Blackmoor Vituperative

This summer we saw the dangers of DRM on ebook readers, when Amazon deleted hundreds of copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from readers’ computers while they slept. Applying this control to a general purpose computer marketed especially for media distribution is a huge step backward for computing, and a blow to the media revolution that happened when the web let bloggers reach millions without asking for permission.

DRM and forced updates will give Apple and their corporate partners the power to disable features, restrict competition, censor news, and even delete books, videos, or news stories from users’ computers while they sleep– using the device’s “always on” network connection.

Apple can say they will not abuse this power, but their record of App Store rejections gives us no reason to trust them. The Apple Tablet’s unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing and for media distribution; we demand that Apple remove DRM from the device.

(from Defective By Design)

Oracle announced Wednesday it completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in a deal valued at more than $7 billion, a move that transforms the database and business-software giant into a hardware company as well.

(from Oracle buys Sun, becomes hardware company, CNet)

As reported in It was no joke at security gate, passenger Rebecca Solomon had a terrifying 20 seconds while passing through airport security:

After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

Of course, the bag was not hers, and neither was the white powder. She had never seen it before, and the TSA screener knew it:

Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn’t.

Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.

Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.

It really does not get much worse than this for the image of a government agency whose image was already among the worst in the country.

(from Are TSA policies a bad joke?, TechRepublic)

It is time to abolish the TSA. Well past time, in fact.

In case I was wondering if my decision to get out of IT (eventually) was just an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato… the fine folks at TechRepublic and ZDNet have put my mind at ease. The era of independent IT consulting is, indeed, over.

Even as little as five years ago, an IT consultant was an outside expert called in to solve problems, or to create value for a business who wanted to find an edge over the competition. As the holder of knowledge and skills few others possessed, we were respected, and clients listened.

This is no longer true. IT has become a commodity: widely available, aggressively priced, and valued as much as a business values its janitorial staff or the company that handles its payroll. IT is simply another necessary cost which provides no significant business benefit other than to keep the status quo in place.

A good friend of mine, who provides technology policy advice to the state of Virginia, put it this way: when there is a job that your business needs done in a way that no one else is doing, you want to hire the best you can find and make sure you keep them. When that job is something every business needs to have done, in pretty much the same way, it makes sense to outsource it at the lowest cost possible. IT is just overhead, like janitorial service, or building maintenance, and it is put in the same category in the business’ ledger.

There is nothing here to “ride out”. IT has become a commodity, as valuable and respected and as easily replaced as light bulbs and batteries. We had a good run while it lasted, but technology and society have moved on. One might as well try to open a boutique that sells paper towels.

While you’re at it, if you’re trying to run the most failed presidency ever, a really good idea is to campaign in the grandest terms possible, and then deliver squat. You know, talk about bending the arc of history. Invoke Martin Luther King’s dream and his struggles and even those of the slaves. Ring the big bells of generational calling. Remind voters every thirty seconds that the country badly needs “Change!”. Then get elected and turn around and continue the policies of your hated predecessor in every meaningful policy area. Only with less conviction. People will love that.

(from How to Squander the Presidency in One Year, Common Dreams)

Dear Congress:

A few weeks ago, the Bakersfield, CA airport was closed because TSA agents became hysterical at the site of honey in a bottle. Just recently, a New York-to-Kentucky flight was diverted to Philadelphia because a Jewish passenger started to pray. Simply getting on an airplane has become a dehumanizing and all-too-often humiliating experience — and it serves no useful purpose.

This is ridiculous. None of this makes us safer. All it does is make airplane travel more tedious, more expensive — and more unlikely, if the traveler has any choice in the matter.

One or two well-publicized incidents do not change the fact that air travel is far, far, far safer than driving. More people die in car crashes in one month than have died in airplane crashes in the past decade (including the ones on September 11, 2001).

Please abolish the TSA, stop the wild-eyed fearmongering, and allow us to go back to traveling the “friendly skies”.

Kind regards,
An American Traveler

You need to listen to this, all the way to the end. This is more than a bit of audiophile trivia. It is a compelling statement on our cultural future if we do not take action — decisive, sweeping action — to break the stranglehold with which the media robber barons and the Digital Rights Mafia have gripped our cultural heritage.

Gamers, let’s band together and see how much we can raise to help the people of Haiti.

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A listing of the free products available with this coupon can be found on our Gamers Help Haiti page.

(from Drive-Thru RPG)

Dixie Sommers, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recites a list of the 10 occupations that the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade. The bad news? Six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs.

Not great news for me. IT has become a commodity for businesses, much like janitorial service or payroll — a necessary expense, and one which a great many people are willing to provide, aggressively competing on price in the process. The days when legions of businesses were scrambling to hire the best and brightest IT people for a competitive advantage are over. We have become temps.

There is no sense in gnashing our teeth, tearing our clothes, and bemoaning a changing society. As with buggy whips and “copyright”, the days of earning a lot of money just by goofing around with computers is gone — whether or not people want to admit it.

So, what to do? Change fields entirely? I have not the stomach for the health care industry, so that’s right out. Switch from Computer Science to Accounting, perhaps?

Or perhaps find a niche that will allow me to struggle on, perhaps not quite as comfortably, but still in the field that I love. Perhaps I should strive to break into auditing, and work toward a CISA certification.

I am not certain. What I do know is that I will not be able to continue on the path I am on. It was paradise while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever.

The journalists in Mindanao are asking the authorities to allow them to carry firearms for self-protection.

After learning a bitter lesson from the tragedy of the Maguindanao massacre on November 23 where 57 people were murdered in cold blood at the Ampatuan town, 31 of whom were members of the media, “the advocacy for arming of reporters by many members of the Fourth Estate in the South has intensified,” according to a high official of a media organization on Tuesday.

John Felix Unson, chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) for Central Mindanao, said “there has been a long record of killings of reporters in provinces and cities around Maguindanao.”

Unson who writes for Philippine Star was himself ambushed in Cotabato City by unidentified armed men on May 28, 1999. He had his caliber .357 mm [sic] revolver with him at the time and was able to return fire. The armed men retreated. Not a single bullet they fired hit the journalist.

[…]

“The best way for us to protect ourselves is to arm ourselves because neither the police nor the military can give us protection on a 24-hour, round-the-clock basis,” said Macabalang, now executive director of the Bureau of Public Information in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

(from Mindanao journalists want to carry guns, The Manila Times)

I hear you, Macabalang. I hear you.