Virtual Thought

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.

Interesting article about how Bush is angry that he’s not a dictator.

Oh, wait… he’s angry because he’s being portrayed as an evil dictator in the media. My favorite two bits occur right at the beginning of the article:

At a news conference, Bush appeared most angry that the programme ed the programme of spying on American citizens without going through the courts] had been revealed in the press. He said it was an effective tool in disrupting terrorists and that whoever leaked details to the media had committed “a shameful act”.

Bush is upset that his spying program has been revealed to the public. He’s upset that he can’t spy on American citizens anymore because it was an “effective tool in disrupting terrorist…” How effective? Any metrics on that? Nope, because that would give out more info which would be an even more shameful act than the initial reveal was. Give me a break.

On another issue, Bush acknowledged that the pre-war claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction complicated the US ability to confront other potential emerging threats such as Iran.

“Where it is going to be most difficult to make the case is in the public arena,” Bush said. “People will say, if we’re trying to make the case on Iran: ‘Well, if the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran?’”

Bush states it very well himslef: If the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran? How about this, George: Don’t be upset that the “public arena” will castigate you… be upset that you falsified information and then blamed it on the intelligence agencies in the lead up to the war on Iraq. Naturally no one trusts the intelligence agencies that you maligned.

In this other article on the same site which teases Bush about mixing up Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden (c’mon, everyone has a slip of the tongue every once in a while) there’s my final interesting bit:

“In the late 1990s, our Government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak,” Bush said.

So we should restrict the press in an effort to make ourselves safer. Bush is saying that he is against the transparency of government in the pursuit of “liberty” from dark forces on foreign shores that mean us harm. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Poor President George Bush: it’s been a rough week.

First he has to back down on his previous position and say that we shouldn’t torture people ... and now it’s been revealed that Bush let the NSA spy on US citizens in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Not a good week at all.

Because of the misconception that anti-war is somehow anti-patriotic (and possible terroristic) we have to endure the trampling of our civil liberties in the pursuit of some imaginary safety. If we would only give up those pesky freedoms we would be so much easier to “protect.”

What a miserable failure.

The title is more titillating than the reality.

And I just got that too.

Anyway, Southwest airlines booted a woman for wearing a politically charged t-shirt bearing the word ‘fuck.’ I’m just glad that, given our litigious times, she’s only suing for airfare, car rental fee, and gas compensation… no one-million-for-pain-and-suffering here.

I have two favorite parts of this story: the woman’s shirt is described as having “a phrase similar to the popular film title ‘Meet the Fockers,’” which is great… and the fact that Southwest said “We’re just complying with FAA regulations!” and the FAA said, “We don’t have regulations about t-shirts!”

Land of freedom.

Here’s an interesting article that lays out the debate rather nicely.

In the “Heartless Yet Funny Sons of Bitches” category we have Katrina: The Gathering. Fan-fucking-tastic and totally deplorable. Right.

As a side note, they used this cool program to make the cards. Sweet!