A Muslem man who created a cable TV station with the aim of showing people there were reasonable, moderate Muslems out there beheaded his wife for filing for divorce.
Ahhh... the irony here is rich and juicy!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29189095/
"Honor killings" are actually nothing new among the Muslem community in the US and Canada... this one only made the national news because of the man's high profile. (It's quite common for fathers to kill their daughters for not wearing the head scarf when they reach that "rebelleous teenager" phase... it just doesn't get much media attention.) I can only hope this raises awareness of the practice so something will be done to put a stop to it.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Copyright "Censorship"
I have come to the opinion that companies are shooting themselves in the foot with this strict, draconian enforcement of copyrights online. By "companies", I mean ALL media companies: music, TV, motion picture, video games, ect. They all make forced deletion of ANYthing that they believe violates their copyright, (or harrass/threaten posters until they "voluntarily" remove their content). This has the same effect as "censorship" of anything copyrighted.
I think that they're losing more in publicity than they're gaining in sales. I actually "shop" for music on youtube... it beats 30 second samples of music from amazon or similar sites. The videos that got me to buy CDs by certain obscure bands: gone. The videos that made Supreme Commander look so awesome I bought it: gone. In some cases, I no longer remember the names of the bands or songs I was looking at on youtube. That's lost sales, right there. So, in my mind, allowing content to be leaked is as good or better than a trailer. But, of course, in the eyes of the companies, I'm just a twisted anti-captialist marxist thieving internet pirate... just like every other one of their customers.
I'm starting to seriously wonder... how long can one treat their customer base like vermin and stay in business? In the case of the media companies, might not be as long as they think...
"Music sales fell to their lowest level in at least 10 years..."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/18/technology/music.php
"...14.5% fall in overall DVD sales last year."
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc2009024_458580.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech
I think that they're losing more in publicity than they're gaining in sales. I actually "shop" for music on youtube... it beats 30 second samples of music from amazon or similar sites. The videos that got me to buy CDs by certain obscure bands: gone. The videos that made Supreme Commander look so awesome I bought it: gone. In some cases, I no longer remember the names of the bands or songs I was looking at on youtube. That's lost sales, right there. So, in my mind, allowing content to be leaked is as good or better than a trailer. But, of course, in the eyes of the companies, I'm just a twisted anti-captialist marxist thieving internet pirate... just like every other one of their customers.
I'm starting to seriously wonder... how long can one treat their customer base like vermin and stay in business? In the case of the media companies, might not be as long as they think...
"Music sales fell to their lowest level in at least 10 years..."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/18/technology/music.php
"...14.5% fall in overall DVD sales last year."
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc2009024_458580.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Big Brother is now a reality in the UK
Looks the the UK is wasting no time slipping into a totalitarian state.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439604.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084
Now, at this point, I know many readers out there are thinking "They're only spying on criminals, doing illegal things." Unfortunately that "I'm honest, so I have nothing to hide" mentality is a trap.
Now, what specifically could carry sentences of 3 or more years that could be on someone's computer? Perhaps this has something to do with the UK's recent ban on "extreme pornography".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7364475.stm
Yes, there are arguments on both sides of the issue, but it seems to be only a short step between that and banning other types of pornography, if not other types of expression, from the internet. And this is assuming everyone in the British government has the best of intentions and only bans things that are legitimately illegal... and doesn't use these new self-granted powers to attack free speech or criticism of the government.
Oops! There goes an entire internet archive!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/demon_muzzles_wayback_machine/
So now that they've proven their heavy-handed draconian intentions, who's next? How many private citizens will be jailed for private possession of pornography even if they just keep it to themselves? Prior to recent years, only fundamentalist theocracies such as Iran had "morality police." Now modern democracies such as Britain can boast that wonderful distinction as well.
I have another reason for disliking this policy. I consider this an invasion of not just personal privacy, but home and property. My internet-age sensibilities are that a PC, and its contents are someone's personal property. I have no protest if the authorities were to procure a warrant to sieze and search my PC. But this is searching without a warrant by using spyware! Something that is, by definition illegal.
So, the message here is: hacking is ok if the government does it? Malware is by definition illegal, unless it's government malware? The hypocricy of this double-standard sickens me.
This is one time I'm very glad to be living "across the pond" from the Brits. No matter how bad the threats to personal liberty have been in the US, things seem to be slipping into Orwell's police state over there ten times faster. I can only hope other countries don't take a page from Britain's draconian internet bans, and that it remains an isolated example.
Remember: In the Information Wars, don't worry about what you can see... worry about what you can no longer see.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439604.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084
Now, at this point, I know many readers out there are thinking "They're only spying on criminals, doing illegal things." Unfortunately that "I'm honest, so I have nothing to hide" mentality is a trap.
Now, what specifically could carry sentences of 3 or more years that could be on someone's computer? Perhaps this has something to do with the UK's recent ban on "extreme pornography".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7364475.stm
Yes, there are arguments on both sides of the issue, but it seems to be only a short step between that and banning other types of pornography, if not other types of expression, from the internet. And this is assuming everyone in the British government has the best of intentions and only bans things that are legitimately illegal... and doesn't use these new self-granted powers to attack free speech or criticism of the government.
Oops! There goes an entire internet archive!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/demon_muzzles_wayback_machine/
So now that they've proven their heavy-handed draconian intentions, who's next? How many private citizens will be jailed for private possession of pornography even if they just keep it to themselves? Prior to recent years, only fundamentalist theocracies such as Iran had "morality police." Now modern democracies such as Britain can boast that wonderful distinction as well.
I have another reason for disliking this policy. I consider this an invasion of not just personal privacy, but home and property. My internet-age sensibilities are that a PC, and its contents are someone's personal property. I have no protest if the authorities were to procure a warrant to sieze and search my PC. But this is searching without a warrant by using spyware! Something that is, by definition illegal.
So, the message here is: hacking is ok if the government does it? Malware is by definition illegal, unless it's government malware? The hypocricy of this double-standard sickens me.
This is one time I'm very glad to be living "across the pond" from the Brits. No matter how bad the threats to personal liberty have been in the US, things seem to be slipping into Orwell's police state over there ten times faster. I can only hope other countries don't take a page from Britain's draconian internet bans, and that it remains an isolated example.
Remember: In the Information Wars, don't worry about what you can see... worry about what you can no longer see.
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