The title sound sinister? Strange, it does, doesn't it. But you really can't be taking people's thoughts from them. Thing is, ideas are free. Anybody can think about anything they want, even if other people have already had those ideas. No matter how hard the RIAA and MPAA want to do so, they'll never be able to charge you for what you think.
They sure try, though.
The term "Intellectual Property" is a joke (and a very bad one, at that.) I refuse to recognize it. Copyright law as it currently stands is also ridiculous (as is patent law, but that's outside the scope of this blog.) It has gone way beyond its original purpose of protecting recent creative works from being exploited for profit by those who had no part of its making.
Let me say this outright: I applaud casual piracy. I would be a card-carrying member of the Pirate Party of Canada if it had formed yet. Bittorrent is the best thing that the Internet has offered us yet. I am entitled to take whatever other people want to give me. You cannot own thoughts and ideas and thereby prevent others from sharing them. The law has to end. I'd thank God (if I believed in one) that Canadian attempts to introduce DMCA equivalents have all met bad ends, and with the minority government still in place, we won't see one soon, either. I just hope the Information is Free movement gains enough traction to permanently kill it.
So, looking for fun stuff to pirate?
Music is stale. Not only is there very little good commercial music to listen to, but those rare times I find it, it's usually an independant publisher and I don't mind giving them a few dollars for a CD. So how about movies? The MPAA is making you pay full price for new blu-ray copies of movies you already bought on DVD, might as well download a few of those. Hard Drive space is cheap, but damn does it eat up your bandwidth. But dollar-for-dollar, if you're a geekgrrl like me (or more likely, geek guy), the most lucrative form of piracy (and by that I mean, the amount it would have cost you per megabyte downloaded if you bought the items in question) are roleplaying game books. Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast bought TSR's D&D license years ago and has run it into the ground with their "4th edition." They want everyone to forget 3rd edition ever existed. But it's free! $40 hardcover books in PDF format only cost 10MB of your drive space. There is nothing you can't get online if you want it. Hell, why give billionaire Rowling money? I never read Potter until I downloaded the entire series.
I'm unapologetic about this. Piracy is not anything like stealing, legally or morally. As the US supreme court once said, copyright infringement does not deprive the owner of copyright access to their "property." It's nothing like theft at all. And regardless of what the law says, governments don't get to make our morality for us--right and wrong are always in the eye of the beholder. Everything is relative. So whether you wanna "stick it to the man," or just want to free up your entertainment budget, if you've never used Bittorrent, go to http://www.utorrent.com/ and download their wonderfully safe and slim client, then visit a few sites like http://piratebay.org/, http://www.mininova.org/, or maybe luck out and get a membership to http://www.demonoid.com/. There are dozens of others. Don't forget to keep sharing after you download for as long as you can. Help make the world a more fun place to live...for free!
Or in the immortal words of Jack Sparrow,
"Take what ye can, give nothin' back!"
Arrr.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Monday, March 17, 2008
Peace Initiative: St. Patty's Day Solution to Iraq
It has occurred to me that we Irish were never really all that pro-active at the insurgency thing. I mean, look at the history of Northern Ireland. If the USA had invaded Ireland instead of Iraq, you'd have had maybe, two bombings by now. Three, tops. It's generally because we were too busy planning to kill prods and limeys over a pint, than actually killing them. Actually, we were usually too busy with the next pint to do much planning. Sure, there were some fairly horrific incidents over thirty years, but you can count them on both hands. That is approximately one day’s trip to the marketplace in Baghdad. Now, I realize correlation does not automatically imply causation, but I believe I've found a correlation that shows what it is that is wrong with Muslim extremists that makes them more violent than Irish Catholic extremists.
The poor bastards don't drink enough.
Let's do some simple math here. We'll use a few assumptions. (Actually, we'll use only assumptions, as I don't feel like looking them up, and while I haven't had time to get to a pub yet, I want to approximate a serious discussion after getting mostly drunk.)
Let's say over the last 5 years, there have been 2378 terrorist bombings1 in Iraq, while during 32 years of unrest in Northern Ireland, we bombed a factory, 2 pubs, and some old british bastard's car.2 Let's corellate that to average intake of alcohol.
The average Irish person drinks approximately 1 pint per hour.3 The average Muslim drinks approximately one ounce of alchohol per 6000 public executions.4
If we take a look at those staggering5 figures, we'll see that the number of terrorist bombings is inversely proportional6 to the amount of alcohol ingested. Obviously, the solution to bringing peace to the Middleast is to drown the whole region in Bushmills.
I'll now open the floor to questions.
1 - rough completely made up estimate I pulled from my ass.
2 - innaccurate supposition based primarily on ingestion of Guinness by IrishJackie.
3 - this is only if including time spent sleeping. Otherwise, double the amount per hour.
4 - based on the entirely fabricated statistic of 1 in 6000 executions in the middle east being for the charge of drinking alchohol, and completely ignoring how that doesn't in any way relate to how many Muslims there are.
5 - technically, only the Irish figures are staggering, and then only when we get off our stools at the pub.
6 - or something like that.
The poor bastards don't drink enough.
Let's do some simple math here. We'll use a few assumptions. (Actually, we'll use only assumptions, as I don't feel like looking them up, and while I haven't had time to get to a pub yet, I want to approximate a serious discussion after getting mostly drunk.)
Let's say over the last 5 years, there have been 2378 terrorist bombings1 in Iraq, while during 32 years of unrest in Northern Ireland, we bombed a factory, 2 pubs, and some old british bastard's car.2 Let's corellate that to average intake of alcohol.
The average Irish person drinks approximately 1 pint per hour.3 The average Muslim drinks approximately one ounce of alchohol per 6000 public executions.4
If we take a look at those staggering5 figures, we'll see that the number of terrorist bombings is inversely proportional6 to the amount of alcohol ingested. Obviously, the solution to bringing peace to the Middleast is to drown the whole region in Bushmills.
I'll now open the floor to questions.
1 - rough completely made up estimate I pulled from my ass.
2 - innaccurate supposition based primarily on ingestion of Guinness by IrishJackie.
3 - this is only if including time spent sleeping. Otherwise, double the amount per hour.
4 - based on the entirely fabricated statistic of 1 in 6000 executions in the middle east being for the charge of drinking alchohol, and completely ignoring how that doesn't in any way relate to how many Muslims there are.
5 - technically, only the Irish figures are staggering, and then only when we get off our stools at the pub.
6 - or something like that.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Currents and eddies
Change.
From conception to death, change is the one and only constant in our short lives. Most of us try to compensate for this by clinging to the familiar, like a victim of shipwreck clinging to a peice of driftwood. We form customs, habits, rituals that we perform every day to give us some illusion of stability, but like that driftwood, these things are rather small and insignificant compared to the rolling waves and powerful currents flowing around us. A select few embrace change, throwing caution to the wind and leaping through the water like a dolphin --or sometimes drowning like the shipwrecked person who lets go of the driftwood-- but these adventurers are rare among people, rarer still because few of us can easily withstand change without a stable reference point. Despite my fantasies to the contrary, I am no adventurer. I resist change with every fibre of my being. I cling to nostalgia, to the comfortable, to the familiar. Yet change is irresistable. It marches on inexorably. There is no way to stop it, or even slow it down. It will happen.
I'm growing old. I am not old yet, I'm not even "middle-aged." I'm thirty-four. I start a new job next week, my son starts his second year of school on Tuesday. My daughter just turned two. And yet it seems only yesterday I was starting school. My parents were the age I am now. My grandmother, now a ninety-four year old invalid, was in her sixties and baby-sat us regularly. I watch my parents not without a touch of horror, when my children are grown, that will be them, if they are even alive. I have the uncertainty of a new job, and I watch my children get more mature every day, and it scares me. It all happens so quickly, and it passes us by, and is gone except in our memories. What sadistic twist of nature gave us this yearning for stability in a universe where nothing is stable? While I am a hedonist who enjoys every pleasure life has to offer and wouldn't trade them for anything, I can understand, at least somewhat, why some poor souls choose to end it all, for death is the final change for all of us, after which we finally have an eternity of stable oblivion.
And yet, change is not an evil. If my children were infants forever I certainly would not be happy about it. It gives me great happiness to see their every accomplishment, to teach them. My pride at seeing them grow is unmatched. How could I set that aside? My love for my husband, my girlfriend, they both grow with each year. Romance in infancy may be exciting, but if allowed to mature rather than withering, it becomes more satisfying. Change is who we are. We can thrive in it, if we allow ourselves to do so. How can I help myself do this? How do I set aside this dark dread of change and instead embrace the possibilities that change can bring?
If I can figure that out, I know I'll lower my stress levels considerably.
From conception to death, change is the one and only constant in our short lives. Most of us try to compensate for this by clinging to the familiar, like a victim of shipwreck clinging to a peice of driftwood. We form customs, habits, rituals that we perform every day to give us some illusion of stability, but like that driftwood, these things are rather small and insignificant compared to the rolling waves and powerful currents flowing around us. A select few embrace change, throwing caution to the wind and leaping through the water like a dolphin --or sometimes drowning like the shipwrecked person who lets go of the driftwood-- but these adventurers are rare among people, rarer still because few of us can easily withstand change without a stable reference point. Despite my fantasies to the contrary, I am no adventurer. I resist change with every fibre of my being. I cling to nostalgia, to the comfortable, to the familiar. Yet change is irresistable. It marches on inexorably. There is no way to stop it, or even slow it down. It will happen.
I'm growing old. I am not old yet, I'm not even "middle-aged." I'm thirty-four. I start a new job next week, my son starts his second year of school on Tuesday. My daughter just turned two. And yet it seems only yesterday I was starting school. My parents were the age I am now. My grandmother, now a ninety-four year old invalid, was in her sixties and baby-sat us regularly. I watch my parents not without a touch of horror, when my children are grown, that will be them, if they are even alive. I have the uncertainty of a new job, and I watch my children get more mature every day, and it scares me. It all happens so quickly, and it passes us by, and is gone except in our memories. What sadistic twist of nature gave us this yearning for stability in a universe where nothing is stable? While I am a hedonist who enjoys every pleasure life has to offer and wouldn't trade them for anything, I can understand, at least somewhat, why some poor souls choose to end it all, for death is the final change for all of us, after which we finally have an eternity of stable oblivion.
And yet, change is not an evil. If my children were infants forever I certainly would not be happy about it. It gives me great happiness to see their every accomplishment, to teach them. My pride at seeing them grow is unmatched. How could I set that aside? My love for my husband, my girlfriend, they both grow with each year. Romance in infancy may be exciting, but if allowed to mature rather than withering, it becomes more satisfying. Change is who we are. We can thrive in it, if we allow ourselves to do so. How can I help myself do this? How do I set aside this dark dread of change and instead embrace the possibilities that change can bring?
If I can figure that out, I know I'll lower my stress levels considerably.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wisdom of a fool
Well, he's not really a fool. He's just a funny son of a bitch.
Here's what Coro had to say about Atheism:
Here's what Coro had to say about Atheism:
If God created Heaven and Earth, and all of the people in it, then he must have also created atheists. After all, there's no other way they could have possibly gotten here. This brings up the question of why. Why would God have created people who reject him?
Religious folk, when asked difficult questions, always like to say that God has a plan. Unfortunately, getting an idea of the nature of said plan out of them is like pulling teeth. The favorite answer is along the lines that we are unfit to attempt to comprehend the mind of God - as if that stops humans from contemplating it anyway. Contemplating the nature of God is what led to groups of us discovering his existence in the first place. It was a very important notion to explore under Judaism. It's not until Christianity and Islam that pondering the nature of God's thoughts seems to have become a serious taboo.
So God has a plan. This means he has a plan for atheists. God is omnipotent and omniscient, so therefore he not only has a plan, but everything is proceeding according to that plan. Puzzling, then, that atheism continues to persist. Why?
Christians want to see God everywhere they look. It's a popular theme among contemporary Christian thought to see God in everything. This is logical. Since God created the world, he therefore must be present in everything. Saying that you see God in everything is an accurate statement. God is an artist and an inventor - this much is clear from any study of Judeo-Christian theology. As an artist, God likes to paint pictures. What use is art if it is not shared? Furthermore, does God not already have an audience with which to share his art? So, having painted a new picture, and having an audience with which to share, God proceeds to show his new painting to his creations, and then asks them what they see.
The Christian, thinking himself very clever, responds that he sees God. This is akin to a lost airplane pilot flying over Seattle, asking the control tower where he is, and hearing over the radio, "You're in a plane." While technically correct, it is completely useless.
God knows very well that the Christian can see him. After all, he created the Christian's eyes, and being flawless, the eyes must work. Having working eyes, there is no possible way the Christian could fail to see God. Growing impatient, God proceeds to inform the Christian of this detail, and repeat his original questions. What do you see? How does it make you feel? What thoughts does it evoke in your mind?
The Christian, now very pleased with his marvelous epiphany that God is in everything, repeats that he can see God.
God, now, has a dilemma. God represents infinite life and love. God is also eternal. He has all of the time in the world, and yet he has neither the time nor the patience to continue dealing with this Christian. It is at this point that God goes elsewhere (not difficult, since God is everywhere). God seeks out an atheist, for while the atheist will refuse to acknowledge that he sees God, the atheist will invariably speak his mind about what he sees. Having created the atheist, God understands perfectly well that this is the case. God can not ask the atheist questions, because the atheist refuses to acknowledge, and thus hear, God, but this is irrelevent for the atheist need not be asked his opinion of God's work. He will offer it anyway. God likewise knows this. God must therefore merely place the painting where the atheist is sure to see it, and wait for one to walk by.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Unwanted Epiphany
For about five or six years now I’ve been posting my opinions to the Internet in various forms on various forums, and it has recently occurred to me how much they have changed. But this makes sense, because I have changed in that time, probably more so in the last three years than in the previous fifteen. That’s why I opened this blog. It’s not for you, the fictional reader who probably will never see these words anyway, but for me.
Who am I now? So much has changed. The “miracle” of life has ironically caused me to stop believing in miracles. I’m a redheaded preacher’s daughter, raised a good orange Anglican. My parents are from Belfast, even if I’ve never visited the Eire. Yet Jesus never resonated with me, I quickly abandoned the faith of my parents. Searching for meaning, I sought for magic and the divine within nature herself, within the earth. My beliefs held much in common with some modern Wicca, to the point where I even identified myself as Wiccan for a time. I don’t regret this, so many of those principles still resonate strongly with me; respect for Earth, the universe, nature, my fellow human beings and life itself, the idea of liberty to do what one wishes so long as you try to avoid harming others, it’s very alluring. Indeed, I met my girlfriend of almost five years now in a coven I agreed to visit. My husband greatly respects my former beliefs, even if he doesn’t follow them. I meant to bring my children up with a strong spiritual background, and the ability to search for and find whatever form of god they choose. But something has happened in between.
Now, understand, I’ve always wanted to believe in something beyond, something higher, to be a part of something eternal. But the more I learn, the more I read, the less I have believed. Science has gotten rid of the need for something more, and we can suddenly exist without belief. But I held on for a while, struggling to believe, until three years ago something momentous happened. My son was born. My beautiful little boy, he’s perfect. I love him dearly with every maternal ounce of my soul. And the scales fell from my eyes like with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, and understanding dawned.
I am a machine.
I’m a biological, Darwinian machine. Every response, every emotion, every thought is what I was wired to feel. Free choice is an illusion; the universe was predestined to be as it is now from the instant of the “big bang.” If you could know all universal laws, and the state of the universe as it started, you could predict exactly how it would finish, down to the last detail. Quantum mechanics notwithstanding, (we know that we cannot really know the state of the universe without altering it,) the fact is that the universe exists inside Schrödinger’s box and it is how it is. If we knew, then we would know everything for all time. My love for my son, as powerful and inescapable as it is, it is a biochemical conditioned response. There is no meaning. We simply are.
I do not like this conclusion. In fact, I’m begging someone to prove it wrong. Not with platitudes or anecdotes, not with mysticism or introspection. I want it proven physically. I don’t want to believe, I want to know. I want God to be out there, be it YHWH, Jesus or Allah or the Lady I have referred to as “Mother Nature.” I do not like the implications of absolute relative morality that must be true if I am just a cosmic accident. But just because I do not like the way things are, does not change that they are.
And that is my greatest fear.
So what's left? I sometimes feel like Cypher from the Matrix. Ignorance is bliss. Does the happy fundamentalist Baptist end up more satisfied with her life believing in arbitrary mythology? Is she better off than I who may have uncovered the truth? I almost wish I could make myself believe, to pull the blindfold over my own eyes. But it can't be done. You can never go back. Not unless one of you fictional readers can show me where the logic here is wrong. Searching for meaning in a meaningless universe is what is left. Depressing? Perhaps. But all I need to do is look at the faces of my children and the biochemical reaction that takes place makes me forget, far better than shooting up with any substance one might choose to abuse, and then I'm happy.
Who am I now? So much has changed. The “miracle” of life has ironically caused me to stop believing in miracles. I’m a redheaded preacher’s daughter, raised a good orange Anglican. My parents are from Belfast, even if I’ve never visited the Eire. Yet Jesus never resonated with me, I quickly abandoned the faith of my parents. Searching for meaning, I sought for magic and the divine within nature herself, within the earth. My beliefs held much in common with some modern Wicca, to the point where I even identified myself as Wiccan for a time. I don’t regret this, so many of those principles still resonate strongly with me; respect for Earth, the universe, nature, my fellow human beings and life itself, the idea of liberty to do what one wishes so long as you try to avoid harming others, it’s very alluring. Indeed, I met my girlfriend of almost five years now in a coven I agreed to visit. My husband greatly respects my former beliefs, even if he doesn’t follow them. I meant to bring my children up with a strong spiritual background, and the ability to search for and find whatever form of god they choose. But something has happened in between.
Now, understand, I’ve always wanted to believe in something beyond, something higher, to be a part of something eternal. But the more I learn, the more I read, the less I have believed. Science has gotten rid of the need for something more, and we can suddenly exist without belief. But I held on for a while, struggling to believe, until three years ago something momentous happened. My son was born. My beautiful little boy, he’s perfect. I love him dearly with every maternal ounce of my soul. And the scales fell from my eyes like with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, and understanding dawned.
I am a machine.
I’m a biological, Darwinian machine. Every response, every emotion, every thought is what I was wired to feel. Free choice is an illusion; the universe was predestined to be as it is now from the instant of the “big bang.” If you could know all universal laws, and the state of the universe as it started, you could predict exactly how it would finish, down to the last detail. Quantum mechanics notwithstanding, (we know that we cannot really know the state of the universe without altering it,) the fact is that the universe exists inside Schrödinger’s box and it is how it is. If we knew, then we would know everything for all time. My love for my son, as powerful and inescapable as it is, it is a biochemical conditioned response. There is no meaning. We simply are.
I do not like this conclusion. In fact, I’m begging someone to prove it wrong. Not with platitudes or anecdotes, not with mysticism or introspection. I want it proven physically. I don’t want to believe, I want to know. I want God to be out there, be it YHWH, Jesus or Allah or the Lady I have referred to as “Mother Nature.” I do not like the implications of absolute relative morality that must be true if I am just a cosmic accident. But just because I do not like the way things are, does not change that they are.
And that is my greatest fear.
So what's left? I sometimes feel like Cypher from the Matrix. Ignorance is bliss. Does the happy fundamentalist Baptist end up more satisfied with her life believing in arbitrary mythology? Is she better off than I who may have uncovered the truth? I almost wish I could make myself believe, to pull the blindfold over my own eyes. But it can't be done. You can never go back. Not unless one of you fictional readers can show me where the logic here is wrong. Searching for meaning in a meaningless universe is what is left. Depressing? Perhaps. But all I need to do is look at the faces of my children and the biochemical reaction that takes place makes me forget, far better than shooting up with any substance one might choose to abuse, and then I'm happy.
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