Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Copyright is bad for western economy

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

I was planning to write a long article about how enforcing copyright was generally bad for the economy of the “developed world” because in the end, all it did was give an advantage to countries who didn’t give a fuck. Thus while we spend all our resources at making it harder to consume and copy entertainment, countries like China and India would instead be making a profit from selling entertainment to it’s own people and back to us.

Cory Doctorow beat me to it, while his article isn’t exactly what I was going to write, he gets my point across quite well.

Link

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Globalisation is Good

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

I like this documentary about globalisation. I agree with many of the points in the video and disagree with others. Going to have to watch it again to be more specific. Here’s the link for now.

Globalisation is Good

Kommunismens brott

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

En undersökning har nyligen gjorts som visar att dagens ungdom har ingen aning om vad de förespråkar när de går runt med röda sovjett-flaggor och prisar farbror Lenin.
Detta är inget nytt för mig, eller de flesta andra Ryssar som har en intim koppling till ordet kommunism. För dem betyder ordet förtryck, fattigdom, rädsla.

Idag, den 9:e maj är en dag av sorg för de länder i östeuropa som hade oturen att bli “befriade” av sovjett och inte exempelvis Frankrike eller Storbritannien. En ny lång period av förtryck påbörjades.

Det sägs att över 100 miljoner människor blev kommunismens offer. Inte ens andra världskriget lyckades komma ikapp den siffran.

Enligt undersökningen känner 95 procent av de tillfrågade vad Auschwitz är, medan 90 procent känner inte till Gulag.

Jag minns när jag själv gick i svenskt gymnasium, fick en man som hade varit fånge på Auschwitz komma och berätta om sina erfarenheter och göra reklam för sin bok. Det var hemskt, det som hände honom; och det som hände judarna är hemskt. Det som var konstigt dock är att ingen person från forna sovjett eller någon annan kommunistisk diktatur dök upp för att berätta om de hemskheter som pågick bakom järnridån. Inte heller stod något om det i de svenska historieböckerna.

6 miljoner verkar vara viktigare än 100 miljoner. Jag mår illa när jag läser sånt. Skäms, sverige! Länk

Det finns dock lite positivt på gång i området också. Länk

English summary here.

Russian Fools.

Saturday, May 5th, 2007

It is only a matter of time before grandpa Lenin and uncle Stalin return from the grave to take back that which was taken from them in 1991.

It is funny how after the fall of communism in Russia, streets named after soviet “heroes” were renamed and statues of all those old soviet asses were either destroyed or relocated to museums or dumps. Yet now that Estonia decides to move an old soviet war statue to a more appropriate place (a war memorial), it has suddenly become a fascist country. Where were those “kremlin-loaylists” when Lenin’s statue was toppled in the heart of Moscow?

While the statue may symbolise soviet soldier’s sacrifice to some, to others it means years of painful occupation. Occupation by a country that in my opinion committed the worst kind of crime. That of valuing the lives of it’s people less then the air they breathe. Even today this goes on.

Link

Then some good news.

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Democracy vs Despotism

Wednesday, September 21st, 2005

This is a lovely movie from 1946 from Encyclopedia Britannica about how to place your community on a Democracy vs Despotism scale. The link to the archive.org is here, however I could not get it to play in Quicktime (its an mp4 movie… fucking Apple is starting to bug me). Instead I had to use the all known and hated RealOnePlayer, which worked just fine.

Use this link to play the movie outside the browser:

rtsp://ia300131.us.archive.org:554/0/items/Despotis1946/Despotis1946_256kb.mp4

The flip-flop

Monday, October 11th, 2004

http://www.seanbonner.com/flipflop/

I love the Disclaimer at the end… It feels so true.

Let’s play TAG with Mr Government

Wednesday, July 14th, 2004

The alarm clock rings, and we hit the snooze button yet again…

CNETAsia
Japan: Schoolkids to be tagged with RFID chips

Japanese authorities decide tracking is best way to protect kids

The rights and wrongs of RFID-chipping human beings have been debated since the tracking tags reached the technological mainstream. Now, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school.

Joi Ito, the tin foil hat guy, does not like this idea. ;)
In general, I agree with him, however own views on surveillance and all this RFID tagging are still very much in limbo. While I fear the idea of being tagged, and followed by the government, I also feel safer on the subway knowing or at least hoping that they have cameras watching (says so on the doors). This is especially true as I am sitting programming on my very expensive laptop at 10pm in a 30% full subway car.

I guess the question is, how can this stuff be misused?
I have seen the movie Enemy of the State a few times, if you have not, you should. It shows how this technology can be misused. The movie is about an innocent guy that gets framed and the enemy (NSA) seriously fucks up his life with satellites and bugs and trackers. A worst case scenario to be sure, but it does raise a few questions and feeds the imagination.

Seriously though, what’s the real problem?
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Back from the dead

Thursday, December 18th, 2003

sleep_on_plane.jpg
Well I am not really completely back from the dead. I still feel like I just returned yesterday. Maybe I should take the time to unpack my bag, that might kinda solidify my return and remove this veil of zombiehood.

Watch me, once I have finished this I shall indeed take the 3 minutes it would take, and unpack my bag.
Anyway it feels good to be home. Temperatures around freezing point are not nice, but its not too bad in general.

I liked Miami, the weather was nice, the people were nice, the availability of stuff to buy was great. I guess most of those points apply to the entire USA.

I just got this thought. I shall type.
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