28 de mar. de 2007

Evolução

Tem algumas pessoas que simplesmente são geniais, não é mesmo? Olha só a pérola que eu encontrei no youtube:

evilc27(2 hours ago)
The fact that we are born babies and evolve into people is evidence enough to dispel the myth of evolution. If we were born monkeys, then there would be billions of monkeys in the world as there are billions of people. This does not equate. People have called me stupid for expressing my facts, but I am far from stupid. I took an IQ test at my church school, and I scored 95. You cannot get more than 100% and so I am in the top 5% of the smartest people in the world. chew on that disbelievers.

20 de mar. de 2007

On Piracy

Eu estava lendo um artigo sobre não existir nada na lei americana que proíba ele de baixar qualquer coisa da net, o que deixaria a pirataria legalizada. Eu comecei a escrever um comentário, que acabou se transformando num monstro de mais de dois parágrafos. Aqui vai ele, e sim está em inglês, pq eu estava pensando em inglês:

I am not a lawyer, and will speak in very layman terms, because that is the extent of my knowledge. It goes something like this:
Pirated items, music, games, etc, are items that were obtained without the permission of the owner of the item. So, if you buy a CD, you are entitled to listen to it, and make a backup copy for your safety. But, if you put the CD on the internet, and someone downloads it, that person was not entitled to listen to that music.
But things are not so clear in some cases. I could lend the CD I legally bought to a friend of mine, so this person would listen to the CD without buying it. And this is where things gets messy: because it is almost impossible to prove that you have a pirated item.
I think that what we need here is more a change of mindset, both from consumers and providers, than a change in the law. We need to change our model: we would pay the artist, not because it is the only way to get the content, but because we want to thank him for the content he provided. On the other hand, the distributors must learn that piracy works because it is a *lot* more efficient than the normal means: piracy doesn't require activation, registration, forms, double-checks. Piracy doesn't have DRMs, serial numbers, pass-codes, or any other nuissance. So the only way to beat piracy is the oldest solution that you have in any other business: be better. Be more efficient and treat the customers better than pirate stores and you will beat the pirates. And look, I am not saying you have to be cheaper than the pirated items, I said better. Like and old friend of mine says: "If you book them, they'll come". It's the same thing here, if the distributors and providers treat well and with respect their customers, the customers won't have any reason to pirate.
Ok, this has turned out to be a monster comment, but I got inspired, and this is a very important topic to me.

Frank

7 de mar. de 2007

Sinais

Eu sei, eu sei, estou devendo uma descrição detalhada da minha viaem à terra do sol nascente, e tudo mais, no entanto não tenho me encontrado num writing mood ultimamente, então quando eu tiver /tempo/vontade/etc eu escrevo algo mais completo. Por enquanto, eu achei que seria interessante olhar algumas coisas pitorescas daqui:


Foi realmente engraçado quando encontrei isso na rua. Eu sempre soube da história das duas suasticas, mas nunca tinha visto de perto. Lembrem-se é a original, gira no sentido anti-horário e não tá inclinada.

Para que escolher um sabor, se você pode ter tudo, num só?

Alguém precisa de um refil de bíblia? :P


Os japoneses tão recatados, no entando um serviço de BLOW custa apenas 2625 ienes, não tem como sair triste do cabeleireiro...

Bem, por enquanto é só. More as it develops.