Partial Attempt

So I haven’t been writing much recently, but I have been thinking about stuff. Thing is most of the interesting things I want to mention I see on the few web sites I frequent. Now those are really good web sites, and I don’t normally feel I have much I can add to the topics they discuss. However, I do think it would benefit pointing them out. So I’m going to try to do that more often, and maybe ramble on about it myself.

Ars Technica had a good article up about the discussions of the broadcast flag in hearing. Basically the “flag” if just an instruction that tells your television and recording equipment what they can do with the program. You know the ads and trailers at the beginning of the DVD that gives you the “Operation is Currently Prohibited By Disk” message when you try to fast forward or skip to the menu. Yeah they want to implement something similar on the TV shows that are broadcast over antennas. The reasoning they employ is that the digital broadcasts can be recorded perfectly, and then “pirates” (read consumers) can distribute it with abandon. Basically it’s a load of bunk. The people that make money of selling illegal copies will have the equipment to get past this “measure.” It’s not meant to stop them. It’s meant to extract more money from the average consumer, by preventing you from recording shows, limiting the time you can keep them to 90 minutes or a few days, preventing you from letting your friend borrow your recording since their power was out, and other things I can’t even think of. A friend of mine has had an HDTV for a few years now. He gets to look forward to the possibility that the next cable box, DVD player, or HD DVD player won’t actually send a high definition signal to his TV. That’s because his TV uses the beautiful analog connections, but that isn’t secure from “pirates” copying it. So they invented a new connection called HDMI that only allows “secure” devices to connect to each other. Basically now they want to control everything you do with their content after you get it, especially if it means they can charge you for watching it more than once. Even the new digital radio is trying to get flags approved. Like anyone would steal a poor digital copy of a song on the radio when they could download a much higher quality MP3 off the internet. But it would prevent you from recording a baseball game or broadcast concert to listen to later. Or maybe you could watch it or listen to it again, if you pay a few dollars first. I suggest all media consumers read the articles. If you still think broadcast flags and digital rights management are about anything other than the mighty dollar then I have some swamp land for sale.

I just had to put this one up because it made me laugh. Oh and I’ll share this one too. Ah DRM and DMCA. Is there nothing you can’t screw up?

As they say use it or lose it. An exercised mind is an agile mind. I say that if you don’t learn something new every day then it’s wasted. It doesn’t have to be anything profound, just something. I read lost of web articles and such to make me think. I also try to read books to make me think. My grandmother’s mind is still going strong, and I haven’t seen many other signs of mental collapse in the rest of my family. I don’t think I would mind being in a wheelchair that much, but I would like to remember how I got there. And to help out I’m going to keep pushing what I know and what I want to learn. Maybe I’ll take some more history, literature, math, or science classes.

For those of you following the domestic spying hooplah going around (really who was that surprised), I offer this link. I link linking to the site I found the link on. It advertises good sites for finding these things.

I’ll try to do this a little more often.