Digital Revolution -CopyLeft Part I of III

This begins a series of articles analyzing the benefits and detractors of the digital revolution in terms of copyrights, and their possible infringements. Real world examples will be used when possible.

The senior senator from Utah is at it again. Republican Orrin Hatch made himself a stench in the nostrils of technophiles a couple of years ago, when he suggested that it might be nice if computers were designed to self-destruct if their users ever downloaded illegal music files. It was never clear whether Hatch was serious, but ever since that day he's been marked by the nation's geeks as an incipient menace."Bray, 2004

Welcome to the world of digital restrictions management. From the idea that you must get permission from the King family to use content from the "I have a dream" speech, to the fact that if the Bible was written today, preachers would have to pay a licensing fee to read from it in public. The idea of these restrictions influences the core of every piece of art, every idea, every invention created today. The influx of watered down trash "As Seen On TV" left unchecked will drown us all in a sea of rules, regulations, and suffocation of creativity.

This man wants to return to the judicial system the right to decide whether you get to own a VCR... and places in the courtroom a myriad of other concepts that for all intents and purposes are part of our culture. This is who we are... but don't describe me or show it to me, or humanity will sue you... for replaying the point of view.

To be continued...

Going nowhere slow... The Bloodhound Gang

God, this has been the most unproductive day.... my college page has been down all day, so I have stuff to do even when I get home... more database memos about the stuff I do here at work. it's funny when someone wanders into the office, and looks something up, or asks a question when i overhear it... half the time, i google the answer and just rattle it off, whether i was asked or not. i like to think of myself as an encyclopedia, albeit of useless knowledge.... but what the hell...

That email hoax...

An excellent article about the "email tracking" chain email that I posted about a few days ago...

Within days, the message was being read by strangers. A few wrote Mack, asking about their money. Whatever, he thought. Then he went home for Thanksgiving break. "When I got back to school, my account was locked up. There was like a gigabyte of mail, thousands upon thousands of messages." He set up a filter to block the onslaught. But two weeks later, someone forwarded him a new version. His name was no longer in the header. It came from gatesbeta@microsoft.com and offered $1,000 and a complimentary copy of Windows 98. Then he got another, signed by Walt Disney Jr., that promised $5,000 and a free vacation. "I started getting scared," he says. "I thought maybe I was going to get in trouble for fraud." But Bryan Mack had already been forgotten.

Welcome to Mind Control

I remember a John Carpenter flick that I watched with my dad in my teens. It was called They Live, and this movie presented some ideas which in reflection, probably changed the way I think, and made me more open to suspicion at times. You see, Nada, a BDCW (Big Dumb Construction Worker) happens across these magical sunglasses, and puts them on to find hidden messages on all the billboards, broadcast media, newspapers, and anything else that could be used to distribute information in his world. Now allow me to tie this in to the reason for this post...

Yesterday I was walking home from the grocery store, having had picked up some soda, and decided to cut through the parking lot of the junior-high (middle school, whatever) that is just up the street from my house. I notice these creepy looking posts, 3 of them, all the same height, on a carefully landscaped patch of earth. All the posts are labeled on all sides with plastic signs that say "Peace around the world" or something like that. My initial reaction was to the fact that English was only on one of the 12 signs. But then I thought about this some more. Are the people that put these signs there fighting the same fight (on the opposite end of the spectrum) as the morons trying to prevent evolution from being taught in schools? Is this the anti-war peaceniks way of promulgating mind control, displaying their fear of the world to come, and using every last tactic to try to change what they themselves have created? C'mon people... it's not your world.... it belongs to the kids... be objective... and let them figure it out for themselves...

Now back to the movie... what were the hidden messages?

CONSUME
OBEY
REPRODUCE
SLEEP

IRC quote I had to share

[18:07:08] GimpBoy: Hye MagicalGhost, how come you eat dog crap for lunch?
[18:07:45] MagicalGhost: cuz it tastes good

Did I get an A???

Depression test

Think maybe I should start tracking this... see what it's related to and when...

Test Results
**********|****|******|*****|*****|******|
24 out of 36 (mild depression)

Getting Better...The Beatles (courtesy of Magnavox)

When it rains, god damn does it pour! Evidently I made some sort of tactical error in filing my taxes this year. To the tune of $702.44! "It puts the lotion on it's skin..."

One thing leads to another...The Fixx

So it only takes me three weeks to correlate the fact that I get the most hits on Fridays, from 10-11 PST, and the fact that maybe I shouldn't try to write a post, or do template edits during that time. And I rant about stupid people. Hah.

Lightning crashes... Live

Today, and yesterday, I've been smoldering. Something in my personal life has made me very angry, and all the doctors say that when I catch myself in that downward spiral (nin cliche, isn't it now?) I'm supposed to envision a large (red, what else) stop sign in my head... to whatever degree keeps me A-OK. And this works, to an extent. The roller coaster that has started to get a bit hot and heavy over the past few days fades from view, and I'm presented with that calm lake. But then how do I keep from being so.. so.. plant like? Docile, unmoving, unable to react to the world around me? I can see this sort of mentality leading to a lot of really stupid mistakes, a loss of consequentiality if you will. I would describe the scenario in greater detail, but to be honest...

• It probably wouldn't be objective
• I'm too paranoid to tell all
• Where's the fun when the mystery is gone?

I hope this blows over soon. All of it.

MSNBC - AOL customer list stolen, sold to spammer

Over 9 Millon email addresses exchanged...

Demotivated...

You may have seen these before, but I'm just making sure everyone sees the 2004 edition motivations. It's about how I'm feeling today...The Demotivators Collection - from Despair.com. Here's an example of what you can find there...

OrangeZen

Thanks to OrangeZen... here's a way to kill about 30 minutes... the pic is a link to the page where this image was made... I made a more offensive sign, but decided against it...

STUPID FUCKS

If there's one thing I hate worse than spammers, it's benevolent spammers. These people that get some dumb ass forward (see below), totally disregard any shred of common sense they might have, and take the time to kindly forward this shit to me, and everyone else in their address book as well. This particular specimen has been flying around for fucking YEARS! And dipshits are still falling for it! Do your part people... take a few random keywords from these emails when you get them. In this example, I used gates and repent. Do a simple google search, only add the wonderful keyword HOAX. If it's too good to be true, on the internet, it ISN'T true. Then, and only then, is it EVER kosher to hit the Reply All button. Whaddaya know... THIS was the first hit... Dear Friends, Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test. When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period. For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.

This post brought to you by the letter M...

A summary of Saturday night - mythical gila monsters, mosquitoes, mangled beer cans, musical medley, mismatched furniture, much laughter, muffler deficient road mangler, mistaken directions, mixed drinks, midnight chill, military bashing, memories...

Leet

Here is your Wikipedia definition of the week... by the way, if you don't frequent the Wikipedia site, I definitely recommend it... it's a good way to kill an hour or so if you like to learn things.... like errr... reading an encyclopedia, but you don't have to turn pages... Yeah, I'm a dork. What of it?

Too dumb for techTV....*sigh*

Yes, I'm fucking with it...

As you can see, template edits are underway... I got tired of looking like other people a scant 2 links away from me... Thanks for bearing with me...

...pocket full of shells...Rage against the Machine

re·coil ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-koil) intr.v. re·coiled, re·coil·ing, re·coils To spring back, as upon firing. To shrink back, as in fear or repugnance. To fall back; return: “Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent” (Arthur Conan Doyle). n. (also rkoil) The backward action of a firearm upon firing. The act or state of recoiling; reaction. It's that quiet again... the peace before the spring storm, the silence prior to the tornado... like the black screen, before the opening scene, the final few seconds before liftoff... And then it all snaps back... 10 thousand meters per second of nothing but pure fury, unchecked velocity... This is anger. This is how I see things soon... with the earth falling away from me...

C'mon, people...

I'm about to talk shit about some of you. I'm sure you'll get over it, and if not, I advise you seek some minor mental health treatment...it's just a grip. What's with all these people that make their profile unbrowsable?? I read comments... I like the way someone thinks.... I click on their name, to read more... The profile you have clicked on is none of your damn business Come on... what am I going to do? Leave dirty commments on your sites? You can always delete them!

Ramble on... Led Zeppelin

Mmmmm.... time to meander... I really need to move my desk, pc, and all the other shit that I have here at this desk... It's not that it's just a computer, it's EVERYTHING... the phone, the stereo, the entertainment center... it does it all... with a snakes nest of cables that would make a fine sequel to the "Head Like A Hole Video" (screenshot here... by the way, don't do a google image search for head like a hole video... unless you are looking for gay porn. Today I signed up for my second college... so I'll be a full time weblogger, college student x2, and full time employee of the US Navy. And I don't drive anywhere, all pedestrian / public transit style... should be too busy to get depressed... sounds like a plan. I've been getting too much sun for someone as fair skinned as I... soon the freckles will merge... and unite against me... "Dave..." "Just what do you think you are doing, Dave?"

"...find that only stupid people are breeding..."Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta

"Hey Petty Officer Cross, this is Master Chief *******, how are you doing?..." I wasn't at work yesterday, had doctors to see and groceries to buy... but I get back today, and find, not one, but two messages on my voicemail. They both start out same as the above. What kind of fucking moron asks an answering machine "how it's doing"?

---

A news note - it's shit like this that makes it hard to listen to pop music with a straight face. Songs as advertisements... how many people already suspected this?

Screenshot of the day

Taken from http://www.cnn.com Comment unnecessary.

every morning...

there's not a way to feel today about the place i'm in same as every yesterday without the memories just not a way to put away all of the broken dreams they just rattle silently within this shattered ring do i stay tomorrow inside the place i'm in do i say aloud now what is this gotten me maybe it's a bit of little shame about the way i feel winding through it every hour without the path i seek just this feeling of betray wall i've built in me towers over every day along the path i chose for me and will i know tomorrow where have i found myself do i shed the sorrow what has it gotten me... ©2004 David Cross

MSNBC - Study in evil

I posted something about this about a month ago... and here is more to support the same. This study shows that any one of you would have done the same thing as those guards at the Iraqi prison. It doesn't matter who you are. Without the adequate supervision of a trained psychologist at the bare minimum, this is who you are. But, like I mentioned before... we still threw this guy in prison... for something he thought he was supposed to do. Good job America. Way to make people want to serve you.

The Town Talk

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Look, it's Kris Kross's krazy mom People never cease to amaze me. I should invite people into my bathroom to look at my poop. Tell them I saw Mother Mary or something... Link courtesy of The Obscure Store

For grins...

A list of currently running applications.

mIRC	- 4 channels
Autoget	- snags stuff for me off mIRC
Yahoo messenger	- umm... yeah
Winamp	- 16 volt vs. Spahn Ranch - cover of smashing pumpkins 'Disarm'
6 copies of IE	- various crap
SmartFTP	- downloading a cracked piece of software
Notepad	- writing a paper for college
GuildFTP	- people downloading stuff
Outlook Express	- my college newsgroup
Microsoft Word	- our team project for college

Great day so far...

Cheers³ !! I took my placement test for my local community college to supplement my online 4 year classes... and did just fine. I don't have to take any classes that don't count towards my degree... I just LOVE it when I don't have to waste time! Straight to college algebra... not bad considering it's been 9 years since I had a formal math class... Yay!

Stop eating sugar! Thin the gene pool!

This is exactly the herd mentality I'm talking about. What a place this would be... if people thought for themselves... Please direct your attention to the comment located below the atkins post. "Sugar is SO bad for you". Honey, you'd freeze to death if you never ate sugar.

Another self searching session

One of these days, I'll be able to synthesize the results of all these tests, and figure out how to smile more often... I hope.

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||||| 67% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||| 34% Type 3 Image Focus |||||| 30% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||||| 72% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||| 75% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||| 48% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||| 21% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||||| 60% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||| 39% Your Conscious-Surface type is 5w4 Your Unconscious-Overall type is 4w5

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

One smart fuckin squirrel...

Link courtesy of starz. I've been trying to figure out for months why people can be this stupid. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who was wondering... Click here if you are sick and tired of seeing "atkins friendly" on every billboard, food label, and television show/commercial... and you see through the bullshit. Then again, click anyway. Maybe we can bring some people around to see the truth of this mess. The squirrel, and its social commentary. Never thought I'd see this...

Words you just don't see together often...

lesbian golfing relationship
Isn't life strange A turn of the page Can read like before Can we ask for more Each day passes by Isn't life strange - Moody Blues

I'm not sexist...

Today, I recovered from a mild disagreement with my friend on the bus. We didn't talk yesterday, just kind of ignored each other. One of those misunderstandings, further complicated by the fact that both of us were grumpy the next day. Why is it in my interactions with other people, I always feel bad about being me? The particular point of contention was that she felt I busted on every guy she tells me about. The truth of the matter is, it's not sexist of me, I bust on everyone. I set such high standards for myself, that few others (not even myself) can live up to them either. Hence the steady state of the 3rd degree that the world gets from me. Every once and a while, I actually meet someone that I can get along with. Usually the problem is that those people don't get along with me. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Why doesn't anything ever seem right?

Further analysis into the logistics of visiting my wife.... Certainly can't stay under the same roof. The last time we were physically around each other, things were just fine. So the physical aspect rears it's ugly head. I already have enough tough decisions to make without my libido and genetics making a cameo appearance as well. And I'm just hard up for cash, so plane ticket + hotel?? Yeah, right. I could stay with my family, but... no. I haven't talked to them in about a year now, and don't intend to start that back up again. I wasn't getting any better, or happier talking to them, and don't feel the need to gamble again. I'm just fine without them, anyway. Especially when I don't even know who is blood family, and who is 'family'. Sure, it makes no difference who you are related to, I know that. It does however make a difference when you hear it thru the grapevine vice hearing it from the people that matter. What to do... what to do... Life is fucking bullshit sometimes.

What's in the box?

Don't get me wrong. Nothing but respect for the man, especially considering that my children don't have to grow up with a cold war, but some things are just too far. Let's parade around a goddamn box with a corpse in it, so people can stand in line to stand and cry, and "pay" their respects. Do it at home people... stop looking for a reason to take time off work. Hell, Friday is going to be a day off anyway. Maybe I'll go out in my yard, and mourn my weeds that I pulled up the other day. Oh wait. They're not weeds anymore. They're dead.

Jeezus... 45 degrees in June

Oh well, what the hell am I doing up at 3 AM anyway? And it's not like I stayed up late... I woke up early. For some reason, I started thinking about building another PC, and before I knew it, I was at the computer, banging away. Browsing thru some forums to try and figure out the latest lingo in video cards, and run across a pretty damn funny gif... (thanks to TallicaThrasher for letting me post this without asking :P) Moods ok, mebe won't be such a bad Monday after all... And I know I'm a sick fuck... but so are you, you just might not have figured it out yet...

And the day's end draws near

Mood, a bit better... allthough I managed to screw around a good portion of the day, I still got my list of self-imposed chores completed, and even put in some work on my homepage, to clean it up, and use a template similar to this blog... So, as promised, here are the results... And the webpage before and after... Whatcha think?

A wholesome hue of shadow

There wasn't any real color to yesterday. I don't know if that can be attributed to bio-chemical means, or some sort of natural low point to the cycle of mood. I did sleep a lot, each time that I went back to sleep, I tossed and turned for about an hour prior. I wasn't tired, I just didn't want to be awake. Hopefully today will be somewhat more productive. At the bare minimum, do some cooking, wash dishes/clothes, and clean up this shitpit of a desk. So we'll do the before and after thing. Click to enlarge Isn't that lovely? I'd be ashamed, but I just don't care enough to.

Trials - Tribulations

So this has been going on for a year now. We talk, we gripe. We get along, we snipe. I've been separated for a year and a month now. Neither one of us can place all the blame on the other. We've both filed divorce papers, we both let them go. Now she wants me to come visit. I don't know if I can take that. Me, wanting to work things about about 90% of this past year, and her about half of that. I don't know if I can take her saying..."Never mind" again. But if I don't capitalize on this, is it the last chance I get? Am I strong enough to deal with the answer, whatever it may be? Or is it just easier to run...

This post brought to you by the letter D

Drug out of bed Dressed Drank coffee Deboarded the bus Dell Daydreamt Dithered Duties Departed Dozed Decided Drank Discourse

The Olsen Demons

These two turn 18 on June the 13th. I didn't want to know that. Chances are, you didn't want to either. But hey, I bring something else to the table too... enjoy Found in search for Mary, Kate, Ashley, and...

• ...shotgun
  and...
• ...vacuous
  and...
• ...satan
  and...
• ...vivisection
  and finally...
• Your search - "garbage juice" "olsen twins" mary kate ashley - did not match any documents.

Well then... it's going to now, isn't it... Hah.

Stuff like this makes me want to switch news sources...

Today I see this article on MSNBC, written by Brad Stone of Newsweek. Some of the asinine shit that makes it into 'print' is just ridiculous. This story implies that as cell phones advance in complexity, they could eventually render the PC obsolete. Ummm...

1. What does PC stand for? Oh yeah, personal computer... like what cell phones are turning into...
2. I've read waaaay too many articles heralding the "death" of the PC. If anything, all the other devices are becoming personal computers, and becoming obsolete themselves. (TV / car stereo's, VCR's, Electronic organizers, Calculators, Watches... oh... I made my point...sorry)
3. Most of all, I can't believe that people are stupid enough to lend credibility to this! Like anyone is going to choose a device with little bitty friggin buttons over a keyboard...

The writer goes on to say that it's a wonder how we got along without cell phones. Hmmm... I seem to do just fine. I'll betcha I can geek-speak this go-tard into the ground, and I don't need to let my 'telephone company' charge me by the minute for a local call. Voice-over-IP doesn't really care where you are calling, and they are raking in the dollars. Remember when ISP's used to limit your minutes online? The cell phone providers are still getting away with it... suckers. Looks like Mad magazine let another writer go...

I'd stand in front of a tank too...

I'm not going to sit here and say Britney Spears is clean and pure like driven snow. It's not like she has cock in her mouth for a living, that happens all the time in porn, and no one really complains... So I have to imagine just how great it would be to live in a country, who in it's infinite wisdom, deems that Ms. Spears must not show "too much" skin while performing in China. If I wasn't at work, I'd post a nice wholesome picture of some good old fashioned hardcore smut, in honor of the fine minds at work in China. Which is more damaging? Tiananmen Square, anyone? Betcha that fucked some kids up... Seeing as how it is one of the most populated countries on the planet, I kinda have a hard time understanding why all those people don't just tell their government to fuck off. I guess I need to live in another country for a while, so that my American viewpoint of what is acceptable for the government to limit gets nice and jaded.