Call your congressman and tell him to pull his head out of his ass.
The big tech issues and concerns at the moment involve congress passing laws that would either outlaw standard practices, or require new regulations or inhibitors that would effectively give one organization or industry control over an entire range of media.
Ain’t nothing but a business thang.
There is no way — no way — this is anything but beneficial in the purely economic sense for big businesses. At no time in history, has the strict control over the manufacture of any item been in the end beneficial to that business. Inevitably, either the product stagnates, or the rest of the world will move on without you.
Look at my beloved Macintosh computer. You may think that right now they are relatively well off. But in 1979, they had a 81 percent market share. 8 out of every ten personal computers sold was made by Apple, who has almost always maintained a monopoly on the manufacture of their equipment. Two years later, IBM introduced their first PC and licensed it to all interested parties, and every consecutive year after that Apple’s sales have declined by half.
These bills before congress are all form an economic standpoint of what is best for a specific industry at this exact moment. But no major societal advancement has ever come from a product or good.
Despite what you were told in history class, the invention of the printing press did very little by itself. You could print all the materials you wanted at the time, but they were all in Latin; a language totally illegible to the majority of people alive at that time. It wasn’t until several people, at the risk of their very lives, translated the Bible and other major church documents into the common tongue of the area, that substantial amounts of people realized they had been lied to all their lives by elders and ministers.
The Internet existed for decades without critical acclaim, before a group of scientists decided they wanted it to be easier for each other to have access to their research and papers. This desire to improve access to their educational information spawned the World Wide Web, and with it, an entry point to global communication for every redneck with an income tax refund check.
The current crop of lobbyists, if they’re anything like their predecessors, are shooting themselves in the foot with all their demands. The movie industry has lobbied against TV, against movies on TV, against movies on VHS and on DVD. Every single time, they luckily lost, and proceeded to make more money than anyone ever imagined in that new field.
Even when a industry group manages to be one step ahead, they will use that advantage to trip up the person (I will not use the term consumer). When it became obvious that CD burners would become widely available, and people would be able to aggregate whatever content they wished, many countries granted the music industries a tax on the price of blank CDs, to offset what was bound to be a loss due to people copying music from one CD to another. (Since so many people photocopy the work I do, does that mean I should collect money on every sheet of paper sold?) But now the RIAA is claiming that music sales are unexpectedly suffering due to the exchange of music via the digital medium.
They are trying to screw you with a 12-incher. But take heart. While corporations are legally considered living beings, they must be George Bush’s dumber half brother. They are continually blind to emerging trends. They are continually outsmarted by 12 year old children with a little creativity. They take years to introduce anything different, and even then, it is never new.
Advancement does not mean that a new product cycle is coming. Choice doesn’t mean I have to pay you or you. And the next time someone tells me they use a particular computer or listen to certain music because everyone does, I am going to shoot them between the eyeballs and cleanse the gene-pool just slightly.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
U.S. national security agencies are on alert for a terrorist attack after the discovery that a Middle Eastern man carried out suspicious surveillance of the Washington Monument, the Pentagon and other buildings in the area.
The man in question videotaped the Washington Monument on the Mall on Sept. 1 and paced off several distances around the monument, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
— The Washington Times
1. When has a single one of these threat warning panned out?
2. When has a single terrorist attack ever occurred on the anniversary of another terrorist attack?
3. Need we even discuss the sheer incredulity of worrying about a man — any man — videotaping the biggest tourist attractions in one of the most visited cities in the world? (Pacing off at the Washingotn Monument? It’s a big spike surrounded by a circle… what the hell else do you do but walk around it?)
4. A man who has done nothing illegal, or even interesting, is the news story… but not the fact that he was illegally robbed by government agents?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I know i drive you all nuts when I say my building is on fire. I can’t help it when the fire engines show up every time I’m on the phone.
Okay… so it has never been a real fire, but Samuel Clemens never got anywhere with journalism.
Yesterday though, the exaggeration became almost too real. Honestly, I missed it all. But when I came home, the Arson Investigation unit was pulling out of the driveway. And in a few hours, when the Emergency Services repair truck pulled up next door, it finally hit me what happened while I was in Bethesda.
The five hours of deconstruction, sawing, shattering, and hammering in the middle of last night left the neighboring building with a grim visage. It looks as though the entire right half of the building — four stories — was damaged by a fire.
No injuries, from what I can tell.
But it strikes very close to home. Literally. One entire side of my apartment is literally connected to that building. If the fire had spread to the other half of the building…
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“Stephanie Bell, a fourth-grade teacher at Williams Elementary School, taught the word "niggardly" to her class last week in an effort to improve her students’ vocabularies.
Now, a parent wants her fired.
Although the word means stingy, Akwana Walker said it was inappropriate to use it because it sounds similar to a racial slur.”
— Wilmington Star
People have such terminally short memories.
There is a now old argument that my generation may be the first to do worse than it’s parent’s. (this was before the 1990s of course). But it seems to me the children would be a lot better off if it weren’t for such ignorant parents.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“The legislation would also provide $25 million in federal matching grants to states to help them buy electronic highway signs and other equipment needed to set up an Amber alert system, as well as education and training programs.”
— CNN.com
Okay… now wasn’t the point of the Amber alert system that it utilized existing resources to spread the word?
Why the fuck is the government offering anywhere from 25 to 100 million dollars for this program? Even if you hired 3 people in each state to manage the program at a cost of $50,000 each with expenses of $100,000 for each state, and all this seems generous on my part, and wholly unwarrented considering the origin of the program…would only amount to $12.5 million.
Keeping in mind the federal funds for the cheapest plan are matching funds, this means only 6.25 million would be needed. But that number would not make it sound like the government was really putting support behind the program.
Government solutions: throw money at the problem till it goes away.
After all.. it worked with Iran. And Nicaragua. And Afghanastan. And…
um… nevermind.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
They’re done!
Finally.
I have finished constructing the Christensen 2002 picnic picture gallery.You can find it in the navigation bar on the left or by clicking here.
As usual, clicking on any image will bring up an enlargement of the entire picture.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
oh I am so emailed out.
I have just . for the first time in at least 2 years, answered every single message in my email inbox. It is totally empty. All gone.
62 messages in 3 hours with only one break for an exploding computer.
So write me now… avoid the rush.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I’ve got recommended reading for all of you. I was thinking of the Christensen’s in particular, since I’ve had relevant conversations with many of you. But I suppose it is pretty universally applicable: Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger
There is no computer jargon. There will be no articles on the profitability of a web site. And it won’t tell you how to do your banking online.
Read it because it will tell you how the Web affects real people, like you.
The web is not a business. Before there was any money-makers online, there were over 12,000,000 people accessing it on a regular basis in this country alone.
Maybe, just maybe, the newspapers and TV have been missing part of the story.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
This shows you the typical District police reaction to any protest.
300 Nazis + 300-400 anti-Nazi protesters = 1.4 cops to handle each protester.
I will give the cops this… the cops were slightly less instigatory this time. That may be due to the fact the main force this time seemed to be comprised of Capitol Police as opposed to the usual MetroPD.
Pictures later.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday.
“A May 17 opinion by the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.
“Authorities also improperly shared intelligence information with agents and prosecutors handling criminal cases in New York on at least four occasions, the judges said.”
“U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be in town next week focusing on the environment.
“Local officials confirmed this morning that the junior senator will be making a stop in Geneva Thursday, Aug. 29. A time and location will be announced later. The event will be open to the public.”
— The Finger Lakes Times
I lived in that shitty little town for 22 years. Ronald McDonald and Grimace were the most famous people I ever saw.
Then I move to DC, and lived here through 3 years of the Clinton presidency. Never saw anyone from the white house in the flesh.
Now the power-hungry runt is visiting my hometown.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“A federal appeals court refused Monday to halt a program to expose new students at the University of North Carolina to information about the Koran.
“Attorneys for a conservative Christian group on Friday had asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to stop Monday’s discussion sessions of a book that interprets the Islamic holy text. Members of the Virginia-based Family Policy Network and three unidentified UNC-Chapel Hill freshmen contended the assignment was unconstitutional.”
— WashingtonPost.com
Yup. There’s no surer way to end a period of great social upheaval and strife than by trying to stop people from understanding the very basis of the greatest misunderstanding.
It is an extreme interpretation of the Qur’an which leads many people to do stupid things. So the best idea some Tipper Gore wanna-be can come up with is to stop students from reading said document in hopes of understanding the roots of the issue?!
Man, I didn’t know these lawyers were done with the case against teaching evolution in schools. It’s no wonder this is a nation of culturally ignorant and intellectually stagnant rednecks.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Nothing brings home the truth that you come from a small town than finding out the big attractions at this years festival included rides in the bucket of a power company truck.
I woulda so been there.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
There are ignorant people and there are manipulative people in this city. Normally the bullshit doesn’t get this deep until congress is in session.
For now I simply refer you to what I wrote a couple months ago. Yeah I trailed off at the end, but you get the idea.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
