Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Sometimes, I just like to smile at the misfortune of others

In this case, the misfortune of which I speak is the class action lawsuit the recording industry may now face for suing innocent people in their efforts to shut down peer-to-peer filesharing. Understand that I’m not saying people should be allowed to illegally provide mp3 files of music to others. Rather, the RIAA has abused the legal system to intimidate people, and now it is getting the payback it deserves from those wrongfully accused or bullied even though they have committed no crimes.

The scene at RIAA headquarters this week must have been fascinating. The group yesterday announced that it has finished sending out a new batch of 503 “pre-litigation letters” to 58 different universities around the US, generously offering to let students settle copyright infringement claims “at a discounted rate” before those claims go to trial. The letters blanketed the country, going everywhere from the University of Hawaii to Swarthmore, from Boston College to Tulane, from Emory to Chico State. And then the RIAA learned that its aggressive litigation tactics have placed it on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit.

Single mom Tanya Andersen, a defendant in a previous lawsuit brought by the RIAA, was one of the first to have her case dismissed with prejudice (it cannot be refiled at a later date). Throughout the court battle, she maintained her total innocence, a claim given even more plausibility by the fact that she was charged with downloading numerous gangsta rap tracks.

Now, she is suing the RIAA, and her attourney has requested that the suit be elevated to class-action status. Happy happy, joy joy.

The illegal file sharing needs to be stopped. The manner in which the RIAA chooses to do that is too far-reaching and exceeds legal bounds constantly. This needs to be shut down and the agency needs to be forced to a new tactic in their efforts to shut down illegal filesharing.

[tags]RIAA being sued, Class-action against RIAA?, RIAA victim countersues for malicious prosecution, P2P, mp3[/tags]

Word Shoot – simple online typing tutor

My older son is still having problems related to writing. Not that he can’twant to write, and has trouble sitting still long enough to write much. After getting the OK from his teacher to try letting him type his journals instead of writing them, my wife has been looking at typing tutor software. Looking around on my own, I found this cool looking Flash-based typing game called Word Shoot. You stand in the middle of a battlefield of sorts and type words on approaching enemies to shoot them down.

word-shoot.jpg

Just the kind of thing my son might enjoy, and on the easy level it starts out slowly enough that he might be able to get a few enemies before getting overwhelmed. Sort of a typing-tutor by fire thing.

[tags]Typing, Word Shoot, Typing tutor, Flash[/tags]

Political facts

I’ve been reading FactCheck.org for a few years now, and have been subscribed to their email newsletter as long as I’ve been reading the site. The site, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, works to point out the misleading statistics, factual inaccuracies and errors, and flat-out lies spread by politicians and the organizations that support them. I’ve learned so much about politics over the years just from learning where politicians have mislead us (the general public).

While catching up on my FactCheck reading today, I learned that there is another source of political fact checking on the web now – PolitiFact. Going beyond FactCheck’s more reserved misinformation corrections, PolitiFact gives you the Truth-o-meter to simplify evaluating statements from the bearers of (mis)truths.

PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates’ speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate.

I think it is worth taking 2-3 minutes to read more details on the Truth-o-meter to see how it works and why it is worth checking. Interested in who is lying or misleading us? Well, here are a couple of quotes for you to check out for factual accuracy. I’ve chosen individuals from both sides of the US political debate, and selected short quotes with short PolitiFact responses or analysis.

  • Sen. Joe Biden: “The president is brain-dead.”
    Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 in Des Moines, Iowa.
  • Sen. John McCain: Sen. Clinton said “the surge of troops in Iraq was ‘working.’ Now…. Sen. Clinton says the surge ‘has failed’ and that we should ‘begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.'”
    Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 in a news release

I appreciate the fact that those running the site have enough of a sense of humor to even include the Biden comment, and the linked article includes links off-site to explanations of what exactly constitutes brain death. Each story has a graphical label for true, barely true, pants on fire (i.e., liar), and so on. I wanted to include the images for the above stories, but haven’t received permission from PolitiFact yet to do so. If I get a response, I’ll update my article with the images.

[tags]PolitiFact, FactCheck, Truths and Lies from politicians, The watcher watchers[/tags]

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Put a smile on your man’s face

Oh, you perverts. We’re not talking about that kind of smile. We’re talking pineapple smiles that last all day.

MM_delmonte-clip.jpg

If you want to change grouches to grins – give that man of yours Del Monte Pineapple Juice. Cater to his fondness for flavor.

Men like the rich, ripe taste of this juice – the definite pineapple flavor it has. They like its freshness-the bracing refreshment it always brings.


See, it’s the taste of that juice we like. The pineapple juice is what we’re talking about.

Honestly, I don’t even know why I post these things for you perverts.

[tags]Man juice smiles, Put a smile on your man’s face, It’s the taste of the juice[/tags]

Out with the old. In with the boob?

All over the news today: Alberto Gonzales resigns.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is resigning, Bush administration officials said, after months of accusations that he politicized the U.S. Justice Department and misled Congress over the firing of U.S. prosecutors and wiretapping of suspected terrorists.

The officials, who requested anonymity, confirmed a New York Times report that Gonzales is stepping down. Gonzales will hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. Washington time. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the administration’s top courtroom lawyer, is expected to take over on a temporary basis until a permanent replacement is named, Justice Department officials said.

Rumor has it that he is to be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Oh, and the “In with the boob?” bit in the heading was just an attempt to make a less drab title – I don’t know of anything that actually suggests Chertoff would be a bad choice. He’s experienced and seems to have done a decent job in his current position.

[tags]Gonzales resigns[/tags]

Dan talks tools

If you don’t have the right tools, you just can’t do the job right. At least, that’s the view Dan expresses in his tool talk for techies/geeks.

If you haven’t got tools – the right tools – then you’re not a geek.

Sorry. It’s the truth.

Let’s take it as read that you already know about screwdrivers and pliers. Even hammer technology is not beyond your ken.

Here’s some gear you might not have heard of, but without which your PC-fiddling toolbox is not complete.

So get there and find out just how lacking you are in geek-cred. Oh, and Dan’s Australian, so some of the links he gives for tracking down the tools won’t be useful for you, but he has the decency to give pricing in US dollars. Only fitting, since the world revolves around US (yes, I’m kidding).

[tags]Tools, Dan’s Data, You are not a geek[/tags]

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Bioshock response

Since I’ve recently spoken out against buying Bioshock given its secret, auto-install, trojan-like software and lifetime 2 system install limit, I felt it was appropriate to show this signature image from the 2K forums in the thread discussing the issue.

sig_bioshock

Really not as meaningful to non-purchasers of the game (and good for you, by the way), but that’s a chop of the introduction to the game in the manual.  It made me laugh.

[tags]Bioshock, Free installation of virus-like program with purchase, Securom, I chose piracy[/tags]

The size of us, and other things

While playing around with the incredibly cool StumbleUpon tool last night (using the Firefox plugin for convenience), I found a site which shows the size of various celestial bodies in a super-easy to understand visual manner.

size-of-us.jpg

Makes our Sun look not so big, doesn’t it?

[tags]The size of us, Celestial bodies, Visual guide to universal sizing[/tags]

Please *DO NOT* buy BioShock

I started downloading the BioShock demo Monday night and went to bed while the download completed. I loaded the demo Tuesday morning, played for about 5 minutes, and bought the game – the demo is awesome enough to convince me the whole game will be great, and I love Irrational’s work that I’ve played in the past. I did not have a chance to install it before leaving for work Tuesday afternoon, nor Wednesday during the day. However, I did find this interesting Digg about the shitty copy protection on the game and regretted immediately that I have already opened the game and cannot, therefore, return it. Quite the dry-hump, really, because the game is great. But I disapprove highly of companies trying to fuck me or my computer.

Last year, I bought Galactic Civilizations specifically because the developer made a point to not put copy protection on the game. It is the kind of game I would play if I had more gaming time in my life, but I’ve yet to open the game or install it. I purchased it just to show support for developers and distributors who trust customers. BioShock, on the other hand, comes from either a developer or a publisher (I suspect the latter, but cannot rule out the former) who apparently assumes customers are only interested in giving away as many copies as possible. The sad thing is, gamers who buy the game are now screwed by potentially harmful copy protection, while the pirates still get it for free and without copy protection messing up their computers. Basically – screw legitimate customers and fans without slowing down folks that weren’t going to pay anyway.

From someone claiming some relationship to 2K Games:

really, the only people who will be concerned about any of these security measures are those who are rapidly putting bioshock on many pcs… if you use the game as you normally do, you won’t notice this at all.

Well, them and those of us who don’t like companies installing things on our systems without our knowledge. But then, we’re just weird like that. I get pissed when a program puts itself off my Programs section of the start menu instead of letting me set the submenu I want to use. I sure as hell am not OK with a program that installs drivers without giving me the option to instead choose to not install. This is the same crap Sony pulled recently which pissed off so many. And to write it off as not a big deal and not a concern except for those attempting to illegally use the disc is stupid, naïve, and ignorant of geek and gamer culture.  I have looked all over the outside of the box, and there is no mention of this violation of my computer, so I can’t decide to *NOT* buy the game based on this knowledge after looking at the box. I’ve read the manual and found no mention of this, so I can’t choose to *NOT* install the game and avoid this. Ultimately, we choose to install one program, and another gets installed without our knowledge and without warning to us that it will happen.

I will be downloading the hacked version off a torrent site to install the game and play. Once I’m finished and ready to remove the program, I’ll be selling my copy on Ebay. You can be sure I’ll mention the apparent effort to restrict personal use of the program when I list it.

Make no mistake – this is a great developer with a great game. The copy protection pisses me off, though, and it’s bad enough for me to recommend that others not buy the game.

[tags]Do not buy BioShock, 2K Games hates legal customers, 2K Games encouraging piracy, BioShock, Securom, Securom sucks, Torrent sites[/tags]

When will I get to live the life my wife thinks I live

After getting my older son to school this morning, taking the younger one to the doctor, taking the younger one to school, coming home and cleaning the kitchen, fixing part of my lunch, cleaning out some of the refrigerator, stripping and re-making the beds, starting laundry, climbing into the attic to make sure the AC unit isn’t leaking any more, looking for my older sons Tae Kwon Do uniform, fixing my breakfast, taking dirty clothes from downstairs to the upstairs, caulking the bathtub, getting clothes out of the dryer, going back into the attic to see if my son’s uniform was in the luggage stored up there, picking up my sons’ clothes from the bathroom, taking things down to the basement to put in the freezer, finally remembering to get my breakfast out of the microwave, fixing myself a drink, and clearing away the junk my wife stacked around my computer so I could sit to work or play, I wonder just when it is I’ll get to live the life she thinks I live.

I want to come home from taking the kids to school, sit at my computer, eat breakfast, play games, surf porn and masturbate, and take a nap until I have to leave for work.  Especially the gaming and porn stuff.  Because that’s what she thinks I do all day.

So I’m asking someone who does get to sit around all day doing this stuff – at what point do I actually get to live this life I’ve being punished for?

You know, I’m not even sure that’s illegal around here…

When you catch someone digging up a corpse for the purpose of, ummmm, getting it on with the dead, what do you do?  Turns out that in Wisconsin, they don’t do much at all.

Three men who dug up a young woman’s corpse to have sex with it after seeing her obituary photo cannot be charged with attempted sexual assault because Wisconsin has no law against necrophilia, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

A judge was correct to dismiss the charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 21, because lawmakers never intended to criminalize sex with a corpse, the District 4 Court of Appeals said in a 3-0 ruling.

Guess I’ll have to start making fun of Wisconsin almost as I make fun of Arkansas now.

[tags]Necrophilia, Overlooked laws, Get it on with the dead, Corpse hunting for fun and sexx0ring[/tags]

How exactly does one steal a 3-ton meteorite?

Odd news from Russia:

Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that thieves have stolen a three-tonne meteorite from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908.

. . .

“It winds up that it disappeared said [foundation director] Lavbin. “Our colleagues are establishing what got lost, where the rock is and why they only came to us about it now,” he said.

Hmmmm. I can’t even begin to hypothesize how that could be stolen?

Oh, and comments after the article suggest that this news item is bogus. I still posted it, because I like it regardless of veracity.

[tags]3-ton meteorite stolen, How to lose 3 tons[/tags]

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