Far East

Burning ALL Bridges

Is there any international organization we don't hold in disdain? And when I say we, I mean Dobson. Seriously, isn't Amnesty International one of the good guys? Fighting human rights abuses, since, oh, forever? And now they're not to be trusted? Their reports are absurd? This sounds like China, not America. So were they wrong on TianAnMen, too? Pardon me while I upchuck.

Stop Warezers

After much deliberation, I've decided to begin a very public campaign to support the MPAA, RIAA, and their various global affiliates/equivalents. Sounds strange, I know, particularly considering I'm an avid reader of slashdot, and the above entities are held in about as much esteem as Micro$loth.

It comes down to a simple calculus, really. All we have of value to export anymore is our intellectual property, and our good name. And we all know how the latter is going these days. Once we lose our precious IP, there's not much more of value in the good ol' USA. Science? Think stem cells. Technology? Made in China. When the IP goes, we'll be like a wintel box running IE 7 on the internets. We'll be so totally pwned.

Parody Of A Satire

Almost too painful to read the news anymore. Just an endless stream of things always seeming to get worse. Close to completely abstaining from any news, except for second hand accounts via blogs. The only thing I indulge in is AP news, and the headlines there nearly write the jokes for themselves. It's too damn tiring to feel outraged all the time, but what other option is there? Shutting it off completely I guess.

All Bases Pwned

Now that we know that copyright infringement is much, much worse than we imagined (see previous post), how much longer do other previously thought to be minor nuisances have before they join that hallowed list?

Step Away From The Keyboard

All those illegal warez traders and DVD downloaders? They're terrorists!

This has surely reached its logical conclusion: copyright infringement = terrorism. And I thought it was only piracy! I stand chastened. Time to round up the internal enemies. I'm guessing that the next round of anti-copyright laws goes flying through; otherwise the terrorists will have won. We can't have that. What would the children think?

Pwned

In trying to reclaim a wintel box that has been completely ownzored, it struck me how different Apple and Micro$loth address computing issues; Apple adopts the superior third-party app into its OS (a la dashboard) and Micro$loth does little (if anything), hoping that users won't notice. Except that it's hard not to notice when you can't even change your desktop wallpaper, and launching a browser takes five minutes. And this is the superior OS? They should have been disbanded years ago. What ever happened with that? Oh, right.... never mind.

The New Morality

Seems to be to look the other way when others have problems, rationalizing it as 'it's not my problem (thank god), so why bother helping out'. How convenient. People who are the most troubled get the chance to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and are ignored at the time of their worst peril. How brave. How sickening.

It's Alright

The people I looked up to most when I was a kid was my teachers. I was lucky to have some really great ones. They made me think, pushing me to pursue learning outside the classroom.

Why Now?

Never get up at 6 am to watch a Senate vote, cos it never happens on time. Just watching a few staff members mill around, along with some weird cspan patchiness. The servers must be getting massive hits right about now. Better to just watch the updates via Dkos thread. Timelier, and a helluva lot funnier, too. Now I know why so many Senators are called obstructionist... they're obstructing my sleep!

The Fruit of TianAnMen

Things can't be too rosy when the US is on the same side as China when it comes to human rights and democracy.