Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Possibly the best headline of the RIAA fiasco comes today: Music industry delighted with $2000 victory over 12-year-old. This comes at the same time as the RIAA offers an "amnesty", where you sign a legal document saying you've broken the law and you're very sorry. In exchange for this, the RIAA won't sue you. The record companies themselves might, though, especially if they get wind of the fact that the RIAA has been collecting signed confessions -- what are the chances of that? Oh, and in case you were still in the habit of thinking P2P was in some way anything less than Satan's own software, the RIAA now points out you can use it to transfer kiddy porn.
The other members of the current Intellectual Property Axis Of Evil have also been busy, with SCO issuing open letters to the open-source community telling them off for being so evil and blaming them for denial of service attacks -- but doubtless the "open letter" is thoroughly copyrighted, and if you include any portion of it in future communications you'll have to pay a $50,000 licence fee. And Microsoft has settled an anti-trust lawsuit that Be, Inc brought, paying nearly $30m but -- of course -- admitting no fault.
Increasingly, it feels as if these people are gradually detaching themselves from our universe and moving into a parallel existence where the rules connecting truth and logic are subtly different. Perhaps if we can provoke even more corporate stupidity, the density of madness will become great enough that the whole lot will collapse in on itself and everyone involved will pinch off and become a self-contained continuum of their own, unable to communicate with the rest of existence.
We should try the experiment. It's risky, but imagine if it works…
Blaine's Diary, Day 6
Tie tube B to tube A and bypass self altogether. Haven't eaten for nearly a week: smell from hot dog van under box almost palatable -- am fearing for sanity.