Why SOPA and PIPA aren’t such a big deal…

I’m sure over the past few months you’ll have been aware of the controversial SOPA and PIPA legislation festering in the American legal system, aimed at combating the theft of intellectual property/piracy over the internet.  These acts are controversial in that they amount to little else than (or at least give legal provision for) overt internet censorship.  I, however, have done some research: I think by the end of this blog you’ll agree it’s not such a big deal as our friends over the pond are making out…

As the Geography department say, it’s always important to define one’s terms.  Therefore, as I had a Geography exam this morning, this is what I shall do.  In a sentence-based nutshell (this could be fun…) the two acts want to censor certain domains suspected of being used for illicit activity from the public, cut off ad-revenue and force them into shutting down due to lack of traffic.  Now that’s out of the way, I shall begin.

I need to make it clear that contrary to popular belief the USA does not own the internet.  It was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (TimBL to friends…) and was given as a gift to the world as a whole as a platform with no restrictions placed upon it: the fact that nobody owns it is significant.  Whilst the Americans portray the restrictions proposed by SOPA and PIPA as disastrously threatening to the future of the internet, they couldn’t have got it more wrong.  If passed, the proposals will only affect people accessing the internet from within the US (edit: or sites based within the US) in the same way that internet censorship in China, or North Korea (they don’t really have the internet as we know it in the latter, but hey…) doesn’t have any impact on what the West is or isn’t allowed to see on the internet.  SOPA and PIPA only permit the following actions to be taken against offending sites:

  • Require U.S. sites and search engines to remove all links to the foreign site.2021
  • Require U.S. advertising services to no longer serve ads linking to the site, or display ads (e.g. AdSense) on the foreign site.2223
  • Require U.S. payment networks to cease any transactions between the foreign site and U.S. customers.2425
  • Require U.S. service providers to block customer access to the foreign site (DNS blacklisting).

(Source: Reddit, 2012, http://goo.gl/TbKsY)

Yep, you spotted it too.  It’s all focused around “The U.S.”.

There is absolutely nothing to stop sites such as the infamous PirateBay operating outside the US; all the proposed acts can do is block access from the US and stop any advertising from the US, or any cash coming from the US going to the site.  Across the pond in England, all will remain well.

“But James” I hear you cry, “what if we want to access sites based within the US, such as Facebook and Google if they are taken down?”  Don’t worry, I’ve found a solution to that too.  The global internet megacorps would be extremely stupid to give up the ghost if their US operations are shut down, when the rest of the world is out there.  Sure, the US makes up a large proportion of internet traffic, but there’s nothing to stop megacorps relocating to the “free” world beyond the US.  Due to the demand for the product, Facebook and suchlike will simply move to Europe, if shoehorned out of the US: they’d be foolish to turn down advertising revenue from countries other than the US – our money’s as good as theirs!  (Apart from currencies like the Zimbabwe dollar, and the Euro.  Ouch…)

“Okay, so we’ve established it’s exclusively the US who will be affected by this legislation.  What if it’s adopted over here?” I hear you ask.  Well, feast your intellect on this…  Back in 2011 (it seems so long ago already…) a case was presented to the European Court of Justice where someone wanted to do something similar to SOPA and PIPA, but far less extreme (rather than blocking entire infringing sites, the infringing content on these sites were the only thing that would be removed).  The court commented:

“Such an injunction could potentially undermine freedom of information since that system might not distinguish adequately between unlawful content and lawful content with the result that its introduction could lead to the blocking of lawful communications,”

(Source: BBC News, 2011, http://goo.gl/s8A58)

So, in a nutshell, the European Court of Justice has blasted a watered-down SOPA/PIPA for Europe out of the water.  Based on this legal precedent, I think it’s fair to say nothing like that will be coming into play in European countries any time soon.

So the bottom line is this: if you’re in the US and SOPA/PIPA is passed, then frankly, you’re royally screwed.

If you’re not, then all is well: we can laugh at how our ex-colony has shot itself in the foot, as we frequently love to do…

I hope this helps to shed light on what has become a common misconception over the past few weeks.

(Worth a read of the Reddit blog post if you’re interested by this, or don’t believe me… http://goo.gl/TbKsY)

—

JR.

2012
01/18
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The end of Limewire = the end of piracy? Nope.

Limewire Logo
In the news today I read that media-sharing giant Limewire has been ordered to remove “all functionality” from its software, which acted as the simplest way of downloading media over the internet for years.  Combined with a bad experience with BBC iPlayer experienced by myself today, both of these items of news have formed today’s blog topic.  So make a cup of tea, fasten your seatbelts and relax: it’s going to be a good ‘un!

Digital media piracy is a topic that has been floating around the news for years; this isn’t surprising, seeing as 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal.  When discussing piracy, it’s important to highlight reasons for engaging in such a strictly illegal activity.  Some people claim to engage in illegal file sharing because they want to demo a band or a film before they part with their hard earned cash to buy the legal edition; some say that it’s simply because they don’t want to pay for music or films, or think that they are overpriced.  However, my personal theory is that people engage in piracy because it’s considerably easier to illegally download something than it is to actually go out and buy it.

Let’s use an example: say you want to buy a Dire Straits CD.  If you were to buy it on Amazon, you’d buy it and then wait 3-5 days for it to arrive in your letterbox.  If you were to buy it in a music store, like HMV, you’d have to go out and pay for bus fares, fuel, parking etc. and then pay a couple of pounds more for the CD in the shop than you could get it for online.  I can sense that some readers are thinking “why don’t you buy it on the iTunes store, or on Amazon MP3?”  Well, I’ll tell you.

Listening to Music

Low bitrates sound shoddy on headphones like those above...

Downloads from Amazon MP3 and iTunes are lower quality recordings than you would get from a CD – no, really.  Although some so-called “experts” claim that CD quality is equal to a bitrate of 192kbps if you listen using headphones, other than the cheap and nasty Apple ones you get free with your iPod, there is an audible difference between 192k and lossless recordings.  Both Amazon and iTunes downloads are encoded with a bitrate of 256kbps, which has a similar effect.  If you had a physical CD, you can rip your music at any bitrate you want (including lossless, which represents true CD quality) which demonstrates one clear advantage with buying the physical CD compared with downloading from Amazon or iTunes.  I know that the reason they’re only doing low quality downloads is to minimise their servers’ bandwidth usage (to save money) because only a minority of customers actually care about quality, but surely it’d be nice to have the option there to get a lossless version should you feel an urge to?

Now, how does this relate to piracy?  If you wanted to own a lossless recording of Dire Straits’ fabulous Love over Gold album, you have two choices: buy the CD online and wait for it to be shipped to you, or buy the CD in a shop and pay more, plus charges for getting there, etc.  Enter a third option: illegally download it.  Although most people associate illegally downloaded material with low quality (a falsity brought about by anti-piracy videos before films in the cinema/on DVD), I’ve seen sites offering free instant illegal downloads of lossless music – that’s higher quality than if you pay for it, which is utter madness.

iPlayer Logo

Also, software errors can lead people down the piracy route.  BBC iPlayer, the marvellous website that makes “the unmissable unmissable”, has an absolutely shoddy downloading application which just refuses to work.  When you factor in the fact that all content downloaded from iPlayer is subject to strict DRM (digital rights management) restrictions, meaning you only have 30 days to watch the stuff you’ve downloaded, it makes you wonder whether piracy is the way forward in this instance (you paid your licence fees, after all).

I think that no matter what the forces above do in an attempt to quash piracy, it will still go on until they make acquiring the content as easy, if not easier, than getting it illegally.

Steps for a Better Britain Decent Downloading:

Step 1 – Make all legal downloads the same price as their CD/DVD equivalents.

Step 2 – Offer versions of all legal downloads at lossless quality.

Step 3 – Offer a CD/DVD version of the downloaded content for a reduced rate (if not for free) with the sale of any download.

This can’t be too much to ask, surely?

——————–

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PS. A special shout-out goes to Rosie Hull, who requested a mention in the blog.  Just like to say she’s “mint”.

2010
10/27
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New iPods – a victim of a devious marketing scheme?

Firstly I’d like to thank everyone who’s tried out the new rating system for my posts, and would especially like to thank whoever it was who went through and voted everything as one star!  Your feedback is highly valued! ;)  And it would also appear that more people would choose to spend their money on a vast quantity of penny sweets than a shiny gadget from Apple, which is fair enough!  Though as you probably guessed from the title this blog, again, refers to Apple products, though not in a good way, so it might be right up your street!

As you [probably] know, Apple released a new line-up of iPods last week.  Well, a new line-up, minus any change on the already-awesome classic which, other than adding a huge hard drive, needs no upgrading whatsoever!

Let’s start with the Shuffle.  To be honest, the voice-controlled shuffle was a bit of an epic fail, admit it.  The voice control didn’t really work, and you were tied to using Apple’s frankly awful earbuds instead of other headphones like my beloved Shures.  So Apple decided to “update” the shuffle by making it more or less identical to the shuffle that came before the voice activated one, bust chose to shave a centimetre off the edge to make it square in shape.  Why?  It can still only hold a couple of songs, and you still can’t choose a specific song to listen to because there’s no screen!  See for yourself:

New iPod Shuffle

Old (left) and new (right)

Now the new nano is something to behold.  Rather than stick with the traditional iPod clickwheel, they’ve put a small touchscreen on the front…which is more or less useless.  The puny resolution can only display a couple of albums on the screen at any given time, which is actually SMALLER than the previous generation nano.  Not to mention that they’ve axed the camera and video playback facilities.  Looks like a really worthwhile “upgrade” to me..  Not to mention that for £30 more you can get one of the new touches…

New iPod Nano

Old (left) and new (right)

…which actually look half decent.  I won’t bother adding another image comparison because they look more or less identical, but the new touch sports front and rear cameras, Factime support, a retina display and many other bits of gubbins it would be boring to go into.  More or less, it’s an iPhone 4 without the design, without the phone part and without the street cred.  So in other words, a perfect iPod touch upgrade!

I can’t help but think that the nano and shuffle have been deliberately made bad by Apple to make the next “upgrade” seem worthwhile.  Why not, for example, put a touchscreen onto the front of the shuffle?  Smaller manufacturers include a basic LCD on their compact players.  No prizes for guessing that’ll be a feature of the next generation shuffle.  And as for the nano?  Well.  What a pointless waste of £160!  A touchscreen of that size is useless (perfectly suited for the shuffle, which is a pretty useless device at the best of times) – make it bigger.  For ages there’s been talk of an iPod touch mini for people on a budget, and I think that’s what’s right around the corner.

The annoying part about all of this is that Apple’s clever marketing guys have been very clever and have marketed the company in such a way that people will still buy these abominations despite the fact that there’s going to be an obvious upgrade around the corner which will instantly make their new gadgets obsolete.  In fact, I’d go as far as to say that in the case of the nano, the old-gen nano makes the new one look obsolete!

If Microsoft did this, you’d protest (in fact you did – remember Windows Vista and Windows Millennium, which were both created to up-sell the next version?).

So why does nobody care when Apple does it?  Hang onto that thought.

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2010
09/06
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Just a big iPod Touch… right? Umm, maybe not…

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that last week I took a trip to see family in Milton Keynes, and those of you who have been shopping with me will know that if I’m within a small distance of a branch of John Lewis, there is nothing anybody can do to stop me going in!  I’m a great John Lewis fan, simply because of the plethora of high quality goods under one roof, and the desire for every member of staff to be as helpful as possible, even if you’re only browsing as I was.

John Lewis Logo

The famous John Lewis logo

Now, today’s blog isn’t going to be about how every shop should take a leaf out of John Lewis’s book (even if they should), but instead it’s going to be about something a little more interesting.  That is, assuming you have an interest in technology, otherwise a politically biassed blog may be for you instead!

Whilst browsing, I came across the store’s iPad stand, where two of the sleek black devices were available for potential customers to play with.  Or they would have been, if there wasn’t a 6 year old child glued to the screen of one of them, making use of the accelerometer-based gaming experience by [badly] driving a SUV round what looked like, by my trained eye, the Tskuba circuit.  So actually, there was only one iPad available for people to play with that given afternoon…

Nevertheless, my curiosity took over, and I joined the ever-growing queue behind the businessman trying one out; I thought I might as well try one out so I could have some sort of physical experience with the device and see what all the fuss was about – I know numerous people have said great things about the iPad, but I had taken those opinions with a pinch of salt as said people could well have simply been Apple fanboys (and girls).

As I stood there, in that queue, I found myself almost shaking with excitement.  Though I questioned why – the iPad is a pointless device, surely – I found no answer, and proceeded to tell the person next to me in the queue about the technology in the iPad.  (Luckily, this person was my brother…)  I think the man in front who had the iPad overheard my one-way conversation, and decided that I clearly knew more about it than he did, so decided to step aside to let me have a play.

iPad

An iPad image I stole from someone else's site because I neglected to take an image of my own :(

The moment I felt the sleek metal body in my hands, I knew I was handling a substantial piece of kit.  The sides of the iPad are not rounded and bevelled like an iPod; instead they are flat, which gives it a ‘crisp’ feel.  And then there’s the gorgeous screen!  All 9.7 inches of touchscreen goodness are put to excellent use with superb colour reproduction.  I know I was critical of the iPad, but the sheer size of the thing makes it a lot more usable than its iPod touch and iPhone cousins.  Gestures are well implemented, the popular pinch-to-zoom proving extremely slick on such a large screen.  But don’t get me wrong, it’s still a compact device: when I first held it it seemed smaller than I imagined.  Maps were also very very good with the beautiful screen proving to be considerably better than a physical atlas.  Browsing the John Lewis site was simple (they had a sneaky wifi filter to block requests to other sites) and really effective.

One of the great things about the iPad is the touchscreen – it’s a really empowering feeling to be able to have the whole of the internet literally at your fingertips.  Whether this would wear off over time, I don’t know, but I really doubt it.  It’s really one of those things you’ve got to try out to feel!

When the time came for me to pass the iPad on to its next user, it felt like handing a stranger my future child.  I wanted to stay with it all day and make sure it was well-looked after.  We had formed a bond and had really ’connected’, and this is why I take back every bit of criticism I have made about the iPad.  Sure, in terms of functionality it’s just an iPod touch with a fancy aerial (if you opt for the more expensive 3G version), but in the flesh you get the feeling that it’s so much more than that.  Seeing really is believing.

Having said that, I still think the price of £529 with the 3G antennae is somewhat cheeky of Apple, and the pricey data packages are equally cheeky of the UK providers, and these two things combined are what’s preventing me from shelling out for one right now.

First they win my heart with the device, and then they win my wallet (and then they reject it because it’s too small) – all in the space of about 10 minutes.  No wonder they sold over 3 million units in 80 days.

Would you rather have an iPad or an iPhone 4?  Vote in the poll to make your opinion known!

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2010
08/02
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Is this for real?

A little belated I know, but here’s the promised blog about the World Cup.  Those of you who know me will know that I despise football, but I’m approaching it with an open mind for this blog, and shall focus solely on this single competition rather than the sport itself!

Take a look at the picture above; what do you see?  Homes in a disaster zone?  People dealing with the effects of a hurricane?  Or the host of this year’s World Cup?

Yes, it is the latter, although you could be forgiven for thinking it is one of the others, as they are not dissimilar; it depicts the archetypal place of residence for thousands of Africans.  These shanty towns have no facilities in the way of sanitation or electricity, and it would be fair to say that the people who live in them are in poverty, despite what the heavily biassed and influential news media may say.

It strikes me as odd that South Africa, a country plighted by all manner of problems, hosted the World Cup this year.  It is reported by the BBC that the cost for it was in the region of US$4 billion, and was paid for by their government, despite the estimated cost being only US$300 million – that’s more than a ten-fold increase.  What’s more, takings from the World Cup sit comfortably below the country’s outgoings at around US$3 billion – that’s a US$1 billion loss.

I’m sure you can see where this is going, but I’ll be explicit about this anyway – why on earth would a poverty-stricken country with an average life expectancy of only 49 years host the World Cup when its finances would be put to better use sorting out its own problems?  Of course, if there were any profits from the project that could go into their economy, this argument would be redundant, but the fact of the matter is that there was a huge loss, so they’ve effectively worsened their condition.

Do you remember the Haiti disaster, and the mass fund-raising effort that followed?  Good; I’ll ask you this: why did we care so much about raising money for Haiti when more people are suffering, and have been suffering for their entire lives, in South Africa?  Yet football fans, and the multinational corporations associated with the World Cup, decide to take advantage of this troubled nation by draining them of their limited financial resources by getting them to host the World Cup, and nobody bats an eyelid.  It’s not the supporters’ fault though, the media have deliberately kept the reality of the situation fairly quiet.

I suppose there is one upside to the World Cup being held there – the South African holder of the patent for the Vuvuzela will now have a large bank balance!

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2010
07/26
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The end of an era

It never really struck me that this moment would ever come, and now that I’m here, it seems so much more real than I thought it would ever be.  On 8th July, it was the Prom, a dinner-dance-esque event designed to mark the last time everybody in the whole academic year was gathered together.  It’s shocking to think that that was the last time I’ll ever see some of the people with whom I have shared the past 5 years of my life, andI have no idea why it has come as something of a surprise; I knew it was coming, but I guess it didn’t feel real until the moment had come and gone.

For weeks before the event, the girls already had comprehensive plans and schedules in place: hairdressers appointments were made, manicure sessions booked.  I didn’t bother with any of that, predictably, and I don’t know any male who had.  (Well, maybe one…)  On the morning of the Prom, whilst our female counterparts were busy preparing, a group of us were preparing too: we all agreed that a three-hour long session on CoD was enough to prepare anyone for a simple dinner!

I for one thought that all of the fuss about preparation was a bit silly – it was only another dinner after all.  At one stage I decided against taking my camera because I thought it would get in the way, but changed my mind at the last minute, not leaving enough time to locate the battery charger, leaving me with no option but to rely on Tesco Value batteries for the whole evening.  That was a bad idea, as they were flat after two shots!  (Thankfully I borrowed a couple of high capacity ones so all was not lost!)

The Prom

The Prom

At the event I was taken aback by the effort that the girls had put into their dresses, limos and hairstyles, all of which which made me feel slightly guilty for doing next to no preparation and turning up in my dad’s muddy Freelander with four useless batteries in my trouser pocket.  I was under the impression that spending a fortune on a single night (in the department of limos etc.) was a complete waste of time and money, hence why I didn’t.  But on reflection, I kind of wish I did.

I’m not good at moving on, and I can safely say that I never will completely move on from those precious years at Market Weighton in which I have developed both intellectually and as a character.  But more importantly, I will never forget the mixture of personalities and individual characters present in my year.

There’s been a hell of a lot of water under that bridge, and just like the BP oil crisis in the Gulf sea, it isn’t going to disappear any time soon.

You can view a full gallery of my images on the night on Facebook here.

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2010
07/19
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Another man’s loss is another man’s gain

Exam Hall

Well, it would appear that summer is finally upon us!  And I’m not just referring to the lovely weather – for most GCSE students it is the end of the exam season, and therefore school for the academic year!  At one stage I thought this moment would never come, and that I would be doomed to academia for eternity, but boy am I pleased it’s here!

In 10 weeks time, I shall be starting at Pocklington School for my VI Form education.  Those who know that I have been at The Market Weighton School since I was 11 would see this as slightly odd – why move when I’m settled where I am?  The answer lies in my choice of A-level options.  Most people I have spoken to would consider Geography, Religious Studies, History and English Literature to be mainstream subjects, so would expect them to be offered everywhere – well that’s where you’re wrong.

It turns out that Geography and Religious Studies are not going to be run at Market Weighton next year due to a lack of funding.  This struck me as odd, because it had never been an issue in the past.  After a bit of digging, I discovered the cause of the problem: the introduction of vocational courses, such as the BTEC, in place of traditional A-levels.

Due to The Market Weighton School being state-funded, its interest will be in the majority of students succeeding.  In this particular case, the majority of students would benefit from doing vocational courses because they provide people with valuable hands-on experience in many jobs.  The fundamental problem is that these courses just aren’t appropriate for people who want to do professional jobs that are in high demand, such as jobs in Law or Medicine.

Top universities such as Oxbridge, Durham and York simply disregard students who have taken vocational courses because they are seen as a cop-out.  Having taken a BTEC in IT over the past two years, due to the school not offering a full GCSE in IT, I can comment and say that there is much less work to do than for a GCSE course – English Lit, for example, took much more work than IT.

Of course, moving into the private sector for education is the easy way out for me, but I can’t help but feel guilty.  There are undoubtedly countless students in similar situations to me who aren’t able to make the move due to financial constraints, and I think that is plain wrong.  I think that the government should reinstate widespread state-funded Grammar schools which only offer academic subjects, which are open to everyone.  This way the people who need to study academic subjects will be able to do so, and the students who need to do vocational courses are also able to do so too.

I’m hoping to increase the frequency of blogs as the summer draws on to make up for the exam-period lapse, so tell all your friends, and I hope to see you next time where I will be expressing my views about the World Cup!

2010
06/29
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Confused.com about car insurance? I am…

It was my 16th birthday on Sunday 28th March.  I had a small dinner with a group of friends the Friday before in celebration, but my birthday remained empty of other arrangements, which left me free to watch the Formula 1 undisturbed.  This got me thinking; it would be only a year until I was legally allowed to drive.

After the race, and over the next few days, I carried out an investigation pertaining to insuring a car for my personal use next year.  For once, the car insurance comparison sites’ persistent advertising on Dave proved useful, and I used a combination of sites to check out insurance prices.  I filled in all of the fields about myself as honestly as I could, and typed in the details of a basic Peugeot 107, complete with its three cylinder 1.0 litre [lawnmower] engine, and hit the submit button.  I was feeling rather smug at this point – East Yorkshire is hardly a “bad” area when it comes to car-crime, and my small annual mileage estimate and even smaller engine were bound to bring in some cheap-as-chips quotes!

Peugeot 107

The Peugeot 107 in Question

Or so I thought.  The cheapest quote I could get was £3,050.  Combined with the cost of the vehicle on top of that, I’d be looking at somewhere in the region of £7,000 before I even left the drive, which is utter madness for someone in full time education who is unable to get a job to afford such steep rates.

I thought there must have been some sort of mistake – maybe I read the details of the car wrong, and it was in fact a 10 litre supercar rather than a [motorised shopping trolley with a Peugeot badge] basic runabout.  Nope.

An example Jaguar S-Type

An example Jaguar S-Type

Maybe it didn’t like my logic – maybe if I chose a “senior’s” car with a big diesel engine (such as a Jaaaaaaag, to quote Top Gear!) I could trick the system into thinking I wasn’t your average Joe, but a responsible motorist with the mindset of a senior citizen.  Nope, that didn’t work either.

The problem, it transpired, was not my age and gender, as you would imagine, but this:

A Vauxhall Corsa

Vauxhall Corsa (merrrrt)

The stereotypical 17-year-old male driver.  Insurance companies automatically think that because you’re 17 (and male), you’re going to want to have a car like the Corsa above, and go rocketing around side roads racing your little friends in their Puntos and Fiestas, and are therefore going to either crash and burn, or have your car crashed and burned for you by an angry ‘dealer’.

I propose a new law that restricts what sort of cars young drivers can drive in the UK, in exchange for more reasonable insurance premiums for everyone.  If cars driven by youngsters had to be unmodified and chosen from a short-list of cars similar to the Peugeot 107 mentioned above, and it was made illegal for insurers to quote premiums worth more than, say, £1,000, I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that under those rules the world would be a better [and the roads a much safer] place.

Gone will be the days of street racing, ruined Sunday afternoons in the garden because of loud exhausts and overpriced insurance.   Roll on the Golden Era!

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

NB:  It might be worth pointing out that it only costs £700 more to insure a 2.5 litre straight-six Triumph TR6 convertible than the 107 at the current rates, which isn’t such a bad thing…

NBB:  Apologies for my silence in the blogosphere of late – I fell foul of the flu, so was unable to change channels on the TV, let alone engage in blogging!

NBBB.  I hope everyone had a great Easter! :)

2010
04/12
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Hello, big brother…

On my way home, I encounter many obstacles.  Crowds of fighting schoolchildren and banks of school buses are amongst these, but the worst obstacle, and arguably the most pointless of them all is the mini roundabout.

An example mini-roundabout

The mini roundabout is located at the bottom of Spring Road in Market Weighton, merging traffic from the high street, Spring Road itself and two roads leading to the bypass.  The whole design for this was to stop queuing up the high street and to improve the traffic flow in general.

Cods-wallop.

This mini roundabout causes more trouble than it’s worth.  Nobody knows who has priority on it, meaning that disputes occur many times daily.  Last Thursday, we were subjected to a torrent of abuse via the medium of the horn from an angry [woman] driver who thought that she was entitled to Godly privileges over this stretch of road.  She didn’t hesitate in making rude hand gestures to us either, when we peered out of the rear window of our Freelander to see what all the fuss was about.

This is en example of how intolerant people are nowadays.

Another example of intolerance comes in the form of “Impero”, a piece of software that is installed on all machines inside the school building, which allows members of staff and technicians to monitor and take control of any machine, giving them a level of control greater than Stalin had over the Russian peasants.

Hello, big brother.

Stalin, the chief coder behind Impero

Not only can it be operated manually, but there are also a number of automated features.  An example of this is keyword-based filtering.  If you open a document with the word “game” in, for example, it will automatically close the document.  This is fair enough, but it might be a step too far when the keyword filtering blocks a blank Powerpoint document from opening.

My personal view is that this software has taken away freedom of choice from users of the system, which is a basic human right.  If someone wanted to play on games rather than do their coursework, it should be their choice.  How are people going to learn what is acceptable, and what isn’t, without the ability to learn from their mistakes?  If you mollycoddle students and wrap them in cotton wool, when they are exposed to the real world, they won’t have a clue how to deal with their newly-found freedom.  They will be irresponsible.

On Saturday evening, I engaged in a six-way conversation on messenger lasting until the early hours of Sunday morning, which was rather good fun.  As the evening went on, people left the conversation and went to bed out of their own accord.  This is evidence that people learn responsibility from having freedom – if their parents hadn’t allowed them to stay up late and choose their own bedtime, when they were out of their parents’ jurisdiction, say, at University, they wouldn’t know how to cope with it.

If the woman I mentioned earlier had been granted the freedom to drive her car where she wanted, rather than having to use the infernally stupid mini-roundabout, she wouldn’t have had to lean on her horn, because she wouldn’t have been annoyed in the first place.

Sort yourself out, society.

2010
03/22
CATEGORY
Political
Rant
TAGS



9 comments

Okay, so maybe not a rant…

One thing that has always confused me about technology is how people find a need to create digital “equivalents” of established mediums.  Take the eBook reader for example.  People have been reading things in books for millennia – why the sudden urge to digitalise the book?

You may well ask.

The Amazon Kindle eBook reader

The Amazon Kindle eBook reader

One of the main selling points for eBook readers, such as the Amazon Kindle, pictured, is that it allows you to store thousands of books (up to 3,500) in a single hand-held device for you to refer to as and when you see fit.  This is impressive technology, I grant you, but in reality, when are you ever going to fill that sort of space?  I know for a fact that I own no more than 100 books, counting academic documents, meaning that any vast storage space will be pointless.  I also know that books on a set of shelves are aesthetically pleasing as well.

The way you get books onto the Kindle (you may have guessed, I’m using this as my example) is through the Amazon Kindle store.  Books download to your device over their Whispernet network – a nicer way of saying “global wireless network” – in under 30 seconds per book: another selling point.  This is all very well, but when you find that the eBook version of some books cost much more than their physical brethren, it undermines the point somewhat.

You can summon the day’s newspapers on your magic white book too.  Amazon charges $22.99 (£15) per month for a subscription to the Telegraph, which isn’t too bad in terms of money.  However, you soon find that such a subscription doesn’t include any images (due to increased data charges for Amazon in the UK, and the Kindle’s decidedly 80′s black and white screen) anda shabby layout; not to mention NO CROSSWORD!  This is an abomination, because the crossword is one of the main selling points of the paper to me.

Then you can factor in the cost of the actual device (yes, they do charge for it).  For some reason, the only way to get your hands on a Kindle in the UK is to buy it from Amazon’s US site, and have it shipped overseas to you.  This means you have to pay in US dollars for the Kindle device, as well as the books to read on it – not such a good thing if your credit card company charges for currency exchanges.  At any rate, the 10 inch Kindle retails at $489 (£327) and the 6 inch retails at $259 (£173), making it an extremely expensive device for what it actually is.

However, despite all this, I would happily pay out for a Kindle.  You may think I’m mad, but just wait a second.  Compare it to the iPod, the device which introduced the concept of carrying around an entire music library in your pocket to the masses, and the iTunes store, which allows you to legally download music to your iPod.  iPods and iTunes store downloads, are by no means cheap, making them similar to the Kindle.

You will notice that the iPod has not replaced the old-fangled CD completely, and it never will, in my opinion.  People still buy CDs because they like the idea of having something physical to account for the money – albeit virtual – that they spend when buying their music.  The same will happen for books.  A lot of people will love the convenience of the Kindle, in the same way that they love the convenience of their iPods, but there will still be a handful of connoisseurs who will continue to buy physical books for their collections, in the same way that some people still buy CDs.

What I think they should do is offer bundles combining instantly-available digital copies of books/CDs as well as their physical alternatives.  That way people can buy something and download it instantly, as well as be able to enjoy the physical version too when it comes through the post.

Oh, and did I mention that the Kindle, like the iPod, empowers the owner with bragging rights of the highest degree? ;)

2010
03/12
CATEGORY
Tech-related
TAGS



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