DRM: Help! Amazon is robbing my home!

Well, not my home, but, effectively, that of certain people. Let me explain.

If you're at all into the e-reader scene you would have to hiding under a rock not to know about Amazon's Kindle. Originally hailed as a wondrous device and essentially the herald of the true future e-reader, opinions of the new version have done somewhat of a 180. With the company's remote access to the new Kindle, opinions are now more of the mind that the Kindle is the harbinger of true corporate invasiveness. On the chance that you've not heard, while the Kindle allows very convenient access to Amazon's online store from anywhere in the region (U.S. atm), it also allows the company to access your Kindle. And disable it, should they feel the desire. And, apparently, that desire can grow from something as relatively innocuous as returning too many items. Once disabled, you lose access to everything stored on the kindle.

Now, music and movie companies have, for almost a decade now, been trying to convince us that copying a DVD or CD or recording a movie is like stealing it from the store. And the courts agree, which is why movie and music 'piracy' is now illegal in most of the developed world. However, Big Business is trying to eat their cake and sell it too. Somehow, they believe that by selling a product they gain the complete rights over how and when it is used. WRONG. Once we buy the product, it's OURS to do with (legally) as we'd like. If we want to take it apart, that's fine. If we want to sit it on the shelf and admire it, that's fine. If we want to use it constantly, while returning other items that we don't deem to be to our standards, they may not like it, but tough, that's still fine. In parallel with the DVD/CD copying analogy, we have the idea that e-books are still books and still subject to the same rules--be that copyright or ownership. If I buy a book in a store and take it home and put in on my shelf, I don't expect the bookstore to come by a few days later and remove it from my shelf. If they do, I'll call the police. Likewise, if Amazon feels the need to inactivate a legally purchased Kindle, thus preventing access to legally purchased e-books, they have essentially come into the book owner's house and robbed them. And Amazon should be taken to court for every time it happens.

It's time to make big business realize that the street runs both directions.

Aren't hospitals insane?

Does anyone else think the idea of hospitals is criminally insane?

I mean, you bring all the sick people from the surrounding area, all those carrying the worst contagious diseases, and you concentrate them in the same building. You ensure the building is cleaned well to kill all competing microbes so that only the strong pathogens are present. Then you have healthy staff and family visit so they can catch the illnesses and transmit them to the healthy population. It's no wonder we have superbugs evolving in such an environment.

How has such a psychotic system managed to survive until now?

Job Security

I've just realized that, with the world financial crisis and increasing redundancy to machines (let's face it, most jobs could be done faster, cheaper and more reliably by machines) the only place with job security for the average person is as a civil servant (until they take over completely, machines will never encroach on government). Here in England, even as jobs in other sectors are either getting slashed, or getting their pay slashed, the government keeps expanding. The newest fear-created department: National Health Service Department of Flu Resilience. Yeah, whatever.

Disease double standard?

I'm just curious why, when the bird flu arose in China the world was on high alert and we were warned against travel and to be careful, and the media watched it's progress like a hawk--even though it took months to move from China to the rest of the world. Instead, Swine flu arises, quickly kills 50 people in Mexico, within days it's across the Atlantic...and yet the media tells us that we shouldn't worry this time. Am I the only one confused? I can't help but see a strong double standard or the hand of propaganda at work through the WHO. A disease comes from the west and it's 'let's wait and see, it's probably not that bad' but a disease comes from the east and it's 'we're all probably going to die if we're not super careful and cut all ties to the country of origin'. Come on! These are peoples lives! More common sense and less politics please.

Tenuous Freedoms

The G20 summit in London has been over for a while now but questions into the actions of the police are still arising. It seems this is becoming common after such meetings (as, of course, are the protests). One comment made was that the police must remember they are servants of the public, not masters. Incidentally, the same should be true of politicians. It seems to me that comment precisely encapsulates the problem. More and more, especially since 9/11, the authorities seem to feel they are our masters and we, the helpless, ignorant children. Furthermore, it has surely become obvious over the last 8 years is that, despite all the protections built into our constitutions and political systems, any freedoms we possess are still at the whim of the powerful and we could lose them at any time. This should be a wake-up call to all but the most willfully ignorant.

Early Fandom

It occurred to me recently that religion is the first example of fandom. Many people are religious and/or defend their religion on the basis of the great story it tells. Many children are introduced to religion through the stories: 'baby Jesus' at Christmas comes readily to mind. To me, this is nothing other than an example of fandom. It's literally no different than believing Atlantis is real because Plato wrote about it thousands of years ago. Or that Middle Earth is real because of the richly detailed background of the story. I'm convinced that if Lord of the Rings had been written two thousand years ago it would now be the basis of a religion.

Israel-Palestine Conflict: a fractal pattern

I has recently occurred to me that the Israel-Palestine conflict seems to be a fractal pattern of conflict. By this I mean that the conflict is present, and essentially similar in concept, at all levels from global to personal. This is typically unlike most conflicts, which will often vary greatly when viewed at the international level as compared to the interpersonal level.

As an example, the Iraq war (or Vietnam, or many other recent wars). Internationally, the US government went to war against Iraq and thus the two countries were in conflict. Yet if this was extended down to the level of states or further to individual people, say an American and an Iraqi meeting in the street in New York, or Kansas, or L.A. there would likely be no conflict or even thought of conflict.

Yet in the situation of Israel and Palestine, essentially the same conflict can be found to exist at all levels. First, internationally: Israel is surrounded by Arabic nations who generally desire Israel's demise (one might also extend this one level outward and suggest that the Arabic nations are, in some way, surrounded by Christians--the allies of the Jewish in this conflict) just as Israel surrounds the Palestinian territories and in many cases, let's be honest here, longs for the demise of Palestine. So the international situation mimics the national situation. Furthermore, on a personal level there is often great distrust between Israeli and Palestinian (is there any surprise why?) even when the most liberal of each side are involved. When those less liberal in their thinking are involved there is obviously open conflict.

So we see the fractal pattern of conflict: the large scale (international), the mid-scale (national) and the small scale (personal) all mimicking each other. This is undoubtedly reminiscent, in some ways, of certain other wars such as WWII, where the animosity existed at all levels (although the proximity component was often missing).

Perhaps this fractal analysis of conflict is a new method of thinking about the 'power' of the conflict, and the degree of effort that will be needed to resolve it. Were I an historian, I might go about applying the principles to other conflicts to see if there might truly be a general utility. In the meantime, however, I think it seems valid for use here. WWII , for example, essentially required the complete elimination of the opposing forces and the total destruction of several cities (both by conventional and nuclear forces). In analogy, I'm suggesting that the view of the Israel-Palestine conflict taken by the West is overly simplistic in its scope and therefore we can't help but attempt to enforce overly simplistic 'solutions'. We are mislead by apparent scale: 'two tiny states far away fighting it out'. One can't help but realize, however, that this is a conflict that has shaped much of modern history (and, in many ways, ancient history also). The Fractal analysis also supports what should be obvious to anyone who has truly looked at the conflict: that it is very deep seeded. There is no way that such a conflict will be resolved with band-aid measures. However it is finally resolved, via bloodbath or miraculous peaceful discourse (and that would make it the first conflict of such seriousness ever to be solved by talking) it will require an immense effort not just on the part of Israel and Palestine, but also by the West.