Year: 2005

The sheer unrelenting stupidity of the entertainment industry, coupled with the frighteningly unimaginative “innovation” at Microsoft, has given birth to something I would place at the top of my List of Dumbest Inventions of 2005. Quoting from a news article:

Microsoft has developed a cheap, disposable pre-recorded DVD disc that consumers can play only once. The discs would give Hollywood increased control over the release of new films and allow consumers the chance to watch a film at the fraction of the price of an ordinary pre-recorded DVD. More important, the discs would prevent copying and digital piracy, which is costing the film and music industry billions in lost revenues.

Notice the sentence at the end… the most important thing for the industry is to prevent copying. It’s not about entertaining people; it’s about making sure they don’t rip you off. Continuing:

The revolutionary product could be on the market as early as next year, with the new DVD players needed to view them.

Sweet! So if I want to use these crappy new DVD’s, I actually have to purchase a new DVD player! I’m sure it’ll be worth the cost… doesn’t everyone want a DVD player that’s crippled? What a fantastic marketing idea! Finally:

Buying an ordinary DVD of a new film costs about $20. Microsoft’s new disc will enable the studios to release a “play-once, then throw away” copy for as little as $5, much the same as renting a video or DVD. But unlike a rented DVD, the new disc allows consumers to decide when they watch films and there is no need to return it.

I honestly don’t know what demographic they’re catering to with this insane plan. If I’m in the mood to watch a movie, I bike over to Blockbuster, pick one out, and pop it in the DVD player. If I don’t have time today, I don’t rent a movie. Duh. For those people who don’t want to bike to Blockbuster, there’s Netflix– they can rent whatever they want, whenever they want, and return it at their leisure. Why on earth would I buy a DVD for the same cost as a rental, when it gives me absolutely no more convenience… and requires me to purchase a new DVD player and (probably) have some kind of connection to the internet so Microsoft can deactivate the DVD after I’ve watched it?

The mind boggles. Methinks this is even more idiotic (and even more doomed) than the plan to develop DVD’s that self-destruct 24 hours after opening them. Chalk it up as just another poorly-thought-out attempt by the entertainment industry to wrangle more money from their customers…

Today on Slashdot there’s a rousing discussion about the Singularity– the point where advances in technology happen so quickly it’s impossible predict what will be next. While many people whined about not having the flying cars they’ve been promised for fifty years, others observed how even today’s world would seem unbelievably complex to people from a century ago.

A great thought:

Rewind your brain fifteen years and imagine what you’d think if I told you:

You will use this mind-bendingly powerful system to view corporate sponsored, community driven messages boards where people will whine about having to drive cars that are almost unimaginably luxurious compared to what you have today.

Ahh, lawyers, bless their conniving little hearts…

Apparently I’m part of a class action suit against Visa and MasterCard, because my company uses Visa to process payments. The settlement totals $3.05 billion dollars– which is certainly a fair amount considering the amount of mental anguish and suffering I endured while processing these payments. Or something.

I’m sure the law firm is absolutely drooling over this settlement, since their fees are probably in the 30-40% neighborhood. That means well over a billion dollars when they finish this thing. This year’s office holiday party will be one to remember!

The best part of this whole tale, though, is the fact that I have a huge form to complete, all in order to receive my big fat cash payout of… hold your breath… zero. That’s right: despite the fact that I’m part of the “class” in the suit, apparently I didn’t meet the requirements to actually receive a payment. I guess I’ll file this form with all of those credit-card applications I get every day in the mail.

“If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.”

— John Wheeler

Since I put some new spam filters in place on my mail servers, I’ve been receiving only one or two spam messages a day. What a fabulous improvement over the past, but in a way it’s sad not to see all those idiotic notes from Nigerian bankers and whatnot.

In one of today’s sparse messages, I saw this great introduction:

All informations are protected with security policy.

Buy from us, Get FOC check up.

Wow. So they protect all my “informations” with a security policy! Not a security system, mind you– just a policy. Heaven knows what that policy is; it’s probably something like “We’ll share all your informations with our special partners, associates, and that bum living down on the grate outside our office.”

And I have no idea what an “FOC check up” is, but it sounds painful. Or scary. Or both.

Laralee was doing a crossword puzzle tonight, and asked me who King Arthur’s sister was. I had no idea. She turned to Alex and asked him, and he promptly said her name was Morgan le Fay.

And he was right. Now Laralee has a new source for crossword answers, apparently. I have failed her for the last time.

Given the raging debate about intelligent design, this was too funny not to post here…

“Take me to your leader, Earthling!”

I’m filing my quarterly business taxes today. As if it’s not enough fun to see how much money I’ve given to the Gov over the past three months, when I seal everything in the envelope I find that the lick-strip (what do you call that part, anyway?) tastes absolutely horrible.

I mean, it’s bad enough to be mailing anything to the IRS… can’t they at least make the envelope taste like raspberry or bubble-gum or something?

As hurricane Rita bears down on Texas (expected to hit land Saturday morning), an unprecedented situation is playing out on the highways. A month ago when people were told to evacuate New Orleans in the face of hurricane Katrina, many didn’t heed the call. Now, after seeing what happened there, residents of Houston are paying attention and packing their cars.

However, as they evacuate north along a couple of major highways, they’re faced with a problem the likes of which hasn’t been seen: traffic jams that are literally a hundred miles long. Cars are overheating or just running out of gas as people sit on the road waiting to get out of the city. I’ve read stories of people who spent twelve hours on the road, and never even got out of Houston itself. Wow.

The hurricane approaches, and people are now turning around– it’s better to face the incoming storm in a house than in a car, I suppose. There are concerns amongst the Texas government that people will literally die on the evacuation route because they won’t be able to get anywhere.

The past few weeks have certainly seen incredible and tragic situations. Politics aside, this is a time when all of us need to look long and hard at our own situations: if faced with a disaster of this magnitude, what would you do? And the government, trusted with the safety of its citizens, must examine its own policies to determine what might be done to avoid this sort of nightmare in the future.