It's Good to Be Busy

So I went from having things to do and the time to do them to having More things to do and less time to do them. Hence why I failed to post something last week, and I even had an idea of something to share! Still remember it too, but I want to cover a couple other things too.
Okay, so that first idea was to call out the stupidity of the FCKDRM.com stunt by GOG. It's not only stupid, it's juvenile and ignorant. There is a very one-sided view of DRM, and by 'very one-sided' I mean extreme-level bias that exclusively equates DRM with evil and greed. This ignores the fact that DRM is used by many, including GOG, to protect your digital rights. A password-protected account is, guess what, an example of DRM. What does this give you at GOG? The ability to store information to make purchases, the ability to claim your purchases after the fact without needing the original email associated with a purchase, and likely more. Two-factor authentication, that's DRM protecting your rights, and is even encouraged if you have a GOG account (which is DRM). Look, here's the truth the anti-DRM zealots want you to forget; DRM is not about protecting someone's ability to squeeze money out of you and remove your access to products. It is about protecting someone's rights, both creators and consumers. It protects a creator's rights to receive compensation for their work and it protects the consumers' rights to claim that work after compensating the creator. Without DRM, creators might not be paid because someone else could claim to be the creator and take the money. No DRM, no way to prevent someone else from claiming any digital products or services someone produces. Without DRM, a consumer making a purchase might be able to make it with the payment credentials of a different consumer, because those digital rights are not protected. Also, without DRM (and even with) it is possible for a consumer to defraud a creator by requesting a refund on a digital product they have made a copy of, that cannot be identified or removed. DRM does not assume people are dishonest or that they will commit a dishonest act, but it does protect others from bad-faith actors. They are like rules or laws; most people will never break them, or at least not severely, and keeping the rules and laws likely will not degrade their lives either. But, when someone does break those rules or laws, harming another, we are grateful for them and those who execute them.
Okay, the other two points are both more political than the above, and concern the rather stupid comments of Senator Cory Booker. I decided to turn on the committee hearings for a bit and caught some of his opening statement and, well, I don't think he knows what a resume is. He was equating not receiving tens of thousands of documents (compared to hundreds of thousands that have been made available, as I understand) and approving Judge Kavanaugh to only reading 10% of a resume before hiring someone... Uh, a resume should be about two pages, sometimes three, so not even thousands of words, let alone pages. A resume is also like a hit-list, so not even a summary of your relevant work experience, while possessing all of those documents would equate to having a super-biography, as they would include details no one cares about and are likely unimportant to most anything. Finally, while you might not hire someone when only reading 10% of a resume, I have been rejected based on less than that. Guess what, decisions are made on less than what is 'fair.'
Finally, 'I am Spartacus' is not about breaking the rules. It is about claiming responsibility for something you are not responsible for, to obscure the one actually responsible and/or to accept the punishment; a sign of solidarity. If you're going to use a reference, at least be accurate and appropriate with its use.

I'll Join In On the 'Debate'

It is interesting how low journalistic or news reporting standards have dropped in recent years, and yes I feel like going that far. So many people are approaching the FCC privacy rule blocking as though it is the end of privacy on the Internet and that's like the end of the world! Back in reality though, with a bit more research and less sensationalism, we find that the rule was never in effect to begin with, which means nothing changes. There is no loss of privacy for anyone, and therefore the world is not ending and people can stop hyperventilating. Now this has been covered in some reports I have seen, often in the last few paragraphs, but there are two other points also often left to the end or left out. One is that it has been the FTC that regulates companies on how information considered private is used/sold, not the FCC. This means that by the FCC granting itself these powers, ISPs were given rules from competing bodies to deal with and navigate. Second is that the FCC can only issue rules for telecommunication companies, but those like Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. that in fact have profit models based on the collection and sale of private information, such as browser history, would have continued to be free to do with the data as they wish. For example, just yesterday my mother was looking at toasters on Amazon and then Facebook popped up an ad for a toaster. This tracking would not be affected by the rules at all, and is there a conversation or call on the FTC to block this? No, there isn't, and there also will not be, because that means the likes of Facebook and Google will either need to start charging for their various services, or collapse and no one wants that. However, ISPs that do not even collect this information to sell it, but to better target their own services, have become the Internet's privacy bogeyman. There are far bigger offenders out there, if indeed they are considered offenders, and nobody cares about them.
Why is that? My guess is because people forget the role their ISP plays in their life because it is always present, or it is not so they hate them. But Facebook they log into and check every day and they search with Google every day as well. A positive experience with Facebook and Google you notice, but a positive experience with an ISP should be invisible to you, because it means things are behaving as expected and desired. Easy to forget and easy to misunderstand. Ripe breeding grounds for people to hype a half-story into something it is not.

A Little Late and Maybe a Little Political

A little late, but I remembered! What I've decided to write about might be considered political, but I'm not sure. Really it's just going to be me calling a proposal I recently heard about from Bill Gates stupid.
This proposal is to apply a tax on the use of robots used for automation in businesses. According to him this tax should be collected by governments so that it can be directed to programs that would help the elderly and at-need youth. Sounds nice, right? Plenty of things sound nice that end up doing harm and are stupid.
Okay, so let's change the wording a little bit: The proposal is to artificially increase the cost of labor, for certain types of businesses (manufacturing would make greater use of robots than, say, software development). This would also artificially make human hires more competitive, at least until cheaper robots are made until the tax can be made, then the robots win and there is a heavy political battle to not increase the tax, as small companies operating near their margin would be pushed into the red. Increasing costs doesn't hit the big and wealthy, it hits the small and medium. (Decreasing costs artificially also hit the small and medium, once the market corrects, which is what happened in 2009, so that is not a solution.)
That's the problem with trying to artificially increase costs of a type of product, is that eventually someone will find a way to make the product cheaper, and then you're left trying to increase the cost more or even stifle innovation.
Also, a source of cheap labor, like robots, is not really a bad thing. Yes some people will lose jobs, others will move into other positions, managing the robots, even managing new factories. So not every human would be hurt by this. Additionally, some will be able to take advantage of the cheap labor to start their own businesses using it, and assuming they have friends who lost their job, they could be brought in to work as well. Increase the cost of the robot labor, and this cannot happen.
It's the whole, innovation drives innovation concept that has been proven throughout history, naturally combined with human tenacity and desire for pride in work. Stifling it with artificial cost increases is far from a good idea.
On top of that, the idea to just use the government-collected tax to fund anything is a poor idea because those people who have to collect the tax, pass it on to those who distribute it, and then those who do distribute it all need to take a cut out of it, because, you know, they're doing work and deserve a paycheck.
So far we're seeing larger businesses successfully weather the tax while smaller will likely struggle with it, innovation either be stifled or limit undercut the success of the tax, and bureaucrats getting paychecks out of what is meant for the targeted elderly and youth. Unless you are a bureaucrat, or a large business wanting small out of the way, where is the benefit to this idea?
Now, if you actually want to do something to help prevent people from losing their jobs because the robots offer cheaper labor, figure out how to reduce the cost of living, because then the human labor can be less expensive and more competitive. Just don't do it artificially by subsidizing the cost of living, reduce the artificial costs that already increase the cost of living. It is harder to do, but it is the 'rising tides raise all ships' solution.
I think that's enough blathering on for now. (By the way, I'm just a guy, far less wealthy, and economically insulated, than Bill Gates, like most everyone on the planet.)

Quick Recap

A couple weeks ago I talked about how the push for Title II is inconsistent with the principals of Net Neutrality. Now there is a good chance that is what we are going to have, so let's consider how we got it. The plan the FCC put together was written and voted on without any public knowledge, and even following the vote has not been released for anyone to review (not yet at least). On its own, this should have caused people to be in an uproar before the vote, but there is more. The plan was written by and voted on by a group who will directly benefit from it, like someone giving themselves a promotion, by giving them new powers over what has been a free system. Powers that have very few checks on them, because the FCC is a regulatory body and these are its rules, as opposed to laws which are addressed in public courts where parties have guaranteed rights.
Net Neutrality did not win with the vote. Government control did.

Be Careful What You Wish For

There is a very important topic that has been much discussed on the Internet and that is only going to increase for the foreseeable future. That topic is Net Neutrality, which is the name for the goal of securing a free an open Internet Obviously these are important goals but I must say I am fearful for the future. Oh, I know that if anybody actually read this, some would accuse me of being against Net Neutrality just for suggesting that there is any cause for alarm, by using the false argument that only those against Net Neutrality could have any fear of it, and summarily dismiss me. Well, ignorance is one of the welcome tragedies of freedom so I can live with that. What I am afraid of though is the prospect of placing this "free and open" network under the control of a single group, which will be able to exercise that control without intervention, without restriction, without appeal, without openness and without freedom. This is the power the FCC already has and bringing the Internet under its control by declaring it a Title II utility will subject the Internet, the consumers, and all its services will be subject to it. It saddens me how people are so upset because they do not trust the various ISPs, but are eager to give even greater control to the FCC as though it may be trusted. Personally, I fail to trust any of them, and why should I? Why should you?
Every aspect, every single principle of Net Neutrality can be secured by laws, and unlike with the FCC, that means that courts, public courts that guarantee rights like due process, will be where alleged infractions will be dealt with. Aren't those courts better aligned with the core values of Net Neutrality?
To put it another way, how can anything be free and open when it has a single master? Aren't masters kind of the opposite of being free and open? Free the net from masters, people. Don't give it a new one.

Feeling the Need

Haven't posted something political here for quite some time, but I feel the need to now, and boy is there a lot I could say. I could bring up historical facts, like how the Crusades were predicated by the Muslim take-over of the Holy Lands, so comparing them to the genocidal goals of radical Muslims is thoroughly incorrect, or how slavery is actually against the principles of Christianity, which is one of the reasons the Church fought to end the practice, or how genocidal persons do pose an existential threat to those they wish to exterminate, but instead I want to make this point.
High horses are hard to climb onto, so one gets there only by earning it, and from there they can do much good. That good includes helping good persons up from the saddle, and putting evil persons beneath their hooves. To get down in the dirt and mud only serves those who have not earned a place in the saddle, and these people do not deserve to be served in that way.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

So many places and people have been making the point recently that Obama is such a great president because just look at the new low 5.9% unemployment rate. Isn't he wonderful!? (Insert dreamy swoon.)
Well, let me see. As I recall 2-4% is considered normal, so this is still bad for a supposedly recovered economy. Also that 5.9% only considers those who count as unemployed, and not underemployed or out of the labor force. Those numbers are still very high. Disturbingly high really, when you consider how many people those numbers represent. People who cannot get the satisfaction of putting their skills and passions to use. People who feel like they have been banished from the economy. People who probably don't care about the unemployment rate because it isn't helping them or their situation. It's just a number some people get to through around to their benefit.
The 'lies' of these numbers do not end at being failing fully representative of the time though because they also cannot be compared to much of the past. One of the things this administration accomplished was changing how unemployed was measured, or at least how the official number is reported. I don't quite recall which it was when, but I do remember that one method relied on the number of jobs business reported adding while the other surveys households for employment. Changes in metrics like that make direct comparison impossible, without a lot of thick math to compensate for the change, which will also introduce new uncertainty and that may make the final result useless anyway.
Nobody is quite sure who said the saying first, but they were right, whoever they were.

If I recall My History...

Right now it is fairly hard to turn on any news channel or check a news website and not have something about the possibility of attacking Syria thrown in your face, at least if you live in the US and/or are checking a US news site. A lot of it is one side saying we should because there is a moral imperative, while the other says the American people do not want to be involved. If I remember what I learned in school correctly, that other side is much more correct than the side claiming a moral need.
If you consider what has happened int he world during the history of the United States, you will find numerous examples of genocide and genocide-like tragedies that we did nothing about. The reasons for that largely stem from our disinterest in intervening in another countries affairs, outside of normal political operations. Even when we know about the genocide, we want to leave it alone and be left alone. Look at modern North Korea, where people are starving under they tyrannical, communist regime. Look in modern Egypt where Christians are being murdered and churches burned. I'm sure there are many other nations in Africa that are also suffering similar tragedies, but I cannot name them. Look to the past though and you can find even more genocide and genocide-like tragedies that we did nothing about. Stalin of the USSR starved millions of Ukrainians to death during the Holodomor, and we did nothing. Even the Holocaust under Hitler did not lead us to take action, and we did know some of what was going on there. That is part of the reason why, at the time, many people did want to go to war, to stop Hitler and what he would do to Europe, but they knew the American people detest war, so it took the war coming to us to ultimately force any direct action.
You can take the point I am trying to make one of two ways. Either America does not have an interventionist history, because the people did not want it then and do not want it now, or that if we are to claim the existence of a morale obligation, we have a lot of work to do to satisfy it.

Food for Thought?

I first had this idea come to me over a week ago, but I did not feel like sharing it until now. It came to me while playing the game Mirror's Edge. This game, like many others, is set in a dystopic world where an entity is trying to control everyone. This is fairly standard in dystopias, where the state, corporation, or other group tries to affect absolute power on the people. Another standard for such worlds is an absence of morality, which typically manifests itself as increased crime.
Though the example that inspired this idea is relative new (four years old) such worlds have been described in literature for hundreds of years. Control and amorality leading to worlds that are almost universally found repulsive by the people of this nation. Yet, despite these lessons the minds of our past have attempted to teach us, we still have so many people voting and marching, and otherwise supporting political actions that would subvert the citizenry's individual choices for government-determined control, while others partake in amoral acts for a moment of pleasure.
Interesting, isn't it?

Did Anyone Seriously Think it would Work?

So the sequester is now law and boy has it ever been amusing to watch the course it has taken. Seriously, the fear it is being abused to create is astoundingly funny! Of course what is even more laughable is that anyone might have thought it would actually work to deal with spending. The easy point to make about that is it is not possible to address a deficit when all you do is reduce the increase in spending. You have to actually decrease spending to decrease spending, instead of spending more, but not as much as you originally planned to do. That however is not the reason I find it humorous.
No, the reason I laugh at the concept of the sequester is it is a horrible negotiation tactic. It was supposed to be a kind of nuclear deterrent that would force talks and compromise, because no one wants the bomb to go off. The problem is that in a negotiation both sides should have a nuclear deterrent that neither want to use. Instead they created a deterrent neither of them could control, which practically promised its use. Everyone can claim, and is claiming, it is not their fault for it happening and is just blaming the other side. At least if it were one side's nuclear deterrent then we would know who set it off, and have their reasoning for why they felt the negotiations were dead and it had to go off. Now we just get equally (ir)responsible people blaming the other guy because 'surely we would never want to do that.'
Really people, be more cynical about this. If nothing else it will show you that Washington is a comedic stage filled with actors too incompetent to even hit each other in the face with a pie. (Maybe that would help the debate; some meringue in the nostrils.)

Quick and Back to Work

Can't remember exactly when I had the idea, but within the past month I had an idea for a new story. On Wednesday I started writing it and already I have over 15,000 words, with many more to go. Shouldn't end up as long as Sci-FU, but I'm enjoying it as much I think.
Now, stepping away from that, I recently did some digging into history. Among the events I read about was the Boston Tea Party and I learned something new! Among the reasons for the party was the fact that the governors of the colonies were not being paid by the colonists. Instead their salaries came from Britain, meaning they were accountable to Britain and not the people they governed. This reminded me of something much more recent. Specifically the executive order that raised the pay of many of our politicians at the federal level: President, Vice President, Senators, and Representatives.
Now, ignoring the fact that they are getting a raise (unless they pass a bill to block it) while many, including myself, are unable to find employment, this is still very interesting because it makes you wonder who they are accountable to. I mean, we elect them, right? They are there to represent us, right? So why does the Federal Government, the entity we elect them to, deciding how much they are paid, instead of us? After all, shouldn't they be accountable to us and not the Federal Government, just like those governors should have been accountable to the colonists instead of Britain?
Just something to think about while I get back to work. Stories can't write themselves alone after all.

An Econo-political Epiphany… Or Not

No idea if "econo-political" is a word, but I don't particularly care simply because I'm not going to use it much here and I'm confident the reader (you) will understand my meaning. Now, with that said, this obviously will be a post concerning politics, so if you don't want to read it, don't. It isn't like I'll know. As it is I don't think anybody actually reads this blog, so, at best, this post is as a note to myself. In case this is read though, please understand two things: I'm not attached to this idea and my opinion may change in the future; and I'm not saying this to provoke anything but critical thought. I will also present, at the end, my own views and thoughts on the matter at hand. If any of this upsets you, deal with it. I deal with it when someone else says something that upsets me, so afford me the same courtesy.