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/

Writing stike

I will probably be dragged through the streets and burned in effigy if fans have to wait another year for “Lost” to come back. And who could blame them? Public sentiment may have swung toward the guild for now, but once the viewing audience has spent a month or so subsisting on “America’s Next Hottest Cop” and “Celebrity Eating Contest,” I have little doubt that the tide will turn against us. Which brings me to the second stage of grief: anger.

I am angry because I am accused of being greedy by studios that are being greedy. I am angry because my greed is fair and reasonable: if money is made off of my product through the Internet, then I am entitled to a small piece. The studios’ greed, on the other hand, is hidden behind cynical, disingenuous claims that they make nothing on the Web — that the streaming and downloading of our shows is purely “promotional.” Seriously?

Most of all, I’m angry that I’m not working. Not working means not getting paid. My weekly salary is considerably more than the small percentage of Internet gains we are hoping to make in this negotiation and if I’m on the picket line for just three months, I will never recoup those losses, no matter what deal gets made.

But I am willing to hold firm for considerably longer than three months because this is a fight for the livelihoods of a future generation of writers, whose work will never “air,” but instead be streamed, beamed or zapped onto a tiny chip.

Things have gotten ugly and the lines of communication have broken down completely between the guild and the studios. Perhaps it’s not too late, though, for both sides to rally around the one thing we still have in common: our mourning for the way things used to be. Instead of fighting each other, maybe we should be throwing a wake for our beloved TV. via NYtimes

That was one of the writers of Lost… I have heard many people accuse the writers of being greedy, that they make enough money and should not be demanding more. If you think about it what they are doing is the opposite of greedy… They are putting their jobs on the line for this strike.

As much as anyone I hate reality TV, if this strike doesn’t get resolved soon I have a feeling TV won’t be in my life because the only shows I do watch, like “the Office, Lost, Prison Break, Nip/Tuck” take excellent writers to make it happen. Another thing I love about this strike is that the actors are getting behind the writers because I think they realize that without writers, they would be out of work.

With a slightly more optimistic view, I hope that out of this will give more indie movies and shorts a chance to shine.. Also maybe make way for more internet podcasters and entertainers to get their name out there and get a fan base, because we all know that everyone hates reality TV and that fad will not last.

Want to support the strike? head over to http://www.strikeswag.com/ and buy some gear.

Open Social

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

* Profile Information (user data)
* Friends Information (social graph)
* Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language (Facebook requires use of FBML for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside of Facebook). Instead, developers use normal javascript and html (and can embed Flash elements). The benefit of the Google approach is that developers can use much of their existing front end code and simply tailor it slightly for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than on Facebook. via TechCrunch

About a week ago Google unveiled its Open Social platform. Me being a strong Open Source supporter had to write about this.

Many Social Networks have hopped on board, including Myspace. Just when Facebook started gaining some ground they have to pull this stubborn attitude. What advantages Facebook in staying out of the Open Social game? Nothing. They would have a lot to gain and almost nothing to lose. Heck, even Myspace understands what kind of community development and involvement this is going to mean.

And with the announcement of Google’s Andriord OS today (which is an open source development of mobile phones), Facebook will be left out of all that fun… And I bet when its released (‘08) it will be a big hit.

For open social APIs:
http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/

I like Facebook, but seriously this may be the end of their high road.

Swords and laserz

 

Veronica belmont and Tom Merritt (Two of the best tech podcast hosts out there) founded the Sword and Laser, which is a SciFi/ Fantasy book club.    0.o    I’m so in.   The first book? the Golden Compass. Perfect seeing how the movie is just around the corner…. Note to self; bookstore tomorrow.

PS: Veronica and Tom… Good on ya. 
Visit The Sword and Laser

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

Great Wall

“Flickr is the latest casualty of China’s ongoing battle to control the internet. Wikipedia and a raft of other popular websites, discussion boards and blogs have already fallen victim to the country’s censors.

Yang Zhou is no cyber-dissident, but recent curbs on his web surfing habits by China’s censors have him fomenting discontent about China’s “Great Firewall.”

Yang’s fury erupted a few days ago when he found he could not browse his friend’s holiday snaps on Flickr.com, due to access restrictions by censors after images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were posted on the photo-sharing website.

Yang just thinks it’s a pain. “I just want to look at some photos! What’s wrong with that?” says the 24-year-old accountant, typical of millions of young urban-dwelling professionals who are increasingly aware of and fed up with state intrusions into their private life.”

Yeah, damn commies! They are in need of a great cyber revolution…

Absurd Climate

 Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that “the science is settled.” At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn’t seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don’t question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of “stopping global climate change.” Liberal MP Ralph Goodale’s June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have “a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world,” would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

“Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long “Younger Dryas” cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade — 100 times faster than the past century’s 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.” via Finacial Post

“How much has the planet warmed up over the past century? Most people reckon between two and three degrees. They are not even close. The real figure, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 0.6C.It’s not surprising most people get it wrong. We are bombarded by stories warning us that global warming is out of control. The most extreme warn us we will be living in a tropical Britain where malaria is rife and Norfolk has disappeared altogether.” via Marquette Warrior

The artical goes into more about how we should be more worried about the inevitable global cooling stage of our planet and consider ourselves lucky we are in a warming phase. These people and their “scare tactics” just upset me.

Seven Hours

“Passengers on a Continental Airlines flight had to hold their noses for hours as sewage overflowed from toilets while they were high over the Atlantic.

“To be blatantly honest, I was more nervous than I had ever been on a flight,” said Collin Brock. The University Place man was on board Continental Airlines flight 1970 from Amsterdam to Newark, New Jersey last week when things went bad.

“Ive never felt so offended in all my life. I felt like i had been physically abused and neglected. I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours,” said Brock.”

I’m not even sure what to say. Could you imagine sitting through this flight for seven hours? Nope even a lame $500 voucher they got wouldn’t remove the emotional trauma that would occur for me. Every time I looked at an airplane I would get sick. Gross.

Funny Faces

“ANTIOCH, Calif. (AP) – Kim Mayorga was confused when her 2-year-old started making funny faces and pushing away the apple juice he had ordered at Applebee’s. The explanation came when she opened the lid of the sippy cup and was hit by the smell of tequila and Triple Sec.

The restaurant staff accidentally gave Julian Mayorga a margarita Monday. He grew drowsy and started vomiting a few hours later and was rushed to the hospital.”

“I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it,” the mother told the Contra Costa Times on Thursday, “but then he got sick.”

The apple juice and margarita mix were stored in identical plastic bottles, and the manager mistakenly grabbed the margarita container to pour the boy’s drink, said Randy Tei, vice president for Apple Bay East Inc., which owns the franchise restaurant and nine other Applebee’s in the San Francisco Bay area.”

Really, there are some things that just shouldn’t happen. Giving a toddler a margarita instead of apple juice is one of them. This is one of the few instances that you shouldn’t tip your waiter, or maybe with slighty different circumstances this diserves a larger tip?