Sniffing out the truth - Usage May Vary!

what the fuck, alex brown?

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:26:00 +0000

Okay, so MS's favorite shill removed the entire entry on criticism from the MS office XML wiki link.

"whoops"?

http://boycottnovell.com/2009/10/20/ooxml-brm-convenor-wikipedia/

take a look and try not to vomit.

what happened to freedom of the press?

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:02:00 +0000

Wikileaks alerts us to a press stifling by the government. This is a *BIG* deal.

Basically, Trafigura is dumping toxic crap in the ivory coast. Press has been told they can't mention the name of them and the dumping at the same time. For what?

Techdirt as well has coverage.

Basically, they're trying to tell the press that the press cannot have freedom of what to cover. What the hell is up with that?

Update: new coverage on p2pnet.

quoted from p2pnet (which quoted from another site):

This country’s libel laws have been a disgrace for years and one can only hope that egregious abuses of an already abusive system persuades folk that, dash it, something must be done.

UPDATE: The Twitterverse is going mental for #trafigura and I suspect that by the time all this is over far more people will be aware of the controversy swirling around Trafigura’s African adventures than would have been the case had they kept quiet and not attempted to silence the press. Combatting this sort of bullying, however, is one thing the blogosphere is good at.

UPDATE 2: There is, at the time of writing, no mention of this story on the BBC’s website. Why on earth not? (There is now – and of course, as commenters point out, Newsnight has covered Trafigura’s African exploits before. And been sued for their troubles. So my criticism of the Corporation was somewhat unfair. Mea culpa.)

sometimes people want their own idea of justice

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:22:00 +0000

BPI, the international RIAA equivalent, thinks BT, an internet provider, is helping people commit illegal acts. They're not actually taking them to court over this, just threatening them and decrying how it's so bad and they have a social obligation to stop it.

From the Techdirt side (thanks again Mike):

BPI said:

"If you operate a commercial service and know it is being used to break the law, taking steps to ensure it is used legally is a cost of doing business."

Techdirt replied about how this is asinine, and now BPI comes back with (I bolded):

BT fosters a reputation as a socially responsible company. BPI has questioned whether it's appropriate for such a company to do nothing about 100,000 instances "a small sample" of the illegal behaviour that BT knows is occurring on its network. BT knows about this activity because BPI provides detailed weekly notifications enabling BT to verify each and every infringement. BPI's notifications are based upon robust copyright infringement detection techniques which have been accepted by the UK High Court in over 150 cases.

Whoops. I guess fact checking isn't important when you're a company that doesn't rely on fact or things the court even agrees with. Remember, these are the people who sued saying that a married old couple were sharing gay porn or something.

How's that for an outdated business model?

So what happens? They start complaining to the sources that identify their asinine behaviors, who reply logically. In this case, that would be techdirt. Maybe they'll learn one day.

For the Techies - Larrabee

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:13:00 +0000

So Intel has this Larrabee. For the non techs, the big deal is they're making a graphics card out of processors only. Intel has been all "oh, we can do this" and AMD/Nvidia (graphics cards makers) have been laughing all the way home.

Well, guess what. Today has been no different. Sharkyextreme points us to an article about the Larrabee running horribly (surprise: nobody). The idea behind it is Ray Tracing, something that will undoubtedly be significant one day but that day is far from coming.

Easy answer: computers are going to need to be between 20 and 100 times faster than they are now (which obviously could come in 4-8 years, it's not impossible) to handle real ray tracing. Mostly because there are more things that go on than that. I mean a now outdated graphics card can handle 1.5 Teraflops (and the new ones are breaking 3 teraflops). When you look at a processor, the best they can do (all processors combined) is around 70 gigaflops. This is double what the previous generation of processors could do, but processors change slower than graphics cards. In the last 2 years we've gone up 2 generations of graphics cards. In the last 2 years we've gone up 1 generation of processors. Mathematically, processors are very unlikely to catch up any time soon.

Lily Allen: stupid, ignorant, or what?

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:07:00 +0000

So Lily Allen is basically someone who is a music industry shill. That alone is pretty bad, but not even worth getting into. I was almost going to support her until she made a blog all about how piracy is bad, copying music is stealing, you lose business, music "has a cost to make", etc. I don't know where any of those arguments come from but there's clearly no logic behind it.

Thankfully, Techdirt has been very straightforward exposing the crap going on.

Maybe sometime this century people who are celebrities in any definition of the phrase will try not to be idiots and/or actually stand up for what they truly believe and not what they are paid (or required by contract) to believe.

Edit, it gets better: Lily's a pirate.

http://whatbecameofthelikelybroads.blogspot.com/2006/08/finally-lily-allen-mixtape-2.html

This is a link to a "mixtape" of her from 2006.

hahaha. Techdirt has more coverage..

Eh, back - so are the stupids

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:21:00 +0000

So lets see, what's new?

Oh right, someone's deciding that trademark means what they want it to, not actual reality. techdirt has plenty of details on that. Basically, someone is claiming trademark of the term Frugalisa, so I'd like to mention the Frugalista term is an obtuse concept. Frugalista is something absurd.

Meanwhile, I'll write when I can, but I'll just keep pointing out times that people define their own usage of existing things that are well defined.

Windows 7's "xp mode"

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:14:00 +0000

So, I hope anyone with a shred of information realizes that if you move to Windows 7 when it is released, you can kiss the ass of most windows XP apps behind. Gamers, you're screwed (techreport link).

FTA:

"Otherwise, the virtual XP desktop behaves pretty much as you'd expect, with a couple of exceptions. There's no explicit way to shut down, and closing Virtual PC will hibernate the image by default. The software also lets you run XP in full-screen mode, but with a little pop-out bar at the top to prevent you from trapping yourself in. Oh, and OpenGL/Direct 3D games don't appear to work."

Whoops. Guess that last line sure is a jiffy, isn't it. There are a lot of things that rely on OpenGL/Direct3d, and none of them However, guess what runs OpenGL/D3D quite well? Linux/wine specifically.

In fact, "XP mode" is really just a virtualization, which is something that has been around for years. It's merely added to the OS to add cost/bloat. Not to mention there are lots of ways to do it that don't require you to have a processor that supports it.

So guess what we're heading towards? If you said "another failed OS release", then you are correct. Basically all the stuff that would work on any OS will work, and anything even remotely more complicated will not run under 7. Gee, aren't you glad you bought another OS for $200 when it comes out?

Also, from the inquirer we have more info of other problems with windows xp mode. Oh don't forget that just like Vista if you want to downgrade you have to pay the full cost first, enabling MS to fill their coffers.

Sometimes, I hope they will embrace open source and stop this crap. Then I remember that even if they do, GPL still lets people charge what they want for the OS - thus meaning that they would still sell it for 200 bucks. Of course, people would have a way to compile the mandated source in about 5 minutes though is the difference. So those paying would basically be paying a stupid tax.

Waterboarding - some humor

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:59:00 +0000

Legos, they can do anything ;)

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/21/lego-waterboarding.html

ty boing for the laugh.

"We voluntarily censored your internet"

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Apparently, BT doesn't like to play the game of doing their job. In the UK, BT has a large share of the mobile business. However, they just made the dumbest mistake ever. They decided to voluntarily filter almost all of the web and requiring an ID to "unlock it". If this happened in the states, people would be quite violent quite quickly. Oh, who did they start with? Piratebay.

Slashdot coverage

PcPro coverage

Honestly, I hope they go out of business for this. Every company that has made cash grabs for MORE money during this business depression/recession deserves to have their upper management fired and/or anything worse that can possibly happen to them.

From the PCPro link:

"The warning page states the page has been blocked in "compliance with a new UK voluntary code"."

Yeah. Bullshit. Serious bullshit. It's like our little "we need more broadband capability" but no mention of all the HD streamed channels which take up more bandwidth than internet users. Yes folks, our magically good broadband bill is a bunch of bullshit. Go look it up.

Oh, so this is why this came around: The "internet watch foundation" has a part in it. This is basically a lobby group owned by copyright industry, under the guise of protecting children and artists. That's right, if your kid paints, he has to be protected by an industry as opposed to a parent.

Demigod - hmm

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:03:00 +0000

So for those of you who have checked out demigod, it is quite an entertaining game. This is one of my geek moments where I compare a game to all the cultural stuff out there. For those of you familiar with Dota, that's basically what this is, with a little bit more control and variance. You're still screwed if you die and it's pretty early determined who's winning.

Would I say it's worth 40$? no.

Would it be worth to try and stuff? Sure?

What's the biggest mistake Stardock, one of the smarter companies made? There is no way to download a legit full trial version, since all they have is pirated/legit. No imbetween. Would have been nice to have 1 or 2 weeks of the full game, etc. I mean it's nice to see them not waste their time on DRM, but how about try before you buy? That was kind of, a big issue.

If you can't take the heat, get off the internet

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:03:00 +0000

disclaimer: satire, obviously
Apparently two bloggers have been burned, quietly crying while masturbating to the sound of the world's tiniest violin playing, while wearing clown makeup and reciting the names of all the presidents. One was a professor who seems to imply through his writing that has a napoleonic complex, the other a slightly odd individual who apparently doesn't like being a moderator of their own comments.

It all started here: basically a guy got burned badly for that article on fark, for writing something that I don't care to read or evaluate. He responded, of course in what us internet denizens call flameworthy. What was the result? Flames. Clearly this is a difficult formula for a professor. Insult people who insulted you = you just fell for their tricks and incited many more.

Now, a new blog covers that post, and gets flamed by fark. See how they're all linking eachother for traffic, using it to pay for all that clown makeup? This one made a different mistake: they blamed all farkers for the occasional snarky or stupid comment. As we all know, the internet has some smart people, and it has some stupid people. Trying to whine about bad comments is like trying to whine about the anonymity allowed by the first amendment. If you can't deal with it, then get the hell off of this planet. Plenty of people are going to talk crap about you, no matter who you are, and behind your back or right in front of it. No amount of law, procedures, or civility is ever going to fix this, as we are inherently animals at a basic level of instinct. None of that is peaceful, or friendly. Really, we're all a bunch of chimps, albeit Bush is more of a gimp.

So what does this guy do? He says no more comments. Well done, well played. Let us plug our ears and say la la la la la we can't hear you. Reasoned discourse at its finest. Honestly, grow a backbone, deal with the flames, and guess what? People will move on, and/or have interest by replying. Oh, and how long did it take me in comparison to read his article? Minutes. Oh, and here's the fark thread discussing his "no comments", with the most accurate summary of this guy:

"I'm done with this guy now. Let's focus our attention on somebody with tits."

Gov't power abuse? Whoops!

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:45:00 +0000

Apparently the CIA waterboarded someone 183 times. Yup. I'm sure the other 182 must have been just as effective.

Remember, we were told that they never waterboarded/it was okay/etc. I'd love to have seen a politician have it done once. I'm pretty sure that would have changed their stance, if they didn't die from it (it can be fatal due to inciting panic/shock).

You stay classy, government.

Original Guardian Link.

piratebay guilty, RIAA in a nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:29:00 +0000

First, an image.

Also, Piratebay has been found guilty of something that I suspect will be easily appealed. Two things are of significance: 1: no Punitive (punish) charges have been made. Second: the charge was "assisting in making copyright content available" (linked from torrentfreak). Guess how well that's gone in the US? Boingboing has coverage as well as probably every news site out there.

I expect an appeal instantly, for the most part. I hope people sign up for the VPN service for now as it would also give them an easier avenue to gather the money needed for appeal.

AP: "we're important!"

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:31:00 +0000

The next organization to fall under in this "recession" is the AP. Apparently they haven't figured out that they are neither a bastion of freedom nor a great organization. They're a shitposting bunch of journalists who do a shoddy job at journalism. We really need a replacement for the AP, and guess what? We have it. It's called: the internet. Internet news isn't fueled by companies that choose what information they want to be covered. Politics can't shut it down. Sites like wikileaks will remain very much strong and cover all the stuff the AP used to, before it sold out and never discovered what the internet is.

So what have they done, exactly? They've tried to define why they believe google should pay them for giving them all this business, instead of vice versa. Remind me again why a middleman to any business should pay the people they bring business to for daring to help them run a better business? Techdirt has some explanations. Really, if someone brings you business, you thank them, not sue them. Really all AP has to do, is sue google. Once they do, google will de-link AP, and what do you know? Tons of people will no longer find AP search results in google, and thus, less traffic. I swear, I should be a network engineer or something.

From the AP's "FAQ" (oh no I'm copying more than 10 words again!).

5. What is meant by “rights-based services"?
AP already processes text content from more than 1,100 news providers as part of its “Digital Cooperative” program. This effort assigns tags to the content that make it easier to search and sort news stories by category, location and individuals named, among other things. The rights-based service will enable new licensing models for news distribution and consumption. We believe this will encourage greater innovation in how authoritative news is delivered to the public.

Apparently the first amendment is trumped by doublespeak. So much for free press, and everything. Did they really copy this straight up from DRM wording? "by suing our middlemen, we create new innovation". Sheesh. Here AP, here's an image that is well known, and reflects on your business decisions.

HDCP, Net Neutrality, "anti-piracy"

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:16:00 +0000

Note the quotes around "anti-piracy", its the same as when people use child pornography as an excuse for anything. See, here's the problem: when anyone thinks of child pornography, they imagine some sick pervert and like 5-8 year olds. The problem is, what happens when someone is 16? Then we have that whole sexting bullshit that has been going around. Meaning: we ensue into a sense of moral panic and don't focus on real issues or come up with logical solutions. Instead, we legislate. Yes, lets go flip about some 16 year olds to erode your privacy. That's how it works folks.

So a long time back, Apple decided to make their own policies. For "anti-piracy". This is a term every technology loves. If they want to sell something, they label it as "preventing piracy". Not that it actually does anything - piracy is majorly on the rise and has been for years mostly due to these anti-piracy things that give everyone across the board a bad user experience. Think you'd be offended to see people in a movie theatre scanning the audience for "criminals"? Sure, nobody cares because its "not you". Well what if they assume its you, when you haven't done anything? Fun surveillance society, huh. Apple's Antipiracy was called HDCP. What happened was, if you didn't have HDCP, you couldn't play things you legitimately purchased. Customers, as stupid as they are to buy Apple in the first place, were appropriately unhappy with this.

Now we have a new form of "anti-piracy", network caps. So now nobody can use the connection "in the way a pirate might". This is about the same logic as "well, a car might be used for terrorism, so we should be suspicious of all cars". Slashdot and Tomshardware both have coverage of what exactly this means. Literally its corporate extortion. This is direct reference to the time warner internet caps. They are charging you more for less under the guise of "preventing piracy". Basically using your connection for anything moderately reasonable now results in surcharges and extra charges beyond the norm. Watch more than 7 hours of youtube in a week for a month? You're paying an extra $75 in addition to the 50$ or so for the connection. Play video games for maybe the same timeframe? $75 more for the same thing that prior was, $75 less. Yeah, reasonable my ass. Of course the excuse is "we need bandwidth capacity to handle XYZ because its too much for us", but that extra money sure isn't being used to raise that capacity is it? They seem to be handling fine right now.

TWC is one company I pray fires their CEO soon for this idiocy. Consumers are rightfully pissed.

Monster Cable: screw logic, we have a trademark!

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Monster Cable is a company to never let down on screwing over everyone they can with bogus trademark claims. I hope someone takes them to court and invalidates it. They have claimed anyone with the word monster in the name is infringing, basically. Everyone from monster mini golf to Blue Jeans Cable to Monster Transmission, apparently. If there is a business that should go out of business, it's monster cable.

They basically overcharge for things that add 0 to the world. It's akin to the infomercials that say "results not typical" for those "look at me I lost 100 pounds!" ads. I pity the people who fall for that crap, or home shopping network, QVC, its all the same scam: give us your money to feel better about yourself! Adding gold plating to a cable doesn't make it magically perform any better. Another comparison is putting a "type R" logo on the back of your car.

Techdirt has quite a few links to the most recent endeavor including the monster transmission thing. Even Engadget has coverage. What's Monster's excuse? "We're protecting our trademark"...I wish trademarks could be invalidated for doing this. Then again, our politicians are idiots in general, and don't understand the things they legislate.

A break from the norm

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:31:00 +0000

Techreaction has a giveaway sponsored by AMD, to win a Phenom X3/X4 720 ish. Awesome deal if you ask me. I think they want you to have 50 posts by the end of the month, which is an easy deal. There's also a contest to win an AMD/ATI4850 courtesy of BigBruin too.

On copyright and musician's rights

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:18:00 +0000

So for quite some time, artists have been screaming that internet, giving away music, etc, kills their "right to get paid". Remember folks, in the world, nobody has a right to get paid, even the government. Gov't earns it by: establishing our safety, setting national guidelines, respecting people's rights, on a big picture perspective basically helping us keep a society that doesn't fall into anarchy.

Techdirt has coverage of this "right to get paid", and I think they're pretty much spot on. It's due to all these licensing schemes that we have that are letting these fat shitty artists suckle money all day for things that they didn't really earn anymore. It's no longer creative when you're making 8 thousand types of memorabilia that are neither interesting nor creative just for the sake of a few extra bucks as a sellout. Plenty of independant artists are giving people a reason to WANT to pay them. Noticably, they're making probably more money (and having more fun) than the sellouts.

What is this all about? "Artist Principles" explained by the future of music coalition. If you guessed that this is one of those self interest groups that thinks their rights are above the world, you are correct. Without reading everything they post, you can tell it has gone wrong by the first ideal, which says:

Revenue sharing: Revenues must be equitably shared between copyright owner and original creator(s).

Honestly now, must be shared? If I make my own stuff with fair use, based off of your work, and don't pay you, guess what? You should be thankful/pay me if anything for making it something valuable. This is just like the whole issue with the AP with the Obama image. You don't see the guy who made it having to track down the Chez Guevara (spelling?) original because he "MUST" pay him, do you? Hell no. I'm not going to spend hours and hours digging up people to pay pennies to each just because I made something useful that they failed to. That in itself kills any intent of copyright and basically kills culture. When something that you can make in 5 minutes takes you a week to legally/safely use, something is way wrong. Or, we can do that RIAA thing, and just pay one "group to pay the artists". Well, see how great that's been working for us.

Meanwhile, this "FMC" group has only one thing in mind, and it's not protecting the artist's rights. It's greed, specifically, one word: MONEY. Literally every bullet point is about that. What ever happened to it being about the ARTIST?

ICANN: hey, why not spin things?

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Slashdot brings us a link to a response from Icann today, from Cheryl Preston of ICANN. Apparently someone had good intentions in mind and forgot how fast corporations can tend to be corrupt.

From her reply, she says things which I am copying a part to include background and the other of what is the issue here.

"I submitted a petition to ICANN to form a constituency representing the safety interests of non-commercial Internet users."

"The proposed CyberSafety Constituency is made up of many organizations and individuals, as evidenced on the roster linked above. Indeed, the CP80 Foundation, a group that supports port zoning and is represented by Ralph Yarro, who is also chairman of the board of The SCO Group , is anticipated to be a member of the constituency"

Yes, so we're saying the public, is being represented by the commercial users of which SCO group is a part of, as well as members of the LDS church for example (see below on that). Isn't that great? Not just that, but of all groups, its the most corrupt group ever, SCO group, who are funded by Microsoft behind the scenes among other problems. They are the people who tried to sue Linux out of existence and failed, for those who don't know of SCO's history. It's bleak. Oh, and the other authors of the website "Cheryl" is a part of also downplays port zoning, which is another word for controlled censorship if the control is given to a non-regulated authority. Not that such a thing has ever happened before, or anything. Those other authors use child safety/safe content as the intent, even though port zoning would just be more redundancy. Anyway, Cheryl says:

"I can only wish that I had control of some global Mormon conspiracy network, that this were a money-making proposition, and that my powers of persuasion could possibly move ICANN to adopt a content regulatory system.

A few members of the proposed constituency are indeed members of the LDS church and some do favor controlling access by children to online pornography. Are either of these grounds to preclude involvement in other issues within ICANN's domain?"

Gee, you think? I highly doubt this will end in reasoned debate. Religion needs to be absolutely outside of ICANN, not a "neutral/unaffected part of it". How does she fail to understand that this is why we have problems in politics too, that people absolve logic for religion?

5 Trillion Dollar GLOBAL stimulus

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Is it me, or does this sound horribly wrong? Basically 5 Trillion has been pledged, 1.1 Trillion has been guaranteed (ABC). Also La Times and Reuters coverage.
My initial reaction to this article was "oh, we're in bad shape. Completely". However, I can't help but wonder if this is truly a good or a bad thing. Beyond that, thinking that creating jobs will stimulate the market, is horrendously stupid. Just because jobs could be created or lost does not dictate any aspect of the economy, as those people will find work elsewhere. Really the only thing that truly can dictate in a big picture, to me, is raising the GDP, which the main way is through increased population when we can handle it.

Raising taxes, increasing efficiency, education and less tax havens for the world will stimulate things a whole lot more. Or you can go the Boston route and legalize Marijuana for an easy cash grab, assuming voters aren't swayed into moral panic.

Can someone comment if this really is a good or a bad thing, someone with marketing background who can make some sense of this? I get the feeling this is a lot of false promises.

The daily funnies - hand picked

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Fark brings us a few good headlines today, some funny, some appropriately tagged as asinine.

#1: Police officer assigned to ticket other officers who park in handicap spaces and other tow zones finds 20 violations in six weeks. Reporter finds 25 violations in one visit to police headquarters

Yes, Boston PD apparently don't have the balls to shape up or stop making exceptions when they break the law. I mean after all, if you don't enforce it on yourself, doesn't mean you shouldn't enforce it on others, right?

#2: Also a great headline, Malaysian Prime Minister resigns. SHUT. DOWN. DEREK. ZOOLANDER

Of course for those that don't get the joke as it it's definitely an inside humor type thing, you probably won't laugh at all. This image can explain a little though: http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/6861/1216502342206bc0.jpg ...they changed the wording from the original context though.

That's all, I didn't want to dig too much.

Time warner cable - why should we give you what you want?

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Courtesy of Slashdot (linking to Businessweek) , and about 5 other places, Time warner is gearing up to fuck over every customer they had. They're going to offer a maximum of a 40GB cap, or basically not enough to watch the TV shows you want on Hulu over a month.

The problem with this, is they have been overselling their connections. This is just double dipping. So they'll keep it up and double dip until consumers get vocal. As if that's not bad enough, the lowest cap is 5GB, or lower than you have on a mobile phone. Yes, that low.

For all those people who think tech doesn't affect your life, enjoy when just reading email and maybe going on youtube has now incurred an additional "use" charge with the excuse that "few consumers go way over on usage".

In contrast, Comcast's is 250GB and many private providers don't have a cap (and are cheaper/faster). Dslreports.com has a listing for some of that.

Oh, and here's the best part: " only 14% of users in the first trial area actually went over their quota". That would be 1 in 7 folks. Not even as low as 1 in 10. They're saying on average we're not too far off from every 1 in 6 customers going above the usage quota. That's enormous.

Conflicker

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:31:00 +0000

Has anyone heard reports of what this has done, if anything? I've only heard April fools stuff so far. Makes one wonder what's really going on here, especially considering I have no knowledge of what conflicker does.

Warner Brothers acquires the Pirate Bay!

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:36:00 +0000

http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-acquires-the-pirate-bay-090401/.

FTA:

"The deal, worth over $13 billion (10 billion euros) came about after the recent performance at the Pirate Bay trial gave strong indications that the judgment would go against Warner Bros. For the Hollywood movie studio, it seems that acquiring The Pirate Bay was the only option left."

Y'all saw it coming.

Since when did advertisers choose their clients?

noreply@blogger.com (Usage May Vary) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:54:00 +0000

Penny arcade kicks this off with their April 1st comic, none full of fakes or lies, but 100% full of truths. Sad, isn't it. Apparently included in this bad economic situation is pure idiocy. An advertising company has talked about how we should sink more money into newspapers, as covered by techdirt. Not that they'd be pushing their own agenda in saying that. I'd compare that to a sporting goods store saying that people should buy more sporting goods, maybe under the pretense that people would be healthier if they were more active, or sports, etc. You think they'd say that? Duh.

Meanwhile, from the original article (also linked on techdirt) that is not only on an advertising centric homepage, but an ad exec himself? Here was his exact wording as talked about above:

"For our own self-interest -- and for the common good -- we need to start paying attention to newspapers again."

Yeah. Okay. Guess which one of those two reasons was factual? Maybe my bold can help out. There is nothing to be lost in an old industry dying off when we don't need it anymore. There are many reasons that we don't need paper to be printed out in the excess. The same type of lunacy is where the arguments of "newspapers lost = lost jobs!" as if people won't find jobs elsewhere. Really, are people going to sit on their ass the minute their workplace is no longer a workplace? Hell no, people need to eat, survive, make money, be fat ass rich people, etc. That would involve moving on and adapting.

All newspapers have to do is find a way to be interesting ONLINE and that will take care of itself. In the meantime, having a paper on the doorstep is something few people enjoy when the rest of the world realizes that they can find a: less biased information, b: more selective information, and c: more relevant information online. We all know who's in the pockets of sites such as the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune , and it's 100% political.

But what's this? Is Mr. Douchebag done yet? Nope. He has more fearmongering:

Our industry needs newspapers -- but just as important, so does humankind. The world needs the kind of journalism practiced by newspapers when they're at their best. The local investigative pieces. The foreign correspondence. The war reporting. Without them, news goes unreported. Viewpoints are narrowed. Governments can run amok. That kind of reporting is expensive, and right now no one knows how it will get paid for in the coming years.

CHAOS! FEAR! BIAS! EXPENSIVE! Not that we didn't have those things before newspapers, after them, etc. Honestly, expensive? Is it that expensive to have a digital camera to bring for newspaper interviews, maybe a $200 camera? This guy has more holes in his head than he has in his arguments. Or I could have it backwards.