PSA
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Archive for April, 2003
off my chest
No, I’d rather not talk about my abject failure to find an internship this summer and how it reflects on me as a person and as a labor-providing individual in this world. Yes, I do realize it’s all my fault. And yes, I’m taking it very seriously. This whole thing is suffocating.
And no, I don’t want to hear about your summer plans at all. This is me not giving a shit. And this is me being completely bitter and furious. Please notice the stark similiarity.
Who gives a shit about this stuff anyway? Whatever. I need a nap.
[This post has disappeared! oh no! the mighty editor strikes again.]
oompah
Whoops, I let 8 days slip by without a post. Yeah, I have been rather busy doing projects and problem sets. I guess I’ve also been a bit uninspired to write.
The best stuff I write usually comes to me when I think a funny thought in the midst of my days. I often come to the desk with most of the post written in my head already. I can’t just sit down and crank out good stuff. It’s the introspection and the solitude that fuel the oopmh behind the good stuff.
And shit, I missed this blog’s second birthday on April 13th. Man, I’m really bad with birthdays. I missed last year’s too. This waxy blog had a birthday and he wrote rather well about it. He even mentioned his founding principles.
My founding principles? Hmmm… mine were much less noble. They were somewhere between “meet hot chicks” and “stroke one’s own ego”. I guess the in-between would be to “meet hot chicks that will stroke my ego”.
Check.
oh wait, it sucked
I reread yesterday’s Spec article and realized that the article was devoid of insight and offered nothing interesting at all. Oddly, I suppose you could say the same about my post on the article. Anyway, here’s a list of things the article got completely wrong or that I otherwise disliked:
- Will Farrell is a comedian. Not Colin Farrell.
- I don’t have to capitalize Dick Clark’s goddamn name if I don’t want to.
- I don’t appreciate people interpreting my insight on entertaining adults as “musings on the potential of naked charades”.
- Yes, it is true that “any computer owner with an ego and a LAN connection can start a blog”, but, uh, surprise: any Internet connection will work. You don’t need a frickin’ LAN connection. Does anyone over there know about these fancy computer things and all this here tek-naw-lo-gee?
I guess I should take it easy on the author, him being a freshman and all. And this being the Spectator and all. Off I go, to cuse damage elsewhere.
limelight
So, I got a call last night from a Mr. Chris Beam CC ‘06, a writer for the Spectator, asking me about weblogs in general and mine specifically for this article he was writing about warblogging and blogging at Columbia. Poor guy was writing the article at the last minute, so I tried to give him as much useful information as possible.
Over the course of the conversation, all my fears and misgivings about press and misrepresentation came out. Yknow, because I am a stark madman. So it took me about three minutes of intense introspection before I even agreed to talk to him or answer his questions. Then, I told him I prefer if he did not publish the address to this blog, thinking of the danger of strangers lurking around here. Of course, the ego-maniac in me awoke soon after and realized how this was a perfect opportunity to gain droves and droves of readers. I wonder if anybody is going to wander over here because of the article
RIAA v. Peng
A couple of days ago, RIAA announced that they were suiing several college students for facilitating the transfer of copyrighted music over the network through systems they have created. When I say “sue”, I mean multi-billion dollar lawsuit; I mean they are asking for $150,000 per copyright infringement, which equates to swimming in Uncle Scrooge’s money bins
The news got a fair amount of coverage because this is one of the first times RIAA has actually gone after college students directly over this sort of issue. The lawsuit names two students from Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, one from Princeton University, and another at Michigan Technological University.
And now, my personal commentary on the matter. Just want to get something off my chest. RIAA really pisses me off. They just don’t “get it”. At all. They never understand how new technology changes their world and how they should deal with it. They only know how to ignorantly fight it, kicking and screaming. In this case, they chose to use lawsuits to bully around college students. This lawsuit is meant to make an example out of them, to scare everyone else. This much is clear because they did not go the normal means for dealing with copyright infringement at colleges. Instead they went straight to the lawyers and the press room.
Most universities have a protocol where copyright owners can contact the administration with evidence of copyright infringment by a student on their network and the admin will deal with the student accordingly (Columbia has such a policy.) In the case of this lawsuit, RIAA made no warnings whatsoever and came out with these huge lawsuits, surprising everyone. MTU President Curtis Tompkins himself wrote a letter to RIAA in response to the lawsuit against one of his students, at one point expressing this frustration:
“As a fully cooperating site, we would have expected the courtesy of being notified early and allowing us to take action following established procedures, instead of allowing it to get to the point of lawsuits and publicity.” [source: Wired].
In case you did not notice, this is one long post. I have a lot to say because I feel passionately about this whole copyright mess the Internet has brought on, and well, because this incident is personal. The Princeton student being sued is my old classmate and friend from high school, Dan Peng.
If you want more analysis on the case, Princeton’s college paper, the Daily Princetonian, has some articles of what’s going on. (Well, actually every major news outlet has covered this story. I just think it’s cute to hear it from the tiger’s mouth.) And here’s one Princeton student’s analysis of RIAA v. Peng. I’ll try to post more info as I find it.
no way
You can’t fool me. I ain’t falling for it. It’s 5pm now, not 6pm. And it’s December, not April. Quit messin’.