Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I've been very light on the political entries lately, mostly due to time issues, but there's a set today that disgusts me so much that I really feel I have to mention. It's no surprise that US corporate corruption is over the top, with a fairly endless stream of stories of one company after another collecting multi-million-dollar payoffs and then giving nothing back to either the US or Iraq.

Now, it's one thing for greedy companies run by the richest people in America to do mass defrauding of the American taxpayer. That sort of “spreads the evil” out in a way that maybe they can convince themselves that it's a victimless crime or something — rather than vile war profiteering. But when war profiteering gets personal — when it's used to attack a single family, it really makes me sick.

While in theory there are (some) laws (albeit largely ignored) protecting people from foreclosure on their property while they are off at war, tell that to Wells Fargo and other big companies who are recognizing the economic damage that this back door draft has done as an excellent way for them to do massive asset seizure. These are not wealthy people — Osawatomie, Kansas, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and rural Ohio are a big step removed from the Hamptons. Lives are being destroyed by more than guns and bombs… I've linked to it over and over, but you must read this: WAR IS A RACKET.

It's not just big companies taking advantage of it. Having your partner dragged away for years at a time can put a hell of a strain on a marriage, and many families have been destroyed because of it. To make matters worse, courts are effectively accepting the argument that being in the military makes someone an unfit parent and people are losing custody battles while drafted to fight in Iraq… Can you imagine the horror of having to go and fight in a war you don't want to be in, and then having your kids taken away because of it? It's no wonder recruiters are scrambling…

Compare the pictures in this entry and understand
how war affects the rich and poor differently.

As much as I love beer, I'm not sure that I'd get the custom license plate that my next door neighbor has… It feels like a recipe for getting pulled over all the time. As much as I don't really mind paying bribes, it would probably get tiresome after a while.

Make sure to tell yourself that this is cool
And make sure to tell yourself that you have no choice
And make sure to tell your friends that they drive you to it
And that you can quit anytime
That you want, anytime

Also on the car theme, my dunebuggy got wrecked yesterday. Not destroyed or anything, but damaged to the point where it's got to be stripped down to the chassis to repair it (it's only a minor problem, but because of how buggies are built, sometimes minor problems require a complete dismantling). It's just sort of irritating when my vehicles get damaged when I lend them to other people. Not for “blame” reasons, but maybe because if something of mine gets broken, I want to be the one breaking it? I think if it was something I did to it, it would feel more “natural”… I know when I crashed my TT shortly after getting it, it bothered the guy whose bodykit-import-thing I smashed into was a lot more upset than I was.

I got up this morning and discovered that the last of my Red Bulls had been drank. I thought I'd saved one for today but I guess not. Anyway, after prepping some of the BME work for the day (see the entry below this one), I hopped in the dunebuggy and drove down to the malecón to have a coffee on the beach. It's the first time I've been to the café here and it's disconcertingly like any place in Toronto… same set of drinks (at half the price though), a guy on his iMac via their wireless hotspot, and a pierced girl behind the counter taking the orders.

“Mocha grande con soya” — imbibed out on a dock overlooking the bay.

Staircase to nowhere.

Other than that, I'm trying to get some programming done, but there's yelling about some video game within earshot. To really work efficiently, I need a controlled zone… Maybe that's unfair to wish for, but it's never quiet here and I hate blasting my headphones. I have very sensitive hearing. I think some significant changes are going to have to be made in order to stabilize this environment.

I can also hear into the subsonic ranges and up into very high frequency ranges as well. Subsonic sound travels incredibly far, so if there are trucks or large equipment working even miles and miles away it drives me nuts… I think that's part of the reason why I like deserted islands and boats so much.

So everyone is talking about (most spewing idealism out of their asses, and in their zeal confusing shit for gold) Yahoo!'s new Creative Commons search engine, which in theory should return things that you can copy and use for your own projects with a variety of free-ish licenses.

Match #1 for “tattoo” I know the owner of this tattoo (and it's on BME also), and I know that he doesn't like his image being copied like this. Not only that, but you can see that his email address has been blacked out of the photo. Additionally, this instance was stolen not just from the source, but from an E/N site that had previously stolen it and now claims their own copyright on it — you can see their logo bottom center. Yeah, “Creative Commons license”. Whatever.

I call “bullshit!”

I did some test searches for terms where I am very familiar with the media on the subject (BME stuff and so on), and ignoring pointless inane blog posts that no one would want to copy in the first place, a vast percentage of the media returned is copyrighted commercial content and I even found materials stolen from BME and other projects friends (or I) have been involved in!

Somehow I doubt “but Yahoo! told me I could copy it” will fly in court, and I would hope that they'll ammend their license and surrounding notes to reflect their incompetence and inaccuracy soon.

But I'd be surprised if the people pushing CC so hard really care about ripping off pornographers and deviants, and will do little to correct these rampant problems… Hell, for all I know Yahoo! and other big corporations playing with CC-stuff right now are playing a double agent game that will one day destroy these shortsighted crusaders cheerleaders.

Note: To be clear, I suppport Creative Commons licensing, and have released a ton of software, music, video, and images under various free licenses. However, I have a BIG FUCKING PROBLEM with people stealing copyright-controlled media and claiming it's free and then passing it on.

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Update from a forum thread…

Me: “They will NEVER be able to build an automated search for copyright free material.”

Smart Friend: “Unless every piece of content ever created and ever to be created had metadata inserted with no human intervention. IOW, yer right.”

Me: “Actually, the real reason it can't be done is 95% of the material released as 'free' (under one 'license' or another) is done so FRAUDULENTLY… that is, the person releasing it is claiming it has a different license than it does. Claiming that warez is shareware does not make it so.”

“The only way for this to work is a method of authenticating authors, linking them to their productions, and giving them direct and implicit control, without the ability to separate these elements. Oh wait, that's DRM, and no one likes that either. ;-)“

Meh. A la guns don't kill people, I kill people, one must point out, DRM doesn't sue people, the RIAA sues people… It's always interesting how politically motivated technologists on both sides of the debate will choose one technology and say “it's a tool that can be used for both good and evil, but just a tool” while denouncing something else equally tool-like…