Tragically, there was another school shooting at the beginning of this week. This one was in Finland, and their second in 12 months which left 10 dead, 11 including the shooter. We can expect the cry for more gun control, both domestically, and in Finland, so I pulled out a post I’ve been saving due to not having time to finish it.
This past week saw the release of Geert Wilders’ “Fitna”. I’d like to quickly say this post is not endorsing that film, the author of it, or any specific religion. I hope, instead, to point out what the film has actually accomplished, and look at the issues surrounding it. I’d also like to point out I fully support all basic human rights, including those of freedom of speech and religion. I won’t be giving a link to the video as I don’t support it. In addition, those viewing it might be disturbed by a few scenes (beheadings, hangings, close range gun shots) and I don’t want my site affiliated with any of that. Read below the cut to see my analysis.
I’ve neglected this blog lately not due to lack of programming, but because I’m only coding on projects that I’ve already discussed on here. I had planned to do a mundane post about new features on the DungeonRunner character viewer, but then I stumbled across some stories that work well together.
Remember the ‘equipment malfunction’ during the Super Bowl a few years back? How it was a severe understatement, as well as a stupid excuse for a dumb plan? The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has just made a digital version. They traditionally blame college students for all manner of atrocities, everything from wanting to watch legal DVDs on their Linux machine to downloading movies. A wee bit ago they announced shocking statistics that proved college students were responsible for 40% of all illegal movies downloaded. This led to a campaign of terror at many big-name schools, as well as lobbying to force Congress to add in stipulations for cracking down on file sharing in new higher education funding. It turns out, they were wrong. Taken from their statement:
Here’s a great example of our nation’s colleges selling out their students and bending over to RIAA’s demands. I just had an email passed on to me that originated from Indiana University’s Associate Vice President for Information & Infrastructure Assurance dealing with file sharing that is just plain sad. It shows a complete lack of caring for their students, as well as a lack of understanding about the laws involved. Oh, as well as the worst tag-lines for anti-file sharing I’ve ever heard!
Every now and then I’ll be taking a shower and some song will come to me. Typically its whatever was playing before I went to bed, or some commercial jingle. Sometimes its actually creative. Had the idea for a Bob Dylan remake the other week, and just now got around to writing the whole thing. Without further ado, ‘Tapping on my Keyboard’:
A friend just pointed me to a really interesting development in the fight against RIAA. Apparently William and Mary stood up to their John Doe subpoenas and the judge actually threw the case out. A quick snippet follows, the full article can be found here, as I’m about to go to sleep.
I saw a commercial on TV the other day that made me laugh. I’m sure normal people see this commercial as a sign of how advanced our technology is, and how convenient modern life is, but all I see is theft.
Friday night I wen over to a friend’s apartment for a nice dinner, as his parents were coming through town on their way home. It was a nice evening, though I didn’t really jump into the conversation until it turned to more technologically oriented ideas. One topic we got onto was music downloading, or “piracy”, as my friend ran afoul of RIAA at one point in time. By that, of course, I don’t mean he DID download anything, merely that they claimed he did, and his school was too scared to offer any form of defense. I ended up butting heads with my friend’s dad on this topic, as I think RIAA has stepped way over the boundary of protecting their property and now is just using scare tactics trying to keep online music purchases from taking off any more. Now, at the time I really couldn’t think up a good argument articulating why I felt so strongly against RIAA (besides just their tactics in general, I mean why I dislike their underlying ideals), and how to get across to someone in their early 50’s who may have never bothered to download music, legally or otherwise, what the real issues are. Luckily I always replay conversations in my mind for days afterwards to rethink my positions and prepare myself should that topic ever come up again.