Category Archives: Rants and Raves

A boatload of crazy

Today, January 18, 2012, has become a protest day against the US government bills called SOPA and PIPA. Major sites like google, wikipedia, reddit, wordpress, tumblr, and mozilla, along with literally thousands of others, are raising awareness by ‘going dark’ in various degrees. Other sites aren’t ‘going dark’, but are spreading the word by highlighting their views on the proposed legislation on their front pages. Overall, it has been extremely successful – discussion is rampant across the internet among the less technical crowd, which was exactly the goal.

Generally, the tech community feels that the SOPA/PIPA proposals are a problem because they give too much power to interest groups with no accountability like the MPAA, and because they propose the heavy handed and poorly thought out ‘solution’ of DNS blocking that will do essentially nothing to the illegal pirate sites that are supposed to be the target, yet will incur huge costs for sites operating legitimately on the internet.

I personally would add that any suggestion to take away freedoms and give policing power to private interest groups is a really really bad idea.

As publicity ramped up yesterday, the MPAA released this statement.

Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.

It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.

As terrified as I am that these people have jobs, let alone astronomical budgets and countless politicians in their pockets, I can’t help but feel amazed at the sheer amount of blatent crazy they crammed into these three short paragraphs. Let’s start at the top!

White House…responded to the major concerns expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together…

They might be talking about this, but they would be crazy to imply that is on their side. I encourage you to read the White House stance, but from where I’m sitting it basically says everything the protesters have been saying: piracy sucks and needs to be fought actively but not at the expense of internet freedom and not in a way that punishes legitimate businesses.

…some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem…

So much crazy in one little sentence fragment! First of all, gathering like minded people together to contact their representatives about how they feel about upcoming legislation is EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Exactly. Derisively calling this a stunt is sheer stupidity, but it does a good job of highlighting the MPAA’s views toward the system. Secondly – punishing their users? Seriously? Even if these sites are ‘punishing their users’, which they most certainly are NOT, does the MPAA actually have a problem with that? Are they not allowed to select the content on their sites? Wouldn’t the MPAA, who would benefit immensely from this legislation passing, want these sites to lose support? Lastly, these companies are the entire reason a discussion is even happening. Implying they are in some way unwilling to provide feedback and propose better solutions is crazy on a new level, even for these guys. The doublethink that is going on over there must be palpable.

It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.

This is absolutely crazy. Every single website should always have the right/power/freedom to not only select their content but to decide if they are going to show that content, ‘go dark’, push their political agendas, or shutdown altogether. The MPAA, on the other hand, has a long list of what I would call actual ‘abuses of power’. Maybe they don’t know what this phrase means?

It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

Here, let me fix that.

It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts [CITATION NEEDED] to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests [CITATION NEEDED].

There, that’s better.

[the blackouts are] designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals

WHAT? Are we still having the same discussion here? I’m not sure what is more crazy: the MPAA is saying that getting citizens to contact their representatives is a punishment, or implying that these sites (many of which create high paying American jobs) asking not to be destroyed by crazy legislation means they are somehow against American jobs.

It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.

Hyperbole is another one of those words they should be careful of. For those of you playing at home, hyperbole is an english word meaning “Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally”. In this case, the MPAA is saying one or more of the following:

  1. “these companies are exaggerating their claims that censoring the internet is bad and that we should not be putting legislative power into the hands of interest groups”
  2. “these companies don’t actually intend for anyone to take literally their claims that censoring the internet is bad and that we should not be putting legislative power into the hands of interest groups”
  3. “all these guys are liars and jerk heads!”

Maybe I can clear this up for them with some examples. Encouraging people to make their voices heard is not hyperbole or exaggeration. Better ways to describe this might be ‘taking part in your government’ or ‘discouraging corruption using the voices of the people’. On the other hand, here are some articles detailing how the MPAA has exaggerated and falsified their numbers about losses to piracy. Summary – the MPAA claims every single person to watch a pirated clip, episode, or film would have purchased the entire DVD at full price (which is absolutely crazy). On top of that, one of their examples is that when they sell a $10 DVD, $7 of those dollars go to the manufacturer and $2 goes to the shipper, for a total of $19 of loss! Somehow they are claiming that the $10 you spend on a DVD becomes $19 of payout. I’m honestly shocked any of their accountants are still employed.

tl;dr – the MPAA is a crazy, lying, hypocritical group of power-hungry psychopaths who either don’t understand representative government or would rather this country be less concerned with its citizens’ freedom and more concerned the MPAA’s profits.

Digital Copyright and the Lack Thereof

Here we go for another round. This is really a rant, but I think enough people are going to blindly agree with the government and the RIAA/MPAA that this will fit snugly into controversy corner as well (judgmental, blanket statements like that will also help).

Like all the major issues that have vehement people on both sides, I think the argument fails because each side is arguing a different facet of the issue. For example, the abortion debate — one side is saying “don’t kill babies”. Nobody wants to kill babies guys, take a deep breath. The other side, instead of arguing “kill babies” like the first seems to think, is instead arguing “a couple cells aren’t babies yet”. The gray area of where they ARE babies, is what SHOULD be argued, but whatev. Now, some pro-life people say they are all babies from even one cell are doing great, from the argument’s perspective. However, the ‘potential for life’ side of the fence makes me think they should be up in arms about the millions of misused tube socks in teenage boys’ rooms across the world as well…

Back to the topic at hand! The RIAA/MPAA’s point is that stealing is wrong — they are calling it Piracy. Nobody disagrees with this. In fact, we all suffer through their anti-piracy ads (“You wouldn’t steal a handbag… You wouldn’t steal a car…”) and agree with each point as it goes by. That is, until they get to the “downloading movies is stealing” part. They really aren’t the same thing are they? At all… For some reason, we’re supposed to believe them when they just say things, even if they aren’t true.

Here is the crux of the issue: your harddrive doesn’t belong to the RIAA/MPAA, the government, or anyone else. Really, it doesn’t. When you make the bits inside it line up a certain way, it doesn’t magically become someone else’s property. Really, it doesn’t. When you show someone else the pattern of your bits (sounds naughty :D ), and they line up theirs in the same way, no crime has happened here. Really. If you learn a song from the radio, it’s all there in your brain. Do you feel like you stole it? Of course not. There is something inherent in stealing, which is taking something away from someone else and keeping it. This is simply not the case. Nobody has lost anything, you have made a duplicate in exactly the same way as making a mix tape off the radio or taking a picture of a painting or literally just remembering something. Now taking that and selling it, that is abusing intellectual property, which is a different beast altogether.

The bad guys are desperately trying to hold on to a pre-digital business model in a digital age. We no longer MUST have a VHS tape in our VCR to watch a movie. We don’t need a CD in to listen to music. In fact, these things are very limiting and having them makes it harder to enjoy the content. They haven’t adapted to the changing market and, as capitalism demands, they’re beginning to fail. You can’t make a profit selling other obsolete things, why is it any different? If I tried selling mini-discs then starting complaining that MP3 players are stealing, you would laugh at me, and rightly so.

They are selling something people no longer need. Losing sales from a poor business idea is NOT the same as being stolen from.

I’d love to see some famous musicians make a major public push to having their music free online. They need to ALSO sell CDs to people who want them, and have merchandise (shirts, posters, autographs, etc). These are tangible things we want and are willing to pay for and can’t get without stealing (the real kind, which most people don’t want to do). Unfortunately, this is hard for artists because of the record label/radio conglomerate deadlock we have set up — perhaps in a few years there will be a strong enough internet presence to go around the radio BS and still be famous.

Synopsis:
Downloading movies/music isn’t stealing because ‘they’ can’t decide in what pattern you organize your hard drive, and because you aren’t taking anything from anyone.

Bands should be selling actual things — products like CDs, autographs, shirts, posters, and other merch, and services like live shows. These are things you can sell, and people will gladly pay for them.

The music/movie industry needs to adapt to the digital world. If they really want to keep their inflated sales model, maybe they should try selling custom hardware that is the only way to play their product. People will always crack it though, so a better solution is to adapt to the times — find a way to stream your content to users EASILY and CHEAPLY. The days of charging us $20 a dvd are dying, unfortunately (for you), but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a viable distribution method that earns more revenue after theater sales.

The fact of the matter remains, however, that the RIAA/MPAA has TONS of money and has created legislature using that money to make sharing the contents of your hard drive a crime, despite things like logic and reason. Perhaps one day lawmakers and judges will learn how a computer works and reconsider, but I cynically think the money will always make the laws. If you don’t like it, your only options as a citizen are to protest (write your senator? lol) or just bend over further and keep taking it.

Maybe they should make their money selling lube instead…

Controversy Corner

I’ve decided to make a new category for my little blurbs, quips, and mutterings that are almost certainly going to offend people, including but not limited to being blatantly on one side of a controversial issue. Some things ‘matter’, like abortion, religion, gun control, etc, but most of them are meaningless opinions blathered about popular bands or icons or ‘american pasttimes’ (baseball, you know I’m coming for you). Perhaps we can start some hilariously heated comment chains…

So, without further ado, my first entry to controversy corner:

“War Pigs” is a terrible song and I can’t figure out why so many people seem to love it. It’s awkward, long, and boring.

Zombie Panic

Zombie Panic: Source is the worst game I’ve played in a long long time. It looks terrible, and the gameplay is so horribly tedious I wanted to gnaw something off myself.

That is all.

Are you kidding me?

Last night I installed Ubuntu on my other machine via Wubi so I could test and package CGL on *nix. Today has been nothing but trouble.

Actually that isn’t true. It started out well – CGL runs beautifully on linux, no tweaks required. Huzzah! Making an executable, however, is an entirely different story. Let’s all be honest with each other — I know nothing about C++. It’s my biggest downfall as a programmer. I just can never stick with it enough to learn it — so many crappy, pain in the ass things to hold it back. This is not an excuse – I should learn it. Especially if I want to be in game development. Anyhoo…

I finally broke down and asked for help getting pyinstaller to compile. Apparently it isn’t finding some important libs that even I know about, like string.h and the like. Much searching, much failing, until I finally stumble on this link – http://www.spiration.co.uk/post/1291. Apparently, ubuntu ships with gcc and make, but no include files necessary for, well, everything.

Yes. Read it again.

I’m still recovering from the anger/bewilderment combo.