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Random thoughts of the day
Jun. 12th, 2004 03:01 amToday's spam: "Powerful weightloss now available" for me. If I lose any more weight I'll become antimatter or something.
Copyright, what an odd thing. It's interesting to see the little wrangles that go on here on Livejournal, which typically involve some teenage girl complaining about someone else 'stealing' her LJ icon, which was based on 'stolen' images in the first place. (I wish people wouldn't use the term 'steal' or 'theft' in this case anyway.) Originally copyright was a nice idea to stop other people printing your book or releasing your record and raking in the profits that would otherwise have gone to you. But the system doesn't work now that almost anything can be duplicated for free. As a result we have corporations and governments trying to restrict our ability to copy anything just so that there's no chance that we can break this law. If you thought DVDs that you can only play in certain countries was slightly draconian, you've not seen the things that are planned for the future. It's quite worrying.
Watching the Reagan stuff recently was thought-provoking. My memories from when I was younger depict him as a nice guy, but I'm sure I'd hate him if he was the US president now. Closer to home, the local elections had some interesting results, which could indicate that we'll have no party with an overall majority at the next General Election. I wonder how that would work out. Anyway, as a side tangent, I hate people who say, "if you don't vote, you have no right to complain". What makes people think that? Where's the logic? In the majority of cases, you know who's gonna get elected in your area with a high degree of certainty anyway. The ballot box is not the be-all and end-all of social change, and I think it's pretty naive when people suggest that it is.
Oh, and the D-Day stuff last week was important to me too. That was a real war that really needed fighting, not like this 'oh, there'a a nasty Arab somewhere who invaded someone 13 years ago, and if we're lucky we can depose him long before we have to stand for re-election" business.
Hmm, this is all very profound for 4am! I wonder if it's something I ate.
Copyright, what an odd thing. It's interesting to see the little wrangles that go on here on Livejournal, which typically involve some teenage girl complaining about someone else 'stealing' her LJ icon, which was based on 'stolen' images in the first place. (I wish people wouldn't use the term 'steal' or 'theft' in this case anyway.) Originally copyright was a nice idea to stop other people printing your book or releasing your record and raking in the profits that would otherwise have gone to you. But the system doesn't work now that almost anything can be duplicated for free. As a result we have corporations and governments trying to restrict our ability to copy anything just so that there's no chance that we can break this law. If you thought DVDs that you can only play in certain countries was slightly draconian, you've not seen the things that are planned for the future. It's quite worrying.
Watching the Reagan stuff recently was thought-provoking. My memories from when I was younger depict him as a nice guy, but I'm sure I'd hate him if he was the US president now. Closer to home, the local elections had some interesting results, which could indicate that we'll have no party with an overall majority at the next General Election. I wonder how that would work out. Anyway, as a side tangent, I hate people who say, "if you don't vote, you have no right to complain". What makes people think that? Where's the logic? In the majority of cases, you know who's gonna get elected in your area with a high degree of certainty anyway. The ballot box is not the be-all and end-all of social change, and I think it's pretty naive when people suggest that it is.
Oh, and the D-Day stuff last week was important to me too. That was a real war that really needed fighting, not like this 'oh, there'a a nasty Arab somewhere who invaded someone 13 years ago, and if we're lucky we can depose him long before we have to stand for re-election" business.
Hmm, this is all very profound for 4am! I wonder if it's something I ate.
