Blog of a crazy man

“Imposing on innovators, such as Intel, an obligation to anticipate potential uses of their innovations, to correctly guess which uses will predominate, and then to design their technologies to prevent infringing uses (even if it were technically and practically feasible to do so) would stifle innovation and dramatically increase the cost of such technologies and of the consumer and enterprise products based on those technologies.”

Intel threw its support behind Grokster earlier this month when it submitted the “Amicus Brief” to the Court for Grokster to use in its defence.

On a side note to Intel, I’m sorry for bashing your products, but I’m still going to buy AMD wherever possible.

Link. (Thanks mtekk!)
This also might interest you.

Forget Star Wars premieres. A seat at the MGM Studios v. Grokster Supreme Court hearing Tuesday morning was the hottest ticket in town.

I wish I could have been there. Oh well, you can get a round up of what went on during the hearings today from Wired News as well as an article about the people who waited in line.

Link to summary article.
Link to article about those who waited.

I’m 17!

In other news the Grokster case Supreme Court hearings start today.

Today is the last day to claim free iTunes downloads.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been doing daily updates to a list of devices that will become illegal if things go bad MGM v. Grokster. The Grokster case, which will begin Supreme Court hearings on March 29th, is essentially a test of the 1984 Betamax rulling. The Betamax rulling decided that copying technologies could not be considered illegal (as being able to encourage copyright infringement) as long as they had substantial non-infringing uses. If MGM wins this lawsuit, the Betamax case will be null and void. The list posted by the EFF is an effort to raise awareness about just what can be effected by this case.

Link.

Sen. Orin Hatch, the man we all love to hate, is in the news again. This time he’s been appointed as the head of a senate committee on Intellectual Property.

The man who recommended that the music industry be allowed to remotely destroy the computers of those who share files online, the man who tried to pass a law that would make even the iPod illegal, that man is being appointed as head of a committee on Intellectual Property! This will not bring anything good.

Link

Here’s my essay on the Guilded Age that I wrote for my US History course:

The captains of industry were men who managed to become successful at business. These men worked hard to earn their positions as leaders in their industry, but most used business practices which were less than admirable, especially for anybody wanting to be worthy of the title “captain.” These men were robber barons.

Of course, not all business men were evil. H. J. Heinz was an example of a fine, upstanding business man who attempted to both provide his customers with pure food, and provide his employees with healthy work environments. His motto was, “To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.” This is one of the most admirable business practices that a company can strive to maintain. No matter how you attempt to view Heinz he stands out as one of the best examples of a captain of industry, but unfortunately, he was one of only a few.

A look past Heinz will immediately draw one’s attention to Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt started in business by beginning a ferry company. His cutthroat competition gave him almost complete control of New York’s waterways, but the Civil War made running ferries a risky business, so he moved into railroads. He began buying out railroads in New York, which isn’t a bad practice, but his takeover of New York’s Central Railroad shows that Vanderbilt was wasn’t fond of friendly buy outs. Unable to convince Central to sell, Vanderbilt stopped all traffic on his rail lines, which supplied to Central’s lines, effectively boxing them in and forcing the company into such a desperate financial situation that Central’s stock holders had no choice but to sell. This type of business practice was typical of Vanderbilt and many of the other “captains of industry.”

One such “captain of industry,” Andrew Carnegie, must be mentioned here because of the simple fact that he is usually pointed to as one of the admirable business men of this time period. Advocates of this view point to the fact that Carnegie was fond of giving his money to charitable organizations, particularly those of an educational nature. While it is true that Carnegie gave his money for good causes, he cannot be excused from the fact that he gained his money through monopolistic practices. His use of vertical integration (controlling a portion of each part of an industry), advocation of Social Darwinism (which used “survival of the fittest” as justification for undesirable business practices), and then eventually selling his company to J. P. Morgan (who was known for creating monopolies and destroying competition) all indicate that this “admirable business man” was just a robber in captain’s clothing.

These three men show the main divisions of business men at this time: true captain of industry, robber baron, and robber in captain’s clothing. Unfortunately, most business men fell into the last two categories. This age stands out as a warning to us today about business and the evils that an overwhelming desire for money and a denial of Biblical principles can bring.

I had a discussion with one of my teachers about freedom of speech and censorship. This discussion, of course, being started because of my post about Howard Stern. So, I’m going to make a longer post about censorship, without cussing.

The question we were discussing was whether or not the government had the right to censor what is published. To make clear, there are two types of censorship, personal and governmental. Personal censorship can be defined as someone either censoring what he says, or what he reads, watches, et cetera. I have nothing against personal censorship. I believe that this type of censorship should be protected.

Governmental censorship, on the other hand, can be defined as the government telling a person what he can or cannot say, read, watch, et cetera. This type of censorship is not only Constitutionally wrong, but detrimental to all of society. The obvious Constitutional wrong is the violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Governmental Censorship is in violation of this because they tell you what you can or cannot say, and regulated speech isn’t free speech. Its detrimental to society because it removes the possiblity for scrutinizing the government or other organization and causing mankind to be slaves to what they are told.

Of course, my teacher brought up the point, “If somebody yells, ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater, doesn’t that fall in under the category of free speech?” Well, no. By yelling fire the person endangers the lives of the theater goers as a result of the following panic, and the right to life comes well above the right to free speech. But an even stronger argument, though less general, is the fact that the theater is owned by someone else who sets the rules over his property, that’s personal censorship. The man doesn’t have the right because he chose to be in a building that has voluntary censorship placed on it.

From here the discussion led into the question of whether or not the government has the right to regulate morals. The answer, no. As a Christian, morals are absolute, but logically, its completely up to the individual. I can say that adultry is wrong, but I can’t prove it. If I can’t prove it, I can’t expect the government to regulate it. I do expect the government, on the other hand, to protect the existence of humanity. This, after all, is the only logical purpose of the government. I can’t prove that adultry is detrimental to humanity, so the government shouldn’t regulate it. I can prove that murder is detrimental to humanity, so I expect the government to regulate it. I can prove that abortion is detrimental to humanity, so I expect the government to regulate it. I can prove that government censorship is bad for humanity, so I expect the government to not regulate speech. I can prove that personal censorship is good for humanity, so I expect the government to protect it.

Feel free to ask me to prove anything I mentioned. Any other comments welcome, as always.

I finally remembered what it was that I was going to say, and it only took two days. I used OpenOffice.org and Silkscreen font to make a page that contains 324 instances of “jmweirick.com” on it. I printed it up and started puting the little pieces of paper all around my school. I stopped putting them everywhere when I got scared that my teachers might not like it. Especially considering that one of them threatened detention after finding “jmweirick.com” written on one of her tables, but it actually wasn’t me who wrote it. So, if any of you are visiting because of these events, welcome and be sure to say “hi.”