The Mr Topp advent calendar: Day 19

0 Comments/ in Observations / by Mr Topp

December 19, 2012

Christmas, of course, isn’t the only holiday of the season. It would seem remiss if we had no Hannukah here in the Mr Topp advent calendar. And yes, it’s too late for Hannukah, but with Christmas less than a week away, it’s not like there’s time to order anything we’re showing you in time for Christmas, either.

So, Hannukah.

Here at the Mr. Topp household, we are forever looking for menorahs. They simply seem hard to come by in central London — we either need to order online, or travel to more remote corners of London to find them. And then, once we have them, we need candles.

Enter the Deluxe LED Menorah. Available online. No candles required. Hurrah!

And if you think that’s too plain, you can use it as a crafty base, instead, and make something pretty awesome.

The morning coffee and the copyright wrongs

0 Comments/ in Morning Coffee / by Mr Topp

March 16, 2012

It’s hard to condemn people, these days, for copyright infringement — even blatant copyright infringement.

Why?

Because those people who hold those copyrights do things like try to extort money from libraries for reading to children.

Yep, that’s right. Trying to force libraries to cough up money for reading to children.

It baffles the mind. There are actual people who work for this SABAM – the Belgian rightsholder group in question – writing letters and making phone calls to try to extort this money. There are managers who decided on this course of action. A whole organisation of people who somehow rationalize this behaviour.

You know your legal framework is broken when there exist entire organisations full of people who presumably look at themselves in the mirror each morning, and then go to work and do despicable things. I preferred it when it was only lawyers embarassing themselves with silly cease & desist letters to law schools.

Ah, the halcyon days of youth.