I remember when I was a kid, and landline phones were still huge. Sprint made a big deal about their ten cents a minute.

The number of cents you paid per minute was a huge deal. I remember my grandmother would dial a five digit number before making a long distance call in order to get the price down to five cents per minute. With truphone you can now make many international calls for under three cents per minute. Taking inflation into account, voice calls have gotten ultra cheap over the years.

Now, I’m someone who doesn’t talk on the phone much at all. I still need a phone number because it’s sort of necessary for engaging with society. I also do call family and relatives, and occasionally friends when necessary. But most of my calls are very very short.

So what am I paying for this voice service I hardly use? I have AT&T’s “Nation 450 Rollover & 5000 Night/Weekend & Unlimited Mobile-To-Mobile Minutes” plan. It costs me $39.99 a month. There is no smaller plan available. If you do the math, this comes out to under ten cents per minute. If I’m paying for just the 450 minutes alone, each minute is under 9 cents. Good deal right?

It would be a good deal if I talked on the phone. As it stands, 4135 rollover minutes available. Oh they’re so generous letting me rollover the minutes, right? Wrong. The rollover is just an excuse. It makes you feel less bad about paying for all these minutes you never use. The thing is, if you never use them, you’re paying lots of money for absolutely nothing.

On my last bill I used 20 of the 450 minutes, 4 unlimited M2M minutes, and 64 night & weekend minutes. Even if I were paying a ludicrously high price of 25 cents per minute, for all the minutes, my bill would have been $22. Instead, I’m paying 45 cents per minute.

The way they structure the plans is highly deceptive. You don’t think about your voice costs in terms of cents per minute anymore, because you are paying a fixed rate. But when you really think about it, you’re either paying for something you don’t use, or you’re paying way too much for the little that you do use.

Now, for someone who talks on the phone a lot, this probably isn’t a problem. If I actually used all those minutes, I would actually be getting a pretty good deal. It wouldn’t be an amazing deal, but certainly not a rip-off.

The other carriers are no better. T-Mobile and Verizon have similar minimum plans of 450-500 minutes for $40. Sprint has a voice plan of 200 minutes for $30. I think somewhere in the fine print there’s the option to not pre-pay for any minutes, and pay only for the minutes you actually use. Of course, they charge 45 cents for those minutes, making it moot.

There is an argument to be made that wireless minutes should be more expensive than land line minutes. That’s acceptable, but it’s not true. Remember, if I used all my minutes, I’d be paying a reasonable price for them. The problem is that the minimum tier is much too high.

I’m willing to bet if you looked at the books for any of these wireless companies you would see millions upon millions of dollars paid for unused minutes. I’m paying as much money for unused minutes as I am for unlimited data, which I use a lot. It’s about 30% of my phone bill, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 20-30% of their revenues.

Yes, text messages are a rip-off. Yes, data plans are secretly and evilly limited. But most of the money people like me are losing is paying for minutes we never use. Over the course of my two year iPhone contract, I’ve probably paid over $700 for unused voice minutes.

It’s nice that we’re actually seeing a little price war for the unlimited plans. These guys are actually starting to cut some of their ludicrously high margins on the high-end in order to push high-end smart phones to more customers. That’s well and good, but let’s also see some competition for the lower end plans. I want to see unlimited data and text for $30-40 with 100 voice minutes for $10-20. Even those prices are a little high, but they are far more reasonable than what I’m forced to pay now.

Maybe soon I’ll be able to ditch voice service altogether and use a VOIP solution. Perhaps the reason they don’t improve their data networks and expand coverage more quickly is to prevent me from doing that very thing.

This same phenomenon can be seen in many other places. The highways are the easiest example. Ignoring the debate about speed limits, I’m sure every driver reading this has been stuck behind  an elderly person driving extremely slowly. Everyone must suffer and lose precious time because one person is ruining things for everybody.

If you go to ride the Go Karts at an amusement park, they are stupidly safe. Their top speeds are capped by a governor. They are configured in such a way that you can make it around every corner just by steering with the throttle wide open. There is no chance of flipping over, and very very little chance of hurting yourself. They are also much less fun. Why can’t I ride dangerous go-karts at my own risk, rather than eliminating them entirely?

Notice how whenever you board an airplane, there are all sorts of slow people who waste everyone’s time? They can’t get their carry-ons into the overhead bin. They can’t find their seats. They hang out in the aisle forever. They’re slow getting through security as well, because they don’t know the drill. Frequent fliers are made to suffer because these people are so slow. Why not special lanes, or even flights, where only experienced travelers are allowed?

On Metro North trains, and many others, there are touch-screen ticket vending machines. Some people use these things all the time, so buying tickets takes a few seconds. Many people fail to use them, and cause people behind them in line to miss their train, or to spend extra money to buy a ticket from the conductor. Why not have a few machines for first-time ticket buyers where there is a person to help you and teach you how it works. Have all the other machines give a time limit before sending you to the back of the line.

Lastly, let’s bring it back to technology. Why does almost every ISP block port 25, preventing you from running a mail server? It’s because most people let their computers get filled with malware and viruses that start sending out tons of spam. The result is that good netizens can’t run legitimate and safe mail servers from their homes. How about allowing people to unblock the port at the risk of severe financial penalties if they screw up?

Life needs a fast lane. People should always have the safe option available to them. That option should even be the default, but that doesn’t mean we need to eliminate the risky options entirely. Many people aren’t afraid of danger, and aren’t afraid to fail if it means they can go faster the majority of the time.

I’m not saying we should go back to the olden days where everything was risky and dangerous, and safety really wasn’t an option. Forcing grandma and the tourists to drive in the fast lane is just as ridiculous as me getting stuck behind them. In all areas of life we need more choices for people to make in terms of risk and reward. One size does not fit all. The slow people want to get away from us just as much as we want to zoom past them. I think the net benefit to our society’s productivity and happiness would be tremendous. Let’s make it happen.

You can already see this anarchy happening in the realm of intellectual property law. Our current technology gives us the wizard-like power to instantly, and deniably, distribute perfect copies of any digital data anywhere in the world at effectively no cost. No matter how many DMCAs there are, no matter how many RIAAs there are, they’ve already lost. The spread of information, of any kind, can not be stopped. The dam burst long ago, and can not be repaired.

What I find funny is that many people who agree the intellectual property damn has burst, do not also believe that the privacy dam is equally affected. The record and movie studios will be frustrated that they can not control who has access to their information, and people will laugh at them. Yet, these folks who are laughing will express the same exact frustrations when it comes to not being able to control access to their personal information.

It is as impossible to control access to your personal information as it is impossible for the old entertainment industry to control access to content. If you’re a privacy advocate, the number of early leaks of Hollywood movies on bittorrent should scare you.

There are a lot of arguments to be made for why we should have privacy. I agree with many of them. It’s not right for employers to make hiring decisions based on things like medical conditions or sexual orientations. It makes life a lot harder if annoying acquaintances are immediately aware of juicy details in your relationships. It’s not cool that stalkers have the ability to follow your every move, and make your life miserable.

If privacy were possible, I would love it for all the reasons above, as well as others. If people were able to choose which pieces of personal information were private, and which were public, that would be a perfect world. The fact is, it’s not a perfect world. It’s a very imperfect world. Rather than waste time in this futile and impossible battle for privacy, we should instead concentrate on developing ways to get on in a world without any privacy.

The first thing we need to do is implement much greater computer security systems with multi-factor authentication. Giving everyone a yubikey will go a long way towards allowing people to store personal data digitally, but also give them complete control over who can access which information under which circumstances. Too bad we are all relying on useless things like social security numbers and handwriting.

Also, people need to start realizing that the value of sharing information can often outweigh the costs. Look at the kinds of people you see on the TwiT podcasts. They are very public figures who are very digitally connected. They share all sorts of information about themselves directly, and it is trivial for a tech savvy person to get all of their pertinent information such as addresses and phone numbers. Yet, this kind of thing has only helped them, not hurt them. The sharing has made them more popular, allowed more people to connect with them, and their audience feels a much better relationship with them.

I can give some personal examples as well. As a podcaster, I have shared my phone number and address with many of our listeners. Those that do not know this information can acquire it trivially on the Internet. Despite sharing our address, nobody has stalked us. Instead, they just send us wonderful gifts. And despite sharing my phone number, nobody crank calls me. Instead, they call to meet up at various conventions and have a good time.

I saw today that some guy who lost American Idol was all over the news because he came out of the closet. How come he is on the front page, and the winner is nowhere to be seen? Because he shared information about himself. The benefit of sharing the information for him was tremendous. The harm, if there is any, is negligible by comparison. Even if there is some harm due to lack of privacy, it’s worth dealing with those problems in order to get the benefit of sharing.

In my opinion, the most fascinating field of scientific discovery right now is neuroscience. Thanks to things like the FMRI we are learning more and more every day about how the human mind actually works. The inevitable result of advancing this technology is that in the future, we will be able to read people’s minds. Not even your own thoughts will be protected from being shared. A world where minds can be read is a world that many people will be very uncomfortable living in, but it’s also an unavoidable reality.

The world can’t be perfect. If we want to have a free flow of information, that is going to necessarily include personal information whether we like it or not. Our society will be much better off if we give up the fight for privacy, and instead concentrate on developing strategies for coping in a world without it. If we continue to lean on privacy, we will collapse the day it disappears. If we can somehow learn to stand without it, then we can can let it go in peace.

Take for example this story. A man came to the US from South America to work. As many who follow that same path in life, he was saving money so that one day he could return home and support his family. After years of hard work, he had built up a tidy pile of cold hard cash. We’re talking about many thousands of dollars in paper money.

He was finally on his way back home to see his family, when he was pulled over by police for a traffic violation. They ended up searching his car and finding the cash. Even though there was no evidence of any other wrongdoing, the police confiscated the cash, and they were not legally obligated to ever return it. Why does this law exist? Because drug dealers often have lots of cash on hand. This law lets cops arrest drug dealers, and take their cash away when the drug dealers are too smart to get caught actually dealing.

There is another law, in some places, that makes it illegal to have a large number of small zip-lock bags. Very small plastic baggies, the kind I use to sort out pieces in board games, are also the kind that drug dealers use to sell drugs. Depending on where you are, how many bags you have, and the size of the bags, you could be arrested and convicted even if you have never touched illegal drugs in your entire life.

The United States has a strong interest in preventing the hunting of bald eagles. They are an endangered species, last I heard, and they are a national symbol. Thus, it is illegal to possess any part of an eagle. Veterinary places that handle eagles have to document and send all Eagle parts to a central authority. Native Americans who want Eagle feathers and such for their rituals, and what have you, must officially request them.

If we find a poacher who has some eagle feathers in his truck, but we can’t actually prove that he poached an eagle, this law makes it possible to convict said poacher. I guess that’s a good thing, except for the fact that someone who happens to live near some eagles might be convicted despite a complete and utter lack of wrongdoing.

There are many other laws out there which revolve around the concept of tool possession. Guns are sort of the obvious tool, but what about lock picks, chemistry sets, or bongs? Sure, there are correlations between these objects and illegal activities, but is that really enough? What if someone is honestly a bong historian, and just likes to collect them? What if someone else just likes to pick locks for Houdini reasons? Modern chemistry sets don’t have nearly any of the fun stuff they used to have back in the day.

People like to say that it is better for ten guilty to go free than one innocent to be imprisoned, but I don’t think too many people really believe it. So much of our entertainment media is about beating or catching the bad guys. When it is about a wrongly accused innocent, the audience is always 100% sure that the accused is truly innocent. When an obviously guilty person gets away on a “technicality” it is portrayed as a win for the bad guys. I think that some more stories about people of ambiguous guilt will help Blackstone’s formulation really become a part of the public consciousness.

We need to stop letting law enforcement be lazy. If someone is dealing drugs, then catch them dealing drugs. If someone is poaching eagles, catch them poaching eagles. If all you can do is catch someone with a pile of cash and some eagle feathers stored in plastic baggies, then either the criminals are smarter than the cops, the cops just suck at their jobs, or the person is actually innocent.

Lastly, I think we have a major problem coming up in our society in that we will find an ever increasing number of laws absolutely unenforceable. Imagine if you lived in a typical high fantasy setting, with wizards and dragons. How would you enforce laws on the wizards? You really can’t. Sufficiently powerful magic allows for absolute deniability. You know the old saying that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? Well, it’s true in this regard. People with access to sufficiently powerful technology will be able to do whatever they please with no possibility of being caught.

If we start living by Blackstone’s formulation now, we can ease ourselves into the future techno-anarchy. If we continue along our current path, it’s going to all come crashing down one day when online money laundering spirals out of control.

Even as a kid, going to a doctor’s office is typically unpleasant. Most people hate getting pricked with needles, drinking nasty liquids, or swallowing strange pills. People hate being in hospitals more than anything. They never want to go there, and they want to leave as soon as possible. People hate real medicine so much, they will avoid going for as long as possible, until they are very ill and have no other choice.

Yet, when it comes to snake oil, people love it. In fact, people love it so much, they will take it even if they aren’t sick. Going to phony healers is so fun, people go when they are in perfect health. People who are genuinely ill will avoid getting real help. People who are just fine will seek out completely fake help. What is going on here?

Some of it is just that reality sucks. Snake oil is usually very pleasant when compared to real medicine. Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, injections, strong medications, etc. are all very unpleasant things. They have lots of side effects, and pain is only the first one. Most, but not all, snake oils have no effects whatsoever other than placebo. You can’t have a side effect if you don’t have a primary effect. The only way to make medicine more pleasant is with scientific advancement. More investment in medical research is the only way to solve any of these problems.

There is another side of this problem that we can solve. You see, real medicine isn’t nice. When you’re in the hospital, you rarely see the doctor. Nurses don’t come immediately when you push the call button, if at all. Emergency rooms have long waits. You never really get to spend a lot of time talking with your doctors. They can’t sit around for an hour chatting with you. They have a lot of patients to see, and not enough hours in the day to see them all.

Not only that, but because of ethical concerns, doctors will only talk to you in a certain way. They don’t talk like a normal person. They are often cold and clinical. There are many things they can not, or will not, say. Even a doctor who has what most would consider excellent bed-side manner does not speak in a way that is as reassuring and comforting as is possible.

On the other hand, a snake oil practitioner is the exact opposite. They will sit and talk with you all day. Most of them actually aren’t scam artists, but actually believe in the snake oil they are peddling. They are well-meaning normal folk, who want to, and believe they are, healing their fellow humans. They really do care about you. They don’t have ethical qualms because they don’t know ethics. They engage you in warm environments like living rooms and local shops, as opposed to sterile offices. They also speak in the most reassuring manner possible, with lies. Nothing is more comforting than someone guaranteeing a perfect recovery with no side effects, no pain, and trivial treatments.

Obviously there is a limit to how much nicer doctors can be. I am not suggesting in any way that we should give up the aforementioned ethical concerns doctors have when speaking with patients. In fact, I think that many doctors need to be more ethically conscious than they are. I obviously don’t think doctors should start lying to patients, as the scammers do, just to make them happy.

What I do think is that we need a new profession. We need someone whose only job is to talk with patients and doctors. It should be someone who is knowledgeable in the areas of medicine and psychology. They should be able to speak with patients, both to assess the patient’s situation and to make sure the patient fully understands their conditions and treatment. They should also be able to efficiently communicate to doctors the information they need to treat the patient, of course without actually practicing any medicine.

Let me use my own hospital experiences as some examples. Personally, I have only been to a hospital because of myself twice. Once was for a broken bone, which needed no treatment, and once was a quick emergency room trip to get stitches. However, I have been to the hospital quite a few times to visit friends and relatives.

Let’s begin with the time my roommate cut his finger while making dinner. It definitely needed stitches. We drove to the nearest emergency room, and of course we expected to wait, but they took him in right away. Time passed, and nothing happened. It was late at night, and the people at the desk could not offer any information. We also could not leave the waiting room. There was no communication with my roommate whatsoever. Eventually hotel staff starting leaving, and there was nobody to talk to at all. Waiting was not a problem. What was the problem was there was nobody to talk to. All we needed was someone to estimate the waiting time, keep us informed, maybe predict what the doctors would do. We couldn’t even get some assurance that care would actually be provided. I guess its fitting that there was no assurance, as no care was provided. My roommate left without treatment after an ungodly wait, and no communication from the staff. He went to the clinic the next day for treatment, and part of his finger is still numb to this day.

Let’s talk about my grandparents. When they go to the hospital, they have many doctors. Cardiologists, internists, gastroenterologists, and more. I’ve been to these hospitals on successive days, and you never see these doctors. You can spend a week there, and you’re lucky if you see a doctor once. You’re lucky if they call you more than once every few days. Any non-nurse who comes to see you tends to ask the same questions, even though you know that information is on the chart. It’s a miracle if they stay more than a few minutes.

There’s also no way to know that your multiple doctors are communicating with each other. You want to be assured that all the doctors are discussing your case together, and they all have up to date information. Yet, never have I seen such a thing. You talk to one doctor, then the next one won’t even ask what the previous doctor did. You have to make the initiative to tell them. And even when you do tell them, they don’t indicate in any way that they care, are paying attention, or are taking that information into consideration.

If you are a doctor, and a patient tells you something, even if it is stupid and useless information, you have to at least pretend that what they are saying is the most important thing in the world. Lying to the patient about their condition or treatment is unacceptable. But a doctor lying about their own feelings has the potential to decrease the stress and anxiety of the patient, and therefore smooth the path to recovery. Based on that, I can make the case that doctors are obligated to do this, otherwise they are being negligent in their treatments.

If the profession I suggested actually existed, that person could solve these problems. They could make sure both the patient and doctors are all up to date with the latest information. They could reassure the patient that they are receiving the best treatment possible, and they could save doctors a lot of time dealing with inefficiencies. They could even fill the role of translating complex medical knowledge into terms that patients can understand.

We need medical care in this country, and around the world, to be nicer. Anyone who engages the medical system as, or with, a patient, has a very strong possibility of meeting with a very stressful, unpleasant, and anxiety-ridden scenario. It’s no mystery at all as to why people are flocking to fake medicine. It’s so warm and welcoming. If fake medicine worked, nobody would ever use evidence based medicine.

While I fully support evidence based medicine, we need to realize that there is more to medicine than the medicine itself. The experience is just as important as the product. The great experience is why people go to Starbucks instead of making something in their kitchen. Doctor’s offices and hospitals really need to work on providing this better patient experience, and having a person to sit and talk with can go a long way towards achieving that.

Pretend you are at the movie theatre. There is a movie there that you want to see very badly. You’ve got your money ready to buy a ticket. There are two other movies in the theater. One of them you hate, and you wouldn’t watch it unless under duress. The third movie seems ok, but you don’t actively want to see it.

While you are waiting in the ticket line someone comes up to you and offers free tickets to the third movie. You are now choosing between paying for a movie you really like, or paying nothing for a kind of ok movie. You might go either way, depending on the movies, the cost of the ticket, and other factors. The point is that if the second movie were not free, you would not watch it.

The same goes for digitally pirated music, movies, videogames, etc. Back in college I decided I was going to try to watch all of the top 250 movies on IMDB. I haven’t finished that, but I’ve seen a lot of them. Of course, I saw most of these movies by downloading them. If I had to actually pay for all of them, how many would I have paid for? Probably zero. I was in college, I couldn’t afford to start collecting DVDs.

Take a look at something like World of Goo. Ars TEchnica says it is a crying shame that the piracy rate is near 90%. World of Goo is a very good video game. There is no denying that. But how many people out there really like it a whole lot? How many people have $15 worth of like for it? Apparently the answer is 1/10. Those people who are pirating it might like it, and might have fun, but if piracy were not an option, they simply wouldn’t pay.

There’s this conception that piracy is stealing. And true, it is illegal. But illegal doesn’t mean wrong. Ever hear of no harm no foul? Who is hurt by piracy? If you believe me that the people who pirate would rather not play than pay, then the copyright holders are losing almost nothing to piracy. In fact, they are gaining because when their products are enjoyed by people who would have otherwise ignored them, it is excellent marketing. It creates more fans, and makes sure that the maximum number of people willing to pay money get that opportunity.

Let’s pretend we have perfect replicators. We can create perfect copies of any inorganic object at no cost. First we woudl replicate the replicators until everyone had one. Then everyone would have the best TV, the best car, the best furniture, the nicest house, the best everything.

In such a world, would it not be cruel to deny someone something? How could you deny someone the best food if it cost nothing to create? How could you deny someone the biggest television, or the most luxurious car, if it were free to produce and equally easy to produce as a smaller television or a less luxurious car? If replicators didn’t exist, of course those people wouldn’t have a luxury car. But replicators do exist, so how can you deny them to everyone who wants one? How can you not replicate the Mona Lisa for everyone who wants one in their house?

Just to reiterate the point. Let’s pretend I had infinity apples. Literally infinity apples. Everyone knows I have infinity apples, and they are the best tasting apples in the world. If I try to sell those apples for $5 each, am I not an asshole? I have infinity of them! It wouldn’t hurt me at all to give them to everybody at no charge. What’s better for the world as a whole? Infinite delicious apples for everyone, or $5 for me? Would people even pay the $5 for my apples if they had to? No, because I’m a jerk and nobody will give me money.

We all know what is legal and what is illegal. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about what is right and what is good. In a world without piracy the company that made World of Goo ends up with roughly the same amount of money that they do in the world with piracy. However, in the world of piracy, ten times as many people experience the joy of playing World is Goo. The world without piracy is only different in that there is less joy and more jerks hoarding apples.

You may go on about the consequences of copyright for artists and such and such. And I may even agree with many of those things you say. The reality is that any sort of copyright on anything that can be expressed digitally is absolutely unenforceable. That’s reality. Piracy is here, and it can’t be beaten. There is no way. If you’re against it, you’ve already lost. The only possibility is that you may temporarily reduce the amount of joy in the world for some people who are not technologically inclined.

I really think that digital piracy just needs a makeover. We need to stop thinking about pirates as thieves, and start thinking about anti-piracy folks as apple-hoarding jerks. It will take some marketing, and probably won’t ever happen. The saddest part I think is that so much energy is being spent fighting a battle that is already over. If those resources were spent elsewhere, the world would be a better place twice over.

Let’s think about stereotypes of Florida: immigrants from the carribbean, senior citizens from the Northeast, Disney, and a few major universities. Sure, plenty of people down there don’t fall into those categories, but the stereotype is predominantly true. That truth has some very large economic consequences.

The generally bad economy made the real esate problem of Florida painfully obvious. You’ve got lots of cheap land. Builders bought this cheap land and constructed housing developments for seniors to live in. Seniors came from the North to fill them up. Demand was up, prices were up, times were good.

As time went on, the developments got old. The builders bought some more cheap land, and built newer and fancier housing developments. People kept retiring and moving down South. Newer developments had higher prices than older ones, but they all kept filling up. The lower prices of the older developments actually made it possible for less wealthy people to retire in the sun. They kept making newer, bigger, better developments and filling them up at high prices.

There’s also decreasing demand for houses in Florida. People are retiring later in life, and Florida is not as popular a retiring destination as it once was. Arizona, Texas, and other places are increasingly more popular than Florida. This decreased demand combined with the bad economy is dropping housing prices across the board. The people that do move to Florida can live in the newest and nicest houses at very reasonable prices. The older developments remain empty, and become more empty as people pass away. If you already own a place in an older development, good luck selling it.

On top of all those real estate troubles, you’ve got some more cascasing consequences. If you drive around town near those senior developments, you will notice that most of the economy revolves around supporting those senior citizens. Pharmacies, doctor’s offices, and restaurants with early bird specials stretch as far as the eye can see. You should see the size of the Social Security Administration office down there.

With fewer seniors moving there, and the existing ones dying off, these other business will be in big trouble. The influx of money from the North will dry up, and the working people in Florida will have to move elsewhere to find jobs.

At least in other parts of Florida, there is an influx of money from tourism. Especially Disney, but other things like Daytona, cruise ships, the keys, etc. bring a lot of money into the state. Even before the economy went down, popularity of amusement parks was going downhill. With the Internet, people are entertaining themselves more and more at home. Disney is giving away free hotel stays because attendance is down so much.

Tourism going down, fewer retirees from the North, real estate drying up, how is money going to go into the state of Florida? Kids going to the big universities, and selling oranges. Florida still has those two ways to make money.

As long as people are drinking Tropicana in the morning, and watching college football, Florida will have something to go on. Even so, the situation in parts where the population is primarily seniors does not have a very good outlook. I fully expect in my lifetime to see urban explorers posting photos and videos of entire towns full of abandoned housing developments. Maybe they’ll be able to start up a new economy using them as airsoft and paintball arenas.

Here’s a quote from the New York Times article that I found most interesting.

“We got blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea,” said a Domino’s spokesman, Tim McIntyre, who added that the company was preparing a civil lawsuit. “Even people who’ve been with us as loyal customers for 10, 15, 20 years, people are second-guessing their relationship with Domino’s, and that’s not fair.”

Not fair, eh? Well, it’s the new reality, so deal with it. For decades the media has been completely controlled in a top-down fashion. Big media like newspapers, television, and radio where the only way to get a message out to a lot of people. Thus, other companies and advertisers were able to manage people’s perceptions of brands.

Lexus is luxurious, Ford is tough, but why? They’re just brands. Ford is nothing more than a logo. The meaning behind that logo is completely artificial. It’s simply because of a top-down media that the Ford company was able to completely control use of that name and logo in the media that they were also able to completely control which emotions people associated with it.

Thanks to the Internet, that is gone now. Brands are now controlled by the people, not the companies that are associated with them. Reality will slowly take hold, and small negatives will outweigh all the positives. There’s a reason that one booger video makes a huge stir, and no number of  “Domino’s is yummy” videos will ever get any attention.

Is it really unfair? If your ethical and moral structure is built upon the realities of the old world, then it is not hard to see why it’s unfair. If you adapt your ideas of right and wrong to accept the realities of modern technology and a rapidly changing society, then this is no big deal.

My suggestion to companies out there who want to manage their brands, like the old days, is to concentrate on managing your products. Nobody will make yourcompanysucks.com if they love your products. Learn from Apple. If people love your products so much they will line up in advance, then some negativity doesn’ t really matter. Nobody ever waited in line a day in advance for a Domino’s pizza.

In the olden days information traveled relatively slowly. If you wanted to learn the twist ending to some new Alfred Hitchcock movie without seeing it yourself, you would have had your work cut out for you. Nowadays, unless you are completely non-social, you will be bombarded with information. It actually requires effort to avoid learning new information. As we all know, it is extremely difficult to intentionally un-learn information. The fact that learning is easier than not learning tells me we live in a truly amazing time.

There is another factor, though, that has resulted in increased prominence of spoilers. An increasing quantity of the works created in modern artistic mediums are of a nature that is very prone to being spoiled. Serial, as opposed to episodic, television shows are perhaps more popular than ever. Literature, especially graphic literature, is also increasingly serial. Multi-volume series, such as Harry Potter, are much more prevalent than self contained novels. These popular plot structures that keep the audience constantly in suspense of what will happen next are much more easily spoiled than works in other styles.

I, like most people, am a fan of surprises. For some psychological reason, pleasant things give people more joy when they are unexpected. Thus, when you become informed about a good thing that will happen, you feel as if you have been deprived of some joy. It’s as if knowing there is a yummy batch of cookies waiting for you when you get home will diminish the flavor of the cookies. I think most people can empathize with this feeling.

On the surface, a spoiler seems to be no more than a ruined surprise. This is why they are widely despised. Though, on the fundamental level, spoilers are merely information about a work of art. If you’ve ever been to an art museum, you know they post small cards associated with every piece to provide relevant information. In many cases the information on these cards does not merely enhance enjoyment of the work, but is in fact necessary to have any amount of appreciation for it. Why is it, then, that some information about a work of art can enhance the experience, while other information can diminish it?

In my experience I have found that the truly great works of art are still great no matter how much information you know about them. For truly epic works of art, I believe that learning more information about them can only serve to enhance the experience they deliver. This line of thinking flies right in the face of common conception, but I will show you that it holds true.

Think of one of your favorite jokes or comedy routines. Since it is your favorite, you have undoubtedly seen or heard it before. You already know all the punchlines. Yet, because it is your favorite, you must still find it funny, no? In fact, it is because you find it funny every single time, despite having committed it to memory, that you hold it so dear. If the logic of spoilers holds true, no joke should ever be funny if you know the punch line. However, we see in reality that the best jokes are funny no matter how often they are repeated. It is only the sub-par jokes that lose their power after their secrets are revealed.

The greatest film of all time, Citizen Kane, is the perfect example. Long before ever seeing the film, I knew that Rosebud was the sled. This was largely thanks to Warner Brothers cartoons making jokes about it. My knowledge of the ending did have an effect on the experience I had watching it for the first time, but it did not ruin it. I actually watched the movie as part of a film class in college, and the professor taught us a great deal of information about the film. I feel very lucky to have been able to learn so much that I never would have seen watching on my own. Knowing this extra information greatly immensely increased my enjoyment of the film.

For one final example, let us look at the Mona Lisa. Most people know that the Mona Lisa is a special painting, but those who have not had an art education, like myself, are typically not aware of what makes it so special. If you knew nothing about the painting, seeing it really isn’t that exciting. It’s a relatively small painting of a smiling woman. Personally, I had no appreciation for the painting until I watched this video. After learning about exactly why the Mona Lisa is so famous, I am now find myself fascinated by it. Spoiling the Mona Lisa for myself has made it possible for me to enjoy a painting that I previously found unremarkable.

When you think about your favorite works of art, and the truly great works from history, I think you will agree that one common trait they all share is that they are immune to spoilage. They are all enjoyable multiple times over. Learning more about these works makes them taste better. For an artistic creation to be truly great, it must be evergreen.

If you agree with that, then I think you must agree with the conclusion that follows. It seems that for much of the popular art created today, the enjoyment is diminished when the works are spoiled. If enjoyment of these works increased with more information, as do the great works, then people would not be trying so hard to avoid spoilers. Therefore, I believe it is safe to say that the spoiler-prone works are not all that great. If they were truly amazing, we would be trying to learn more about them, not less.

I’m as much a fan of surprises as anyone. The element of surprise is a necessary tool in the arsenal of any creator. Having surprises ruined is indeed upsetting. I just feel that the effort required to avoid spoilers is not really worth it. Unless you decide to become a hermit, it will only become more difficult to avoid spoilers as time goes on. If a story is spoiled for me, and that ruins my ability to enjoy it, then it probably wasn’t a great story in the first place. If something is truly awesome, then all the spoilers in the universe can only make it greater.

Now, things get hairy if someone tries to be racist, sexist, anti-semitic, ageist, etc. A woman with more experience gets paid less than a man in the same position. An African American is hired for a position instead of a more qualified Caucasian. An old person is fired right as they are about to earn their pension to be replaced by a younger person. These are the kinds of discrimination that we need to outlaw.

Why? For two reasons. First, it is unfair to make hiring decisions based on criteria that people can not control. A Hispanic can not become black. A woman can not become a man (surgery will most likely lead to worse discrimination). Second, these are not criteria that have any effect on job performance. There is nothing about race or gender that will affect your job performance. Two people of different genders and races with equivalent education and experience will both be equally good at any particular position, as far as an employer knows. To make your decision based on those factors is just plain wrong.

Smoking is a completely different story. A smoker is very likely to take many smoking breaks. This will reduce the amount of time they spend doing what you are paying them to do, which is work. If you ban smoking breaks, they will probably become very upset while unable to smoke, and will not be able to concentrate on their work. Oh, and people smoking outside your building is more likely to piss off your non-smoking employees who have to deal with secondhand smoke as they enter and exit. Oh, the increased risk of fire, and increased insurance costs count for something too. Oh, and since they are a smoker, you can’t count on this person to be a long-term employee.

Smoking is a decision that people make. They choose, willingly, to make themselves worth less as employees. They let the whole world know that they lack will power and good judgment skills. Not only should employers be allowed to discriminate against such people, they would be stupid not to.

Now let’s look at the obese people. For a moment, let us forget about people with thyroid problems. They are incredibly rare, and they can bring a doctor’s note to their employer to avoid discrimination. When I say obese people, I mean people who are so fat that it interferes with their everyday lives. We’re talking about people who need special, expensive, seating. We’re talking about people with fat fingers who might need to type on their keyboard and telephone with a pencil. We’re talking about people who can’t walk at an average speed. My friend, once, literally could not get down a hallway at work because an obese person was as wide as the hall. Also, the insurance costs and the poor likelihood that this person will serve you in the long term. It’s much easier to justify spending money to train someone who is likely to be an employee for many years, than it is for someone who is likely to have a heart attack tomorrow.

Obesity is a decision that people make. It may not be a fully conscious decision, like smoking is originally. However, it is clearly the result of a lack of will power in the vast majority of cases. A person is just unable to will themselves into eating less and working out more. If a person has so little control over their body that they can’t stop eating, and they can’t force themselves to work out on a regular schedule, how can you expect that person to force themselves to do the work you assign them? Heck, with the problems of an obese person, how can you expect them to show up to work every day?

It all boils down to one thing. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that we should judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin. If smoking and obesity are not representative of the negative content of one’s character, then what is? What does it say about someone when they choose to smoke? What does it say about someone when they can’t control themselves enough to not be obese? It is fair to discriminate against them because they can always quit smoking or lose weight. With more potential employees than open positions, it would be in the best interest of any employers to start taking such factors into consideration for their employee hiring and firing procedures.

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The issue of the day, though, is the taser. The taser is a device which makes it easier for officers to subdue other individuals. It inflicts a relatively large amount of pain, while having a very low (but non-zero) chance of inflicting any lasting injury. Also, tasers provide much more safety for the officers than alternatives. They can stay well out of range of say, a knife-wielding individual, and subdue them with much lower risk of being stabbed. There are two conclusions to be drawn from these facts.

First is that the taser is not perfect. It hurts a lot to be tased, and that is not as humane as we would like. Also, it does have a chance of permanently injuring some people who have weak hearts, or other medical problems. It is often difficult or impossible to ascertain whether or not someone is likely to be permanently injured by a taser prior to tasing them. This is a risk we must acknowledge and mitigate. Knowing this, we must continue to search for newer and better technologies than the taser. Ideally we will develop a weapon that can subdue individuals 100% of the time, with extremely low risk of danger to the officer, causing no pain, and having no chance of causing any lasting injury to anyone.

The second conclusion to draw is that the taser is currently the best we have. Go back in time before videos of police activity were routinely posted on the YouTube for everyone to see. Back in those days, there were no tasers. You are fooling yourself if you think police brutality started with the taser. Police have been subduing people, appropriately and inappropriately, for as long as they have existed. It’s just that now we are increasing exposure of these incidents that we see the truth that was always there. So how did police subdue people before tasers? Simple, they would beat the crap out of them with night sticks/billy clubs. I don’t know about most people, but I’m personally glad that the police have switched from billy clubs to tasers. If you would rather be bludgeoned into submission, be my guest. The taser is not perfect, but it is the best we have, and it is far superior to what we used in the past.

I have one more thing I want to discuss. Judging by the popular opinion on the web, as I see it in the comments of sites like Digg, pretty much every instance of tasering is considered police brutality. This is not the case. If you actually examine the situations closely, some of the videos you see are clearly cases of police acting out of line, and others are not. In either case, it is always unpleasant to watch another human being in pain. All of the videos, even the ones where the police are in the right, are unpleasant to watch. These unpleasant feelings are the reason there is outrage, even when there is no cause for it. Let me use some examples to show when tasing is appropriate and when it is inappropriate.

Let us first use the obvious example or Mr. don’t tase me bro! Here you have a student, and regardless of his opinions, he was very “excited”. As he was up at the microphone asking his question, he had not yet done anything wrong. If the police had tased him at that point, it would clearly have been a case of brutality for which there is no excuse. But that is not how it happened. In the video the police clearly ask him to leave, and he clearly refuses. At that point he is trespassing. Still, someone trespassing is not enough cause to use a taser on them. Now that he has refused to leave, the officers attempt to forcibly remove/arrest/detain the individual. He actively resists, and is beginning to get out of control. What options do the officers have at this point? They could beat him with clubs like the old days, some taser haters seem to really like this option. They could physically overwhelm him and drag him out kicking and screaming in handcuffs. That might seem better for the individual, but it puts the officers at a much higher risk of injury. Generally, I think, police policy should prioritize the safety of the officers above that of the criminals. The final option, is to use the taser.

They warn the student loudly and clearly several times that if he does not calm down and stop resisting he will be tased. They warn him loudly, clearly, and repeatedly. He does not calm down, and he does not stop resisting. If anything, he resists more and clams down less. The officers are left with only one option. They tase the dangerous, trespassing, resisting, individual. They then easily and safely remove him and diffuse the dangerous situation. It is a painful video to watch, yes. But when you carefully consider the circumstances there was no better option.

Let us look at one more case of the grandma on the lawn in the wheelchair. Here you have a case of a mentally disturbed individual acting in a very dangerous manner. She was wielding knives and other dangerous weapons and causing a disturbance. The police were called, and it is their duty to remove the danger from the situation. Despite the fact that the woman is wheelchair-bound, no officer can be expected to approach her while she is wielding a deadly weapon. Even the option of beating her with a club the old fashioned way is out of the question. You could shoot her with a gun, but I think we would all agree that is out of the question. You avoid the use of deadly force unless you have absolutely no other resort. What option do police have? Yet again, the taser comes into play. They can tase the woman from a distance to subdue her. This will make it safe to approach her and diffuse the situation. Yes, she is elderly, and has a higher risk of the taser causing permanent damage or killing her, but the taser is still the best available option until we develop new technology.

Here’s where things go horribly wrong. It should only take a few seconds of tasing to subdue this woman. One officer properly discharged their taser for only a few short seconds, but evidence seems to suggest that another officer discharged their weapon for an inordinately longer amount of time. From what I can tell from the news article, it is my opinion that tasing the woman was the appropriate course of action. However, the tasers were used in an improper fashion, and that improper usage was a significant factor in the woman’s death. This is clearly a case where the officers were in the wrong, and should be held responsible for their actions.

Tasers are the best technology for subduing dangerous individuals that our officers have available to them today. They are extremely preferable compared to the bludgeons of yesteryear. More and more officers every day will arm themselves with tasers because of their effectiveness, and more and more instances of people being tased will occur. More and more of those instances will appear on the Internet in video or story form thanks to our amazing information society. As painful as it is to hear about, and watch, many of these situations, we need to keep a level head. Sometimes when a taser is used, it is the appropriate course of action for the officers to follow. Sometimes when they are used, it is blatant police bruality. Next time you watch a video of someone being tasered, have some empathy for the police officer. Consider what you would do in their situation, take all factors into account, and then decide for yourself. Is this a time to be outraged, or is this a time to be glad the police have an alternative to bludgeoning people with sticks.

Stop being outraged by sensationalist headlines on blogs, and think with your own head.

Let us take first for example episode 33 of the Night Shift Podcast. In the previous episode they made an off-hand comment about how they were not fond of another podcast. While any negativity may be unpleasant to some people, I see nothing wrong with expressing honest opinions, positive or negative. I don’t think the Night Shift guys said anything about this other podcast that crossed a line, and if they did it was most likely in jest. The result of this very slight negative comment was a torrent of flames via e-mail. In an attempt to reduce negative attitudes and opinions the fans of this other podcast inundated the innocent NSP.

For another example, let us look at the forums of the Comic Geek Speak podcast. Here you have one of the finest examples of a happy forum on the world wide web. Everyone there is friendly, often intelligent and sharing in a common interest in the medium of graphic storytelling. This forum of users, of which I am a member, is so proud of its lack of flame wars and idiocy that it defends its serenity with the complete rage of a berserk Wolverine. They don’t mind if you put down something that is unpopular amongst most of the members, because that is humorous, e.g. Rob Liefeld. They don’t mind if you lightly put down something you don’t like, e.g. “I didn’t like X, it’s not my cup of tea.” But if you make any strong negative statement, no matter how honest or true, about something which someone else likes or that might be construed as mean, watch out! If you thought your original post was mean, you better beware what’s going to come at you. They hate negative attitudes so much, that when they see one expressed they will unleash the same negative attitude they despise upon it.

You can find instances of this same phenomena outside of the web as well. Just go to any school in this country. If a student were to write a terrible paper, the teacher would not even think of telling the student the work is terrible. It doesn’t matter how true it is, the most a teacher can say is “this needs work” or “needs improvement”, etc. out of fear that the student’s self esteem might be hurt. If the teacher decided to go against the grain and speak openly, they would be hounded by parents and administrators with a negative attack far worse than what was given to the student.

My final example is Richard Dawkins’ new book, The God Delusion. Everything written in the book is honest, well-researched and intellectually sound. However, not everything in the book is positive sunshine. Some people, many who even might agree with the book, decry it for being mean. I’ve heard comments such as “He’s right, but he doesn’t have to be such an asshole about it.” Look at this comment for a second. Someone is complaining that someone else is being an asshole, by being an asshole!

There is increasing social pressure in the English-speaking world to avoid saying anything negative. Words and phrases like “terrible,” “sucks,” “I hate,” and “piece of shit” are being shunned from the vocabulary. If you don’t like something, you are supposed to either politely express your opinion and then shut up, or just stay shut up in the first place. If you don’t, then you will soon encounter the hypocrisy of a thousand insults to counter your own.

I say fuck it. If you don’t like something, you have every right to express that dislike loud and clear. If someone honestly does something stupid, let ‘em know. If you don’t like something that someone else likes, tell them why you think they have bad taste. These people trying to paint the world in bright happy colors are the ones who need to shut up. Sometimes people don’t like things, and they should be encouraged to express their opinions with words that properly color their level of dislike. If negative opinions upset you, don’t counter them with more of the same. We need to encourage unrestrained use of all the colors of our language, even if they are unpleasant. Sometimes truth and honesty are more important than someone’s feelings. And you know what? Having some negative feelings now and again is good for you. If you really don’t like something, let the world know. It will make you feel a lot better. I promise I won’t insult you for it.

The most recent example of this occurred on episode Alpha 61 of The Dragon’s Landing Inn. I sent Chuck and Lonnie an e-mail with a small bit of role-playing advice, and they were nice enough to read it on the show. They even played our promo without us asking for it, so I don’t want anyone to say I called them dummies. They’re two very smart guys who have plenty of interesting things to say. If I didn’t think so, I probably wouldn’t listen to their podcast or send them e-mails. But at the same time, I guess that’s what makes this more disappointing. Even smart people with awesome podcasts have trouble reading my e-mails aloud.

I would normally immediately blame this problem on my writing, but I am not alone in this predicament. My co-host and house-mate Rym also has this problem. He has also expressed dismay in that whenever others read his writings aloud, they stumble over every other sentence. Here’s the trick. I can read his writings aloud perfectly, and he can also read mine. You could blame it on writing style, but our writings are very dissimilar.

So what am I trying to say here? I’m not quite sure. All I know is that many people have trouble taking text from a page and reading it aloud with perfect fluidity. This makes me sad. Let’s do a test. Take this blog posting and try to read it aloud. You must speak using conversational pace and tone. See how many times you hit a speed bump. See how many times you have to re-read sentences before you can recite them fluidly. Try doing this with articles from the newspaper or other websites as well. Now do it cold. Read an article aloud that you have never seen before. I get the feeling that reading aloud is a skill which is not emphasized enough in our society. Maybe if more people realize they lack this essential and basic skill, they will build upon it and exercise it more often.

Let’s start out with definitions.

Consumerism

Attachment to materialistic values or possessions

Materialism

The theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life.

The way I see the world, consumerism and materialism are evil. Personally, I have little to no attachment to physical goods. Physical objects are just arrangements of atoms, so are people. Nothing in the world has any intrinsic value. Simply owning, or possessing, objects is completely meaningless.

Now, I’m not going all Buddhist monk on you, don’t worry. Objects do have value, just not in their existence alone. What you have to understand is that the value of an object lies within its function. A computer is an incredibly useful and powerful tool, and thus it is worth more than a paperclip. Some objects are more valuable because they are necessities to life, e.g.: food, shelter, water, etc. You might note that I’m not talking about monetary value, but intrinsic value. The intrinsic value of any object is not contained within the object itself, but within the use of that object.

Now, people in our society have gotten it into their heads that somehow possession of goods is important. This materialistic viewpoint is incredibly harmful and wrong. I buy things and I own things, but not for the sake of owning and buying more. I own things so that I have access to their functionality. Buying things and having things does not make me feel good. I feel good when I do useful things, and owning objects is simply a way to facilitate many of the things I like, or need, to do.

Let’s use books as an example. I own quite a few shelves of books, but I down own them for the sake of owning. If I could get rid of them, I would, because they take up too much space. The reason I have the books is because I want to read them and I want to share them with others to read. If I don’t have them, then it becomes very difficult for me to read them whenever I wish. Buying and owning books is not an end unto itself, but simply a means to make it more convenient for me to accomplish other real goals.

In the society I live in, I am a rare breed. Everywhere I look I see people caring very deeply about what they own. Let me tell you a semi-true story about someone we’ll call Bob. Bob was not a cool guy. Bob had nothing interesting to say, and his personality was grating. Bob was highly skilled at certain video games, but he had no other useful skills whatsoever. Bob was basically a waste of space. So what did Bob do? He bought things. Bob bought imported video games, yet didn’t play half of them. Bob bought a drum set and never played it. Bob had a problem.

Bob’s problem is one that most of our society has. He judged himself based on the goods he possessed. Martin Luther King Jr. famously stated that you should judge people based on the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. I like to further that statement by saying you should judge people by the content of their character and nothing else at all. The only criteria I use for judging good people from bad are their words, actions and thoughts. Since there is no way to read thoughts, I have to assume that people’s words match their thoughts. What you own means nothing. However, if you think that what you own is important, if you are a person who judges yourself and others based on material wealth, then that is a trait of your character I view as negative. And that is how I view collectors.

I used to be a collector in my childhood. I collected baseball cards, comic books, superhero cards, Magic: The Gathering (Money: The Wasting) cards and a lot more. I enjoyed the activity of organizing and reorganizing things. I fantasized about how valuable my collections would be in the future. But worst of all, I judged myself and others based on material wealth. It was hard not to, since all the other kids did it as well. Every recess it was disputes about who owned more Nintendo games. If you had a full set of cards you were suddenly cooler than every other kid on the block. In my childhood what you owned defined how good you were.

It wasn’t until much later in life when I realized how much time I wasted. I could have spent that money on useful things. Now all I have is a box of useless cardboard with pictures of baseball players printed on it. I could have spent that time learning things or building my skills. Instead, I have a lower skill level in many areas than I could potentially have. I could have spent more time working on being a better human being instead of just becoming an owner of useless goods.

And thus, you see my dislike of collectors and the collector mentality. Yes, there are people who enjoy collecting, and that’s good for them. However, if you ever try to ask the question “Why do you enjoy collecting?” there is no good answer. Let us explore many answers someone might give to this question.

Someone might collect things because they are obsessive compulsive. They enjoy the act of organizing and reorganizing things. Organization and the constant battle against entropy are well and good, but not when done uselessly. If you want to organize things, get a job filing in a doctor’s office. Organizing baseball cards serves no useful purpose other than to satisfy a psychological disorder.

Someone might collect things for financial gain. There are some very valuable collections of rare goods out there, and their owners stand to make a tidy profit. However, if you actually were to analyze collecting as a financial investment you would find it is incredibly bad. The amount of time and effort required to properly maintain a collection is tremendous. The amount of time for a return on investment might not be well until after the collector’s death. Playing craps in a casino is a better investment than the vast majority of collections. The only way to make money in the business of collecting is to take advantage of collectors and their collector mentality. The guy who owns the store selling autographed baseballs and baseball cards has always made more money than the guy who collects them. He realizes that owning those things is not a good way to make money. The way to make money is to sell $10 baseballs for $100 to some guy who thinks it will be worth a lot, or to some guy who thinks it makes him a better person to own such a thing.

Someone might collect things for the sake of learning. That is a good thing. Oh no, did I defeat my own argument? No, I did not. The fact is that there is almost nothing to learn from the vast majority of collections. A comic book collection really has nothing to teach anyone. We already know all about comic books, they hold no secrets. You can gain all of that knowledge without access to a comic book collection. Heck, you can probably gain most of that knowledge without reading very many comics at all. Collections we can learn from are all very ancient things found in museums, libraries, etc. And that is where they belong. They belong there so that everyone may learn from them. So even if you were a noble collector, collecting for the sake of knowledge, it is not good unless you share your collection with the world. I view hoarding knowledge with equal negativity as I view materialism.

Someone might collect things for the sake of preservation. There are many physical goods out there which are not invincible. If they are not taken care of, they will be lost to the world. Whenever we lose a very old object it decreases the power of human beings. There was once something we, as a people, could do, and it required the use of a particular object. Now that the object is gone, that ability is lost. Preservation is indeed a noble cause. However, yet again, all real preservation work is done by museums, libraries, etc. If you are preserving something privately, that is essentially the same as letting it be destroyed. If there is a rare thing which people can not access, then it might as well not exist. Also, most things people collect do not require preservation. The human race does not need you to collect every issue of National Geographic. The publisher and many libraries are already doing a fine job.

The only other reason I can see that someone might get enjoyment from the act of collecting itself is materialism. They feel better about themselves the bigger collection they have. They brag to other collectors about how much bigger and more valuable their collections are. They even view other collectors as being better people if their collections are bigger or better. It’s the old analogy of a sports car being a penis extension. In our society it is often true, even if it is not conscious.

Personally, I look down on people who value meaningless collecting and have materialistic world views. If they want to judge themselves or others based on what they own, that to me is the same mentality as judging people based on how they dress or where they live. Judging people based on such criteria can be viewed as a character flaw, and a character flaw is something you can judge someone by. Therefore, I do not view collectors in a very positive light.

If you disagree, which I’m sure collectors do, then answer one question. Why do you enjoy collecting? An Apple Jacks answer is no good; “I just do” doesn’t cut it. Using the powers of logic you must deduce what exactly about the act of collecting and owning a collection causes good emotions in your brain. If you can not accomplish this task, maybe it’s time to rethink a few things. Are you really living your own life if you are acting on impulse without thought? Are you really in control of your own destiny if you do not know the reasons for your own actions? I’ve thought about these things long and hard, and as a result I stopped collecting things long ago. I am genuinely curious to see if anyone has a good answer.

Engaging in intellectual discussion is a worthwhile use of time. Take a few minutes off from admiring your shelf full of useless trinkets and please think about this very serious question.

It all started freshman year of college late in the year 2000. My roommate and I split cable TV 50/50. It was twenty dollars a month each. It wasn’t too bad considering the Time Warner service was pretty good. For the first few months it was awesome. I gladly paid the bill for this wondorous luxury I was unable to live without during the prior portion of my existence. But as months went on I began to loathe paying the bill. My roommate used it to watch European soccer matches, I used it rarely. Why should I pay half when he gets 90% of the use? I watched more VHS tapes on the TV than I watched cable. Also, all the lounges around campus had cable TV. It was quickly becoming a poor investment.

Sophomore year I moved out of the dorms to an on-campus apartment with my current roommate, and podcast co-host, Rym. We decided not to get cable television. The school provided the local channels over coax for free. Our computers, game consoles, VCR and DVD player provided enough entertainment that TV was not a worthwhile investment.

Over the course of 4 years of living in that condition we lost all interest in television. It surprises me to this day how gradual and painless a process it was. In the beginning I didn’t even realize I was missing something. I would watch TV whenever I went home to my parents house, but I was so occupied wither other things at college that TV was not missed. The Internet also provided so much entertainment that it was always more fun to sit at my computer than it would be to sit in front of the TV. Who could ask for more than a withdrawal without symptoms?

At one point RIT began giving us basic cable for free. I used it on 9/11 after a friend informed me about the disaster via instant message. We used the TV again when Lupin III was originally on Adult Swim. That ended very abruptly when they started with reruns and changed the schedule. Soon after that we rearranged the furniture and the TV ended up on the side of the room opposite the cable jack. We considered running a cable a few times, but we eventually gave up and were better off because of it.

By this time we realized we weren’t watching television anymore. We finally had become conciously aware of how much better our lives were due to lack of TV. We were no longer slaves to the schedule of the broadcasters. We no longer cared about stupid bullshit shows that meant nothing. We read the news we cared about on the Internet. We entertained ourselves in the method of our choosing at the time of our choosing without any advertisements in the way. We began to take notice and cringe when we saw telvisions in public places. It became annoying when other people would watch TV instead of having a discussion. For the first time even the Super Bowl passed without notice.

Our TV watching habits had turned a complete 180. We were TV watchers, then TV ignorers and now TV haters. We often joked about plans to save the world by destroying all the TV sattelites. Often we would quote the Simpson’s episode where the cable goes out. If you remember the scene where all the children go outside, rub their eyes and the neighborhood becomes a paradise. That’s what we envisioned, and it’s what we still envision to a certain degree.

Since that time life has been grand, except for the existence of Cablevision. At RIT we were provided with access to two OC3s worth of juicy bandwidth which was paid for by the school. In other words, we paid for insanely fast Internet in our tuitions. Over the years we became spoiled, and we began to loathe having to use a more pedestrian Internet service. Eventually the time came and we moved out to Beacon, NY. Cablevision is the most reasonable ISP available in this area.

Getting Cablevision to sell us Optimum Online without Optimum TV was not much of a problem. But after a painless installation they began to harass us. I often got calls from them trying to sell me television service. Once a guy even came to our house and asked where our sattelite dish was. He checked the box outside and saw that we had not removed the TV filtering device. Cablevision just can’t imagine how anyone can go without TV. They really think that we are stealing cable. It wasn’t until the end of last year they ceased harassing us.

Of course, there are some things I miss about TV, but not many. I miss watching a few cartoons that are not available on DVD. I can’t remember the last time I saw Dexter’s Lab. I also miss some live sporting events, mostly ice hockey and Formula 1. The Internet just doesn’t provide a reasonable way to watch ice hockey in HD or a way to watch Formula 1 races before the results are posted everywhere. When that day comes it will be joyous.

I would be willing to pay ten, or even fifteen dollars a month for access to five television channels: Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, MSG and SpeedTV. I would use MythTV to record all the shows I wanted to watch and remove all the commercials. Until then I’ll just continue to get F1 races via Bittorrent and forget the rest. I’ve got more important things to do than sit in front of the idiot box. Really important things like writing blog entries about not sitting in front of the idiot box.

I am going to say it right now. I am a shit-talker. Awhile back I posted about my quest to develop custom blog software. I can seriously say that I have been working on it. I also signed up for CSS Reboot in order to set a project deadline of November first. Today I decided to abandon the project.

This decision did not come easily. Dropping it made me realize that over the years I have never finished a project that was not for school or work. It’s pretty upsetting to look back and see every attempt to implement your own ideas was a failure. At least I think I know why it happens.

Take the blog project as an example. I was simultaneously the sole customer and the sole developer. Because I will not push myself into discomfort, it becomes much more difficult to force myself to work. That is a nice filter to weed out waste of time projects, but it also means I am unable to make anything for myself unless it is very easy, badly needed or greatly desired. I have a solution. Henceforth, I will only work on projects with a team and/or for people other than myself. Hopefully this will cure my shit-talking related to software development.

What will happen to my blog? After a great deal of deliberation I have decided on switching to WordPress. A great deal of thought went into this decision. It comes down to the fact that the custom blog project was a cork in my bottle of creativity. I wasn’t making blog posts, I wasn’t working on other projects, I wasn’t properly maintaining my computer(s) and I was losing rare and valuable free time. WordPress is free and it does 90% of the things I was going to implement in my software. I think I can manage without that remaining 10%. I might even be able to add that 10% in the future. Not having a unique snowflake for a blog is a tough pill I will have to swallow. Though, it will finally be a beautiful blog. Most WordPress themes are nicer than any CSS I can produce.

Sometime soon there might be some downtime on this site. This time it will be intentional, unlike the great Gentoo Apache configuration change. After the switch this blog will be like Lenin, a corpse on public display. Keep checking here for the full details of how this site will be changing. It is likely that I will probably purchase a new domain for a podcast being created by me and my roommate. Yesterday we actually did a test recording, and we have a dry run scheduled for today. The end of my shit-talking days could be just around the corner.

For all of these computers I was extra lazy and took the Ubuntu path. I’ve pretty much cut back on Linux distributions to the point where there are only three I use regularly: Gentoo, Ubuntu and Knoppix. I use Gentoo on any computer important enough for me to put in the requisite effort. I use Ubuntu whenever it is up to the task because it is as good as Debian without the effort. And of course, I use Knoppix variants for when I need a LiveCD with lots of tools.

Ubuntu has been the choice on all the new computers. It is excellent as usual. The issues with sound I previously griped about don’t even come up, because Ubuntu automatically sets up esound awesomely. I haven’t yet tested to see if it will correctly make surround sound work. I honestly doubt it will. But the fact that hal, dbus and udev work perfectly out of the box is more than enough for me. Of course there is one fatal flaw of Ubuntu.

Like its parent Debian, Ubuntu is big on freeness. Every package in the default repositories is fully free. Without jumping through a few hoops you can’t install any non-free software. Some of these hoops are legal hoops. For example, installing and distributing Sun Java as part of Ubuntu would be illegal. However, it is a small vocal minority of Linux users that actually demand that every single piece of software they use is free as in speech. In my experience most users just want everything to work and don’t care if they have to use something that isn’t free speech. As long as it is free beer they will take what works best. There are people who use Linux for reasons besides freeness such as security, stability and flexibility. If you really believe most Linux users care, why are the Nvidia drivers so popular? On the Gentoo forums you’ll see many a thread about how to use them or how to fix problems with them. And you’ll see maybe one zealot per thread yelling about how it isn’t free. Well guess what? Only zealots care. It would be nice if there was a truly free alternative. In some cases there is. The forcedeth drivers are arguably better than the nforce-net. But if given a choice between a fully free solution that is sub-par and a free beer solution that works better, just about every non-zealot is going to pick the non-free solution.

This is the flaw with Ubuntu. Its freeness makes it incompetent for multimedia. It comes setup with a piece of software for every multimedia task you want. Playing audio, ripping audio, playing video, the whole shebang. But it only works on free file formats. With a setup like that new users are going to think Linux is useless multimedia-wise, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The truth is that if you setup Linux with a full set of non-free software you will be able to rip, mix, burn, play and transfer every media format you want. And it does it all without DRM and without any annoyances. It also does it with fewer pieces of software. In other OSes you often need multiple pieces of software to play different file types. In Linux you can arguably use just one piece of software to handle all files. You also aren’t limited in how you use the files. QuickTime might not let you full screen the trailer, but mplayer will. In this department Linux blows Windows and Apple out of the water. Apple only wins in the content creation department. Windows wins in neither, even if you go through the trouble to setup mplayer on Windows.

The problem is that there are only two ways I know to get Linux to this perfect configuration. The first is to use Gentoo. If you set all the appropriate USE flags and emerge mplayer you’ve completed the playing component. Just merge k3b, XMMS and grip and you’re 90% of the way home. But it requires a lot of learning and effort to install Gentoo. Debian can do it too, but you have to add lots of repositories and do a lot of package hunting. Debian also is not easy for newbies to install. Ubuntu has the same problem as Debian with the repository searching and package hunting. Thankfully, the Ubuntu Wiki provides a lot of help in this department, but it’s not near enough.

Here’s what I suggest. Make a non-free, multimedia fork of Ubuntu. It will come installed just like Ubuntu, a fully capable and easy desktop OS. But this fork will include a full set of multimedia packages and codecs by default. Or it will include as many as it can without being legally questionable. To avoid some legal traps they can add extra user interaction at the end of the installation. I noticed you have an Nvidia card, would you like to install the Nvidia driver now? Would you like to install Sun Java? You get the idea. From there on it will guide the user to setting those things up in a way that requires the minimal effort from the user while remaining legal.

If this distro really existed and worked I believe it would trump Ubuntu itself in popularity. That assumes the distro would be maintained and that there would be sufficient public awareness. Once we’ve got this down I think there will be some real Linux migration by normal folk. Normal folk who are fed up with not being free with their multimedia. I guess those zealots will have to learn to deal with the fact that the only way to be truly free with multimedia is to use some non-free software.

What would be extra cool is if there was a way to make a deal with software companies to allow us to distribute their software. If it isn’t possible, then perhaps we could create an illegal distribution and host it in some country that doesn’t care. I always wonder, if it is legal for mplayer to host all the codecs on their site for free download why would it be illegal to host a distribution including all those codecs on the same site? A lot of what people do with their computers now is multimedia. If Linux can cast away a few zealots it can show that it is the best multimedia playing and managing operating system. Once it catches up to Apple in the content creation department it will be unstoppable.

At least here in the US we only have to deal with the loss of the 4th amendment. Random searches on commuter trains and buses pretty much guarantees that. Anyone who uses those facilities to get to work pretty much either has to give up their job or relinquish their rights. As they say, it’s liberty or death. Especially in London. The policy there seems to be that they can protect their citizens from being blown up by bombs by shooting the victims first. Better to be killed by police than terrorists I guess.

There’s no real point in repeating the same talk about freedom, justice and cowardice many times. It would just be a waste of my typing and both our bandwidths. But I felt I had to put up something. Despite the incredible amount of news I feel that there are fewer and fewer people who really care about freedom. Usually I’m full of valor and nothing upsets me or scares me away from my beliefs. But with these most recent occurrences I am more afraid of our own security forces then any terrorists. When someone like myself doesn’t have 100% confidence you know that times aren’t good.

So next time you’re at a security checkpoint. Next time a terrorist kills people, just think about it. Is the security actually making you safer or just making you feel safer? Does giving up your rights help stop terrorists, or is your loss of liberty actually their goal? When they see people in a panic as opposed to going about business as usual, does that encourage or discourage more terrorism? I think these questions are easy to answer if you try. The truth is a hard pill to swallow.

Douglas Rushkoff’s take is, as usual, the most insightful on the net.

My co-worker who sits next to me is a hardcore gamer. He has excellent video game taste, even if it isn’t as picky as mine, and his skill is outstanding. However, he is recently married. I quote “I want to play video games, but my wife doesn’t play video games. So i don’t play video games.” Wow. Just wow. My roommate reports that a coworker’s wife does not let him enjoy science fiction, so he watches it in secret. I’m not sure if it is the same wife, but there was another report of the wife throwing out manga and anime which the husband and son enjoy.

Now, I’m not a man to deny that sexual intercourse is often preferable to a video game or a sci-fi movie. However, I have hear from married folk that sex after marriage isn’t even close to the quality of pre-marital sex. And I can imagine that to be the case as the same thing over and over again can get boring. I also cannot deny the love between two people that exists or existed at one time. Very often opposites attract. Lastly I cannot deny that everyone has different taste.

But I must say, the imposition of taste upon those you love is just cruel. I mean, seriously. If you really care about someone you will want them to be happy. People are happy when they are enjoying the things they love. If you can only be happy if people only enjoy the same things as you and nothing else, then you are selfish and evil. These wives who drain their husbands of money and geekiness are no good. I will say now that I will never wed, or even go out with anyone who is averse to geekdom. Ideally I will find a hot geeky woman who enjoys all the same things as I. For all you hot single geek ladies out there, if you want to win my heart just frag me around the block and write me a love sonnet in C.

However, not all blame must be put on these evil wives. These timid husbands also bear equal blame. As they are always primarily complaining about their wives and not talking about how much they love them, I cannot imagine that the love is still strong. When people decide to get married their relationship is as strong as it ever will be. If they had the relationship they have with each other now before they were married they would have broken up. These husbands must stand up for their geekdom. Play your video games, watch your nerd movies, read your manga and play with your computer. If your wife complains tell her she’s not your mother. Tell her exactly what I said here. That if she really loved you she would want you to be happy, and enjoying harmless geekdoms makes you happy. Tell her she can choose to join you or not join you in the enjoyment of those geekdoms. Tell her not to knock what she hasn’t tried. And lastly, tell her if she doesn’t like it she can stick it where the sun don’t shine. Release the geek. If you don’t and you are unhappy you only have yourself to blame.

Why does a single geek like me care? Well, I’m beginning to imagine that there are many poor souls like this out there. People just like me who can’t escape their controlling spouses. Geeks in general are in short supply. We make up a relatively small portion of the population. Anything that increases the number of open geeks increases the number of people I have to socialize with. It also increases the power of the population. More open geeks makes a bigger voting block. But most of all I want people to be happy, and if even one person enjoys life more because they escaped their spouse of evil then hooray! Come on in guys the water’s fine.

Some people say he is grandstanding for votes. That may be true, he may only be going after the baddies to make news and get more votes from people like me. His recent attack against a spyware company made the front pages of Slashdot as well as the free morning newspapers in the city. But it really doesn’t matter what his motive is for doing his job so well. In fact, if he’s only doing it for votes then that is an indicator that democracy is working as intended. The point of democracy is that people elect candidates to represent them in government, and that they elect people who do what they want. If Eliot Spitzer is doing what the people want in order to get votes, then democracy is working flawlessly. As long has he continues his present course of action, which I see no signs of changing, then it’s all good by me.

I imagine most people don’t feel strongly about any particular political candidate. Sure, there are people who are crazy for Bush, or crazy for Nader or whatever. But most people are just choosing from the lesser of two evils. It is rare for someone to say “Yeah! This is the fucking greatest person, I want to vote for them!” It’s a feeling I’ve never had before in my entire life until Spitzer came around. Even that cool Obama guy doesn’t make me feel that way. Sure, he’s a cool guy and I would probably vote for him, but I don’t feel so strongly about it.

Back in the days of coliseums and such people would have champions fight battles for them. It was much like boxing, pro-wrestling or actually all professional sports today. People feel very strongly about a particular person or team. If the Mets win, the Mets fan wins. That is because the Mets fan feels that the Mets are an extension of himself. They represent him in the field of baseball. They are his champion in the field of baseball. And I think that that is how representative democracy is supposed to work. At the beginning people like George Washington were champions of the people who represented them in the arena of government. The people felt that when George Washington won, they won. That feeling doesn’t really exist anymore, and that’s why our government is failing. Ideally people would feel this way about every candidate they cast a vote for. Instead, we have one person in the entire country who I can say I feel this way about.

Sometimes I think that Eliot Spitzer is a lot like Reggie Files-Aime of Nintendo. Kicking asses and taking names. Nintendo fans feel that Reggie is their champion, he represents them in the Nintendo corporation and helps get the games they want. Spitzer does the same thing, only instead of making video games he punishes corporate corruption and greed. If you’ve ever read political manga like “Eagle”, “First President of Japan” or “Sanctuary”, it’s a very similar idea. I even heard a rumour that he did some things down on Wall Street that are very similar to the types of things that happen in those fictional political thrillers.

I’m moving to New York in a week or two. And barring any unforeseen hidden information coming to the surface I will cast my vote for Spitzer for governor in 2006. It will be the first time I have ever felt this way, but I hope it is not the last. I’m not trying to convince anyone else to vote for him, but I am urging you to only vote for someone you feel strongly for. We can’t go on selecting the lesser of evils forever, that is not the way our democracy is supposed to function. Select a champion who will represent you on the field of political warfare, and choose wisely.