark be acknowledged, for example by use of a sentence such as "UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group"."
I came here to say "Capsela", too. I loved those so much! (Although it's hard to tell if they still exist; the sets I could find on Amazon were so expensive, I have to assume they're the toy equivalent of "out-of-print".)
Then, of course, the perennial classics of Erector sets, Tinker toys, and Lego.
Yeah, Capsela I think is done, but there are replacements. Problem is I can't think of them. Just put gears into eggs and there you go. Pretty genius. This is how we should build cars, computers, everything. Just snappable parts that do something you need. Did I just say that, "Computers". How cool would it be to snap in a graphics card, software, pictures, apps, etc? Clunky I know.
I'm glad someone found this; I was really confused because I recognised the phrasing, and thought "I've read this story... but it was about wedding guests...?"
Oh my god! You're sagacity of threestate?! I'm swooning! "melrose space" is my all-time favourite demo! To this day, I still watch it regularly, I love it so much. (As well as the other 3s ones -- like enjoying a favourite album.) Thank you!
Good to hear! I never thought people would still be looking at these things such a long time after the fact but I guess that's the internet for you :)
Btw, the things we released as threestate were a clear testament to how important design is (and more accurately in this case, the design of Steven) when you're doing demos. Before that, some of us (me, sarix, inopia) did a bunch of releases as Quad that were also fairly impressive technically but had no design and...pretty much nobody cared.
Yeah, I can't tell you how much pleasure all those demos have given me over the years, so the opportunity to thank someone directly is really satisfying to me. Thanks again. :)
I recognise your/those names from other releases (like quad, and haujobb). And like you said, others may have been more impressive technically, but it's the threestate ones that have always stuck with me, for that amazingly perfect (IMNSHO) combination of technical impressiveness, visuals, and audio.
Comments on Reddit suggest this is also a fully-mechanical Lego Turing Machine (including electric motor), but I haven't watched the full video to make sure there's no Mindstorms CPU kit:
