Tagged as: Entertainment, Humor, Life, Money, Rant, Read-It, Ridiculous, Tip-For-Life
May
14
In an article at Yahoo! about cracking down on college music pirates, I read about one Sarah Barg, a sophomore from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It portrayed her as a girl who was just taking part in what everyone else was doing. The article wanted to put her in the role of one who is definitely not the worst (I mean she only downloaded 381 songs when others were downloading thousands!). In response to it all, Barg says
Obviously I knew it was illegal, but no one got in trouble for it
Now, I know that all higher education is not equal. And I know that maybe not all of them are as good as the University of California, San Diego, but that does not allow for such ridiculous thoughts. I think that ignorance is not a good excuse for doing wrong. The onus is on you to do what’s right. However, I think that actually knowing that something is wrong and yet still doing it speaks of some darker black.
In any case, I don’t think that it’s a matter of intelligence. I think it’s a sign of the times.
Piracy does not just affect music as I wrote in Even Worse Than At First Glance, Cheain’ Chinese, and (in regards to cheating in general) Cheaters 4 Life. Wow I did not realize that I had so many entries devoted to ranting about cheaters! But I digress.
Reasons why you shouldn’t be a (music) pirate:
- You can afford the music (or whatever it is that you’re pirating).
- If you can’t afford it, you don’t need it.
- If you really can’t afford it, you have things that you should be doing other than listening to music anyways.
- You can support and encourage the artists that you like to keep making music. It’s kind of like writing a blog and getting encouraged by people leaving comments. Except for them it’s people giving them money. I’m applying my energy to the wrong thing.
- You know it’s morally wrong.
- It’s actually against the law.
Now I admit that I’m not perfect, but I would like to think that once I knew the truth then I would change my behavior to match what I know. Not everyone is like this. But they should be. It just makes sense to have your behavior in line with your opinions, does it not? Don’t be the person who gets laughed at for coming off as stupid. Nobody wants 15 minutes of infamy.
Tagged as: Geek, Learn, Life, Programming, Rant, Read-It, Ridiculous, Tip-For-Life
May
01
Maybe as a result of being out of school, I feel like I am somewhat out of the loop on the latest happenings. When I was in school, Xanga was something that I knew about even before it got big. Likewise with Facebook and so on. However, I feel as if I’ve been a little bit late learning about Twitter.
For those in the know, you can probably skip this paragraph. Basically Twitter is a new service that is meant for people to basically say what they are doing at a precise moment: now. Whatever you are doing, Twitter is a way by which you can let others know what it is that you are doing. You can do this via cellular phone (by way of text message), instant messenger, or on their website.
That’s all there is to it. Pretty simple right? Well I think that it’s dumb.
There is lots to be said for what a marvelous job they have done using Ruby on Rails as the platform on which they developed their service. I mean just imagine having to deal with possibly thousands and thousands of tiny connections every second. The effort put into the software engineering is impressive to say the least.
However, I think that the service is fairly horrendous in terms of what it means for people. There are some people out there who really do enjoy knowing about what all of their friends (and strangers for that matter) are doing every second of every day. But I think that this is just a Litmus Test for society as a whole. In a society of cellular phones, Blackberrys, and the like, we are forever on the go and busy.
I think that people need to take a step back and realize that it is so ridiculous to have all of these contraptions. Sure I have a great admiration for the engineering and development that all of these products represent. I even have a respect for the situations when they are actually necessary. But in terms of actual worth for the great herd we call “the public”, I think they are fairly detrimental to the well-being of people. Do you think that the people in the United States of America are any happier with their gadgets than tribesmen in some far off corner of the earth? Well they might think so, but who’s to say?
Even more than happiness, I say that all of these things are making us constantly bored. How can that be? In so being always prone to want to fill the time with checking e-mail or answering the phone, we have become people that always need to do something. And when we don’t have something to do, we are bored.
There are more important things, and I think that we all know this deep within. Have you ever thought that spending time with those around you is more important than answering your cellular phone right away? As I once heard
That’s why voicemail was invented.
E-mail is convenient and easy, but a letter is still desirable because of the fact that it takes time and energy to write one. Think about these things the next time it comes up in your life. I try to do so in mine. I won’t interrupt a conversation just to answer the phone, and I know that there is a time and a place for when e-mail is appropriate.
Twitter is a cool product/service, but I for one think that it’s continuing in the grand tradition of leading humans down the wrong road. It’s making us bored as we’re waiting for another instant Twitter update. It makes us want to sit in front of the computer or stare at our cellular phone even more. It is making people more connected to their devices and less connected to other people in a real, tangible manner. Basically, Twitter is dumb.
Tagged as: Amusing, Geek, Gross, Humor, Outrageous, Pictures, Read-It, Ridiculous
Apr
30
I saw this post on Engadget, and I thought it suitably disturbing to write a post about it.
Check out the original article that Engadget is just reposting over here at Instructables.com (which is a super site with lots of things for those of the DIY variety). There is an instruction video that will let you perform the same modification. However, I think that more people will just be interested in seeing what I’m talking about. So without further ado, here are some pictures!
A glimpse of the parts beforehand. That’s nasty.
Here is the finished product after inserting the (computer) mouse into the (real) mouse. Oh yum.
And here it is being used by someone’s hand. Who knows who that is. All I know is that I don’t want that to be my hand. And I don’t want to shake their hand either.
So there have some of the interesting pictures that I saw over at Instructables. That is disgusting, but I think that is still fairly cool. Why is that cool? Well just imagine how much more disgusted everyone else would be if they saw you use it. I could see how this could be the source of many many practical jokes. Find it gross, find it humorous, or find it useful. Whatever the case, it has to evoke some feelings in you.
Tagged as: Life, Outrageous, Read-It, Ridiculous, The-News
Apr
25
Do you like car salesmen? I don’t.
They’re pushy, they’re slightly overbearing, and they only want to be your friends to make money off of you.
Case in point:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tagged as: Amazing, Gross, Outrageous, Read-It, Ridiculous, Social-Bookmarking, The-News
Apr
24
People are ridiculous. It’s amazing. I don’t even need to cut this entry short because I am speechless at such an act. Imagine yourself out eating dinner at a nice place. Then a man runs in. And then that man proceeds to storm a kitchen, grab a knife, and cut himself. Even more shockingly, he cuts off his own penis. Are you kidding me?!
If you’d like, you can read the original article. Seen on Digg.