I encountered the reference to this Village Voice piece in an article on Slate's website during their 10 year anniversary. It's a fairly long tale of a virtual rape which intrigued me enough to read to the end. Reading this now in 2006, I can only think of the type of reaction that it had at the time versus the type of reaction it will receive today as you read it from the future of computing and social networking sites. I implore you to read it as any significant technophile will find it a decent read if not extremely more pertinant in our now decidely information age. Check it. If the link does not work type in the seach string "a rape in cyberspace" (sans quotes) and you should be able to find it. Tell me what you think.
Monday, June 26, 2006
A few bits of Social Phenomena
Two little bits here that seem unrelated although some abstract thought in my head that is pretty hard to put my finger on tells me somehow they are.
In this piece about the loss of close inter-personal relationships as a by product of the internet, I think the last paragraph states the problem with this type of study correctly. The study used was done from 1985-2004. Much has changed in this 20 year span, not least of which are our popular and understood definitions of roles in society. What was then considered to be close friends may no longer have a place in our modern society, this does not mean that the role of the close friend has been erased from our society. The safety net described by a network of close personal friends may simply have morphed past the understanding of this survey. Topics that used to be discussed between a person and their peers that were considered by the affected party as "a serious personal matter" may now be handed off to a web of friends on a favorite social networking site (composed argueably of close personal peers) or on a site that caters to that particular area of personal concern. A problem that used to seem so dire to a high school student (sexual/physical initiation with a partner, a family problem, or a matter affecting peformance in school) now seem to find their ways onto chat forums with hundreds if not thousands of people willing to give mostly honest opinions as to the best roads to take for a resolution. The right question here is which method is better. A few close social friends act as a good group to talk to because they know you and you trust their opinion, hence close friend. Now we live past the time when Arkanoid was the bomb and our social net was not even imagined to be as large as many people's are today. Maybe the closeness and feelings we used to use to solve these problems has been moved to a different domain and a time when sharing problems with perfect strangers doesn't seem so far fetched.
This article about Adult Immaturity really does help explain the socio-political climate that exists in our world today. It's hard to explain the kinds of news stories and arguements we here between today's supposedly enlightened and advanced minds another way. I hate to turn this into a administration bashing piece, but the way the American system of Government runs today does seem to mimic what a government would look like if it were run by children trying to give the appearance of logic and order. Some of the time it would look like the left did not know what the right was doing nor did it care, and the rest of the time it would seem like idiotic bickering and unwilligness to yield/compromise were the norms, both things that adolescents are well known for.
In this piece about the loss of close inter-personal relationships as a by product of the internet, I think the last paragraph states the problem with this type of study correctly. The study used was done from 1985-2004. Much has changed in this 20 year span, not least of which are our popular and understood definitions of roles in society. What was then considered to be close friends may no longer have a place in our modern society, this does not mean that the role of the close friend has been erased from our society. The safety net described by a network of close personal friends may simply have morphed past the understanding of this survey. Topics that used to be discussed between a person and their peers that were considered by the affected party as "a serious personal matter" may now be handed off to a web of friends on a favorite social networking site (composed argueably of close personal peers) or on a site that caters to that particular area of personal concern. A problem that used to seem so dire to a high school student (sexual/physical initiation with a partner, a family problem, or a matter affecting peformance in school) now seem to find their ways onto chat forums with hundreds if not thousands of people willing to give mostly honest opinions as to the best roads to take for a resolution. The right question here is which method is better. A few close social friends act as a good group to talk to because they know you and you trust their opinion, hence close friend. Now we live past the time when Arkanoid was the bomb and our social net was not even imagined to be as large as many people's are today. Maybe the closeness and feelings we used to use to solve these problems has been moved to a different domain and a time when sharing problems with perfect strangers doesn't seem so far fetched.
This article about Adult Immaturity really does help explain the socio-political climate that exists in our world today. It's hard to explain the kinds of news stories and arguements we here between today's supposedly enlightened and advanced minds another way. I hate to turn this into a administration bashing piece, but the way the American system of Government runs today does seem to mimic what a government would look like if it were run by children trying to give the appearance of logic and order. Some of the time it would look like the left did not know what the right was doing nor did it care, and the rest of the time it would seem like idiotic bickering and unwilligness to yield/compromise were the norms, both things that adolescents are well known for.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Someone Get These People A Dateline DVD
In the first of what is sure to be many lawsuits against social netowrking sites, a 14 year old girl and her Mother (I guarantee mostly her mother) is suing myspace.com, their parent company and a 19 year old of sexual assault (the crime itself was perpetrated by the 19 year old, myspace did not sexually assault this girl). This absurd. I read a bunch of the comments on this site, and I agree with most of them. Since when is it the total responsibility of a website or ISP to protect minors who willingly go out on dates with perfect strangers? Seriously, when are people going to stop treating the internet and WWW like some magic black box that you can't understand. Chat rooms have been around for like 15 years now. 15 years of warnings about sexual predators and people who lie to childrent to prey on them. Numerous parodies have been created about the classic conversation between some fat balding man and some cracked out whorish looking women where each one describes themselves and totally opposite from what they look like. Those were the days of just straight text, now we have websites where you can post pictures and video and people can see all these little blurbs about you and we are still singing the same song, "Internet, Won't you protect me and my ilk from those that would hurt us?". The answer is no, you take the good, you take the bad. You take them both and then you have the internet.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Last.FM
Yo,
Most that know me know that I like the whole social networking thing. Heck, I met a chick on one of those sites (facebook, myspace, friendster, etc...) and it actually seems to be working out. Last.fm is like a social network for music, its actually pretty nice if not a little dense. Check it out and look through it. It's free to join but some of the better features you need to pay for, like everything else. If you end up joining, look me up so you can become my friend, or even my musical neighbor. My username is makinola (if you couldn't have guessed that).
Most that know me know that I like the whole social networking thing. Heck, I met a chick on one of those sites (facebook, myspace, friendster, etc...) and it actually seems to be working out. Last.fm is like a social network for music, its actually pretty nice if not a little dense. Check it out and look through it. It's free to join but some of the better features you need to pay for, like everything else. If you end up joining, look me up so you can become my friend, or even my musical neighbor. My username is makinola (if you couldn't have guessed that).
Monday, June 19, 2006
Nausicca Of The Valley Of Wind, For Real...
The Japanese are at it again attempting to make a Sweet Little Flyer based on the Anime Movie mentioned in the subject header. The movie was actually pretty cool, if not just a little old.
Fight the Power, Beat the Corruptibles!!
Finally an easy way to understand why some forms of DRM suck. Here's a nice link to an EFF cartoon.
EFF: The Corruptibles
BTW, this is a test of the PERFORMANCING extension for firefox. Check it out. Also for those that are not down with Googlesync, try out Foxmarks, seems to be a little less of a hog than google sync and you can log onto the website for your bookmarks to follow you.
EFF: The Corruptibles
BTW, this is a test of the PERFORMANCING extension for firefox. Check it out. Also for those that are not down with Googlesync, try out Foxmarks, seems to be a little less of a hog than google sync and you can log onto the website for your bookmarks to follow you.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
REPENT!!!
While I was at a Highland Games Festival (Mad Anthony Rugby Tournament) a few weeks ago my friend received this as some random hand-out. It was a million dollar bill on the front and there was text on the back. We read it and found it quite humorous, take a look. I wrote the text down just in case you can't zoom in close enough to read the back of the bill. I don't want to screw anyone out of God's love lest I be sent to Hell. Although according to this thing and the lust I have felt in my heart when looking at women, I am doomed anyway.
Text on Back of Bill, my comments in bold:
The million dollar question (get it?): Will you go to Heaven? Here's a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God's name in vain? (See you guys there!) Jesus Said, "Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (What?! OK so its not allowed to be attracted to women? Procreation as a joyless exercise, this must be the work of the protestants). Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgement Day? If you have done those things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart (Man, God really doesn't have any leeway at all). The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell. That's not God's will (It surely isn't mine). He sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. Jesus took your punishment upon Himself: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life". Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it. www.livingwaters.com
When your done with that, read this little fictitious transcript from World O' Crap. Jesus as the whipping boy liberal, funny stuff.
Text on Back of Bill, my comments in bold:
The million dollar question (get it?): Will you go to Heaven? Here's a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God's name in vain? (See you guys there!) Jesus Said, "Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (What?! OK so its not allowed to be attracted to women? Procreation as a joyless exercise, this must be the work of the protestants). Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgement Day? If you have done those things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart (Man, God really doesn't have any leeway at all). The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell. That's not God's will (It surely isn't mine). He sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. Jesus took your punishment upon Himself: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life". Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it. www.livingwaters.com
When your done with that, read this little fictitious transcript from World O' Crap. Jesus as the whipping boy liberal, funny stuff.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Someone is Actually Reading the Things I Write...
Hello everyone. It has finally happened. I read an article, posted a response and actually got a response back from the author. This confirms that someone is actually sometimes reading the crap that I spout. Yay for me, thanks Mr.McAllister for taking me seriously enough to write back to, slow news day or do you actually do this often? All the same, here is the original article, with my and Mr. McAllisters responses posted below. What do the imaginary people I envision reading this blog post think? Has the FSF gone to far, is Mr. McAllister right in defending the corporations right to make money (simplistic version of his arguement I know) or do the RIAA and MPAA need to seriously review what they are doing and begin giving us, the end user, what we really need and want?
Emails back and Forth:
Emails back and Forth:
To: Neil McAllister; InfoWorld Letters
Subject: RE: Free Software Foundation: Free as in "do what I say"
Hello Mr. Mcallister,
The article you wrote in infoworld was very interesting. I agree that is it wrong to turn the FSF into some kind of radical group espousing the ideas of every person that has a bone to pick with Apple or Microsoft, using the example of DRM is not quite the place to prove your point however. Radical or not, DRM directly effects the freedom of people to use various types of software as they see fit. I agree that illegal copying and pirating are a problem for the recording and movie industries and that right now DRM is a way for them to control it, this does not make DRM inherently right though. Just because people buy something doesn't make it the only solution that can be used. The RIAA and MPAA among other companies buy into this scheme because right now they have no other clue of what to do to satisfy both customers and their shareholders/business model at the same time. So while the end user sits with a crippled song and limited options of what they can do with the property they are supposed to have some type of control over, the larger corporations are satisfied and have no incentive to really find a better solution.
This is where a group such as the FSF comes in and begins to speak for the end user that singularly has no real voice against the Goliath of major corporations. You think the success of one on-line music store and few very minor successes of digital content e-tailers is the market speaking and saying "Yes, DRM is good and we are happy with it"? That point is one sided. I'll tell your right now that people trading music and downloading illegal songs are not all eastern European hackers, they are people that just don't want to deal with the crippling nature of online music right now. And yes, sometimes the public is too stupid to know what's good for them (this includes me sometimes, I don't propose to be some type of super informed individual who always knows right from wrong). We are guided by shallow marketing campaigns and laziness, which is most of the time easier than trying to define what we want and bringing that unified front to an industry run by and for big business and excessive profit.
In your article you quote Peter Brown comparing DRM laden files with a car that couldn't steer. I wouldn't really agree with that (I wouldn't call it patently absurd either), but I would compare DRM'ed files to a car that takes only one kind of fuel grade. Not just unleaded, but one specific type of fuel grade. Imagine if there were 10-15 different fuel grades used for all cars? You think every gas station would stock every one? Right now we have 3-4 and still not all gas stations can keep up. Customers wouldn't be too happy with the situation, I guarantee it. If you bring the level down to something simpler and smaller like music files it's easier to see why people gloss over the difference but the idea is still the same, I agree that certain parts of your argument were valid. Organizations should be careful not to stray into areas that are not part of their logical work, but the FSF I believe is in bounds with their unilateral resistance to DRM. I don't know if big demonstrations where people where hazmat suits are the best idea, but at least they are trying.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Hi Adeola (do I have that name right)?
My view on the subject is this: The FSF purports to be about free software. And yet, it apparently wants to dictate to the people who create software the kind of software they're allowed to create. Does that seem consistent to you? Doesn't to me.
Make no mistake, I'm not actually for DRM for the entertainment industry. I think this is a mistaken assumption that most of those people who are inevitably going to send me hate mail are going to make. I'm no sucker. I would never pay for a DRM-encoded song, movie, what have you. But I wouldn't listen to Britney Spears either; that doesn't mean I'm in favor of preventing record companies from putting out her albums.
I believe in free speech and the free market. Mind you, I'm no libertarian. I believe there are some situations in which society needs to step in and limit, restrict or control the means and procedures of production of goods and services, for the greater good of society. What I definitely DON'T believe, however, is that society has a right to arbitrarily limit, restrict or control the WILL, RIGHT, or LIBERTY of any single organization to attempt to engage in the production of goods and services, through coercion or any other means. To my mind this is what the FSF now seeks to do with its stance on this one technology, which we know colloquially as DRM.
The larger picture here is that DRM technology is just that, technology. My argument is the "guns don't kill people" argument. I agree with Sun Microsystems, which is in the process of developing an open source DRM stack, that there are wider applications for DRM than just keeping people from copying MP3s. If we are not so shortsighted as to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, DRM could be beneficial to all of us in a time when privacy is increasingly threatened and the need to restrict the free flow of information has never been greater.
In that light, I see the FSF's current stance as being shortsighted, parochial, paternalistic, and counterproductive.
Thanks for writing.
Best,
--
Neil McAllister, Senior Editor
InfoWorld Media Group
neil_mcallister@infoworld.com 415.978.3287
From: adeola.akinola@kodak.com [mailto:adeola.akinola@kodak.com]
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 5:17 AM
To: Neil McAllister
Subject: RE: Free Software Foundation: Free as in "do what I say"
Thanks Mr. McAllister,
For the response, I think I understand your point a little bit better than I had previously had. Also I never intended this to be some sort of hate mail and if it sounded like that I apologize. I like open discourse, thanks for providing it.
Adeola
Adeola,
Not at all, I appreciate all my mail.
Best,
--
Neil McAllister, Senior Editor
InfoWorld Media Group
neil_mcallister@infoworld.com 415.978.3287
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