The nfo [about] page mentions something from Faithless’ “Weapons of Mass Destruction” : Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction.

Certainly, the ways of action are diverse and extend, across the board, from peaceful talks to violent protests. The way of the anarchist has always been radical in a belief that the only results that society will react to — not governments but the people that the anarchist believes to be serving — are those that shock and scare. Bombings, hijackings, vandalism. Governments have offset this belief by manipulating the media to shed a very negative light on said acts and instill fear in the populace — the theme has been exploited from Conrad’s “The Secret Agent” to Moore’s “V for Vendetta”. As a result, the masses turn to the only authority they know and somewhat trust — not because it’s what they believe in but simply because a change might be for the worse. You might or might not believe those stickers claiming that 9-11 was an inside job; but you have to agree, by looking at present-day United States, that people have happily given up many of their freedoms in search for protection. Approval ratings for Bush sky-rocketed, internal conflicts were paused - all because America was fighting against terrorists and the gruesome facts they perpetrate.

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Why do large outfits insist on buying licenses for some software, when obvious superior replacements are freely and openly available? I don’t even mean Linux instead of Windows, but even crap on Windows.

Give this to your IT admin or whomever else is in charge of software.

Certainly if the MPAA keeps throwing numbers around about how much camcording is actually done in Canada, they’re bound to get it right eventually. Only thing is, they wouldn’t know it and most people wouldn’t really believe it anyway - they’ve been crying ‘wolf’ for too long now.

It shows how much research the MPAA has actually done. Most private bittorrent trackers recommend going and seeing certain movies in the cinema because a CAM quality release is not going to do justice to a release. Anyone who’s ever watched one knows the typical problems - faded colours, un-synced audio, people moving in the frame. Sure, now releasers have HD cameras, direct digital audio lines and access to preview screenings so some of those issues are slowly going away.

People ask me why I think piracy is OK. I don’t think stealing is OK. I don’t think deception is OK. I do, however, believe in rewarding those that indeed deserve it. Are the movie cartels now trying to dupe consumers into watching movies they hate? I’ve come across enough flicks that had their best moments squished together in a 45 second trailer. I’ve seen movies that were set for box-office failure by their advertisers yet became cult classics. I look upon a pirated release as an extended preview. Everybody I know still likes the little bonuses that come with a collector’s edition DVD. I think failing to realize this very issue is what might drive some online video stores à la iTunes into the ground: pricing should not be such that it has ownership in mind, but more of an advertising-and-service charge. I will not spend $10 or $15 or $20 for a movie I don’t know if I will like; I would throw $5 or so and then go out and get the DVD if it’s worth it. Yes, there is such a thing as artistic worth, and I think the MPAA might have forgotten what is, exactly, that they’re supposed to be taking our money for.

Well, it’s not about that. Before being suspended, Romanian President Traian Basescu awarded, post-mortem, the “Star of Romania” to the deceased Liviu Librescu, the Romanian-born professor that died at Virginia Tech while holding the door closed so his students could escape their attacker.

For that, Basescu will show up in next year’s Guinness Book of World: Fastest Presidential answer to a citizen request

So no, not nationalistic pride. But as the linked article mentions, it would be nice if more presidents actually ‘listened to the streets’ once in a while.

Wait, before you say you know the answer, hear me out =)

Those that have read this blog or know me in person know a few of the things that bother me with the World at large. They know how vocal [or not] I am about certain things. But my doubts lie in whether all of my ‘activism’  will eventually lead to paranoia. Will I be a grumpy old man still annoyed about the state of the world, how kids are turning up and how the government, as an institution, seems to have stopped considering the people it is meant to serve as its primary concern? Is it, actually, that way?

To doubt oneself is natural and, generally, positive. I know I only have one side of the story, and maybe a poorly informed one at that. I can see arguments made for the way governments run their business and how it is, ultimately, a good thing they do it that way. I may be able to refute those arguments - but what if that’s only going on in my mind? What if I have become the victim of my convictions and, as much as I may fight others to quit theirs, I cannot escape my own?

Before you engage in any kind of fight you should feel fairly confident that you are not mistaken in your assumptions and/or beliefs. My ’social concerns’ do stem from what would be, basically, a form of selfishness. In that, I do not kid myself; but I can see some positive by-product of my struggle and as such believe I am right in doing what I am doing. Would I still do it if it were clear to me I am mistaken? Would I align myself with those that I fight against and believe I may be able to show people the right way even though they, themselves, are unable at this juncture to see it for themselves? Does that path actually satisfy their needs or is it a way to rebel against a system for fear of otherwise being irrelevant?

I was talking about a balance of powers a while ago. Hacker versus authority, artist versus idiot etc. Does that balance keep us in a state of limbo, when we could actually be heading for something better if we just let go of our fears?

I do not know enough about Che Guevara, that pop-icon adorning so many tee shirts. My limited knowledge does grant him the credit of acting upon something that he strongly believed in. His methods may be questionable, but this is a topic for another night. Yet belief is not enough. We have the crusades, the jihad and countless other religious struggles that caused tremendous bloodbaths as a consequence of such strong and blind beliefs, yet most of us can agree a principle of happiness is the sense of security and content that peace gives us. To this, feel free to add in the equation the fact that these beliefs are hard to verify even to whatever the satisfactory level for bloodshed might be for you.

So I fight to live better and, in a more or less direct way, to have others live better. As I grow older and leave the fights to others, will I keep thinking that most of those that should guard us are, in fact, cheating us into submission? At what point do I become a conspiracy theorist, at what stage does one cross over from skeptical to paranoiac?

And what do you do then?

“bitch, please”

I was under the impression that a sentence reduction for good behaviour is something you are eligible for only after you’ve actually started that sentence. I might be able to understand the ‘private’ holding block as a way to protect the Heiress from being bitch-slapped; but 23? Half before she’s even in. This of course is only the justice system doing it’s thing.

Bernie S and KDM weren’t that lucky. Wonder why…

The big story of the last few days is Microsoft’s claim that Linux and FOSS infringes on 235 of their patents and that it is time for businesses running Linux to start paying up for that IP. Beyond the rather shady approach Redmond has taken with this - mainly because it resembles too many ‘tales’ written by Puzo - it gives rise to a few questions that others have already answered. I will share my thoughts on a topic that deals with only a small subset of the patent issue at large.

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I can’t read this right now, I’m laughing too hard and it sounds like a mouse on ecstasy screaming after his deaf buddies.

COYOTE v. ACME

And for more old school geeky stuff: the Textfiles Humour section. For those - like me - that like a bit of history, check the entire Textfiles archive.

For all those radio streams that iTunes doesn’t like, feel free to grab VLC and use that instead. Works great with AAC+ and most other things I’ve tried. Only quirk is, after it opens up in VLC you still have to double-click the stream [usually the first item from the ones that the .PLS file shows in the player] to start it up. Seems I didn’t update. 0.8.6b opens it up automatically.

Out of all the common Design Patterns, the Singleton is probably the most misused one. Despite being a relatively easy concept to grasp, I’ve seen today some pretty novel ways of violating its principles, all done by people that should know how to code better than me.  Please, allow and manage one access point to the instance - and make sure it’s the same as the one that can initialize the instance, too! And use some thread protection - even if something as unpleasant as a synchronized method - to avoid twin singletons.