Virtual Thought

...of CSS: A 3-column layout entirely in CSS that puts the content first where every column’s size is independent and, by the way, the layout has footers and headers.

Yup, “Holy Grail” sounds way better.

Truly the best part of the List Apart article is the step-by-step deconstruction of the effects of each CSS tag. Sweetness.

Wikipedia: Information You Can Use.

In this article discussing Bush’s comments about the democratically elected Hamas party he says the following:

“On the other hand, I don’t see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as a part of your platform,” Bush added. “And I know you can’t be a partner in peace if you have a, if your party has got an armed wing.”

Excuse me? What did we do in Iraq, exactly, if not destroy their country? Wasn’t that exactly what President Bush was campaigning on?

I like this headline: Google bows to great firewall of China

So Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil” while, at the same time, it is a multinational corporation ultimately responsible to its shareholders for maintaing a steady rise in profits. Which motivation won out here?

On the one hand I think they weren’t evil here: At least Chinese citizens have access to the Internet’s far-flung resources that Google provides. I truly believe in the transformational power of availability of information and I know for a fact that no matter how good a filter Google puts in place they won’t be able to filter out everything the Chinese government wants them to. Maybe they’re banking on that fact.

On the other hand, Google has to watch out for its bottom line and it’s the shareholders and the Board who determine how evil Google is. Corporations, as a rule, need to profit from their actions as a survival strategy. That is the economic system that we have set up currently.

I would love to see the deliberations from Google at the highest level. What were they talking about? What were the pros and cons from their point of view? Again, could they come out and say, “Yes, we’re filtering content at Google.cn but, don’t worry, we know that we can’t filter 100% of the controversial content so Chinese citizens still have access,” without pissing off the Chinese?

Found this on CNN this morning:

“Super-secret spy agency”? WTF?! Can we treat this issue with a little more seriousness, CNN?

Microsoft wins FAT patent case.

In an IP law infected world, what does this mean? Potentially, that Linux won’t be able to use FAT as a filesystem and therefore will only be able to interoperate with Windows filesystems through Windows OSes. It means that all the USB drives of the world just got a little bit more complex, a little more expensive. It means that a small host of helpful, free utilities might have to license the filesystem use from Microsoft.

Godammit. Who did this protect exactly? Microsoft. Who was billions of dollars to ensure that IP legislation stays current and aggressive through donations to key legislators? Microsoft. Who gets hurt by the lack of innovation this widespread, general kind of protection this patent provides? Consumers. You might be thinking, “Well, Microsoft did innovate and invent that filesystem. They deserve to be compensated for their hard work commensurate to their effort and dilligence. After all, I would want that kind of protection should I ever invent anything.”

Wrong. Guess what: We don’t live in a free market. Your products don’t get to compete fairly for two reasons:

1. Late-era capitalism combined with post-scarcity commodities. Digital goods are not scarce. Digital means of production are not scarce. In fact, filesystem innovation at the level of FAT is not scarce. What is, exactly? Time. Right, right… the resource in a digital age. But guess what? If you measure the amount of time spent on developing FAT with an adjusted ruler (adjusting for the current speed of technology development) you’ll find that the time spent was probably only a few minutes. How much is that worth now? Are FAT royalties going to be adjusted to that level? Can a free software advocate walk up to Microsoft, give them $100, and declare that the royalties for FAT have been paid?
2. Influence of capital. If I pay you $5 to influece your decision, is that fair? If large, corporate bodies that are content providers lobby Congress incessantly with large amounts of money, is that fair? I’m not one to argue that “fair” necessarily needs to be a part of the marketplace; however, if you think the market is going to reward your commensurately reward your efforts based solely on those efforts you are sadly mistaken.

My scream of frustration goes here.

Moments like these are why I have a blog.

In a semi-random poke around iTunes I discovered two bands… one that is pretty cool and one that I absolutely fucking adore. Freezepop has won my heart and stolen my soul. What a great band. Jesus. “parlez-vous freezepop?” is running on loop in my head. It’s like this band’s very existence in this universe made a small hole in my brain… and now that I’ve found them the hole is filled with plasticky synth-pop effervescence.

Then there’s this:

I need to hang onto that.

Then there’s this:

This guy rules. Go check him out.

I’m gonna go play with the twenty or so free VSTIs I just downloaded…