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February 27, 2004
Twenty Centuries of Scandal
After months of striking by workers—and my own personal boycott of my local Ralphs—the grocery strike may finally be coming to an end. I had already decided that, should the grocery chains fire all their employees at the end of the contract term, I would not return to any Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions or Albertsons again.
I probably won't go back even if they do end the strike and keep the workers, mostly because I am a creature of habit. I have already carved out a happy little grocery niche at Trader Joe's for most everything, and a non-striking market for everything else. Guess the big guys shot themselves in the foot letting things go on this long, huh?
Things appear to be getting better on the renewable fuels front, as well. Researchers in Minnesota have found a way to manufacture hydrogen using ethanol to produce a 33% higher yield, meaning the implementation of an efficient and renewable energy source could be in the near future.
Posted in Damn Nation! | 27 February 2004 at 02:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (70) | Link
This Charming Man
My roommate and I spent our evening last night eating some excellent Chinese takeout and watching two, uh, female-oriented films: Sliding Doors (with The Paltrow and her terrible British accent) and Shag (with Phoebe Cates and Bridget Fonda and their rather large breasts). All that estrogen might have jacked my brain, or perhaps it was just remembering how it felt to be a teenage girl, watching maudlin, cheesy movies all night as I did then, but it certainly made me remember how important all those grossly female movies were when I was in high school.
There wasn't much to do in my hometown so my friends and I watched a lot of really terrible movies to pass the time. It never really occured to me then that watching movies like Girls Just Wanna Have Fun or Dirty Dancing did more than just pass the time. For myself in particular, and probably some of my friends (though I never asked them), those movies gave us hope that being shy or overweight or heavily regulated by our parents didn't mean that someday we couldn't be happy or successful or popular. Sure, watching lots of those movies probably encourages unreachable hopes but it doesn't negate the fact that Dirty Dancing is still the best girl movie ever.
Posted in General Nonsense | 27 February 2004 at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1) | Link
February 26, 2004
The Once Over Twice
I know I've been posting a lot about The Passion of the Christ lately, and these posts have mostly been fueled by the general nastiness aimed at the film. I understand the protests that surrounded The Last Temptation of Christ because the novel and the film were meant to arouse ire and doubt; I don't, however, understand what the big fucking deal is about The Passion. I haven't seen it yet—make no mistake, I will—but I have a hard time believing that a single film has the ability to mobilize a massive campaign of anti-Semitism in the world today. Anti-Semitism may or may not be on the rise but the world has not forgotten the Holocaust and no one is particularly anxious to go through it again.
Reasonable people the world over can rationally deal with the fact that Jesus was a Jew and that some of his Jewish contemporaries did not appreciate the ways in which he tampered with traditional Judaism. It is not the fault of the Jews that Jesus died (since that's what he came here to do) any more than it is my fault that European traders bought and sold slaves. Jesus preached against popular sentiment and was punished for it, not unlike many religious figures who came after him: Luther, Calvin, Joan of Arc, even Joseph Smith. He came here to preach and die, and die he did. He fulfilled his purpose, so what is everyone so fucking tweaked about?
At the moment, they are all twisted up over the remarks made by Mel Gibson's father about the Holocaust—specifically, that he said the Holocaust didn't happen. Now, while I find his statement naive and foolish I don't believe that you should hang the son for the sins of the father. Many people in Hollywood are denouncing Gibson for not publicly criticizing his father, which, to my mind, is ridiculous.
It is none of Mel Gibson's business nor is it his responsibility to police his father or his father's views. My father and I disagree on a great many things—voting Republican, for one—and no matter how often we argue about it, or out-and-out fight about it, neither of us is going to change. Mostly we agree to disagree and don't talk about those things, which I assume is the same in most families interested in keeping the peace. If I came out publicly and criticized my father's views (no matter how justified or correct my opinions were by comparison), it wouldn't affect anything but my relationship with my dad. That, to my mind, is more important than public opinion, and I assume it's the same for Mel Gibson.
Posted in Damn Nation! | 26 February 2004 at 02:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (26) | Link
February 25, 2004
We're Desperate
I don't make a secret of the fact that I disagree with the American prison system. There are many substantiated reasons that prove the prison system only serves to turn out more—and better—criminals, people who were jailed with the aim of punishment without rehabilitation. I really have a problem when prisons are used as a source of cheap labor; it gets even worse, though, when prisoners are employed as a last-ditch effort to reap the benefits of owning a company in the United States and employing workers who will work for sweatshop wages.
"Obviously, it doesn't do anything for the labor market here," said University of Oregon political science professor Gordon Lafer, author of a study on prison labor.
"It's like bringing little islands of the Third World right here to the heartland of America," he said. "You get the same total control of the work force, the same low wages, and it does nothing for the inmates."
Also, convicts don't benefit much from training for jobs that no longer exist in America because they have all gone overseas or into prisons, he said.
The bitch of it is that there isn't a happy medium here between keeping labor in the States and not exploiting workers or prisoners, when all three would be the best possible outcome.
So our choice is "or death"?
Posted in Damn Nation! | 25 February 2004 at 04:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (14) | Link
If We're Divisive, No One Will Win!
The Democrats have a continual rough road in that they refuse to come together behind a candidate. The leaders of the party are trying to oppose the Republicans by becoming more like them in every respect but their platform on social issues, and even that is sketchy. Combine that with the general childishness exhibited by most candidates and you get a big, tangled web of accusations and petulant whining. The only thing that keeps me willing to vote Democrat (even though I am not a registered member of any party) is that they are the only group with a hope of unseating the unrepentant regime of GW. It's not that I think the Democrats will do better so much as that I think regime change, in our current political climate, will at least keep the politicians from feeling too secure in office.
Posted in Damn Nation! | 25 February 2004 at 04:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (7) | Link
February 24, 2004
She Thinks She's Babe, Pig in the City
Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and win a free PS2!
Speaking of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ has already exceeded first day sales records of The Lord of the Rings in some places. If only we were all as popular as Jesus, no one would ever need to make friends again!
If this movie does as well as it is supposed to we could be in trouble. Not that I mind movies about Jesus, but if there is one thing Hollywood knows how to do it's knock off successful story ideas...and I feel a rash of Jesus biopics in the making. That is not necessarily the kind of climate that works best for those of us trying to oust Dubya and his ferociously conservative (read: "religious") friends.
Posted in Quoi? | 24 February 2004 at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (29) | Link
February 23, 2004
Super Noam!
What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination.
...
It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are American-Israeli policies made possible by unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel.
• • A Wall as a Weapon, Noam Chomsky on the Israeli barrier hearing
Posted in Damn Nation! | 23 February 2004 at 11:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (4) | Link
Ein Minuten
The only reason that I was willing to deal with the election of the Governator was that once his term screwing up California was over, he couldn't run for President. I can't say that it is surprising that he would desire to be President but I find it curious that there is an amendment being considered that would allow immigrants to run for President and that Arnold is already on the bandwagon to pass it.
My objection to such an amendment isn't based in xenophobia so much as in tradition—I don't lust for change any more than anyone else, particularly when it has to do with the Constitution—and the sneaking suspicion that this wouldn't really apply to all immigrants because most of the voting public just isn't ready for that. They might be ready for an Arnold (though no one would be able to spell the President's name), despite the fact that his popularity would be based on the characters we remember in his movies, not on his politics. However, I just don't see a President Haddad or President Gutierrez being enthusiastically welcomed into the Oval Office any time soon and that is, at least in my view, the great weakness of such an amendment.
Then again, perhaps this is just what is needed to move politics forward a little. I suppose it could go either way, but I am innately suspicious of any flexibility that the Republicans want to interject into the laws.
Posted in Another Bloody Fucking Wanker | 23 February 2004 at 11:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (38) | Link
February 22, 2004
Lost and Found
The lost Beach Boys album, Smile, has been found and premiered last night in London to rave reviews. Then again, the songs were written and conducted by Brian Wilson; who wouldn't be impressed by that?
Proving once again that politicians have a hard time learning from their—and others'—mistakes, Ralph Nader has announced his candidacy for this year's presidential election. Is he on the Republican payroll or is this a personal vendetta he has against the Democrats?
Posted in General Nonsense | 22 February 2004 at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (7) | Link
Delightfully Boring
Ms. Jones's numbers and the fact that she's selling mainly to grown-ups make record executives hopeful that a recovery in their troubled business is just around the corner. They are going to need to keep hoping. Their business seems to be structured against steady, long-term success. The psychology of the recording industry, like that of book publishing, is now so dependent on blockbuster sales that the idea of profitability based on modest sales across a diverse catalog has nearly vanished. The business depends on the hundred-year flood, not a steady rain.
There is no begrudging Ms. Jones her success. Part of her attraction is that she seems to be pursuing the art as it appeals to her, without pandering to her audience. But what's curious about her career so far is that she is essentially a midlist artist who broke into the big time. Her first album was rolled out in a way that suggested modest expectations and on such modest, artful expectations, once upon a time, a gratifying career might have been based. But her niche is now the whole world. The industry will no longer be talking about Norah Jones; it will be talking about "a Norah Jones" or "the next Norah Jones," who comes out of nowhere to rescue the bottom line once again.
• • From NYTimes.com
Posted in Corporations and Creativity | 22 February 2004 at 12:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (11) | Link
February 20, 2004
Rampant, Bubbling Narcisscism
In a fresh display of complete and utter self-obsession, Ryan Adams is starting his own record label to—you guessed it!—release even more recordings of his terrible songs! The label, Paxamerican, will release The Rescue Blues and California (containing demo versions of said terrible songs), which are intended for sale at Adams' live shows.
I think these would make great gifts for anyone with masochistic tendencies or a strong desire to know what it feels like when your eardrums bleed.
Posted in Another Bloody Fucking Wanker | 20 February 2004 at 02:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (3) | Link
February 19, 2004
The Bull by the Horns
Every now and again I remember that money really can buy almost anything, particularly acceptance. Monsanto, the company which has been producing a frightening array of noxious chemicals for the better part of the last century—Agent Orange and PCBs among them—is now poised to takeover the world through genetically modified crops. The firm is now aimed solely at the biotech market, selling their modified seeds, which resist drought and insects with higher yields than traditional crops, to factory farms and third world farmers—all of whom pay annual royalties for the patented seeds.
But that's good news, right? Everyone gets food free of bugs, rot, and pesticides, it can travel long distances without spoiling; the world's food supply would be practically immune to disaster. And those things are positive and hurrah for that, but the downside to the ag biotech market is that Monsanto would control, quite literally, every crop in the world. They would also vicariously control every farm in the world, and that's just a bit too much power for any one entity to have. Chances are the Monsanto takeover would also mean the death of family farms, which have already been suffering at the hands of larger factory farms with more ready capital and, uh, flexible employment and quality standards.
Ugh. It makes my skin crawl just to think about it. This is why everyone should buy local and organic—you may find a bug or two every now and again, but you don't have to worry about what your veggies have been spliced with.
In other news, the RIAA and the FBI have officially announced their aforementioned naive and pointless plan to include a copy of the FBI seal (similar to the one you see at the beginning of a movie, warning against piracy) in the packaging for all CDs, DVDs, video games and software. I don't know about anyone else, but I have never read the FBI warning during a movie, nor do I bother to read the ratings guides on video games, nor the lyrical content warnings on CDs. Hell, I don't even read the warnings on cigarettes.
And besides this bit of nonsense, I'd like to point something out: PIRACY IS NOT HURTING THE ARTISTS ANY MORE THAN THE RECORD COMPANIES ARE. I keep hearing the impassioned pleas of RIAA spokespersons defending the rights of artists and songwriters who are losing money due to piracy. Those artists and songwriters are not losing money because the record companies have already taken it, and the record industry is worried about losing their own money. They don't care about the artists because, let's face it, there's always more where they came from.
For those of you unfamiliar with what I am saying, here is a breakdown of the economics of an average record deal:
The money being made off of an album is measured in royalty points or percentages. Each person or persons involved in the making of the album gets what are called points on the backend, meaning that they get a portion of the total number of points that comprise the costs and profits of the album. Most of the time when a band signs a record deal they are given money up front, called an advance. An advance is just that: money the record company is giving based on the projected sales of the album. If the company does not recoup that money in record sales, it must be paid back.
There are two royalty sources that an artist can make money off of: mechanical royalties and artist roytalties. Mechanical royalites are paid to the songwriters. The statutory rate is somewhere around seven cents per song, so a songwriter who writes every song on an album of, say, 10 songs would be receiving 70 cents per album sold. That doesn't sound so bad until you realize that the labels are only paying out mechanical royalites at 75%, effectively witholding 25% of the copyright income.
Artist royalties are earned through record sales; an established artist could be looking at 10–20 points, while relatively obscure bands have been known to receive 6 or 7; the industry average is somewhere around 12 or 13. Now, when a new band is signed and an album is made, there are a myriad assortment of costs involved, and quite a few of them are—surprise!—the responsibility of the artist, not the label.
For example, all of the promotional costs are recoupable from artist royalties. This means that videos, radio promotion, commercials, and/or retail tie-ins come out of the pocket of the artist, depending on the percentage lined up in the contract. The label fronts the money and decides on what and how much promotion to put behind an album; if the label does not promote an album and it does not sell, the artist is still responsible for recouping that money. Why? Because an artist does not see a profit until the recoupment is clear (this includes the advance).
So, say an artist managed to negotiate a 50% recoupment percentage with seven points in artist royalties; the promotion on the albm runs to $200,000 so the artist is obliged to pay back $100,000 of that cost. Now, in order for the artist to pay that back the label will have to make almost fifteen times the amount the artist does. How does that work, you ask? For each $100,000 in album sales, 7% ($7,000) of that hundred grand will go to the artist's recoupment and the rest to the record company to be split among the other royalty makers.
In order for the artist to recoup $100,000 in promotion expenses at 7%, the album would have to turn in sales of $1,425,000 (roughly 95,000 albums sold). Out of nearly $1.5 million, the artist sees nary a penny.
To clarify my position: I am not saying that piracy is a good thing. I think that there is a fair balance to be found between offering downloads for free as a marketing tool and the flagrant abuse of file trading that has been taking place. I, for one, do download music; on average, I might download five songs in a week, and I buy between five and ten albums per month (at independent record stores and distros, or straight from the labels and artists). I use those downloads to determine what I want to buy, and I don't keep songs that I don't like and don't intend to buy. I don't have a problem with downloading because I choose to download responsibly, and so should everyone else. No matter how poorly the recording industry treats the artists, it is the responsibility of the fans to act reasonably and with consideration for the difficulty of being a professional musician. If we, as the consumers, do not maintain that relationship while voicing our concerns we lose our bargaining power and the whole boat sinks, musicians in tow.
I'm down off my soapbox now, but heed the words of Steve Albini and Don Henley—and don't listen to the manipulative flapjaws at the RIAA.
Posted in Corporations and Creativity | 19 February 2004 at 03:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (30) | Link
February 18, 2004
Spread the Genes Apart
After losing Pixar, Disney is continuing on the quest to save the company from the impending civil war between Michael Eisner and Roy Disney by purchasing the Muppets from The Jim Henson Company. At least I have Fraggle Rock and Labyrinth to remind me of how great they were before this happened...
And in decidedly un-Disney news, the hearing to determine the fate of same-sex marriage in San Francisco has been postponed until Friday. Gay and lesbian couples from all over the state (and the country) are flocking to SF to be married, much to my surprise and pleasure. Mayor Newsom certainly opened the floodgates this time, and not a moment too soon.
I've noticed a disturbing trend, particuarly of late: people in this country have a bizarre need to be invovled in the minutae of everyone's lives. Maybe the rampant proliferation of laxative and tampon advertisements has given us all the wrong idea about how much we should know about our neighbors, but I for one would be just as happy if being friendly did not involve my proper functions or anything that could be construed as a part of my sex life.
I certainly didn't vote for Prop 22 (the California initiative that prohibits same-sex marriages) and I'm more than happy that SF is taking the bull by the horns and trying to put an end to the discrimination. Much like my opinions on abortion, prostitution and drug use, for me marriage comes down to privacy: all of the above-mentioned issues are actions or agreements that take place between consenting adults. It is no one else's business who or what you are fucking, sleeping next to, sharing a home with, talking to, listening to, ingesting, or otherwise doing with your own body or the body of a consenting adult individual so long as those activities do not in any way hinder the rights of others.
Gay marriage does not mean that anyone would be allowed to have sex with children or pets, or even farm animals. It would not make it okay to sell drugs on the playground, or to commit murder, or even to write shitty pop songs or to have indiscriminate sex. It would not mean anything except that couples who are interested in making a serious commitment would be allowed to make a public declaration of their intent to be devoted to each other in the same manner that has been used throughout history. This isn't even a question of marriage recognized by religious organizations, just by the federal government!
And doesn't it seem just a wee bit invasive for the government to be able to say who you can choose to hitch yourself to?
Post Script: Happy Birthday, Alex!
Posted in Private Eyes Are Watching You | 18 February 2004 at 03:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (3) | Link
February 17, 2004
The End of a Friend
This is my goodbye post to an old friend: Webmonkey.
In a recent round of cutbacks, Lycos has dismantled the staff of Webmonkey—the online resource where I (and a lot of other people) learned nearly everything I know about the basics of web authoring.
Such is the end of an era, I suppose, but the Monkey will be sorely missed.
Speaking of time passing, the RIAA still refuses to acknowledge that the record industry is an almost hopelessly outdated dinosaur that either needs to move with the times or perish by them. This month's lawsuits total 531, bringing the total number of suits to 1,445 since last September.
Posted in Corporations and Creativity | 17 February 2004 at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6) | Link
Suddenly Canadian
For anyone out there who is, or might be, in need of a mechanic, I have the name of a good one. No, really—the guy is so honest that I'm sorry there wasn't something wrong with my car. At least then he would have made something off this month's Mustang repair saga.
I took my car in last week to have the oil changed. While there, the mechanic pointed out the oil running down the engine and informed me that I had a leak in my main seal (the big one at the front of the engine). Not being one who is terribly adept with the inner workings of an automobile—shocking, especially considering my masterful command of automotive vocabulary—but being very suspicious of mechanics in general, I went to see an old family acquaintence who recommended a garage where I could have my engine checked.
Upon calling the garage—Richie's Auto Service, in Saugus—and explaining the circumstances, the mechanic informed me that a leak in the main seal would be a rare problem for my car. Rather, it was likely I had leaking seals on the gaskets and oil was running from those seals down to the main seal, making it appear that I had a leak there. This all sounded logical (and much cheaper than an issue with the main seal) so I took the car in this morning to have it checked out.
As it turns out there is no leak, in the main seal or otherwise. Instead it appears that whoever changed my oil spilled some and it ran down the engine to pool below the main seal, and those crafty mechanics were trying to wrangle the $300 fee for dismantling the front half of my engine to repair said main seal.
Too bad for them, though, there are honest mechanics out there who aren't going to scam everyone who walks in for repairs they don't need. Not that I'm looking forward to car repairs—an imminent threat at all times when you own a Ford—but now I feel better about having to go to the mechanic.
Posted in Another Bloody Fucking Wanker | 17 February 2004 at 02:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (4) | Link
February 13, 2004
Losers and Loners of the World, Unite!
Despite the fact that it is a cheap commercial holiday meant to sponsor antiquated and idiotic ideas about love, constancy and affection, this is my little post to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day.
May you all eat too much chocolate, have a little too much to drink and go home with a extraordinarily attractive stranger for a night of wild and unforgettable passion.
Failing that, I hope you get plowed and torment your exes with nasty text messages.
Posted in General Nonsense | 13 February 2004 at 05:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6) | Link
February 12, 2004
Blaine?! His Name is Blaine?!
I was never much on Barbie myself, and I probably can't even list all the horrible things I used to put my Barbie dolls through without drawing some censure, but the amount of press that Barbie and Ken's breakup has drawn is fascinating. If I got this much attention when I broke up with someone I could throw myself pity parties for years.
Following this major news event, however, I have two questions:
01. Why do we care about the demise of a relationship between two plastic dolls? I can (if I squint) see why people care about the breakup of Ben & Jen, but other than some sweet nostalgic pulls for days spent dressing Barbie in her wedding gear and marrying her off to Ken, what's the big fucking deal?
02. Sure, Ken was always a bit too country club for me, but why are Ken and Barbie—which are, admittedly, misleading representations of real life—being replaced with the deeply tanned and terribly disturbing Cali Girl Barbie and her studly boogie-boarding boyfriend, Blaine?
Yes, you read that right: his name is Blaine.
Posted in Quoi? | 12 February 2004 at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (10) | Link
February 11, 2004
You're a Satellite, You're a Holocaust
"I introduced the bill because a reasonable expectation of privacy is too often a regulatory afterthought, and we have seen attempt after attempt by government agencies to implement sometimes ominous regulations to allow the federal government to invade the privacy of American citizens," said Chabot. [Commenting on the privacy bill that would make the consideration of privacy rights mandatory when drafting government regulations and policies.]
The rest of this post is mainly just a geek-out moment about how much I love Movable Type. It is definitely the best blogging tool, if not one of the best internet applications, of all time.
*sigh, swoon*
And now I've found a new toy: the MT Plugin Manager.
Bless David Raynes. Bless him, bless him, bless him.
Posted in Private Eyes Are Watching You | 11 February 2004 at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1) | Link
February 10, 2004
I SO Called This
It's an interesting day in music news:
Tower Records has filed for bankruptcy, close on the heels of the demise of Wherehouse Music. It seems that the big boxes are even running the chain stores out of business. Soon the world will be one giant strip mall with Best Buys, Borders and Bed, Bath and Beyonds as far as the eye can see!
Apple is being faced with litigation over the the iPod and what users are saying were fraudulent claims about the iPod's battery life.
Sharman Networks (owners of Kazaa) are challenging the order that allowed Austrailian authorities to raid their offices last week, looking for documents to support the case against Sharman in anti-piracy proceedings.
And I totally called this protest as soon as Andre got up on stage.
Steven Bochco on the current Fear of Breasts and how it is affecting TV censorship: "To suddenly find objectionable something that three days earlier would not have been is a hysterical knee-jerk response. I can't stop them, but I think it's really lame." Amen, brother.
Posted in Corporations and Creativity | 10 February 2004 at 02:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (3) | Link
February 09, 2004
Hypocritical, But Did You Really Expect Something Else?
By now we're all aware that piracy is a huge problem, at least according to the media blitz. All the sharks in dark suits are whining about the losses being suffered by the artists, and about how piracy is taking the food off the table of working stiffs just like you and me. What I'd like to know is when did those rich jackasses start giving a damn about me and family?
I spent half my teenage years with my mother living in Canada because the her employer (studio shall remain nameless) decided it would be cheaper to film in Montreal than in California. That's all fine and good for the bottom line, but when my mother had to pay Canadian plus federal and state taxes, there wasn't much left over to feed the kids with.
What cracks me up is that these guys with their $1,000-an-hour lawyers have everyone running scared. One of the brilliant things about capitalism is that those who have the dollars to buy have the power. We have the dollars and the fact that no one wants to spend them on $18 CDs with maybe one decent song, or on $10 movie tickets for a film that is probably marginal at best (but with lots of CGI!), says to me that piracy is not the fault of the people doing the pirating but the fault of the people producing the crap they try to pass off as entertainment...and we're the ones being prosecuted!
Posted in Corporations and Creativity | 9 February 2004 at 07:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6) | Link
February 06, 2004
Know Your Mole
I tend to be a little bit paranoid about the whispers that come through every now and again about so-called "smart chips" or other technologies that pose a threat to privacy. I have no desire to have all my personal information stored on some centralized media. Call me crazy, but that isn't an acceptable trade-off: some nebulous sense of safety against predators (terrorists, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, car salesmen) in exchange for the surrender of all the information that proves that I exist and am indeed who and what I say I am. Give me a can of pepper spray, my Social Security card and my driver's license and I'll be just fine. Sure, it's more to remember—and that much harder to get it all that way.
So imagine my surprise when I found out that bars—those homes away from home—and other such institutions are able and willing to mine the personal information that is stored on your driver's license. What information, you ask?
Why, the information that they get from the 2D barcode when they swipe your card through a card reader! Once they have it, they can happily collate your data and use you as a marketing tool. Not that that is all that surprising—everyone is trying to market to you, after all—but if the bouncer at your local watering hole can get your information that easily, who else can get it? And if they can get it, what nefarious uses are they putting it to?
I mean, if you're not careful, they could get your bra size and make cupcakes out of your breasts!
Posted in Private Eyes Are Watching You | 6 February 2004 at 05:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (140) | Link
February 05, 2004
I'm Just Being Honest
You can be sure that a song has saturated the culture when someone finds a way to sync it with the dance sequence from A Charlie Brown Christmas. There's nothing like the Peanuts gang doing hardcore punches and windmills to Outkast to inspire a fit of giggles. At least for me.
Posted in Quoi? | 5 February 2004 at 04:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (88) | Link
February 03, 2004
Private Still Means 'None of Your Goddamned Business'
Though the federal government seems to have decided that any medical procedure involving a fetus that is outside the body is infanticide, the judicial branch thankfully still has their wits about them.
A judge in Virginia overturned the partial birth abortion ban, saying it was "impermissibly void for vagueness" because it violates privacy rights and (unlike previous laws in the same vein) it did not make exceptions for procedures in which the life of the mother is threatened. Further, it was worded so vaguely as to make other procedures not included in the ban questionable, if not wholly illegal.
And people get mad at me for harping on them to use specific language...
Posted in Damn Nation! | 3 February 2004 at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6) | Link
A Free Market in a Proprietary World
Not only can corporations and CEOs be ruthless, they can be childish, too!
During a speech at Harvard, two higher-ups from SCO Group—the company currently suing IBM for supposedly stealing code they added to Linux and the recent target of the MyDoom viruses—managed to sound like petulant children by declaring that they would make their code available as soon as IBM agreed to make their 10,000 patents available to the public. That has the distinct ring of "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine!"
The suit hinges on SCO's claim that IBM copied proprietary code from UnixWare, illegally duplicating a kernel for the version of Linux that IBM released for servers. In order to prove this claim, SCO must make their code public first (by court order) in order to establish exactly what code is in question, and whether or not IBM used it and, if it was used, whether or not that use was legal.
Not that I am a big IBM fan or anything, but it seems to me that SCO has a hard sell here. Not only are they avoiding showing their "proprietary" code, but they contend that they deserve to be compensated for the use of that code, written to improve the original kernel, written by Linus Torvalds. The original code and the addition, it should be noted, were released internationally by SCO under the GPL.
In fairness, they do own the patent for Unix, but Unix has been in free circulation among developers and students since its early stages of development in the '60s. So why, if I may be so bold, do they deserve to get paid licensing fees for Linux if they have already distributed the software as open-source, ceding their rights to compensation in perpetuity? I, much like many people, am baffled by the suit and by the logic behind it.
One student, who said he distributed copies of Linux outside the hall, offered to hand out more after the talks. Another asked why SCO refrained from publicizing the code they claim is infringing, so the Linux community could gut the code from the kernel and move forward without risk of violating copyrights.
McBride said that while Linux is the compilation of thousands of people donating their time and programming skills to improve kernel code created by Linus Torvalds, SCO deserves compensation for the improvements it made to Linux. Without the illegal use of SCO's code, he said, Linux isn't an attractive option anymore for high-end servers.
"We think that if you rip that code out, it's going to make Linux not nearly as attractive," he said. "But, if the common wisdom is to take that out, and to go down that path, assuming we win that court case, then absolutely that's something we'd sign up for."
Basically, they want the money and will only offer users the ability to comply with copyright law if they get what they feel is coming to them. Whatever the answers to my questions, however, SCO is planning to forge ahead in the style of the RIAA, prosecuting users of "their" software—though they "likely" won't go after individual users, such as students, who are not utilizing Linux for commercial purposes.
Their benevolence leaves me speechless.
Posted in Corporations and Creativity | 3 February 2004 at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (3) | Link
February 02, 2004
You Mean We Came From Monkeys?!?!
In another astounding foray into logic, the state of Georgia is revamping their high school curriculum. What follows is just part of the rather amazing list of cuts, which includes a tour de force of the humanities and sciences: world history from 1500 CE on; US history starting with the founding of America and skipping forward to 1876 and Reconstruction (leaving out most of the Civil War) to the present day; in science, the history of life, common descent, human origins, the role we play in the ecosystem, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and other topics would be completely eliminated; evolution will still be taught, but under a different name.
Even better than those is my personal favorite cut: Marquis Harris. The Atlanta school system did not hire this 22-year-old Rhodes Scholar nominee when he applied for a teaching position because, as expressed in the letter he was sent:
It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become.
Not to point fingers or anything, but I am amazed that Americans can wonder why other first world countries laugh at us. Watching our progressive decline into stupidity has to be the international equivalent of watching a dog eat peanut butter.
Posted in Damn Nation! | 2 February 2004 at 05:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (350) | Link
