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With that little walk down memory lane over, let us focus on the issue at hand–Web advertisement skipping technology. Essentially, it boils down to this: Web site designers depend upon advertising revenue to pay their bandwidth bills as well as to pay for the staff time that goes into making a successful site. Users do not particularly want to see advertisements, but except in a few cases where advertisements are extremely annoying, will for the most part put up with the ads in order to view the Web content that they are seeking.

There is a pretty big difference between the TV and Web site business models. A broadcast TV network, by and large, has fixed costs, no matter how many customers actually tune into the show. The same amount of electricity will flow to the TV transmitter, and the satellites above will still beam down the same number of 1s and 0s. Internet content is different, as each person’s computer makes an individual connection to the remote server hosting whatever Web content the user is seeking. Each time users visit a Web site, the server consumes bandwidth to send the content of the Web page back to the user–and that bandwidth costs money.

Thus, every time someone uses advertisement-blocking software to avoid the graphical ads embedded within a Web site, they are denying the Web site operator revenue that would otherwise have gone to pay for the bandwidth that is consumed during that browsing session.

[..]

In the end, a few things are clear: Users of advertisement-skipping technology are essentially engaged in theft of resources.

Since most web advertising is “pay per click” and not “pay per view” this is total bullshit, but I expect that a “pay per click” argument will result in this journalist telling me I am morally obliged to click on ads.

Fuck that.

Your business model is not my problem. It is my computer. It is my browser. It’s not up to you to decide how I render your content. If you don’t want me to view the content for free, then you should not place it on the web in a public location. Feel free to block me when my browser visits your site, but quit the whining.

Next up: Going to the bathroom during TV commercials is theft!

well, that’s why the commercials are louder: So you can hear them while taking a piss

Pepernoten.

Pe-

Per-

Noten.

Ik was zojuist bij mijn grootgrutter, en deze had de kruidnoot nu al in de bonus.

Terwijl mijn tabbert pas over ruim twee maanden uit de mottenbal getrokken wordt.

Stuitend.

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The over 20,000 file-sharing lawsuits that have been filed over the past few years share a single distinction: not one of them has made it to trial. The RIAA is trying to keep Virgin Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas from a jury trial, filing a motion for summary adjudication on some specific aspects of the case.

[..]

The RIAA is looking for the judge to rule favorably on three issues. First, it wants the judge to rule that the record labels own the copyrights to the songs allegedly shared by the defendant. Second, it wants the judge to agree that the copyright registrations are in order. Those two items may not appear to be that big of deal, but number three is a doozy.

The labels want the judge to rule that the defendant was not authorized to copy or distribute the songs flagged by SafeNet, the RIAA’s investigator in this case. If the judge decides those three issues in the labels’ favor, the plaintiffs believe that it “will significantly narrow” the outstanding issues and prevent the “unnecessary expense of litigating issues about which there is no dispute.”

[..]

But the documentation provided by the labels to support their claims of copyright ownership don’t quite add up. Here are a few examples cited by the defendant:

Song	Copyright holder according to the RIAA	Copyright holder according to the certificate of registration
“Appetite for Destruction”	UMG Recordings	The David Geffen Company
“The Comfort Zone”	UMG Recordings	Polygram Records
“Control”	UMG Recordings	A&M Records, Inc.
“Frontiers”	Sony BMG	CBS, Inc.
“Let it Loose”	Sony BMG	CBS, Inc.
“Get a Grip”	UMG Recordings	Geffen Records
“Hysteria”	UMG Recordings	Mercury Records
“If You See Him”	UMG Recordings	MCA Records Nashville

Thomas argues that since she lacks the financial means to conduct a thorough examination of the ownership history (e.g., track the ownership of “Hysteria” from Mercury to UMG) for the songs she is accused of infringing the copyright to, her only opportunity to determine their true ownership is either via discovery or cross-examination at trial. With the documentation provided by the labels “questionable” and “nonconclusive,” according to the defendant, her only option is to cross-examine the witnesses.

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Golb at Money, Matter, and More Musings has located the worst credit card in the world. It is designed to prey on subprime borrowers who, sadly, cannot get a better card…

Meet the Continental Finance MasterCard. After all the fees have been collected, it has a credit limit of $53. From MMMM:

• Account setup fee: $99
• Program participation fee: $89
• Annual fee: $49
• Account maintenance fee: $120 (charged @ $10/month)
• Purchase APR: 19.92%
• Authorized user fee: $30 (great! seems like $53 credit is a bit too much for a single person to handle)
• Credit limit increase fee: $25 (and you don’t even have to ask for it!)
• Internet payment fee: $4 for each authorized internet payment.

Damn. This card is shockingly awful. And to make matters worse: Golb points out that if you use this card to repair your credit history you’re stuck with it because canceling the account will shorten your credit history and drop your score. What a headache.

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Out of 173 countries, only four have no paid leave for new mothers — Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and the U.S.A.

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A former candidate for political office in Nassau County was arrested Friday and charged with criminal sexual activity.

Keith Lamar Sawyer, 44, 85064 Art Wilson Road in Yulee, was accused of seeking a sexual en-counter with an underage teenage girl. He was taken to Nassau County Jail and charged with solicitation of a minor for lewd and lascivious battery and lewd and lascivious conduct.

Sawyer, a Democrat, has unsuccessfully sought election to various county offices, including the Nassau County Ocean Highway & Port Authority in 2006 - he lost to the late Ed Gandy that November - and to the Nassau County Commis-sion in 2004 - he lost to Tom Branan that November.

According to a press release issued by the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office, an informant told police Sawyer was interested in having a sexual encounter with an underage female. The informant said that “on several occasions Sawyer had stated that he would like the informant to find a 15- or 16-year-old female to have three-way sexual intercourse with him.”

Can you be considered a politician if you’ve never won an election and even lost one a dead guy? Well, given his other behavior, I guess you can.

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The National Library of France (BnF) has an amazing collection of prints from 1910 which depict life in the year 2000. They are credited to Villemard.

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Melissa Morin loves the stage – so much so that the Merrimack High School student decided to have her senior photograph taken backstage at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.

The 17-year-old sat barefoot on a costume trunk, wore a black and white sundress and clutched a small red flower.

Morin found out the flower is destined for the cutting room floor.

That’s because Merrimack High School’s photo policy, adopted by Principal Ken Johnson last year, calls for no hats and no props.

Johnson said the rule went into effect following “some high-profile legal cases that garnered national attention.”

Well, guess what, Johnson, you’ve now got a high-profile case that garneded INTERnational attention.

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The new message came days after the world got its first current look at bin Laden in nearly three years, with the release of a video Saturday in which the terror leader addressed the American people.

Is anybody else waiting for the DVD boxed set Directors Cut edition?

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Petraeus today before Congress:

When I testified in January, for example, no one would have dared to forecast that Anbar Province would have been transformed the way it has in the past 6 months.

What Petraeus said 6 months ago at his confirmation hearing (via CQ, subscription only link):

“You’ve seen it, I know, in Anbar province, where it has sort of gone back and forth. And right now, there appears to be a trend in the positive direction where sheiks are stepping up, and they do want to be affiliated with and supported by the U.S. Marines and Army forces who are in Anbar province. That was not the case as little as perhaps six months ago, or certainly before that.”

Not an outright lie, but still he’s twisting his own words. He spun Anbar positively in January, now he’s trying to pretend like the positive developments in Anbar are some kind of huge surprise that we had no inkling of back in January. The man simply can’t keep his stories straight because he’s always spinning.

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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

5 Star General Dwight D. Eisenhower at American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

General Dwight Eisenhower in Presidential farewell address warning about  a threat facing America “new in kind or degree.” Jan. 17, 1961.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

Major General Smedley Butler, 1933. Nicknamed the “Fighting Quaker,” at the time of this speech, he was the highest decorated US Marine

Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other….

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

General George Washington, Founding Father of the United States. 1796.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

General Omar Bradly (1893-1981), General of the Army and the last surviving 5 star officer in the United States Military

The truth about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa. The problem is the opposite, we keep asking for people to intervene and stop it. And there’s no question that the presence of petroleum throughout the region has sparked our involvement.

General Wesley K. Clark, 2007. Former supreme allied commander and Presidential candidate.

Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höß, the former Commandant of Auschwitz, was devoted to his wife and children, loved animals and dreamed of farming as a livelihood. He also slept very well at night.

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How a Gay Rights Leader became straight is a column by Michael Glatze, one-time editor of Young Gay America magazine. In the column, Glatze explains how be became gay (”I was already weak”) and his eventual redemption (”Every time I was tempted to lust, I noticed it, caught it, dealt with it”). When he was still gay, Glatze seemed pretty in touch with gay youth. When interviewed for a Time cover story, he discussed gay teens’ alienation saying that today’s queer youth just want to be “normal kids.” Apparently Glatze wanted to be a normal kid, too! Gay City News had its own take on the Glatze fiasco, quoting him as suggesting America “‘examine whether homosexuality should be legal’ or if gay sex should instead be punished by ‘imprisonment.’” YGAmag responded to Glatze with an open letter.

Come on, he’s not really a ‘former homosexual’, he just changed his voter registration to Republican.

[Quote:]

Struggling to find an answer to the iPod’s dominance, Sony will begin shipping later this month its most perplexing music player to date: the Rolly.

On the surface, the 1GB Rolly with a price tag of roughly $350 seems bound for the waste bin. After all, an iPod Classic with 160-times the storage space can be had for the same price.

But the devil is in the details, or at least the pedigree, as Sony has packed robotic technologies into the Rolly. It’s not a new Aibo—Sony’s acclaimed robotic dog (which the company incidentally stopped making in early 2006 due to low sales)—but it’s close: an egg-like device with fold-out speakers that can blink lights and move to the music.

But it gets better: software allows the consumer to choreograph and program their own moves into the Rolly’s electronic brain. Maybe those lights and moves are designed to distract the end-user from buyer’s remorse.

For those wondering, the name is a result of combining the words “rolling” and “friendly”. And for those really wondering, Sony says it plans to actually ship the device outside of Japan in early 2008. We’ll see.

If Scorpio looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpio more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation. To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, color filters, and a digital image processor. To bring out detail, the above image not only involved long duration exposures taken in several colors, but one exposure in a very specific red color emitted by hydrogen that brings out great detail. The resulting image shows many breathtaking features. Vertically across the image left is part of the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Visible there are vast clouds of bright stars and long filaments of dark dust. Jutting out diagonally from the Milky Way in the image center are dark dust bands known as the Dark River. This river connects to several bright stars on the right that are part of Scorpio’s head and claws, and include the bright star Antares. Numerous red emission nebulas and blue reflection nebulas are visible throughout the image. Scorpio appears prominently in southern skies after sunset during the middle of the year.

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A French space-surveillance radar has detected 20-30 satellites in low Earth orbit that do not figure in the U.S. Defense Department’s published catalogue, a discovery that French officials say they will use to pressure U.S. authorities to stop publishing the whereabouts of French reconnaissance and military communications satellites.

After 16 months of operations of their Graves radar system, which can locate satellites in orbits up to 1,000 kilometers in altitude and even higher in certain cases, the French Defense Ministry says it has gathered just about enough information to negotiate an agreement with the United States.

[..]

“We have discussed the Graves results with our American colleagues and highlighted the discrepancies between what we have found and what is published by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network,” said one French defense official responsible for the Graves operation. “They told us, ‘If we have not published it in our catalogue, then it does not exist.’ So I guess we have been tracking objects that do not exist. I can tell you that some of these non-existent objects have solar arrays.”