A Question of Ethics: Fandom and the Question of Copyright

*sigh*

I have large quantities of stuff I would love to post up on either my gallery or on my deviant art space. But every time I go to do it, I find myself deciding not to.

Why?

Because fan art, especially my desktop images wallpapers (I'm particularlly fond of making collauges,) are in clear violation of copyright. Now I can argue, and probably reasonably sucessfully, that me making the works is within fair use. However, the moment the presentation audience expands beyond myself, and maybe a few of my friends, by say, putting it up on deviant art, what little argument I had dissapears. But because of this, I feel stifeled as an artist. And worse yet, when I'm working with the art of a "fan artist" who has an explicit thing about stealing work, I find myself torn.

Specifically, all forms of fan art are in some way dervitive works, (see Circular 14. from the U.S. Copyright Office) and as such, can only be commisioned by the original author. Because of this, without special permission, drawing your own picture of the Sailor Moon character is a blatent violation of U.S. copyright law. Because of this, people like Fred Gallagher, dispite the fact that they have wounderful talent and bring a whole new outlook to the character, have violated the law.

Now normally I say, let the fan community be. Realisticallty speaking, the fan community (Well, I should specify, the fan artists, not the people who share their favorite animes over the web) Have no intent to devalue the work of the original author. It's just something they do so that they can show thier support for a given work. This behaviour is normal and does nothing but increase the value of the original work. But the moment that those fan artists loose sight of the goal, and begin claiming the inspiration as their own, not only have they fallen away from the spirit of the fan art community, but they have also moved out of the protective shadow of fair use. This is where ol' Mr. Gallagher has gone. He has placed strong limitations on the use of his work, (*read can not use for any purpose*) and as such, hampered the spreading of his work to other fans. The question that comes to my mind is, does he know that he's in violation in the first place.

Mr. Gallagher has endorsed, and even encouraged the generation of fan works derivitive from his work base (Megatokyo) in many situations, but in the same breath he has staunch limits posted on his sight that clearly indicate that in-fact no one without his explicit permission may use his works and even has a link on his site to a group that he participates in of "fan artists" who state with harsh, direct language, that producing derivitive works of their fan works is STEALING. The funny thing to me is that the process of generating fan works classifies as generating dirivitive works in the first place, and that the right to all the content from the original source remains the property of the original author (This has an interesing effect when dealing with works that are in the public domain, since that means that all the content from the source work REMAINS in the public domain, even while used in a derivitive, copyrighted work.) The "crusaders for the preservation of the IP rights of fan artists" are effectively a non group, since they have no IP rights within the context of their works.

So this raises the question to me: why would people like Mr. Gallagher (No, he's not alone, I just like to pick on him because of the pleathora of contradicting evidence,) participate in this kind of practice? If they where complaining about people who don't cite their source or try to claim someone else's work as their own, I'd have no problems. Both of these are not just IP rights problems, their a matter of artist pride and courtesy (Honor among theives ^.~) But it's not about those things (Ok, yes it is, but their arguments include more than that,) it's about people publishing their works in additional contexts and people who derive works of their own based on their work base. Under the common (yet legally flawed) thought process of the fan community, there are two things that should always be allowed. #1, the ability to publish fan works (this rule does carry over slightly into professional works but only under the review section of fair use) that they enjoyed as long as proper source credit is given, and #2 the ability to derive fan works of their own from either a professional work, or another fan work. Now, like I said, this is legally flawed, and BOTH actions are in violation of copyright law, but the community has always felt that these where a fair thing to be alowed to do as long as no compensation was expected. Donations are kosher in he fan work system, but demanding money for premium content derived from a professional work was just wrong.

I guess I should jest send him an e-mail and ask. Maybe his big thing is that he wants to know is who has his stuff so he can keep track of how it's being used. However, I think that's probably not it since he has a quote, "don't snag my stuff. make your own. i'ts more fun :)".

We'll just have to see.

Mood: Depressed, angry, slightly confused

Fiscal Management: The Torture of Self Restraint

Well, I'm broke.

Yup, I bought the car. A nice buggy. The problem is, I now have just enough cash for NDK, and books and thats it. No more pennys. And I'm SERIOUSLY gonna have to save up during this school year. I think with my current lifestyle I've actually been making about $2000 less than I'm spending annually. What this means is that without an adjustment to my fiscal practices, I'm going to either find a way to work more hours, or risk having to skip a semester in order to build up funds. However, both cases are not likely to be reasonable, so the obvious fall back comes into mind: Adjusting my spending habits.

I guess that means that I should actualluy work out a full fledged budget and stick to it. It's going to be rough, but I think that with a $20,000 a year income while living at home, I shouldn't have this much trouble keeping in the black. So I guess it's time to work out the specifics. Now the fact that I'm spending $3000 a semester on books, tuitions, and fees doesn't help. I mean that's $14,000 a year for food, entertainment, supplies, and transportation (Which costs me about $40 a month, $480 annually.)

I purchase 2 meals a day on average mon-fri, 1 on sunday, and 7 meals on saturday (Accounting for other people I buy food for. Since I make the most money of the group, I like to take them out to eat for dinner on saturdays to help spread the wealth.) At $6 a meal that's 6*(2*5+1+7) or 6*18 or $102 a week. That's an additional 408 dollars a month or $5300 annually, so I'm up to $11,780 annually. For supplies for school I spend about $500 a semester (Including clothes, pencils, paper, etc) for $1000 annually, so I'm up to $12,780 annually for all of the other things. This suggests then that I spend about $7000 annually on entertainment. When you consider that I replace either my desktop system or my laptop each year (Spending $1000 for a desktop or $2000 for a laptop) we can account for alot of it. Add the cost of video games and MMORPG subscriptions (currently about $15 a month) and we come to another $1000+ a year. That suggests that my "splurge" budget is running about $4000 a year for things like video cameras, anime, RC cars and the like.

Hmm... I think that the best road for me to take would be to calculate my exact monthly nessicary expenditures (food, transportation, supplies, and MMORPG subscriptions) and then work out how much money I should spend on junk monthly, then calculate how much more I make than that during summer and winter break and see if I'm making enough money to catch up during these times. I actually think that I am, I just have to have more self restraint.

We'll see. ^^

Tada!

Mood:

Pushing the Window: An exploration in Vanadiel timekeeping

Been a while again. Seems the one or two topics I felt like talking about here where so strong to me that I ended up scrapping them in favor of the "If you can't say something nice, say nothing" rule. Now this is a blog, and self-censorship isn't really what one would hope to see, but there's a difference between stating a variance in opinion and lambasting someone. And it just wansn't nessicary for me to say the things I felt like saying, so I didn't. (If your interested as to what I would be so adament about, I scrapped a post on Creationisim and another one on SCO, Linux, and the open source community)

So instead of writing some biting criticisim of people's fundamental views, or attacking the ethics of several groups of people, I'm going to write about my efforts to get my Race Specific Equipment (RSE) in Final Fantasy XI. ^.^;;;

For those of you who don't know, the RSE quests are different than most quests in the FFXI world. Normally, it's get 'this' item (ususally by killing some nutorious monster or by going through a "Big Goron Sword" kind of trade) and then walking some enormous distance to deliver it to someone. The RSE however adds a twist. Each race is given a 1 week (FFXI Time) window of oppertunity to open a chest in one of three zones. Which race can open the chest, and where, cycles every FFXI week. Now each week is 8 Vanadiel days long. Now Vanadiel time runs faster than earth time (25 times faster,) meaning that each Vanadiel day is about 57 minutes long (Actually it's a fraction more than this, but that's close enough). There are 8 races, meaning that each oppertunity comes around every 64 Vanadiel days. What this all means is that in the real world, your oppertunity is right about 7.68 hours long and comes around once every 2.56 or so days.

Now for the dedicated players this isn't a problem, they can get their whole set in 8 hours easy (There's 4 peices, and you really need 2 hours per peice to find the key , then find the chest, warp back to Jeuno, talk to the gobbie, and then get back) Worst case they have to wait for another oppertunity to roll around in 2 and a half days. For us casual players, we have a much larger problem. See the fact that the oppertunity comes around just over two and a half days from the last one, this means that our actual usuable windows only come around every couple of earth weeks. And last for 2 weeks, giving about 3 chances in that time. In my case, for example, the next oppertunity taht lands in my 5 pm - 10 pm usuable window will roll around on the 11th, three days from now, and every second oppertinity after that will be usable for the next 2 weeks. However, this comes just after the two week bad period, where there are no real oppertunities.

But that's not why I'm writing.See... I tried to push the edge of a window that really didn't line up properly with my schedule. I came home with 70 or so minutes left in the window and tried to get my last peice. Well, Tander and I wandered around the Shakrimi Maze killing Wights and Scorpions. It took us 45 minutes to find the key, so we started sprinting around the maze looking for the chest, we searched and searched. Finally in the first place we looked (or overlooked as the case seems to have been) we found the chest with only a couple of Vanadiel minutes to spare (So we're talking earth seconds). Well, unfortunately, in my haste to find the chest, I hadn't payed a whole lot of attention to my safety, and had wrecklessly trained a vary large number of mobs with me. Then, in the process of trying to give the chest the key, I stumbeled (twice) and didn't trade. On the third try, at 23:53 Vanadiel time on Darkday (The last day of the 8 day Vanadiel week) I had gotten my trade window up, my key selected, and was moving to click the trade button when the horde finally managed to finish me off.

*sigh*

After getting a raise from the guy who was supposed to be making sure that the horde didn't kill me in the first place (who I had thuroughly outrun ^^) I took the key, which was now useless, and open the chest to claim my totally worthless 500 gil prize. I had spent the last hour taking great risks, and loosing 1500XP to try and get the RSE that I missed by a matter of seconds. I was seriously disapointed.

But the rule is, "If the oompa-loompa's get you, level up, and go stick it to them" so I'll be back, in a better window. And I WILL get my RSE body peice. -.-

Only three more days till my next attempt...

Mood: Depressed, Frustrated, and Driven

For the Public Good - BAH!

Well... I've decided something: Civil engineers, you know, the people who build life saving devices like dams and bridges and the like, ya the kind of stuff that could kill thousands, no millions of people should the engineer make a mistake, are not the kind of people that should have that kind of power in their hands.

In working with them (I must specify that I work for storm water engineers) I have discovered a couple of important things: (Remember I'm a computer programmer working for storm water engineers, so these are going to be heavily biased towards computer related complaints)

#1. They don't want the computer simulation to produce results that match reality. Instead they want the simulation to reproduce results generated by older, buggy computer models that are known to be erroneous.
#2. Because of this they have no interest in advancing the practice of civil engineering, but instead, focus on advancing their own career by helping propagate buggy models that have THEIR method in them.
#3. To them, "Calibration" is the process of filling in minor details of the model to make a particular simulation match a real life event, and you only need to calibrate against one event to be able to use model for prediction. This is OBVIOUSLY wrong, and does nothing but hide the bugs of the model (And it's methods.) They don't attempt to calibrate the model against multiple storms with known data. Because of this they are unaware of how far off their predictions are.
#4. In lew of the aforementioned "Calibration" They are more than happy to accept a 300% error margin (as compared to real measured data) on the model when it is first run. As a scientist I see 300% and say "WOAH! Obviously my model's fundamental equations need to be adjusted." they say "300%? No biggy, we'll just calibrate it and it'll be fine."
#5. Since every time they've actually looked at anything they're using they realize they are probably going to kill someone with it, the term "testing" has just been removed from their vocabulary. Ask a civil engineer to test the model and what will happen is that they'll install the program, open the about box, and correct your spelling of "High Lord God" next to their name. And then manage to completely miss the fact that when you tell the program to run the model it doesn't, and instead displays the message "You mother sucks monkey tails!" Then when someone notices (which it can take up to 2 years after RELEASE!) they get all mad at you instead. When you bring up the fact that that kind of bug should have been noticed during the testing phase, and that the only way that it could have been missed is if they hadn't even actually opened the program, they claim that it's unreasonable to expect them to have actually tested it when you asked them too. (I've actually had this happen! Ok... So it didn't make any references to primate sucking, but the model completely failed to run and actually crashed to desktop)
#6. "Consistency" is more important than "Accuracy" to civil engineers. What this means to you, the citizen of "who knows where", USA, is that if the model was horribly bugged before, no amount of inventiveness will ever be applied to fixing the problem. Instead of running the better algorithm (which they will agree is FAR superior,) they will instead demand that all new software be able to produce the invalid result. Meaning that if an older model was flawed in some way that caused them to build the dam too weak, a newer, better model that says that they're going to kill 20,000 people downstream is inherently "wrong" and that the old way (Which they will admit is "also wrong, but still superior to the new method", despite evidence to the contrary) must be written into the software.
#7. The effect of "Simplifying Assumptions". When the models are written, some number of variables have to be left out (A point which I can understand) to make the model actually reasonable to run. So a "Simplifying Assumption" is made, and the variable is removed from the calculations. However, these assumptions inherently create limitations in the model that have to be understood when using it. However, they don't tell anyone these assumptions. This means that if a model designed to simulate water in a channel has the requirement "The channel cannot be longer than the distance water travels in one time step", there's nothing stopping the other, equally unenlightened civil engineers from using the model to simulate a mile and a half long channel, with one minute time steps, and water that's moving about 3 ft/s.
#8. Because of #5 and #7, no one ever checks the numbers to see if the result of the model actually makes sense. Instead they treat it like a perfect black box that produces perfect little gold plated numbers that are irrefutable, no matter what kind of garbage they feed into it. GIGO (Garbage In - Garbage Out) doesn't seem to click with them. So court battles are won and lost based on these happy little garbage numbers. (I've tested this: as long as you give them a number with the right number of digits, you could have selected it out of a hat and they won't notice.)
#9. And yet, however inaccurate, and imprecise the number may be, if it doesn't have EXACTLY the right number of decimal places, it's a wrong number. If the engineer claims that the model is accurate to 10%, so you make it clip the number to 2 significant figures (Note: SIGNIFICANT FIGURES, not decimal places, (they don't seem to understand the difference...)) they will give you all kinds of hell. You can try to defend yourself with "Look, I gave them a whole extra garbage figure to work from," and the response you'll get is "You WILL display it to 3 decimal places!?
#10. If you haven?t already noticed, the fine art of error analysis is kind of lost on civil engineers. I have NEVER seen any civil engineering report (Including the ones that I've had to make programs to write) that gives any kind of reasonable error report. Not one 1000 CFS +- 20 CFS.
#11. Civil engineers are one of the few academic groups that DOES NOT USE METRIC. For some idiotic reason, ALL of their math is done in Imperial units. Even suggesting the possibility of rewriting the equation to use metric units to make them simpler will result in a cry of "BLASTPHEMY!" (You'd be amazed how many of their equations could have EVERY coefficient removed if you used the appropriate metric unit)
#12. They have zip, zero, zilch understanding of statistics. To them, a storm that is on average stronger than 99% of storms is a "1 in a Hundred Year Storm" (No kidding, you know those late afternoon thundershowers? Ya, the ones we see like twice a week during the summer? Ya, those are classified as "1 in Two Year Storms") And when they say it, they actually BELIEVE that a "one in two year storm" only happens once every two years! Turns out that the statistical analysis they're running returns the "excedence probability" in terms of once excedence per X storms. So in actuality, a "2 year storm" is actually a "One in Two STORM storm" (i.e. If this storm isn't at least that strong, the next one likely is.)
#13. Worse yet, they design systems to handle the "One in a Hundred Year Storm". What this means to you, home owner extraordinaire, is that since that actually means that one in a hundred storms is stronger than the design, and (in my area) there are 30 or so storms a year, that your house should get flooded about once every three to four years. Luckily, many of their models are absolutely horrible, and since they typically are off by 300% or so, the things are often so horribly over designed that it's actually funny. Unfortunately the models are off by + OR - 300%, so sometimes the thing doesn't even handle any water at all.

I think that's all of the big ones. Well, the ones that will eventually kill us all, anyway. (The civil lawsuit system being the ONLY reason that more people haven?t died). There's plenty more, but those are the ones that I think have the biggest impact on the health and welfare of the populace at large.

To think that I work for these kind of people... I should quit.

Mood: Angry and Frightened

An Exercise in Hardware/Software Design

Here's a nifty idea for a hardware architecture design change for the plain ol' PC: Take a lesson from hand held devices and store the os on a rom module.

Now I'm not talking flash rom, no. Nothing that slow. Instead I'm suggesting that when you pay the $300 for an operating system, that you get a hard burned ROM module that has a release version of the operating system on it.

Basically the idea is to add a slot (that would probably look like some kind of ram module, but mostly because it's connected to a memory bus) to the motherboard that allows you to insert either a a rom module, a flash module, or a hybrid flash/rom module. Then rewrite the bios so that if it's a rom module, the drive is treated as read only, and read-write if it's a flash or flash hybrid module. Then when you write your OS, you write your own "OS Drive" driver module. This module would first find the ROM drive, then it would load a "changed files" image off of the hard disk. The OS would take and create a virtual file system that has the OS files (from the rom/flash module) that has the OS and the HDD on it. In the case of rom/flash hybrid modules (Which would be the preferred method), OS patches would be installed into the flash space, and then between the rom/flash/hdd a virtual drive would be created. If the file exists on the HDD, the HDD file is preferred over the flash file, which is preferred over a rom file. This would allow for patching and the like to be used, but would take the basic operating speed of the computer and send it through the roof. And if you make the OS patches do a forcible install onto the flash module, then you can minimize the amount of terribly slow HDD access. And if you keep a list of files in memory that have HDD overlays, you can speed up the search process by knowing in advance to bypass the rom module.

The hope would be to have maybe two or three slots (three preferred) that could be filled in. The hope would be to have a "OS" module, a slot for a dedicated applications module (Which would allow business computers to have tiny hard drives and just FLY), and a slot for a dedicated patched file flash module. On computer labs and processing banks, this, coupled with a ram drive, would allow for completely disk less systems. If the "Overlay File System" where made to natively support a ram-drive in it's design, the terminals you could build would be just scary fast. And since hard burned rom modules are cheap and fast, the cost of implementation would be small. It'd be kinda like being able to buy a system from Dell or some such with the applications preinstalled while still being able to customize the system. It's the best of both worlds, and on top of that, it doesn't force a single os either. You could leave the extension slots empty and still make the system work. You could install all of the OS onto the HDD, or an experienced user could take their own custom OS and burn it onto a flash module. This way even Linux and OpenBSD users could have their cake and eat it too.

There would be a strong limitation, and the bios would have to check this, and that's that all of the modules and the associated HDD partition would have to be designed to work together. I mean consider, you really would have to make sure that the file system was truly aware of this design. But that would be pretty easy if you where to modify an existing file system to include markers for what module layer the file is on, and then actually keep the file system on the HDD (Which would probably be merged with the discovered module file systems at boot time by a software utility in the OS.)

A second problem exists in dealing with moving HDD's around. I mean, how do you handle the scenario that a person with OS module X takes his HDD out and puts it in a computer with OS module Y. Especially in the case that OS module X and Y are two slightly different versions of the same OS (Keep in mind, just a slightly different DLL is enough here) I think it would be important to have a way to copy the data off the modules onto the HDD and mark the HDD as a non-layered file system, so that you could make a transfer. I really don't think it would be wise to go the other way, but even in the case of the slightly different OS case, it would be quite useful to be able to go the other way as well. Basically do a file compare between all of the modules and the HDD and if a module has an appropriate file, mark the file to use it instead and then mark the partition as layered again.

Oohh... oohh, what if this tech was built into an "external hard drive controller" and made into a PCI board? The controller would emulate a standard ATAPI IDE controller, and would actually have an IDE controller on it, but it would map the ROM to a fixed space in the HDD's virtual address space. Wouldn't be anywhere as good as making a true implementation at the OS level (Because a whole bunch of optimizations could be done to make better use of the virtual address space,) but it would definitely make for a useful transitional solution.

Hmmm... I think this one may actually be within my skill level within the next 3 years (Being an EE major kinda helps there...) Maybe I should sit down and actually build a computer with this hardware structure and then modify a version of linux to handle it. I would have to write my own hardware drivers, and file system drivers, but it might definitely be a worthwhile project.

Yum... Booting in 20 seconds... Nice.

Mood: Creative

-Disrupt the Democratic Process-

CNN.com - Officials discuss how to delay Election Day
ABCNews.com: Officials Want Election Rescheduling Rules
MSNBC - Exclusive: Election Day Worries
CBS News | Pondering An Election Day Delay

I can't believe it, I just can't believe that ANYONE would even CONSIDER the possibility of delaying the election. Ok, now normally I'm a "take the blows as they come" kind of person, but this is way beyond my limit.

Consider the possibility that a person got into office, (And no, I'm not trying to insinuate anything, this is intended purely as a hypothetical exercise.) that had some kind of agenda that just couldn't be done if they weren't president. Now consider the options that he would have at his disposal if there was a clause allowing the election to be rescheduled in the event of a terrorist attack. Keep in mind, the president is a human just like us, and worse yet, a human with a lot of power. What if that president where to arrange for a terrorist attack on election day. It could be reasonably made such that he was president indefinitely.

Now, this is an obvious extreme case, and not really fair. But the use of such a clause, even to just delay the election in hopes of creating a biased condition during the voting process is extremely easy. And who would be the person with the power to make this decision? Would it be vested in one man? Or would the act require an act of congress to activate?

Oddly enough, I can see why such a clause would be necessary, but I don't see how it would be possible to implement it in a safe way. Because of this, I think it's in the better interest of the American people to not have such a clause. The risk for abuse is far too great. If a Madrid bombing like event where to sway the election unfairly, it really wouldn't be any different than having a kin relative of one of the canidates decide when to stop counting the votes now would it?

I may actually have to e-mail my congressman about this one...

Mood: Deeply Worried

Physics, XXLT, and Situps: A Study in Torque

I finally understand why it was that I can't do proper situps (You know, the kind where you just lay on the floor, and then go from laying to sitting without lifting your legs off the floor.)

Ya it's gonna sound corny, but I think that my long torso is the issue. See every time I've wanted to do situps, I've either had to kick or have my feet pinned to do it. Now this seems odd, since almost all the people I know can do situps from the regular position. Originally I reasoned that it was because I was out of shape, (and this might contribute to the difficulty anyway, but it should only disrupt the number of situps I can do.) But sitting there thinking about it, I realized that it was all one big lever problem. In a basic situp, the objective is to take and bend your body 90 degrees at the waist. I'm not sure about "normal" people, but this is an easy task. I can do that no problem. However, when I contract my abdominal muscles, my legs lift up and my torso only lifts slightly. Now why I would be different that a normal person in this regard makes since if normally legs are slightly more dense than torsos and heads (which I would expect to be true based on the density of muscle and the amount of muscle required to walk and jump and the like.) Couple that with an equally sized torso and legs and you get the counterlever needed to do a situp when dealing with normal people.

In my case however, I have about 8" of extra torso. This means that I also have 8" less leg to act as a counter balance. This means that the total effect is like having 16" of extra body tacked onto a normally proportioned person. Now, it's not exactly 16" worth of mass since it is actually 8" of leg density material and 8" of torso density material. But the ultimate effect should be obvious: my torso exhibits more gravity torque on the pivot point than my legs do. This means that when I attempt to do a situp, I apply the contracting force to try and bring together my legs and torso and my legs are the part that move, not my torso. So my feet come up and satisfy the basic objective of bending 90 degrees, but unfortunately don't exactly do what you'd expect from a situp.

This is, however, no excuse for my poor total situp count; well, it could be reasoned that by having extra torso, when I do a legs pinned situp, my torso exerts a larger gravity torque on the system than a normally proportioned person, but I feel that if I have more torso, then that's all the reason I need to be able to lift it. ^^ But it does explain why I need to pin my feet when I do situps and helps to ease my issues with not being able to do a normal situp.

Jim's Super-Ego: This is all just a rationalization and you know it!
Jim: I know that, but you don't have to remind me!
Jim's Super Ego: Quit rationalizing and goto bed. You have work in the morning!
Jim: Ya, ya, no need to get pushy.

Mood: Sleepy and Justified

Of Cultural Differences and Taking a Stand

Bill Cosby has more harsh words for black community

Now, don't get me wrong at any point: Let me open up with some basic facts that I just won't be able to get around.

#1. I'm White (And if you believe that do I have some land to sell you! But that's the offical category that "Irish Americans" get classified into.
#2. Because of #1, I am mostly exposed to the "White" culture. This, no matter how much I try, will ALWAYS lead to me having a biased view. Just the way things are. I try to see the problem from all sides, but I'm not perfect.
#3. The language I'm going to use here is GOING to be offensive. Both to whites and blacks. I'm trying to take this topic from a hardliner direction, and this will assuradly come to me needing to make associations, and that's just the way things go. So if you don't want to be offended, please stop reading here.

But after reading the article linked above, let's get to the rant.

What he's saying is unfortunately true. Let's look at a simple point: think of a poor, uneducated, white guy, who spends his time working at a minimum wage job and watching sports games. Now if he's white we have a special name for him don't we? The culture has deemed this kind of person "White Trash". He is given no respect within the white culture, and, quite literally, is the brunt of most of our jokes (think about Jeff Foxworthy.)

Now change this man's skin color. Let's pretend he's black. The unfortunate truth is that we come to the baseline of black culture. Now in the past this was established due to segregation as well as poor treatment. But then we come to the true point: The black and hispanic kids (both groups that currently have lower litteracy rates and poorer education levels) got the exact same education and treatment that I did in school.

From the very first time I can remember going to school (that I was old enough to understand the nature of discrimination) I saw no difference in the crappy education that they and I recieved. My hispanic friend had the same classes, and was given the same aid that I was. My one black friend (keep in mind that people who have sickle cell trait can't live where I do becuase it can trigger full flegged anemia, and since blacks have a significantly higher sickle cell trait occurance ratios, you don't typically find them here at 5280 feet.) But anyway, my one black friend was significantly smarter than I am. And he achieved a much higer level of education than me. But he had one thing going for him that most of the blacks here in the U.S. didn't: his parents actually where FROM Africa (Nigeria as I recall, I can't remember for certain.) So he wasn't exposed to the same cultural standards that the blacks who are native to America (Not that he wasn't, he was from Texas) are. His parents (Like the white culture here does) put an emphasis on acedemic excellence. This ment that he wasn't allowed to fall back on "the man" as his excuse for performance.

And this change to cultures can be seen in many cultures in many cultures. You find it in the blacks of South Africa, the Irish of the United States, all kinds of previously oppressed groups. Consider: My father was the first man in his family to get a college education. Now his parents often express a barrier between him and them because he went and got all educated. This shows the cultural unacceptance of education in that group, and you can see it in all of these groups.

What Cosby is saying is: "Screw that, there's no excuse NOT to get an education, to open more oppertunites, and get a good job" By taking a stand against the culture, he's working towards breaking the cultural barrier on education, and hopefully, encourage the black community to change and get itself out of the rut that it's keeping itself in.

For that I have to laud him. Now the only thing we need to do is break down that wall in the hispanic and white trash cultural groups.

"A belief that you can't get a college deploma shows nothing but a lack of knowlege in the system."

Mood: Driven

Political Griping: The American Pastime

Here in the U.S. there are plenty of things wrong with our government, at all of the different levels. Some of them are obvious and easily remidied, some are a bit more difficault. But these distinctions do not come from the complexity of the problem, nor do they spawn from the severity of the problem. Instead each of them draws it's difficaulty from a wide variety of factors. But there is one thing that problems of any difficaulty share: people who don't like the way it is.

Now, it's perfectly normal to disagree with your government. The government is working on a very broad scale and you are working on a very narrow one. You can see the finite details of their solutions in action, whereas they are limited by what they are told in reports. This is ok. Because of this many people feel the need at some time or another to request a change in the government. But here we come to the trouble: most of them tell their friend about their complaints and leave it at that.

In the American system of government there are litterally hundreds of ways to get things changed if you don't like them, petitions, letters to congressmen, voting a particular way on an upcoming ballot, attending civic meetings, etc. But people just aren't using them.

Many people complain about things like the patriot act, claiming that it violates their rights. But the question I have for them is, "Well, have you written your senator about it?" Everyone I know says, "Well, no, I havn't." As long as you remain unmotivated by your "consern" then it's really not that much of a concern at all. If you're worried that the signs are evident that your car's going to run out of gas, you don't just say "I need gas" and then continue driving, you go to a gas station. This applies to government as well. If you remain inactive in government, you are destined to live in a government that has run out of gas, stagnating on the road to the future. Whining to your friends won't cause it to just magically get fixed. You're going to roll up your sleeves, put your gloves on, and get yourself into the system up to your shoulders and fix the problem.

Ya, your just one man(/woman) in a wide sea of people, but there's nothing to say you have to do it alone. Recruit a friend, have them recruit friends, run ads, go out and mingle. Get your message out, motivate people into action. It doesn't matter what topic you're fighting for, if you're the only one who cares, then it wouldn't behove your government to listen to you anyway. They exist to protect the interests of the masses, so get the masses interested.

For all of my gripes about the American system, this is one thing that we all should be thankful for: The system can be changed. But nothing happens without effort, and even a simple change will require work. But nothing is going to get better if all you do is complain!

<In the swift, deep anouncer voice>
This public service announcement brought to you by the I Hate Lazy Whiners association and from the people at Jim's Home for Nerds.
</swift, deep anouncer voice>

Easy in words, hard in practice.

Mood: Irritated

Silly IT Manager, RAID is for Bugs!

Know what I just realized, of all of the components in a given computer system, the one with the largest cost of replacement is the HDD. And not by a tiny margin mind you. No, something like 10-100 times more.

Consider, if your video card melts into the ground, you can go out, buy a new one and replace the old one. Done. Matter of fact, if every component in the computer where to explode at once, leaving the HDD intact, it would cost you only a thousand dollars to replace some of the best workstations. But if that 120GB HDD melts down, it could easily cost you $10,000+ to replace it.

"$10,000?!" you say, and I nod and say "Yes."
"But on WHAT?! The HDD is only worth $200 at MOST?!"

And this is where most people don't realize the actual value of their HDD. When they first bought the drive, yes, it was 150 bucks. Then they put 4 hours into it installing operating systems, productivity software, and their favorite video games. At a computer tech's cost ($60 an hour or so), you have already added 240 dollars to the value of your HDD. Now in a business environment (Assuming no backups) you might have all of the work you've done over the last 2 years on that HDD. Meaning that your employer (If you're a computer dependent employee like me) paid you two years salary to create and store that stuff on your HDD. Obviously, that's worth WAY more than $10,000, even if you're just a student intern like me. So the fact that a data recovery service charges a MERE $10,000 to recover the average hard drive is not such a discouraging idea.

Now, this is a purely frightening concept. $10,000 (+ parts, labor, and additional downtime ^^) just to replace a faulty HDD. There must be something that can reduce this, and there is. It goes by the humble name of Backup. Replacing an HDD when a backup is available takes the cost back to $150 plus 4 hours of labor, for a mere $390.

The important thing about backups is that they will not take the cost of HDD replacement to 0. In fact, backups will cause an increase in the basic operating cost of owning a computer by adding work and downtime that, if you're one of the chosen few, may never be used. However, the basics in backup cost theory state that when all of the costs of HDD replacement are accounted for, and all of the costs of backup procedures are added up, the backup comes up significantly cheaper, in the $1000 dollars per mean failure period range. This cost can also be greatly reduced by the use of centralized storage, RAID, and proper care and maintenance.

So here's what bothers me: in the home environment, loosing all of one's personal data just isn't that big of a deal. Replace the drive; spend the 4 hours reinstalling your apps; mourn the loss of your porn and stolen movie collection; and move on. But in the business world you HAVE to get that data back. Just letting it fall off into oblivion is unacceptable. So why the heck do so many small companies not have a serious (and implemented) backup plan? For example one of my friend's employers has no formal backup plan. So since he knows he'll be responsible for data recovery in the event of an HDD crash, he has instituted his own backup plan. But remember when I mentioned that the cost of backups can be reduced using centralized storage, RAID, and the like. Well all of those (except for care and maintenance) require the assistance of the employer. So basically the fact that he has to do his own backups means that it's costing his employer much more than it has to for him to keep his $50,000 worth of data safe.

*Sigh* When will they ever learn?

Mood: Dismayed

Blogging about Blogging: The SWW Project

Well, I saw Harry Potter 3. VERY good movie (By far the best of the three.) They basically took a guillotine to the plot and took a massive book and made it a 2.5 hour movie, but as long as you remember that movies based on books should NEVER be compared to the book they're based on, it was almost impossible to dislike this movie. But something that has plagued me about the Harry Potter world since back when I was in high school reading the very first book (It was released my freshman year, but I didn't get to it till my junior year): The culture of the wizards, and their application of magic seemed to be unrealistically poor. Many of the spells at the disposal of the absolute noobs of their culture could be used to significant effect. Even the idiots in the first year classes could have flown, completely without the aid of a broomstick (See the Levitate spell, "Wengadium Leviosa") Even if the spell had the restriction that it would only affect inanimate objects, it would only take a moment to realize that you could just make your shoes levitate or something like that and solve the problem.

Even in the third movie, where magic is used MUCH more extensively, there are several spells that get little use or poor use. For example the spell used in the opening credits (A discontinuity from the idea that students can't cast magic outside of school) the spell "Luminos Maximus" is introduced. This spell creates a bright outpouring of light, much like a concussionless flashbang grenade (And more importantly, fragmentless.) Imbued into an item, this would be an effective weapon, but even in the context of the movie, in the scene in the shrieking shack, either Harry or Herminoie, or ANY of the several adults could have implemented a bit of crowd control with the simple use of this spell. It would have also been quite useful in the scene with the werewolf, a quick flick of the wrist, and I ASSURE you that the werewolf would not have pursued. And these are just the spells that are easy to cast.

But that still doesn't completely account for my complaint. See, the Harry Potter world is set in a world where the magi are quite literally mixed with the population. Your next door neighbor could be a witch and you'd never notice. And even if you did, they'd just wipe your memory and call it a day. So for these people, electricity and indoor plumbing should not be novel concepts. I can understand that they would be hesitant to use things like cars and trains (even though they DO use trains...) since alternative modes of travel do exist (The Flue Network, Disapperation, Broomsticks, etc...) But these people, for some reason completely beyond me, seem fixated on using candlelight and owl messengers. Ya, it adds to the mystic allure of the magical setting, but these people can cause spontaneous light to come from nothing for no reason at all, why would they choose something like a candle for illumination. And we're not talking magical, cool flame. No. We're talking full out fire, as well as plain ol' wax based candles. Mix that with the fact that their fashion sense seems to completely defy any kind of logic about the limit to layers, and what you have is a unhappy, crispy mage. If they where to use some form of cool light, they could easily save themselves a fortune in candles and new clothes to replace recently combusted mage's robes. And as for owl communication, GET WITH THE 21ST CENTURY!!! I can get a message to a friend in 81 milliseconds who lives on the other side of the world. Worse case it takes a whopping 5 seconds. These people deliver messages by owl. Not exactly what I would call a reasonable means of communication. And then on top of that, all of their books are on parchment, how many sheep will have to die?

But if they want to find something (for example, the search for the name Nicholas Flammel in the first book/movie) it can take weeks. Starting from the moment I wrote that last period to when I found the information on Nicholas Flammel was approximately 15 seconds (First site hit on Google.) Why haven't they adopted some kind of magi-net? Even if they did it using 1980's era technology, they would still do better than their current system. But what's worse is the fact that they can go beyond the power of modern computers. With the availability of intelligent items, as well as translocation, they could easily make a network where not only can you download information about Mr. Flammel, you could greet an artificial representation of him and ask him about the stone yourself. Envision the possibility of ordering a book on Amazon and having it spontaneously appear just moments after clicking? Heck, why click? There's no reason why with divination techniques and other kinds of mind to mind contact that you couldn't have an immersive interface. Kinda like an astral projection into the net (for all you Shadow Run and GURPS people out there, think decking.) And with intelligent items, you could have a sentient computer, or at least one with some problem solving skill of its own.

This is why I created Sarrl's Wonderful World. It allows me to solve all those stupid little issues that I'm bringing up here, but in a creative, and fun way. Kinda like getting to live an extra life, but only when I feel like it.

Either way, Check it out!

Sarrl's Wonderful World

WWSD: Create a sentient telecommunications network, and then create mobile slates with access to this network. Then market it for extrodinarily high prices to the morons in the wizzarding community. (He actually did this one. Epic Sarrl actually co-founded a company that dealt with telecom and media services in one of our D&D campaigns. Nothing like a midevil (kinda) setting with cell-rocks, newspapers, and tablet computers.)

Mood: Sore (All this typing hurts. ^^;;;)

The Disturbed Psyche of the Cactus...

Well seems my friends have finally ALMOST figured out my best kept secret: my deepest sexual fantasy. The funny thing is that the only reason it's a secret is because the largest likelihood is that they wouldn't understand, much like I don't understand people who have a furry fetish, (Which is what their current guess about me is...)

So I figured, heck, why not. This is my blog. I can write anything I want, and I really could care less what the universe thinks about me (Not quite true, but true enough in this case.)

Let's detail the one thing about my personality that I think would most disturb those around me. Yes, even more than the mumbling to myself, the odd hopping thing I do when I get giddy, or even the strange yelping about chedder's superiority to all other cheeses; my fantasy about shared voluntary transmogrification.

Shot in the dark suggests that a large number of my readers, all 3 of them, (probably more like 1 by this point in the post ^^) aren't necessarily familiar with the term transmogrification. Webster's Dictionary defines transmogrification as being "to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect." Many people never really associated my preference to play transmutation mages in D&D campaigns as being a manifestation of that, but that just added to the rather interesting little game that I like to play with my friends.

See, most of my friends don't realize that my brain doesn't operate much more differently than theirs (both the sane and insane ones.) But most of them associate my "prudish, naive" behavior as being a serious anomaly in my social conduct, occasionally labeling me with the term "asexual". Most of them don't realize the importance of that outward behavior pattern. What they are seeing is actually a mortal struggle with the typical "a guy thinks about sex every 7 seconds" and my goals and ambitions. Since I have had no success trying to find a happy medium where I don't make a pass at every woman I see with any kind of figure and also don't behave like a prude, I decided that for my social condition, as well as career I'd rather be prudish than lecherous.

But that is aside from the point. Because of my intentional dissociation from women, I have developed what I would consider a rather disturbed sexual consciousness. Which, just to disturb the rest of the universe, I'll explain the specifics. Basically, in the field of transmogrification, I like it, but don't like transgender things (although I have considered what information I could gain from truly understanding women by being in their shoes for a while.) I do not like from living to inanimate, and only some very rare exceptions of inanimate to animate (living 'Barbie doll' possibility being on that list) I have no objections to the forms involving animalian hybrids (but distinctly am VERY turned off by true animal forms. Pets are NOT attractive, kitty women are. Basically the target form MUST be humanoid) I am especially fond of kitty ears. I do NOT like forms that end with more than 2 breasts, but am especially fond of situations where breast size increases, even to impossible (well beyond the can't move limit) proportions. I DO NOT like any situation involving people I know (this is a safety measure, keeps me from having too many odd thoughts about the people I have to deal with regularly) and I'm not a big fan of body inflation, but I'll occasionally find a belly inflation situation that is a turn on. I do like age transformation, but only from young to adult, but I usually avoid this context so I can avoid any passive psychological training involving young people. (There's a group of people who are truly SICK!!!)

But there's an interesting point about a transmogrification fetish: with the special exceptions of cosmetic surgery (Which I have ethical concerns with) and aging (but like I said, I avoid that for obvious reasons) it just doesn't happen in real life. I am, and plan to very happily be, the same person that I always was, physically at least. This leads to the advantage that I can be turned on by these kinds of things and simultaneously prudish life. The only way I can trigger the deal is with fiction. Because of this, my disturbed psyche doesn't interfere with daily life.

"So...", you might be asking yourself, "How do you plan to find yourself a life partner smarty-pants?"

Well, it turns out that the short answer is "Not right now". Basically school, work, personal projects (like this blog), and video games take up too much of my time. So I take advantage of my rather weird (although not unheard of) fantasy and use what I call "mitigated abstinence" to address my issues for the term of my degree. When I graduate, I do have plans, and depending on where I'm at at the time I'll decide if I plan to use the "S Plan" or the "M Plan". The S plan was described in a previous post. By remaining single and manipulating my spending habits, I get to retire and work on my projects relatively early. But if I decide that I plan to be with a women for the rest of my life the M plan (or marriage plan) is actually equally well thought out.

To implement the M plan, I will spend some time mingling with the populace and seek out a woman with the following parameters:

• Height: 5'0"-6'8" (Both extra short, and extra tall women turn me on, but I have no issues with the ones in the middle too)
• Bust: C-DD cup with 36"-44" bust.
• Waist: 20"-34" waist (I don't like anorexic women)
• Hips: 32"-44" hips (I like big butts and I cannot lie... ^^)
• Build: Everything but scrawny. I like my women to be soft, supple, and filled out. No apparent boniness, but I'm not a big fan of women who are puffy. Just soft enough that when they flex, you can just see a little bit of definition.
• Color: Who cares? There's certain hair colors I don't like on certain skin colors, but they're only achievable with dyes usually anyway (For example how many blond black people do you know?)
• Freckles: I LIKE freckles. Many freckles.
• Hair: I'm a big fan of long dark raven hair, cropped or fluffy mid length red, and anything shoulder length or better with brunette. Not a big fan of blond, but I have no dislike for it. I do however, have trouble with the "old lady curly perm", affros (too high maintenance), and any haircut where some of your scalp is intentionally exposed.
• IQ: 120-140 (I like smart people in general, but too smart and my ego can interfere
• Vocabulary: College Level is REQUIRED (For both her and my benefit. I don't do well speaking on a different vocabulary level.)
• Interests: Computing, RPGs, Anime and at least a passing interest in some non-cosmetic profession (unless we're talking cosmetic chemistry)
• Hobbies: Video Games, RPGs, and at least some kind of semi-active thing (like occasionally swimming)
• Religious Views: I tend to be open minded here, but would likely have trouble dealing with a radical. This basically rules out everyone who feels the need to impress their religion onto others. This would include many Jehovah's Witnesses, Devout Atheists, Cristian Scientists, etc.
• Physical Disability: People will probably label me poorly for this, but I am very much unlikely to consider a mate with a significant physical disability. This oddly enough comes as a matter of expense and convenience. Living with a person who is disabled mandates special considerations that are both costly and difficult to live with. This doesn't mean that a blind, deaf, paraplegic is out of the running, but it's definitely not working in her favor.
• "Neatness Level": I really would rather have a partner who's okay with living at the dirty level that I am (Clear paths, but piles anywhere they don't get in the way.) Must be willing to trade off on mandatory cleaning tasks (dishes and clothes) and needs to understand that I don't do special washing procedures, but am willing to do my own clothes if she will do her "special" laundry herself.
• Expected Home Role: I don't hold that women should be bound to the house. If she wants to be a house wife, that's fine, but I don't have any expectations in this department. We'll work out some arrangement where all of the home needs are met by BOTH parties if she wants to be career oriented.
• Children: a MUST (Otherwise, why choose a life mate?) However a reasonable sized brood (no more than 3, and preferably 3) would be the reasonable limit.
• Age: >= 20 and < 35, for now. I'd rather not play in the kiddie pool, as well as staying out of the people who by this time are well advanced in some pre-existing life. It would be quite difficult to build a new life around a well established one.
• STDs: None, sorry. No tolerance here.
• Alcohol, Cigarettes: Social drinking is fine, but I have no plans to keep alcohol around. As for smoking, If they're willing to be banished outside, then I MIGHT consider a smoker, but I would prefer not.
• Illegal Drugs: None. Not even the ol' Mary Jane.
• Prenup: Here's one that's gonna get me a thousand strikeouts early; the prenuptial is a MUST. Marriage is a MAJOR life choice, and I wouldn't enter it unless I was absolutely sure of it's success, but I've been wrong in the past, and as with any major life choice, I'd really rather have all of the details of the arrangement (and what to do if the unthinkable happens and we divorce) planned out in advance, in writing. 50% of all marriages end in divorce. With 1:2 odds, don't you think you should plan for the outcome that is as likely to pop up as a heads on a coin toss?
• Political Affiliation: I'm not picky here, but a radical who has put no consideration into why they're rallying for the cause would rub me SERIOUSLY the wrong way.

There's still some intangibles here that apply, but I think that's a pretty good summary of my search goals.

So now that I'm gonna loose about 90% of my readership to people disgusted with my sexuality, I think I'll goto bed. ^^

Nifty VGA Things That No One Else Cares About...

Dude, like I was goofing with my monitor and reading the VRefresh and HRefresh frequencies over and over, trying to calculate the number of scanlines being transmitted (Because I figured that it wasn't the 1024 that my video was supposed to be rendering due to some additional marking and the like, much as you would find in a TV) and I noticed something. The numbers where in flux. Now we're talking 1% per every 10 samples, but by just enough for me to notice it. And I got to thinking... If the the monitor thinks the refresh rates are in flux, that would suggest that it's signal locking circuits would have to be wavering. This would mean that the screen would have to be sliding left and right. Now Theoretically it could move up and down, but I know there's enough spacing in the timing of the scan lines that that's really a non issue. So I figured I'd do a quicky experiment to try and support the "wobble" hypothesis. I figured the amount would be small, especially since I've NEVER noticed it in past. So I engineered an experiment that put a single black point on a white background on my screen, and then held the tip of an unwound #1 paperclip up to it. Now although my hands move, I can get the end of the paperclip to stick on the glass at the point of contact. Well, I watched carefully, knowing that the amounts of variation I should see should be somewhere near the dot pitch of the screen. And low and behold. There's my little black dot, covered up by the paperclip poking out from the left side of the paper clip sometimes, and on the right other times. Now this isn't conclusive, but definitively suggests that it's clearly possible that the screen is wobbling by a factor of about 2.5X the dot pitch. We're taking a variation of approximately .55mm in this case, but .55 is still much larger than zero. Also, the fact that the dot never appeared above or below the paperclip shows that it's highly likely that the wobble is not coming from the motion of me or my paperclip, as that motion should be chaotic, and not reserved to just left and right motion.

Just one of those thoughts. Oh, and regarding the original inquiry, it seems that for my display, at 1024 video scan lines, the monitor is receiving 1065 scan lines. This would leave 41 scanlines for syncing and other things. This is quite odd though, since I thought that the VGA standard didn't have any black space beyond the syncing time. But then again who know, maybe VGA needs 41 scanlines worth of time to finish a vertical sync. Hmm

*Messes with his monitor and drops it down to 800x600*

Ok, now at 800x600 I get 46.7 KHz HRefresh I get 625 scan lines... Now if I relate the number of true scan lines (1024 to 600) and then solve for the expected number of "Extra" scanlines, assuming I know that there's 25 extras at 600, I get 40.95, which is 41 based on my rounding. Therefore, since both modes where at 75Hz VRefresh, then I could assume that the amount of time spent is exactly the same (And I'm almost right, they're within 10% or so,) So It's probably part of the VGA standard (I'm gonna call it vertical blanking time, and guess that I'm likely right) and I just need to find a web resource that talks about the VGA standard to prove it. ^^

Nothing like reverse engineering a standard with a thousand places to look it up.

Mood: Inventive

All for One, or One for All?

So, I've done it. I decided to prove once an for all which is better, free-for-all (FFA) targeting (Where the player lets the AI automatically pick random targets) or focused targeting (Where the player tells the AI to ignore all targets but one and all units fire on that one target.)

So I wrote a program where all the foes used random targeting (Pick a guy and shoot him, next time around shoot another randomly selected guy.) and the friends used either FFA for Focused targeting. Each team starts with 10 guys each with 10 HP. Each time a guy is shot he looses 1 HP. 0 or less constitutes dead. The fight continues till one team is out of guys.

Now this is unrealistic because normal autofire AIs are based on the "Return Fire" principle, where the AI shoots the first person who shot them, and in more advanced AIs, shoots the guy that appears to be the largest threat (The Hate system). But it is close enough to true random that random will get us close for this test.

I also used a random method to determine whose turn it was to shoot. A random team is selected, and then a random guy on that team. That guy then shoots a guys on the other team and a new guy (from a random team) is selected.

And with the spread in the results, that AI difference would have to be pretty damn important to overcome the difference!

In 100,000 games, FFA tactics (by both the AI and the 'Player') yielded a 49.8955% Win/Loss ratio. This shows that my random number generator has a bit of a bias, as this number should be an approximation of 50% since both teams use the same strategy and the strategy has no biasing in it to favor one team or another...

The impressive point is that using Focus tactics (Everyone shoots guy #0 till he's dead, and then moves on to guy #1, etc...) against an FFA AI, the Win/Loss ratio shoots up to 99.779%. This suggests that against an AI of even power, differing only by strategy, a win is just shy of assured. Those are some pretty impressive odds!

What does this tell us? Pick a man and stick to him. Don't just shoot at the closest thing. Work as a team and you're much more likely to suceeed.

Check out the test source code

No, no!!! The left one! THE LEFT ONE!!! stupid AI

Mood: Egocentric and Sleepy

The Beowulf POV-Ray Project

About The BPP (Beowulf Pov-ray Project)
*Or so Oni has called it. Quite appropriate really....

But first, the prologue

Well, during my vacation I spent the first week playing this great game called City of Heros. Well, greatish really. It's fun and all, but it's an MMORPG and lacks enough variety to make it worth the time to truly play the game. Because of this, I don't plan to extend my account beyond the free month. But I got my $50 out of it during that first week logging well over 50 hours of gameplay (When I buy games, I go on the premise that I expect 1 hour of gameplay for each dollar the game costs.)

But the second week was much different. Rather than spending a lot of time playing video games, I instead focused on my many personal project interests, including:

• Re-ripping and recompressing my Love Hina discs. Yes I know it's in violation of the DMCA's copy protection clause, but if there was a way I could have the videos in a format that was as readily portable as the AVI files are and still be encrypted, I'd use it. Much like I use M4P from Apple.


• Working on another Anime Music Video. This one was also made from Love Hina, but was set to One Step Closer by Lincoln Park and was addressing life from Keitaro's point of view. I didn't get much more that 30 seconds in, but it took me something like 4 hours to get there...


• Designing a Buu suit for Nan Desu Kan this September (Check out the earlier post...)


• and Doing stuff with POV-Ray. Lots of stuff. I should post some of the renders in my gallery.

That last one got A LOT of my time. Especially the Brigade of Gummy Bears. Mostly because it took my AMD 3200+ XP CPU almost 10 minutes to render all 14,400 Gummy Bears, each complete with sewing pin sword and button shield. But that specific problem leads into BPP.

Because of the EXTREME CPU needs of POV-Ray, both OniAkki and I felt that we needed a way to spread out the workload of running POV-Ray. So we sat down and pondered the problem. We decided that we should write a program that allowed us to setup a list of needed frames in a database, and then have different client computers check out these frames and render them. So we set to this task.

The final product (Or at least as final as a simple tool between friends is gonna get,) although poorly coded since it didn't have to be overly robust, successfully rendered the 10 frames of a ship spin between 2 computers (Check out the jm.pov project on the nifty project management page that Oniakki wrote.)

We hope to apply the client to many computers and hopefully we'll get this thing to compile on Cygwin so we can use it in windows as well. ^^

The cool thing is that the client was the application I had ever written in C on Linux that used a library beyond the math lib. Using libMySQL and FTPLib was an excellent learning experience for me, and hopefully I'll be able to use that experience in the future.

I'm posting the client program (autopov) for public consumption and modification. You can find it on my Projects Page (Or might be able to when I actually create the Beowulf POV-Ray Project page, later this afternoon.) I need to do a large amount of work on it to get it truly ready for prime-time, but since it works well enough to do the work Oni and I want to do with it, updates to it and repairs won't be happening till I get around to it. If we really start using it a lot, we'll eventually get around to fixing it up, probably. ^^

I love vacations. \(^.^)/ <3 <3 <3

Mood: Productive

Of Cell Phones, Signal Quality, and Loud Voices.

Was watching TV today and saw this commercial for some company's wireless service. They where showing a train full of cell users with signal quality bars over their head and one guy had really bad signal. This guy was basically screaming into his cellphone.

Now. There are 3 things wrong with this one. #1, I absolutely HATE people who yell into thier cellphones. That's just a personal pet peeve. But #2 is that ALL modern cell phones are digital. Now if you didn't know, digital cell phones use error corrected packets of data to carry the voice signal. When the signal quality fades, the packets pick up large amounts of errors, and when the packets are too corrupted to correct, they are dropped. This causes breaks in the voice stream. Yelling will not prevent packet loss. And #3, the problem of overmodulation. Basically because we're talking a digital stream, there is maximum limit to the sound intensity. If you go beyond this limit, the quantitizer maxes out and wont go any higher. This leads to clipping (The squaring off of loud sounds) in the audio stream.

But everyone seems to yell when they begin to loose signal. The part that confuses me ('cause I occasionally catch MYSELF doing it...) is WHY we do it...

Ring ring!!!

Mood: Confused

The Buu Suit and Nan Desu Kan

Well, I've decided: I'm going to Nan Desu Kan. This local convention of Americans to share their love for Japanese culture and entertainment (Mostly to talk about Anime, Manga, and Video Games.) This sounds like something I would love to attend.

However, there's a problem. I wanna cosplay. Just sounds like a fun thing to do. However, there just aren't that many 6'3" 285 LBs anime characters. I would rather not go as something that I really don't "fit" the role for. So I mulled the question over, and after talking with some friends, have decided to go a Majin Buu. Buu is a large guy, and if he where my height, he would probably weigh about 500 LBs. This is great because I can always make a costume to make me look bigger. ^^

However, any full body costume (Like this one will have to be) is going to get hot. VERY hot. So, I thought, "Hmm, I'm an engineer. I have a problem. So, let's apply my expertise and solve it."

So my friends and I did some more thinking, and this is what we came up with. First, we make a Buu body suit. We do this by sewing cloth together into a Buu shape (with elastic holes where his much smaller legs are). Then we take bits of foam and shape them the way buu is shaped and sew it into the cloth. The foam will give form to the Buu costume without sacrificing flexibility (Which is a good thin seeing as the costume won't fit through doors otherwise. ^^) Then we make a head out of paper mache and build it so it has a rack with Styrofoam insulation in the upper parts. This rack supports Peltier junction whose hot side is attached to a heat sink and fan combination and the other side have another heat sink and fan, except with the fan rigged to run backwards. This means that the fan will blow away from the heat sink. This will keep my hair from getting sucked in to the fan ^^;;;

The hot side fan intake will come from Buu's head tail, which will be made of fine mesh and thin nylon. This was it can be pink, and air permeable without having the cloth pulled tightly over chicken wire and looking really stupid.

The head will be built so it has supports that rest on my shoulders and will be strapped on. That way I won't have any problems with the head falling off since the head will be considerably unbalanced. This is going to cause a bit of a problem because Buu has a really small head as compared to his body, and I have a big head (Probably from all that ego stroking I give to myself. ^^)

Now, all I have to do is actually build it. Not that it is an easy task mind you ^^;;;

Applied engineering applied to cosplay. Scary.

Mood: Inventive

Little Endian, the Big Indian on Campus

Wow... 1 week of not posting and look what you get. *Whistles* Blogger has really spiced it up.

But anyway, on to the point at hand. I was reading along in STL's website when what do I find? "Little Endian is evil"

I sat there stunned, "Did he just say what I thought he said?" And sure enough, he had. And I'm like, WOAH! A CS guy who doesn't see the silent beauty of little endian? Blastphemy!

Maybe it's just because I'm an Electrical Engineering student instead of a CS student (Although the current plan is to minor in CS) but little-endian numbers are to me what chocolate is to most. See, for those of you who are just plain ol' technically inclined (This topic is WAY beyond 'computer literate') I'll give a quick discussion of Big and Little endian numbers. See, computers keep their data in discrete digits, namely ones and zeros. Now these digits are combined together to form larger chunks of data. Often they're arranged into groups of bytes, words, D-words, and Quad-words (On 32 bit systems, these are 8,32,64, and 128 bits in size respectively.) Now, because numbers are usually made of values larger than one measly byte can hold, we use the larger words to hold them. But because memory is arranged into bytes for addressing purposes, we have to decide how they should be stored. Big endian uses the same principle as you would with notebook paper. If the top left corner of the page is the first spot, it would begin by writing the most significant (the 5 in the number 51223) digit first (or the most significant byte (MSB) in this case.) The last one it would write would be the least significant. Now this would seem obvious to anyone who's written on paper before, but little-endian takes a different approach. Instead of writing the MSB first, it writes the least significant byte (LSB) first. So this is like representing fifty-one thousand, two-hundred and twenty-three by writing 32215 down on the paper. Now this is counter intuitive to most people. Why would you write the last digit first?

This takes us into the beauty of little-endian numbers. Now, stop a second and add the numbers 123 and 789 together, taking notice of how you did it. Notice that you started the addition from the RIGHT and worked left? Now pretend that you could only read one digit at a time and couldn't rewind either the input number or the output numbers. Can you think of any way to do the addition under those constraints? You can't do it without first having yet ANOTHER sheet of paper to hold the values on for a moment. And it would take you a second to copy the numbers down. Now, consider how you would do it if the least significant digit (The one on the right) came first. For me, I'd do our example (123+789) by going: "OK, I have 3 and 9, add, get 2 and a carry. Now I have 2 and 8 and a carry, add, get 1 and a carry. Now I have 1 and 7 and a carry, add get 9. Now the answer I gave is 219, which is correct (in little-endian notation, the answer in common form is 912.) Notice, I was able to do the addition serially (one digit at a time with no look ahead) with only a one bit buffer (notice, I DO have to keep track of the carry.) Because of this, circuits of VERY low complexity can be designed and built to do addition as the numbers are read in. This is very fast and very efficient. Fewer gates mean fewer transistors, means less heat, means higher clock rates, etc. This holds true even if your bus is larger than 8 bits.

But this leads us into one of the pitfalls of big-endian numbers. Since bytes themselves are stored such that the lowest order bit is also the least significant bit, that means that a big endian system has it's bits ordered such that a 2 byte number is written in memory as (using bytenumber(bitnumber) notation) 1(0),1(1),1(2),1(3),1(4),1(5),1(6),1(7),0(0),0(1),0(2),0(3),0(4),0(5),0(6),0(7). Notice how the biggest byte is first but the biggest bit is last? Little endian puts the biggest byte last as WELL as the biggest bit. This means that the bits are ALSO sorted linearly by significance. This is very useful when doing significance (> and <) checks, since with little endian you can start at the very beginning of the two numbers and check them as you go (1 loop), rather than having to skip around to find the next most significant bit (1 loop and another nested loop. Oh, and usually > and < are done with subtraction instead, but there are other kinds of algorithms that bennifit by having sorted bits.)

But, unfortunately, little-endian is just backwards from what we're used to in significance, so programmers, like STL, just don't nessicarily see the essential beauty on the lower level.

I still don't know why we use big endian in handwriting anyway...

Mood: Actually informed by a class... Scary huh?

An Old Friend Reborn

Well, the time has finally come, after 2 and one half years, MuggleEater has gotten the finishing parts to his complete upgrade. Once an Athlon 2100+ XP with 512 MB of DDR 2100 Ram, 80 GB of UDMA 100 Hard drive space, sporting the then trendy GForce 4 4200ti Video card, MuggleEater was the best there was. But two and a half years if a full lifetime in the computer world, 2 for gaming machines, so I spent some money and brought him into 2004. Now, he's equipped with an Athlon 3200+ XP with 1 GB of DDR3200 ram, 160 GB of SATA 160 hard drive space, and the much powerful ATI 9600 XP graphics processor. And I must say: "DA----MN!"


The new upgrades give him about 100% more processing power. He scores well there too with a steamy 3801 on the 3DMark '03, up from 2882 (Compare your scores on the ORB at http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=2474924). But we're not just talking the benches here. In my favorite test of total system power, the "Stand at the lower Jeuno AH and spin with the display res at 1600x1200 backed by a 1000x1000 3D buffer" test, he scored a clean 20 FPS (Or so, slightly noticeable frame lag, but damn close to smooth,) after standing there and letting the place fill up with character models. This makes me one very happy person.

The funny part though is the number of people who don't understand why a .5 Ghz processor clock increase (1.73GHz for the 2100+ and 2.2GHz) such a big change in power. And the first hint I'll give these people is: The CPU clock upgrade wasn't why I did it. Turns out that one of the biggest shortcomings of computer architectures is that the CPU needs to access the ram on a VERY regular interval. But unfortunately, the channel that carries the info to and from the CPU is MUCH slower than the CPU. So the reason I purchased the 3200+ XP CPU was the fact that the 3200+ XP (Barton) is designed for the 400MHz Front Side Bus (Well, actually 200MHz, but on both the rise and the fall...) Since the Front Side Bus (Or FSB) is the part of the computer that connects the CPU to the memory, it would follow then that I've effectively doubled the speed at which my computer can communicate with the RAM modules. Because of this, even a slower processor can get faster speeds because it spends less time waiting for memory transfers to occur. Now don't get me wrong, the increase in the CPU DOES matter (Especially since I moved from the thoroughbred core to the Barton core,) but memory is going to be the grand daddy pappa of the process. However... There is ONE tiny thing I overlooked in my upgrade...

column Access Select Latency (or CAS Latency). See I purchased CAS 3, when I really should have purchased CAS 2. The cost differential and the speed differential are about the same, Single digit improvements, but the eligibility for overclocking is much better. But then again, it's really not an issue because I'm not overclocking my system (Nor do I have plans to.) But it does matter. Now that I think about it, I'm using CAS 2.5 timing... Probably why I can't get my chipset to run in turbo mode, probably sends the memory requests a bit too fast for the ram. I'll have to tinker with that later.

Vroommm!!!

Mood: ecstatic

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me...

So it is official, I'm now a whole 21 years old.

Ah, 21, the last of the "Almost Adult" birthdays, and the true last one in most people's mind. The age where the remaining doors to porn, booze, and adult oriented radio contests open. The only non-elderly services and privileges not currently open to me are reasonable auto insurance costs and rental cars (Both open at 24, and for the same reason.) So of my new privilege, which ones do I plan to use?

None. Not a single one. I don't participate in radio contests, I have no intention of drinking, and well, I'll plead the fifth on the last one. I AM - however - looking forward to being eligible to rent cars in 3 more years, so I can finally go on vacations without having to drive there (If I don't drive there, I have to take taxi or bus once I'm there, and that get expensive/difficult.)

But, on to the topic that is momentarily interesting: Drinking.

"So, you're legal now and you plan not to drink... Why?" you say, and I respond "Why should I?" For the past one and one score years, I haven't had a drop of alcohol. And although there have been tough times where things weren't perfect, I feel that I have had no trouble enjoying myself. So why would I need to drink to have fun? And besides, drinking is bad for you (and those around you) on so many levels. So why should I if I'm content with the way things are? But there are several, quite a few more finite reasons I don't/won't drink.

#1. Drinking to Relieve Stress and Cope With Troubles.
Many people drink because they feel they need to get away from their lives and their problems. However, drinking neither solves their problems or allows them for get away. It DOES however remove the few psychological barriers that keep these people from going crazy, or yelling at the people around them for no reason. When the morning comes, they have a horrible hangover, the original problem (Because drinking doesn't fix anything other than sobriety,) and possibly a few irritated friends. Oh, and no recollection of what kind of trouble they might have gotten themselves into the night before.

#2. Drinking to Ease Up Social Stress
This one I could ALMOST reason why people do it. Alcohol lowers inhibitions. In very carefully administered doses, this can be a very tool in helping a person who is normally a shut in be a bit more outgoing. Possibly as a means to ease up the conversation with women. However the key word is 'carefully administered'. Drinking not only lowers your inhibitions, it also impairs your judgment. The small amount you take to 'lighten up' may be, and often is, enough to cause you to think that either A) it's not working yet so you should have some more or B) More would make you even 'looser' and make this process even easier. In both cases you quickly careen into full fledged drunkenness. Yes, you will be looser, but unfortunately, with all you inhibitions tossed to the winds, you will probably also be loud, rude, and generally out of control. Most women find this to be a BIG turn off (And to a limited extent men do too, but many see an inebriated woman and realize that she's likely an easy score.)

However, I have a couple of special personal reasons I don't drink. The first, and most significant being that when I had my wisdom teeth removed, I requested that the doctor provide me with some means of keeping me under control for the operation, as I don't exactly deal well with the idea of being cut, hammered, or otherwise mutilated. So with his help, (and a couple of narcotics, also provided by the doctor,) I has more than a bit dazed when I went in for the extraction. However, I firmly remember that later, when I came home, I could not seem to operate properly. It was like my brain was turned on, but the cables connecting it to my muscles had been all messed up. I couldn't type, I couldn't traverse stairs without help, I couldn't speak. It was like living in a bubble. Being the egocentric control freak and individualist that I am, this INFURIORATED me. I was unable to function without aid, and had almost no control over anything. I SWORE that I would never put myself into that kind of situation again unless it was absolutely called for, like it was with the wisdom teeth, (I had heart palpitations every time I even thought about it for the three months prior to the extraction.)

The other big reason is drunk driving. I figure that no matter how responsible I may be sober, the whole point of drinking is bash your brain back into the state of a hormone enraged teenager. Because of this, the likelihood that I, or anybody really, will be able to make the right choice and not drive after drinking. And if you didn't already know, I'd rather have unpaid debts to the Russian Mob than see a drunk driver on the road, especially ME drunk driving on the road. So since I wouldn't be able to make a wise decision, I figure I probably shouldn't put myself into a place where I'll have to make it.

My 2 bits.

Mood: Older

E-Voting. The controversy and the apparent state of the problem.

(Hey, a REAL post...)

It's all a matter of trust. Complaints about hackers and viruses are easily addressed using isolated networks (i.e. NOT connecting the voting system to the Internet and using encrypted hard lines to transmit the vote tallies to the central office, maybe even a traditional phone call.

But then we come to the trust of the software. It seems relatively obvious to me that E-Voting is a good way to sure up the election. For all of the failures that can be found in computers (Crashes and lost data), an equal number of failures can be found in hand counting the ballots. But how do we know for sure that the ballots cast are legit? How can we prove that the writers of the software didn't write the winner into the software? 'Use Open Source' many say. Well, we're talking embedded systems here, how can we PROVE that the software on the machine is actually made from the published source? The answer is 'we can't' . But then again, how can we trust the current vote tallies? We can't. As it stands, we know now, 4 years later that Bush won as the result of a supreme court ruling in the state of Florida. Individuals may unfairly represent the votes they count, etc. Now in the human counting method, the bias is adjusted for by the fact that each person has a different view. This means that, roughly, the cheaters are themselves a fair representation of the populace, and as such, convey the will of the masses. In e-voting systems, this distributed network is removed, especially if only one manufacturer is used. This is where the ultimate solution has to come in.

So allow me to propose a complete handling solution. First it should be obvious that, "to promote competition" (and evenly distributed biases, *wink wink*) at least 3 different manufacturer's products must be used in EVERY district. Each manufacturer must publish their source code, as well as the MD5 sum for their roms which must be displayed by the machine (Not that we actually trust that number, since it could be saved and displayed. But if the companies make it actually generate that number, then it can be used to detect viruses and the like.) The device must be designed so that the GUI software is encoded onto true ROM modules. EEProm modules may not be used for the GUI. The subjects being voted on will be encoded onto a flash ROM module along with a public key provided to the voting district by the central voting authority. The flash rom module will be secured into the device using a unique head screw holding a cover over it. If at any time this cover is removed, an audible alarm MUST sound. The format of this flash ROM module will be defined by a UNIVERSAL STANDARD and as such will be usable in ALL manufacturer's designs. The votes will be encoded using the public key found on the flash, and the votes will be written onto the flash module along with the card's checksum up to that vote. Some mechanism (preferably standardized) will be used to control voting frequency, such as a single use mag stripe card that is encoded with a card ID number, and automatically wiped when used. The card will be provided by the voter management clerks at the voting center (similar to how ballots are managed today.) The ID number will be written to the flash module and DOES uniquely identify a voter. As an added precaution, the ID code will NOT be associated with the vote, just stored in a list of voters who have voted. NO other network devices, including wireless transmitters, Ethernet cards, alternative removable media, or built in flash ROM devices may be incorporated into the device. The device MAY NOT have the ID of the voter and the vote outcome ANY portion of RAM at the same time. Once the voter is authenticated and his/her ID written to the card, memory must be wiped before voting may commence. A thermal or other inkless printer will be integrated with the device which will print out votes (WITHOUT the voter ID) and cut them into individual slips, which the voter will then place in a ballot box. This is to provide a paper backup while simultaneously ensuring voter anonomy. The paper backups will be handled with the care necessary. (Such as being stored in a cool, dark place in the case of thermal paper) After voting is done, the flash modules, and the ballot box will be transported to the central voting authority who will then use the appropriate private key to decrypt the votes and tally them up using the decryptors of EACH of the different manufacturers. Thus, if 5 manufacturers devices are used, than each card will be decrypted and compared in EACH of the 5 devices (Thus why the flash module's format is standardized) If the results come out different on even 1 machine, ALL of the manufacturers will be investigated. This will keep at least the decoder devices honest. Before the beginning of the voting, each voting machine will be tested to ensure reliability by the voting booth clerks, this includes posting several votes and verifying the results using a decoder. At least one device, from each manufacturer, selected at random, will be tested by submitting a COMPLETE vote load to it. This means if the machine can be expected to see 1000 votes, then at least one will be tested 1000 times and the results verified. ABSOLUTELY NO BATTERY BACKED UP DEVICES OF ANY SORT MAY BE USED.

These measures will almost assuredly guarantee that the voting machines themselves are clean, so all of the 'cheating' would have to be done by humans. The measures are a bit extreme, but they do address the issue.

Fascist security... I wouldn't be surprised if those machines where less likely to make a mistake counting a million votes than a human counting 10.

Mood: Accomplished. That's a lot of planning there...

Junk Used Twice Still is Junk

Since the discussion seems to continue, I'm going to post the current comment chain for the Comunalisim post here to orginize it in a better form. That, and I havn't posted in like a week, so I figure I probably should do something... :)

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Not that there aren't people who try to force one or the other system to stop existing. Despite being completely within our rights to set up a communal system, some folks (aka Microsoft, and also SCO which made some ridiculous claim about the GPL being unconstutional or some such) try to stop us.

Also, reminds me of something or other I read once... about gift cultures and such... Probably Raymond...
Posted @ 3:47 PM on Apr 14 by Geoff

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SCO is just grasping for anything because with the exception of their "unfair busines proactices" claim against IBM (which is quite valid BTW), the rest of their suit is absolutely frivilous. As for Microsoft, they are the epitome of what capitolistic view is and since the two views are incompatible, they have to. Remember the communalistic view also has people trying to destroy the capitalists (The anti-SCO virus and the whole of the music sharing community.)
Posted @ 8:12 AM on Apr 15 by JimTheCactus

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They actually aren't incompatible... And it's rather unfair to say that simply because some people (who often, I might add, don't have a good grasp on the concepts involved [which, I admit, is occasionally me as well]) who have the same viewpoint as others try to destroy the "other side" doesn't mean 1) that they are representative of the whole of the viewpoint 2) they are the epitome of the viewpoint or 3) that the two (or more) can't co-exist... just that some folks think that way. (Both your examples: anti-SCO virus and m$)

Would you want me to lump you with Timmothy McVeigh, because he's American and so are you? Or to lump you with Fred Phelps, because he's a white middle-class american "christian" (though I know you aren't christian... but otherwise)?

Also, I think you'd be hard put to prove that the music sharing community was sharing music for the purpose of destroying capitalism. Were they engaging in communal practices? Yes. Did they do harm to the music industry? Depends on who you ask. Were they doing it either in protest or as a way to harm the music industry? Perhaps some were, but most weren't.

And, yeah, SCO is grasping at anything because they WAY overextended themselves and needed any excuse to make their fight seem worthwhile instead of the waste that it is. _There's_ capitalism in action. There's no justice for those who can't pay for it.
Posted @ 5:01 PM on Apr 15 by Geoff

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I'm not sure if you and I are working from the same definition of "Capitolisim". I'm working on the oe from Websters dictionary: "An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."

Communalisim puts no value on investment, but capiolisim lives and dies on investment value. This is where the two systems are incompatible.

And unless you're trying to rationalize a crime (And it is one), music sharing has, on the whole, harmed the sales of CDs.
Posted @ 12:50 PM on Apr 16 by JimTheCactus

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But in communalisim, the fact that the person that recorded the song doesn't recieve any payment isn't an issue. The premise is that they will recieve another product of equal value eventually as well. The way we ensure that this "fair trade" in a capitalistic society is by the accumulation of "money" to show, roughly, how much the society in general ows us to pay up that exchange debt. The reason that communalisim sprouted in our society is that the "Money" became more important than the fair excange of goods, so people began to do things that helped them "cheat" the fair exchange, like the record companies screwing with prices till they got an "unfair" share of the value. This process grew quickly out of control with information, things that could be easily created but where being sold for prices 100X or more over the actual cost of development. Things like software, music, videos, etc. The idea of communalisim, as implemented today, suggests that only the cost of the media itself, (which means the full cost of food, and about 100th the cost of music/videos when distributed on cds or dvds, and no cost at all for stuff sent across the Internet.

That's why they're incompatible. And I understand that lumping people together is unwise, but if you consider the basic premise of microsoft, they are persuing to increase their wealth through free trade, which would the show them as being the "perfect example" or epitome of capitolisim.
Posted @ 1:11 PM on Apr 16 by JimTheCactus

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Okay, firstly: yes, for the music sharers to have done absolutely no harm then you'd have to somehow magically prove that not one of them forwent buying a real CD because of being able to download the song online, which would be extremely difficult to prove and is (most likely) untrue anyway.

So perhaps I misspoke. Now, on the other hand, you would also have a hard time proving that the sharers _significantly_ negatively impacted the sales of CDs. Is it true that some folks stopped buying CDs because of the filesharing? Yes. Is it also true that some purchased CDs they would otherwise not have because they had a chance to listen to some of the tracks first? Yes. Is it true that during the past few years the economy has been on the downturn, leaving less money available to purchase CDs? Yes. Is it true (or at least possible, I haven't done a study) that much of the music being purchased on CD was being purchased by an aging boomer generation, and that as they finished replacing their tape/record collections with CDs, the demand slacked off? Getting farther, but yes, certainly possible. I know my parents haven't bought any CDs for a few years... and even my sister isn't quite as rabid as she once was (and she doesn't have any illegal copies of songs either).

So, you see whether the music sharers have _significantly_ harmed the sales of CDs or whether it was a combination of factors wherein music sharing played a minor part, it depends on who you ask.

Now, for your remark about it being a crime. Firstly, I never said it wasn't a crime. Nor was I trying to rationalize it in my earlier statement (or, in fact, just now). I was pointing out that the actions of the filesharers was not some act of protest or an effort to bring the music industry toppling down. Their actions were to get "free" music. Or at least for the vast vast majority of them.

As for criminality, one can point out many things in the past that have been crimes which aren't now. But the topic of criminality in a philosophical discussion is irrelevant, since laws change. Tomorrow the congress _could_ do away with copyright. They probably won't, and would be in violation of the Berne (I think) convention, but they could.
Posted @ 6:02 PM on Apr 16 by Geoff

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By "investment," do you mean simply the money that is put towards creating the product (including research etc.)? That's what the dictionary entries I'm reading seem to point to. And in that respect you're certainly correct. The money "invested" in communalism has no financial return to the investor, and so you say that communalism doesn't value investment.

But, like most people, I think you're taking it a bit too simply. You fail to take into account non-monetary expenses and benefits. Reputation (benefit) is one of those (and does play a major factor in "gift" cultures). Time is an expense. Expertise and knowledge are benefits. Certainly, in a system with money, money can be an expense as well. But, the biggest benefit of being in such a culture is the culture itself. As a participant in the culture, investing your time and effort into it, you gain access to all the "tangible" benefits of the culture (ie, in the music-sharing example, the music [putting aside, for now, issues of legality]).

I'll write more on the topic of how the two aren't incompatible later; I have to get dinner and go home.
Posted @ 6:29 PM on Apr 16 by Geoff

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But look at the trends in sales, CDs have steadilty be FALLING not rising. Fewer and fewer CDs are bought per year, and this trend has been running since about 2001. If piracy, which is what happens when communalisim and commercialisim meet, is 'helping' the commercialists by providing some kind of advertising or what not, the numbers sure don't seem to show it. Not that I trust the RIAA (essentially I consider them the ultimate evil and prime example of the slime that is the unethical commercialist), but they are the best represenitive source of information for record sales. The information I'm working from comes from their report on annual sales, which can be found at http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/yearend.asp

Since the MP3 format was introduced, and music file sharing became popular, music sales have fallen off their general rise and gone into a downspin. Unless there's some other legitamate media other than CD, Vinal, and Audio Cassette tape availible in 2001 (Which predates ITunes) then I would venture to say that piracy has hurt, and hurt BAD, the recording industry. Remember that live preformances are the property of the artists not the record companies, so higer concert sales can't be considered a fair comphensation (and you can't increase sales to sold out shows like Brittney Spears or Metallica anyway.) So I'm failling to see your point. (Plus they're already veterans of the recording business, I don't think that they really gain all that much experience...)
Posted @ 9:58 AM on Apr 26 by JimTheCactus

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And that's where we're at so far. Let the commenting Continue!!!

Blog Filler... How sad...

Mood: Self-Dissapointment