Archive for July, 2006
My Beloved Robot Arm
In the second episode of the first season of “Invader Zim” entitled “Parent Teacher Night”, we are given a glimpse into the birthing process for Irkin invaders. A flashback by Zim shows him being extracted from a pod, cleaned, and equipped by a series of machines. Finally a recorded voice booms, “Welcome to life, Irkin child. Report for duty.” In a moment of infantile naiveté, the young Zim leaps up to hug the mechanical arm that has given him life and exclaims, “I love you cold, unfeeling robot arm!”
It seems like a simple joke, but I recently realized that it is an apt metaphor for a disturbing element of my life. I am (in the general case) a caring and giving person, concerned about the well-being of others and giving of myself (as my friend Tim observed) “until there is no more to give.” This works fine for my relationships and friendships, though it tires me out at times and I need to remember to periodically take care of myself before giving to others.
This is no Mr. Smith
I’m in favor of Net Neutrality, the concept that the Internet should be free and clear of special “deals” where network owners could charge people to carry their traffic to customers or even block access. Such deals would have crushed things like the blog explosion (a revolution in first ammendment rights) and the advent of streaming audio/video (like YouTube) and social networking (like Friendster) since the giant companies with the big coffers would be able to buy up chunks of last-mile bandwidth. Why would you read an alternative news blog if CNN.com comes through 10 times faster? Why would you try out that new video service, if AOL can pay to get your attention with more money and worse technology? It’s just stupid.
And who are the people making the laws? Well, in one very prominent case: a fool. A 10 minute rambling by Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is truly something worth hearing. This guy can’t even explain how Netflix gets to your house, and he’s supposed to understand the technologies being developed on the Internet enough to legistlate them? Good lord. If this doesn’t shatter your visions of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”-type elloquence, nothing will. The brightest and best are not the ones we’ve sent to Washington.
Update: Via “Throw Away Your TV”, Jon Stewart took on Net Neutrality with hilarious results, having specifically taken on Ted Stevens previously.
Update: Thank goodness someone made a Ted Stevens techno remix. Woo!
Tray-shy
I’ve written here a few times about DRM (specifically the Sony “root kit”) and now I realize that, as a result, I don’t quite trust my computers with music anymore. I’ve been a consumer of CD music for a long time now, with several hundred discs overflowing my current storage solution (yes, I still like having jewel cases and liner notes around). When I buy a CD, it usually makes a quick trip to my Linux box that runs custom software I wrote to rip everything to MP3s for my convenience. After that, it usually gets dropped into one of my higher-end home stereo systems for thorough CD-quality listening.
Today I got the new Tool album and was surprised to find that I was afraid to drop it in the CD tray of my Windows laptop at work. Might I be installing software unknowingly? Could listening to this new music damage my computer? What if it installs software that allows my machine to be compromised next time I fire up wireless at a coffee shop? Could that cost my company money or intellectual property?
I’m a huge music consumer, and I feel betrayed by the business that has thousands of my hard earned dollars. I feel like they’re likely to screw me, the customer, at any moment to “protect” themselves against the imagined threat of mass-piracy. Sure, music is being stolen. But does that justify what they’ve done and how that has affected me, the straight-arrow consumer?