Friday, December 07, 2007

Irritants of the Week

Two media snippets I overheard on the radio or read somewhere on the Net made me very agitated:
  • A woman being interviewed about who she's voting for in the coming election saying "I am tired of paying for someone else's children's school lunches."
  • A proposed bill is making the rounds that would allow copyright holders (i.e. media cartels) to break into computers they suspected of holding unlicensed media.
The first sounds like someone who is either Libertarian or a staunch Republican. So many things wrong with that statement. Selfish, in a "I haven't fully thought this through" way. An appropriate response would be something like "Well, I'm tired of paying to stop your house from burning down, should that ever happen." Or, "Did you go to public school? Didn't we all pay for your school lunches?"

The second is not far-fetched. Our administration has no qualms about running over the Constitution, and avoiding all public discussion about it. It also enjoys taking bribes from the industry. Our elected officials do not seem to comprehend technology law, and those with an agenda seem to be pushing through legislation as fast as possible to avoid scrutiny. Scrutiny that might have questioned the MPAA's claim that "piracy is costing the industry" how much? $6 billion in one claim. $30 billion in another. A Harvard study has already demonstrated the flaw in how they came up with this imaginary number. Yet, they keep getting sympathy to the point where they can get ridiculously powerful legislative help, NOT to stop piracy (which they acknowledge can't be done) but to enforce monopoly and shut out international competition.

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posted by Brian at 5:13 PM

1 Comments:

Blogger Dekka said...

first of all, this post reminded me IE RSS feeds don't work as they shouild, and that i must click on "Refresh this feed" from time to time :P hadn't seen this.

oh well, about the first statement, things work a bit different here. for starters, public school sucks in Brazil, most of it. if were to say something about our next election, it would be something like: "I'm tired of having no good choices to vote for. I'm tired of paying and having nothing in return, like good schools with good lunch for those who have nothing to eat but the school lunch, good public transportation, good driveable highways, good public health." plus, the mere idea that our president is trying to get reelected for the third time in a row, thus threatening democracy, makes me sick and wanna leave this beautiful country. enough for a sunday morning :) this topic really gets on my nerves.

now, i wonder how much Garbagesoft, as i like to call THAT company, knows about us who have a "Genuine Copy" of their OS. Genuine Advantage, if that is an advantage, scares me. googling some for the sake of this post, i found this:
"Microsoft Genuine Advantage programs, including Windows Genuine Advantage, help you determine whether or not your copy of Windows is genuine. ..."
As if we didn't know :P now... what does it help THEM determine about us?

lovely blog, as always :)

December 09, 2007  

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