A Little Bit on Piracy

Thankfully, there's not a whole lot to talk about today. This is good because I have a Computer Architecture at 9:30 AM tomorrow morning and I can't see myself going to be before 2:00 AM, but I'm sure it'll be later than that. The only thing that was worthy of a main topic was a couple of short articles on piracy. Apparently, some of Samsung's DVD players have had a glitch that allow them to bypass certain DRM encryption stuff. In other words, it makes it a lot easier for pirates to do their stuff. These players have not been in production for over a year now, and yet several movie studios are suing because of the oversight. Personally, I think this lawsuit is a stupid plea for more money for the movie studios to compensate for them investing in horrible projects. Samsung stopped making them when these concerns originally came up, and I don't recall there being a law requiring this to be built-in to the players (though I could be wrong, I'm no IP law expert). Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame, agrees that the studios are being rather greedy and has actually supported piracy of his work as long as its done in high quality. Why? Because he doesn't get paid what he should for it, so he has no problem with people screwing over the studios. I think its rather funny, and analogous to what record label does to its artists in album sales. I'm not saying that piracy isn't bad, but there really is a limit. And in Gilliam's case, aren't they kind of pirating him out of all the money he should be making for his own original ideas?

The next step in the release of a new, popular gadget like the MacBook Pro is to pull it apart, and that's just what this guy has done. I don't know how anyone could not be fascinated by looking at that and then using it and seeing how powerful all that tiny hardware is. Of course if you want to see ten things that will change our lives in the future, Forbes has a rather good slideshow detailing just that. I agree most with the $100 laptop one, which would be pretty crazy but also really awesome for low-income families. My dad had to actually buy his sister (in India) a computer so that they could keep maintaining their photo studio with the rising popularity of digital photography because they just couldn't afford one. PC Magazine put up a plethora of pictures from Windows Vista Build 5308 showing off many of the features that will ship with the product when it's first released. Their shots don't cover many of the things that aren't ripoffs of other products, but, in Microsoft's defense, there actually is some neat new stuff. And at least it looks slick. Lastly, if you've always wanted to scrub down your keyboard (you know it's filthy, don't lie) you should check out this article with the proper way to thoroughly clean out all that dirt and hair and stuff. I wish I had the time to do all that stuff.

The movie news is surprisingly weak today. JoBlo landed an interview with Hugo Weaving about being V in V for Vendetta, and he doesn't say a whole lot about the movie, but instead transfers more of an appreciation to the art department since the V mask is fixed and talks about other random stuff (like his hardest scene). I don't know why people keep seeing Scary Movie, but there are some pictures up today from the fourth iteration that make it look less vulgar than the previous ones. There's a poster up for Steve Buscemi's directorial debut, Lonesome Jim, and I would hope that given the movies he's been in that he would have a lot of exposure to great directing. It looks like it will be a romantic comedy in a less traditional sense, so I'm interested to see what he comes up with. Lastly, one horror geek has given The Hills Have Eyes his approval as a really good horror movie and even spoke with Alexandre Gans about his cuts for the R-rating. It has spoilers, but I'm sure that won't deter you.

Now for some Wednesday Mind Humping:

1. Name five famous Georges
George Carlin, George Burns, Curious George, George Washington, and Eddie George.

2. How many one-dollar bills do you have in your wallet/purse right now?
At least 8 of them, because I'd rather carry small bills than large bills for stuff like tip and church donations and stuff.

3. Ever been to Washington, D.C.? How about Washington State? Tell us a little about your trip to either of those places. And if you haven't been to either place, tell me what Washington, D.C. monument, institution or tourist attraction you most want to see if you ever go there.
Yes, but not Washington state. It was a family trip (ours and my uncle's family), and we basically just tried to hit all the tourist hot spots like the Smithsonian and the monuments and stuff. The subway was a lot of fun (my first subway trip), and I was first acquainted with Panda Express (which became a regular dinner thing since it was open later than other places at our subway station). There are way too many Smithsonian museums in D.C.! We had to wait too long to get into the Capitol, but it was pretty neat.