I’m not one for more laws (are you paying attention Mr. President?), but perhaps we could get some legislation that puts these moronic, withering, old-world industry lawyers in their place. Via Boing Boing, we get news that the EFF has unearthed some interesting wording in the RIAA latest filing. Basically, when they said (in MGM v Grokster) that ripping a CD and transferring that to your iPod was fair use, they didn’t really mean that. Lovely.. now we have to fight for rights we already have.
Category: Uncategorized
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MST3K – At the Fair
One of the funniest 10 minutes ever produced by a guy and two robots.
“Captured pilots are paraded before the citizens. Women are excited by seeing the word ‘member’”.
Permalink to video if the embed doesn’t work
[via Screenhead]
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Stop it!
Stop remaking classic, good movies. And then, stop remaking classic, bad movies, like Logan’s Run. It was a Simpson’s joke, for the love of god. Let it be.
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Huh, who knew?
With the Olympics *yaaaawn* going on, it seemed fitting that today’s Ask Yahoo question was “Who was the ‘agony of defeat’ guy?” Remember him, the poor dude who fell just as he was leaving the ski jump ramp? Apparently, so did lots of other people.
Check out the answer to the question.
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Chipotle Meatballs
More a meatbal with chipotle sauce, actually. Haven’t tried these, but am looking forward to it.
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Game Discs Days Are Numbered
“Let’s be fair. Whether it’s five, 10, 15, 20 years from now, the concept of driving to the store to buy a plastic disc with data on it and driving back and popping it in the drive will be ridiculous,” Moore said. “We’ll tell our grandchildren that and they’ll laugh at us.” – Microsoft VP Peter Moore
Some people already knew that, Pete. Why is it news? And why, when some VP of the Week at Microsoft says stuff like this, does the hugely popular game company doing it not even get mentioned in the article?
(Sidenote: This post brought to you from Opera; if someone can tell me how to change the coloring on Bloglines, I’d consider switching.)
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Stupid Business Tricks – H&R Block
All my tax documents are in and I’m ready to get filing. Gotta get the software, right? So, after the craptastic DRM that TurboTax decided to put in their software a while back, I’ve been a customer of H&R Block. Decent reputation, solid software. I head over to the site, find the federal and state option I need, add it to my cart and prepare to check out.
But, what’s this in my shopping cart?
Product: Extended Download Protection. Right. What exactly is Extended Download Protection?
Extended Download Protection ensures you have a back-up copy of your TaxCut software purchase in the case of a system failure
That sounds like a nice feature. How do they do that, send you the discs?
With Extended Download Protection, you may re-download your TaxCut software up to two years after the date of purchase.
Whaaaaa? So, I’m paying $4.99 for storing a sub-100 MB file in (I’m assuming) the same place it is now, on the off chance I’ll need it two years from now? And, after two years I’m guessing I’m out of luck. Why not burn the file to a CD? What’s that cost, a nickel? Even with worst case scenarios, the CD will last more than 2 years. And are that many people re-downloading tax software that H&R Block needs five bucks to pay for bandwidth? Couldn’t they tack on another quarter to the purchase price and make this “service” standard?
Shame on H&R Block for lifting $5 from the pockets of those who don’t know better. If people are smart enough to download software, at least have the decency to provide them the opportunity to re-download it again for free. It’s not like their going to grab it multiple times a day just because they can.
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Ah, West Michigan
From the ever entertaining Sploid comes the woeful tale of East Grand Rapids kids gone bad. Or normal, depending on your perspective.
Sploid: ‘Our kids drink? Do something!’
A hilariously appropraite title considering East GR is full of a) rich people, b) drugs, and c) rich people who do drugs. I can’t tell you the number of East GR kids that hang out at the club du jour doing coke, speed, meth, or weed. You know, kind of like everyone else in the world.
The fact that the uppity parents in this enclave are so clueless as to think that giving their kids hundreds of dollars a week in “allowance” would automatically teach those kids responsbile ways to spend that money is so American, it hardly deserves mentioning. Yet, here we are, reading about it in many papers across the state. Why, I’m surprised these kids even have time to drink, what with all the committments to charity work and family time.
Kudos to the parents for outing their kids to the school, though. Nothing teaches kids discipline and respect for authority figures like having your parents make someone else punish you. Ah, the offspring of upper management; what hope we have for the future.
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Apparently We DO Need a Law
Following up on this post, wherein I went off on the twit who’s tit was the subject of much consternation in Ann Arbor. The City Council saw fit to pass an ordinance to address this pressing issue. What was left out in the first report was that Ms. Fuks decided to breast-feed her spawn in the pool of the YMCA. Pardon my French but are you les phucking kidding me? Never mind the obvious “typical Ann Arbor” tack I could take on this, but who the hell thinks it’s even reasonable to do that in a public pool?
Pardon me while my incredulities spike.
Ignore the social faux pas, ignore the distractions to everyone else. Have you ever been in a public pool? Near one? Seen one? This is not an aquarian environment in which you want to immerse yourself and then shove an exposed body part into the mouth of a immuno-poor organism. Did I miss the meeting where public pools suddenly became pristine bodies of water like Lake Vostok? And aren’t there tons of other people and children playing in that pool? Might they bump our breast-feeding hero?
Oh, wait, of course they wouldn’t. She’d probably call the news and her Ward reps. Can we get a law about bumping people in the pool?
Much humorous (and pointed) comments at AAiOR (who also get a hat-tip).
