Hybrids: the Silent Battering Ram

Well, you all new it was too good to be true: the National Federation of the Blind has criticized hybrid cars which use all-electric drive under low-speed conditions for being too quiet. Ugh. As if the noise from the 2-litre inline four in my very much conventional Ford Focus does a great job of stopping people from just wandering out in front of me without looking. I almost took out three people in the parking lot of my local supermarket the other day, all of whom walked out within feet of my car while looking the other direction. And too my knowledge, none of them were blind and all would have had a clear view of me if only they had bothered to look. Can you imagine if your nice, quiet hybrid car suddenly had to be equipped with a some sort of noise maker so no blind people walk out in front of it? A bill is even before congress to make it law that all vehicle shall emit a minimum level of noise. Those of you living in cities with existing noise problems may wish to write your congressman.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has placed Canada as the world's third worst country for piracy after China and Russia. Canada's crime? Not so much that th making of say, bootleg DVDs is rampant like in China, but that Canada "has taken no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the minimum global standards of the WIPO internet treaties, which it signed more than a decade ago". Oh, would that be the same treaty that lead to the introduction of the DCMA? Yes, it is. I see that worked out really well for you folks south of the border. I wonder what our representative was thinking by signing it in the first place. Can anyone really blame us for not introducing a draconian solution that hurts the general public so big content can make money? Apparently the IIPA can. Ars Technica suggests that maybe the reason the IIPA decided to put Canada so high on the list is because it represents an easy target. The article curiously focuses almost exclusively on piracy of video games which are of course part of the puzzle but not the only area of concern. While copyright reform is definitely needed pretty much everywhere, the Canadian version of the DCMA has met an immediate backlash and an alternative solution is clearly required. But don't expect one anytime soon. With Canada in its second straight minority government, no one want to touch copyright reform with a ten foot pole.