Author: cosmo

The RIAA’s unbelievably ignorant efforts to combat music piracy continue their streak as this week they sue a family in Rockmart, Georgia who doesn’t own a computer.

According to the federal lawsuit filed by the RIAA, the family “has used, and continues to use, an online media distribution system”. They’re accused of sharing such classics as Poison’s “I Won’t Forget You” and Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You”.

It’ll be interesting to see this one play out in court. Hah.

The RIAA took a bit of a PR hit lately, when their case against 13-year-old Brittany Chan was dismissed by the court.

In late 2004, the RIAA’s file-sharing sniffers thought they detected some illegal downloaded songs at the Chan residence. They filed a lawsuit against Candy Chan (Brittany’s mother) but she insisted she hadn’t done anything. Eventually they dismissed their case.

Then the lawyers came back to attack Brittany, but since she’s a minor they included a requirement of guardian ad litem so they could hold her mother responsible for her actions. Because this is a complicated (and expensive) process, the court asked the RIAA’s dogs to provide a plan for how to pay for the guardianship. The RIAA responded by saying they shouldn’t have to pay anything because their case was so strong. Never mind “innocent until proven guilty”… such trivialties of the law are beneath the RIAA.

In the end, the court dismissed the case because the RIAA never answered the court’s question. Bummer for them.

Idiots.

“You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.”

— Warren Beatty

I’m registering for the Bolder Boulder run– my annual 10km Memorial Day adventure– and I noticed that the home page has a photo of a bunch of the A-wave (read “fast”) runners at the start line.

And, as you’d probably expect, there’s also a gorilla.

There are times when I’m talking with clients and they’re asking about some new whiz-bang feature they want on their web site, and in my head I’m picturing Boromir at the Council of Elrond, when he’s talking about how much Mordor sucks and he finally says,

If only I could say that to my clients…

I’m responsible for a web site for Vusi Mahlasela, who is an African musician. Although I didn’t do the design, as I was making some updates on the site I realized there is an awesome photo in the corner of this page showing some guy in a toga who’s really into the music at the concert.

And what’s with the woman behind him? She’s enjoying… uhh, something…

Hurrah for New Hampshire!

The House of Representatives of that plucky little state has just passed (217-84) a bill which prohibits the state from participating in the Real ID Act, which was passed by the U.S. Congress last fall as part of a rider on a tsunami relief bill. The Real ID Act could very well be the worst piece of legislation since the PATRIOT Act, and has far-reaching privacy implications as well as a laundry list of implementation problems ranging from security concerns to a burdensome cost on all fifty states.

Because the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution (hey Congress, remember the Constitution?) specifically says that states reserve any powers and authority not specifically granted to the federal government. This is just such a case, but of course the Department of Homeland Insecurity is strong-arming the states and waving the War on Terror flag as part of their arguments why the Real ID Act will “make America safer”.

I sincerely hope that the New Hampshire Senate passes the bill so it becomes law, and that more states follow their lead. It’s about time someone stood up for the rights of 270 million citizens.

Seen on Fark.

“When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we’d been saying they were.”

— John F. Kennedy

Our neighbors bought a copy of King Kong on DVD and loaned it to us this week. Laralee wanted to watch it; I wasn’t very excited about it but decided to humor her.

If I had to describe the movie in a word, that word would be

SUCKED

The first hour was pretty good– lots of suspense, wondering what mystery awaits our heroes, as well as some interesting character development. Then we hit the second hour, which was like a journey to Land of the Lost, with cheesy dinosaurs and even cheesier giant bugs and creepy-crawlies attacking our heroes in a non-stop tide of overdone special effects. The third hour recovered a little, but you just wanted to scream at the characters because of how inane they were being. When Kong finally fell a hundred stories to his death, I can’t say I shed a tear… except maybe the tears of happiness that the movie was finally over.

Ugh.