Kill ACTA
ckck:
If you hadn’t heard, ACTA is the latest threat to the internet and democracy. It’s a “trade agreement” arranged in secret overstepping all democratic processes, and unlike the U.S. SOPA and PIPA bills, ACTA is on a global scale. If you live in the European Union, please use the form at the link to mass-email all the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) from your country. All you have to do is enter your email address and hit the button.
Even if you’re not European, ACTA involves the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and a few others too so spread the word.
INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012.
PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture. Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever. So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the riches companies in the world. Congratulations - it’s all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules…
SOPA can’t do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we’ll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.
Retail lesson #23:
Don’t ask the form of payment until you are ready.
Fast food attendant: So, is that savings or credit?
Me: savings thanks
Fast food attendant: here’s your fries. Was that savings or credit?
Me: savings
Fast food attendant: it was credit, wasn’t it?
tew
New Facebook feature
If only. Thanks Mr Zuckerburger. tew
Oh the irony
Teenager: I don’t like cats - they’re lazy.
Me: Hmmm. You are a teenager, and you think cats are lazy?
Occupy my mind
The one percent has decided that, starting from today: all salaries will be reduced to the lowest common denominator.
tew
Pre-sentation
Only the other day, for some reason, I remembered one of my first lessons in presentation - and the importance of it in all aspects of what we do - given to me by one of my long-time-ago bosses.
It goes a bit like this: I was a young whipper snapper drafting for an Architectural firm, and had to issue some drawings to another consultant. Normally, we would just roll up the drawings, whack a label on it and call up a courier to pick it up. No problem. I mean it was just a roll of working drawings, and the guys weren’t buying anything from us. No need to go to any trouble - I’ve got work to do.
As I was doing this, the guy [I think his name was Wayne], pulled me up and asked what I was doing. He then explained how the presentation was just ordinary. He did this without making me feel like a turd, but he wouldn’t accept that it was just a mundane delivery of mundane documents to a mundane consultant. He told me that everything we produce, everything we create, everything we deliver - as a company, or as an individual - needs to reflect what we do and who we are.
The guy at the other end may not care, but he also might. He might notice the subtle differences and understand that what we have provided is worthy of respect and therefore, so are we.
I thought about this and went back and looked at the way I put together the package of drawings for this particular delivery. I made changes. If you saw the difference, I’m sure you would think “big deal, what’s he talking about?”. It wasn’t a major shift, but important nonetheless.
More importantly, it was the major shift in the way I thought about these things from then on that amazes me. Wayne will never know how much that little chat guided me. I don’t think about it consciously, but it plays on just about everything I do in my professional life, from writing emails, to meeting conduct to training of younger staff.
tew
Someday you will die somehow and something’s gonna steal your carbon!
—Modest Mouse - Parting of the Sensory
