Comments on: Jobs and Gates: Messiahs?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:23:27 +0000

I have to admit that I am a customer of the cartels. I am not a customer that they like, because I buy their technology and modify it to suit MY needs not theirs. For example, do you know that you can buy a camcorder that stores up to 20 minutes of video for about $30? You buy them (”disposable” video cameras) at CVS and get on the Net to find instructions on how to add a USB port to the camera. You can then take all the video you want and not have to turn in the camera for them to develope the video. This is a nice opportunity for someone to make a bit of money on Ebay or some other electronic auction.

I also deal with Linksys. Their router is being used for FreeWan Cells. As far as software is concerned. I use mostly Linux because it does what I want better than Billy Gate’s product. I do have Winblows 98 on one partition on a hardive. I am forced to use this product to transmit billing information. However, I will not “upgrade” this Winblows OS unless forced to do so. When I am FORCED to do so, it will be with a hacked version. I hack when I am forced to consume a product by law, and so should everyone else.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 00:19:09 +0000

I don’t know why I should have to live with either of the two evils, considering I truly don’t like evil in any form. And before we get off on a tangent about what everyone considers evil, I wlll just say that anything that harms people that is intentionally done by someone or some organization of someones, I would consider those acts of evil. Whether they are sticking their hand in my pocket for something I really don’t want in the first place is just one of those things. And we all know who pays for DRM and all the other associated crap that comes with it, don’t we. The poor schmucks like us that quite often don’t have a tinkers’ chance to make our voices heard. Every last time I hear Bill Gates say something like “The future is Microsoft… Blah, blah,blah” ad infinitum, I get infinite ad nauseam. The fact that Microsoft has been the next best thing to moribund the last four years just screams that the company should just close its’ doors and sell off the assets. Bill and the Boyz have just plain run out of ways to hook us in with more bloatware. They couldn’t come up with an original idea if their lives depended on it. Every direction the market blows, there goes Microsoft. I keep hearing little kids chanting ‘Copy Cat, Copy Cat!!’ every time I hear another Microsoft commercial. The only original thought Bill Gates ever had got lost on the way to his brain, and it hasn’t been found yet. The only good thing Billy does is donate to charity, and even there he only does high profile stuff that nets him free advertising. Just read the EULA in a boxed Microsoft product, and you’ll know what I mean. The worst part of it is that if you break the shrink wrapper to read the EULA, you’ve already indicated that you agree with it. Talk about a Faustian bargain! You have to wonder how warped and twisted the lawyers at M$ are, and how they sleep at night!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 23:40:32 +0000

What keeps me up at night is not the change that progress brings, but the very real possibility that Gates and Jobs may be able to convince parliament to stop progress (or at least slow it down).

That individuals and companies found guilty multiple times of illegal activities are thought of as “Messiahs” shows just how little depth some people put into their thinking about their heros.

I was at a gathering of people last night that included policy people and technical people. As seems to be common, some of the technical people believe that progress towards a decentralized individual-empowered technological future is inevitable and that I’m generally wasting my time worrying about what parliament is doing. To suggest that I disagree with them is an understatement.

Progress will only happen if we can articulate the positive aspects of these changes to parliament, and they in turn protect them from those who are trying to stop progress. While many here consider the recording and motion picture industries to be the ones stopping progress, when it comes to technology law these groups are just the duped “tools” of specific technology companies like Apple and Microsoft who intend to control the future. It is unlikely the recording and motion picture industries will survive things such as fully deployed DRM, but an enemy of an enemy is not a friend — and between the technology monopolies and the content monopolies I consider the content monopolies to be the lesser of the evils.