neurological dryer lint

good gravy... this is what record companies are willing to do to keep you from using the CD you purchase outside of how they feel you should - infecting your computer with a virus that you can't manually remove. ripping a CD to audio files on your PC is completely, totally legal - but sony is so desparate to keep you tied to their way of doing things that they're willing to damage your computer. i can't wait til the lawsuits begin.

i've been digging through larry lessig's book the future of ideas lately. it hasn't captured my attention like free culture did - but the concept he writes about is just as compelling. at the behest of large corporations (much like the one i work for) our government has started down the road of making things that have always been free (as in speech, not as in beer) to use copyrightable and DRMable - locking them down so that the content owners (the Sony's of the world) can control their every potential use and suck every cent out of those uses that they can.

not that content should all be free (as in beer) - the point is, it's a dangerous road we're heading down to allow that principle to dominate our legislation.

here's what's scary - and this isn't from the book, this is just what popped into my head while reading - what if the process of tying your shoes was copyrighted? let's say Nike copyrighted the double knot, and every time you ties your shoes, a CPU in the shoe (Adidas has 'em already) sends a cellular signal that charges you 5 cents. the simple idea becomes owned and licensed and unable to use outside of a company's permission.

yes, it's a conspiracy theory. but crap, go read the legislation yourself - the principle is already there. the barrier to it happening is common sense, though, right? there'd be a public uproar if that happened!

there's only been a mild uproar - and it's only been by left-leaning geeks like me - so far, as rights that have always been allotted to the consumer out of 'common sense' have been decimated in the past ten years. read a few books and some pieces of legislation like the DMCA and the Broadcast Flag act. makes me shudder to imagine what will be legislated ten years from now. by then we should have hoverboards, 80's bars, pizza hydrators, and insane legal restrictions to EVERYTHING.

you all love hearing about that. yep. so moving on... also reading cory doctorow's down and out in the magic kingdom. it's futuristic scifi that your average joe could really pick up and read... there's a bit too much technobabble for everyone to really enjoy it as much as a geek... however... it's not as gray-skied or bleak as a gibson book, but still compelling, edgy, cool-tech filled... not as chewy or sugary as a harry potter, but still funny, colorful, with entertaining characters... not as hopeless as neil gaiman, but with realism and honesty that draws you in. i'd previously been through another of his, eastern standard tribe - a little more modern and funny, less scifi, and best of all, free to download and read. now that's how it should be.

btw i've just found this to be true: you want to motivate me to do work, put on the crystal method's vegas disc and watch me go. i feel like i could build a house or write a 50 page paper straight through while this CD's on. i got things done today that i'd been working on for weeks previously - and it was during the first six songs of that album.