RIAA Brainstorm

 

I know how hard it is to be a student, pay for tuition, books, rent, food, strippers… its tough without the RIAA sending you litigation letters demanding you send them $3,000 – $4,000 dollars to make the whole thing go away, otherwise face a lawsuit which could end up being much more ($222,000 in one case). The record companies point to a decrease of 9.5 percent in album sales in 2007. How about actually take a look at the crap your spewing out of the ass end of your record companies, and maybe consider that people don’t want purchase music when shoving shit directly into your ears would be much easier (and cheaper).

 

I don’t know why these judges allow these things to go through. College students already have enough problems with debt, without “settling” an unfair case with the RIAA over supposed music sharing. Leads me to lose faith in our lawmakers and judges, allowing the country’s youth to be raped like this. The RIAA has even suggested that students should drop out to pay settlements.

When you ponder this keep in mind that the RIAA is a multi-billion dollar association with absolutely no proof other than the IP address of the computer that shared music, which can be compromised in many ways… Most students do not even know they are “sharing” files because it is enabled by default in most music downloading programs.

Two Things need to happen:

1. RIAA needs to embrace digital content instead of trying to protect a dieing system and suing their own consumers. Or better yet the RIAA needs to roll over and die.

2. Our law makers need to put in place a limit to how much the judgment can be in a case… Like I said in one case $222,000 for downloading a few songs. Also maybe talk to anybody that knows anything about networking and understand this one fact: IP Adress does not equal a person..

image via: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/

Of Montreal

So I went to the “Of Montreal” concert last night at the Great American Music Hall in sf. The two bands opening for them were hilarious esp “Grand buffet”..

Although I had a good time, one of my friends almost got into a brawl with another girl… People, when you go to a concert venue remember something, it isnt a club, you can’t push you way anywhere you want and when someone blocks your way, I don’t care who you are it isn’t nice to pour your beer on them.

People payed the same price you did to be there so don’t act like you have the right to be in front.

Here are a few acoustic numbers by of Montreal.

-(Kevin Barnes) Chrissie Kiss The Corpse 

-(Kevin Barnes) Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse

Jet-lagged

Completely overslept this morning making me almost late for work if it wasn’t for the intervention of an awesome friend. This oversleeping + maybe the time change last night, has put me into semi jet-lag. It was dark so early it threw me off.

Today is Sunday, and therefore always my worst day of the week. However tomorrow I think I am going to look in “upping” my career position in a few different ways. I was looking at where I was with school and my job and realized its not as bad as I thought… actually I’m doing really well compared to lots of other people my age. I don’t know why sometimes I just feel I’m not where I could be. (Maybe I will always be in that state no matter where I am?)

Reading “The Plague” by Albert Camus this week and seem to be flyin’ through it pretty damned fast. I need another hobby besides computers and reading… Maybe I’ll start building my Steam Punk costume for next Halloween so I’ll actually have something to wear!! But before I can I need to make and emergency trip to Japan and go see a guy about this watch:

Yes, it will be mine.

See his other watches at

 http://www.eager-beavers.net/products/shouhin_guide.cgi?temp=TMP0

San Fran; Junkie safe rooms.

City health officials took steps Thursday toward opening the nation’s first legal safe-injection room, where addicts could shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses.

Hoping to reduce San Francisco’s high rate of fatal drug overdoses, the public health department co-sponsored a symposium on the only such facility in North America, a four-year-old Vancouver site where an estimated 700 intravenous users a day self-administer narcotics under the supervision of nurses.

Interesting… So its illegal to shoot up your brand of drugs in the street, however venture into a approved room where you can be monitored by nurses is cool. Makes sense however I think it maybe sort of giving up? or at least giving the impression of accepting that drugies use drugs.

Well if anyplace would be the place I guess it would be Califonia.

via; http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/ 

Money as debt

“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something.
They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

-Woodrow Wilson
former persident of the United States
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

I was enjoying a smoke and a cup of coffee with a friend at a starbucks and the conversation let to money somehow, and it reminded me of this documentry I saw on the internet once of a guy explaining how the US Dollar represents nothing but debt. I’ll try to break this down… Lets say you deposit $100 cash dollars into a bank, that bank can use $90 (assuming that the reserve requirement is 10%) to loan to someone else, that then gets put back into the economy and is used to buy iPods, food, whatever and eventually gets deposited at another bank. That bank then can use $81 of that $90 dollars to lend out to someone else, and keep the loop going you will eventually get a lot of money created out of thin air…

Heres a picture for people how have trouble reading long paragraphs(I know who you are!):

You see in the picture that with $100 deposit the bank created $171.. but as long as they meet the reserve requirement to back these loans (3-10%) they are allowed to do this… in fact this is what drives our economy.

 Then why does banking work if we are always creating this money?

Because, banking is about trust. You trust that they will have your money when you need it and they trust (and hope) that everyone doesn’t withdrawal at the same time… Even though that is very odd it works… but it has its long term effects such as the united states will always be in a state of debt and the Dollar is backed by nothing but debt.

Something to ponder next time you take a loan, or deposit… Who are you really borrowing from? Where is your money really going? Watch the video… let me know what you think.

 

System

I realized earlier this summer I have a vague system in which I do things. Most of which is leaving the house an hour and a half before I have to be at work, get on the Bart, go to Starbucks, kick it and make the most of a cigarette and then finally arrive at work, the same routine getting off of work.

I have an Ipod that I catch up on some podcasts for real news whilst on the Bart. When I get to Starbucks I listen to music read the paper and catch up on what paris hilton is doing. It’s a perfectly enjoyable experience for me.

Well, tonight I was about to do the reverse of my routine which included me picking up smokes cause I was out, when my co-worker asked someone else who I don’t know to give me a ride to the Bart station! She comes up to me and says “By the way I got a ride to Bart for you.” I was perfectly happy with walking, I was actually looking forward to listening to a new album I put on my Ipod and its such a great night out. Just the thought of sitting in a car with someone I don’t know, thinking they are doing me a favor gives me anxiety. I could just say “No thanks” but that would be kind of rude since he didn’t volunteer, someone asked him. I don’t really want that to be the first impression of someone I work with.

So I then decided to vent and dedicate this rant to people who volunteer other people to do things. Be sure you are actually doing them a favor first.

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Sisyphus

 “There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional.” -Albert Camus

This is an excellent quote from the Albert Camus book “The Myth of Sisyphus“. You could take this in two ways, love in a realationship and love of life. Like Sisyphus does, you should live both of these expierences to the fullest, even though both (Life and Love) are inevitably short-lived and at times meaningless.

Sisyphus’ fate of forever push a rock up a mountain is no less absurd than people going to the same meaningless job doing the same tasks and habits, but like Camus says “But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious”.

photo via Luna Park

Context

 Everyonce and a while I find something on the net that makes me upset. Like this article “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace”. Let me just quote a paragraph from the article:

“MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.”

While this may upset you like it did me for a lot of different reasons. I looked a little deeper to see how the author could have wrote the well put together essay on something so really freaking absurd. Found a blog post from her saying:

“I think some folks misinterpreted this piece as an academic article. No doubt this is based on my observations from the field, but this is by no means an academic article. I did add some methodological footnotes in the piece so that folks would at least know where the data was coming from. But I didn’t situate or theorize or contextualize this at all.”

It was here I realised that this was just an essay not meant to really be shared with 90,000 people, it was really just something to get conversation going between friends and things. Someone posted it on Digg, Reddit and a number of other news sites and it got around fast.

Context is extremely important when judging someones written work. Danah Boyd, who is really an excellent writer was thrashed with hate mail and other bullshit. Check out her blog here.

photo via: Noqontrol

Menthol

 Everytime I light up a smoke near one of my non-smoking friends I always, without fail get the ” You know smoking kills right?”   Do you really think that I wasnt subject to the same “Smoke and everyone you know dies” commercials as you? Certianly smoking is a better vice than the other stuff people do for fun. Let me pick my own poison.

 Yep, I am aware that smoking causes cancer. Why do I smoke then? Lets set it straight now. I like it. Plain and simple, I enjoy it. Especially as a social thing. Brand of choice? Marlboro Menthol Milds

Another thing, I think women smoking is sexy. Photo via Wisdoms