[kwlug-disc] Robot tractor

[B.S.]

> (yes, yes, I know. MP3s bad. Have the patents expired in Canada yet?)


Even if they have (unlikely?), I suspect TPP will reinstate them.

I gather TPP backs in all the consumer unfriendly provisions the industry wants that they still didn't get in the last copyright revision go around.

e.g. Apparently two provinces have statutes that require personal information be kept on in-country servers, not spread across the border, where Canadian privacy and confidentiality requirements don't apply. And apparently what protection exists in the U.S. is for its own citizens and doesn't apply to foreign data.

Seems that TPP brings Canada down to lower foreign standards in many areas, rather than bringing them up to ours. (Standards we would have reached for good reason, and even then been a compromised minimum.)

Makes me wonder if the overall economic benefit really will exceed the pain of lower standards, instead of merely shifting the burden. Multi-nationals will presumably export more due to lower tariffs, and consumers will benefit from cheaper imports, but will it really matter if your identity has been stolen, your credit card cancelled, not only have you lost your payment mechanism, you no longer have the funds to pay for it even if you could.

Call me a fearmonger if you like, but I'm certainly uneasy with what I've heard. Presumably many positions were arrived at at U.S. demand (if we want cheaper access to the largest market in the world), yet there seems little appetite in the U.S. itself for the deal. And what will we have agreed to in the mean time,for the whole thing to fall apart for lack of U.S. acceptance?



----- Original Message -----
> From: Paul Nijjar
> To: kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> Cc: 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2015 12:36 AM
> Subject: [kwlug-disc] Robot tractor
> 
>T his may be the best advertisement for open source I have ever heard: 
> 
> http://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/297-the-future-of-food-farming-and-more-1.3275728/why-this-farmer-built-a-cool-robot-tractor-1.3284431
> 
> Naturally, the podcast is in some awful flash-based player, so you can
> get the full episode instead (but then you have to listen to the
> depressing story that follows this one): 
> 
> http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/spark_20151025_54821.mp3
> 
> (yes, yes, I know. MP3s bad. Have the patents expired in Canada yet?)