Mentat's Blog

Why is it not okay? When it’s not Illegal to do.

it’s only Illegal to take something that you reverse engineer… put some of that whatever.. into your own product and sell it.

To reverse engineer it is legal.. why is it such a bad couple of words?

This article came from techrepublic.

it amused me so much that I’m copying and pasting it here

Here is the link

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=5136#comments

Growing up with two older half brothers I believe that I had a definite advantage over other kids. One of my half brothers was still living at home during my formative years, and he was a perfect example of how to screw up in every imaginable way.

For instance, I learned at an early age that babysitting a younger sibling doesn’t mean borrowing your friend’s handcuffs, handcuffing the younger sibling’s left wrist and right ankle, turning the television on, and going out to play with your friends. Not only did I figure out this was a good way to get grounded until you’re 26, but I also discovered that mom knew where to find the bolt cutters and the replacement value of handcuffs.

When I became a father, I looked for a role model who could serve me as well as my half brother. I spoke with friends, I read, and I watched television, all in an attempt to find a father figure that I could use as a role model. After much searching it finally struck me that, with an upbringing like mine, Darth Vader is the perfect father role model. (Photo of Darth Vader’s armor courtesy of Thais M.)

You probably think that I’ve lost it, but give me a chance to explain. Yeah, Darth Vader has a borderline personality disorder according to French researchers, but considering that I was looking for examples of what I should and should not do, Darth Vader fits the bill. Think about it — Darth Vader provides a wealth of examples of what not to do when you’re a father.

For starters, Darth Vader wasn’t around for Luke or Leia; in fact, he didn’t acknowledge either child. Darth Vader never changed a diaper, never clean up kids’ messes, and never read Harold and the Purple Crayon to his children. I’m also willing to bet that there wasn’t even an order for support. This proves two things: He was truly evil and that the Empire doesn’t watch Judge Judy.

In addition, Darth Vader imprisoned Leia in the original Death Star. She was only released through the actions of her brother, Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO. Later, Darth Vader even went so far as to have Lea’s boyfriend, Han Solo, frozen in carbonite! Now that I think about it, maybe that isn’t a bad idea for dealing with my daughter’s boyfriends.

And, of course, Darth Vader tried to kill Luke; he actually shot at Luke in Star Wars: A New Hope. How low can a man sink? Whenever I play the Star Wars games with my children, I don’t shoot at them, especially since they learned how to deflect the shots back at me using their lightsabers. Ouch!

In the end, Darth Vader recognizes the importance of family. He even goes so far as to quit his job by throwing his boss down a cooling shaft just so he can spend a little quality time with Luke. Unfortunately, it’s only about five minutes of quality time.

In the end, I feel that Darth Vader can serve as an example to fathers everywhere of what not to do. Do you agree? If not, who are your parenthood role models?

Facebook, twitter, Myspace, Blogspot, LiveJournal. These are all types of social media, but what has occurred to me lately is I go see my friends less often because of these media types. Now that we know that our friends are “looking forward to a beer and a movie” it make us less likely to call them and grab a case and head over? Are we all turning into seclusive narcissistic, apathetic, shut-ins?

Personally, I find I post in any of these media types more often when I’m depressed, or life is getting hard. Otherwise I post less often. When life is happy, I don’t share it as openly. This being the case, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend that I partake in. I asked 5-6 people around here about their facebook accounts, and the people that they “hide” in their friends list. The question was why hide them. The biggest answers I got were “drama”, “negative”, “too much political crap”

As for these answer I’ve done it myself. I actually remove people who go ape shit on the political agenda. I don’t care to hear about the tea party and its blanket hate statements. For me people who are habitually negative, and create lots of drama get hidden. It’s my belief that if you surround yourself with negativity you become negative yourself. This is because of its influence. Negative is a very strong influence, and it’s an easy thing to do. It seems easier to be hateful than happy, to me It’s truly a choice to be negative. I feel that I was raised in a household where my mom, and the small city I grew up in was largely negative. And they are negative purely by choice. People complained about the local political agenda, they complained about the lack of water, and the heat. (you are farming in the desert, lack of water is given) And how much more expensive things are. People seem to have a very difficult time finding reasons to be happy. They can however, find a lot of reasons to be unhappy. The term “misery loves company” Seems to be pretty accurate in this regard. It took me a very long time to find reasons to be happy, and the more I do it. The easier it is to do.

So it seems, we need to be less social on facebook, and more social in person. Facebook is a medium, not the only available route. We should all spend less time at our PC’s and more time face to face.

This was a brilliant Piece of improve.

http://improveverywhere.com/2010/07/14/star-wars-subway-car/

in short 5 people got dressed up. Leia, stormtroopers and vader entered a subway train car and then proceeded to play out the capture scene in A New hope.

“Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.” -Stephen King

In a not so surprising turn of events. When the players decided to take matters into their own hands and started to post information that was publicly attainable and for free the names and addresses of higher end Blizzard and Activison employees they suddenly. To Change their mind on the subject.

Nathaera posted a notice from the co-founder of Blizzard officially changing their tune. The word is that Blizzard isn’t going to force players to use their real names but instead use battle.net names with a number value that will remain static.

Full post is listed here. I’ve posted it below for people who do not have access to blizzard forums while at work.

Hello everyone,

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

Clearly they did listen. A thread that goes 2,600+ pages of outcry is hard to ignore. Blizzard made a terrible PR move even considering this. I’m glad to see it change.

My personal grips were more than just my public name. It’s that they always said that usage of the forums were optional, however I cannot count the number of times I was told that I’d need to Take my issue to the forums Which makes my usage of the forums not-so-much-optional anymore.

Anyone who plays World of warcraft and frequents their forums knows of how troll infested they are. It’s beyond stupid. Blizzard has implemented something called “realid” It allows us to track our friends by first and last name .. real names across server lines and be able to talk to them This alone is pretty cool. I’d only use it for people who I do know in real life and anything that falls into the gray area is going to be ignored.

Yesterday, Blizzard announced that everyone on the forums is going to be forced to use their Real ID. When this goes live all 11 million players now have their Identities just hanging out there. The reason?

The Trolls. Forums Trolls. There are lots of people who log into the forums to mock, make fun of and otherwise tear down people. If people are held accountable then the theory is that it will stop. This is an interesting Idea in practice but in actually implementation it’s a nightmare.

Currently, there are companies that when they start doing interview request your facebook/myspace account. They want to know what you do on your off times. I know people personally who have lost job opportunities because they play games. Because the supervisors view games as if they are “for children”. Not realizing that it’s an escape for many people from their real lives. It’s a mini vacation every single day.

The amount of damage that can be done by your own name if someone steals your ID information is absurd.
I’ve been playing wow for years, and this may be the final straw. If I ever find that I have to use the forums for any reason at all, I’ll just cancel. My privacy is more important than blizzard trying to get their out of control trolling issues under control. They would be better off re-establishing guidelines making them more strict then start banning people left and right for 3 days at a time

OR.. here’s an EASY TO DO thought for you blizzard. FORCE people to use 1 name. no more hopping characters. While it’s not their real name they will be quickly discounted as being a troll and people will stop reacting to them.

Either way, this is a stupid move Blizzard.

There’s a new blog in there somewhere I can feel it.

In the meantime enjoy this. Today is the day that Marty McFly Appeared in our time.

Damnit.. Where’s my hover board…?

“Tiger Woods is out on the course playing new holes.”

Wow.. pushing for advertising much?

My president is a Jedi, your country is invalid.

click image for full size

I grew up in an era where console games where still a new and novelty item that most parents shunned. I had a old classic Nintendo, that I worked and saved for all summer long. It came packaged with Super Mario Bros, and Duck Hunt. I remember playing the SMB console stand up in arcades thinking it was way to hard. I got my Nintendo and again, I still found it way too hard. It took me weeks before I hit the point of mastery. It became this Vulcan mind meld where the controller seemed to disappear from your hand, and you stopped thinking about the fact that you were controlling Mario and you became one with Mario and the reaction was instinctive more than needing to plan it out.

That’s a beautiful thing.

Also in the same Era Games were hard. Really, Really Hard. Anyone who played gauntlet through TopGun, Bart Vrs, The Space Mutant, or Battletoads can contest to what I say. A lot of people complained about the original TMNT, which I Admit was intensive and difficult, but I managed to actually finish that one. I will admit that I spent 3 months on Bart vs, the space mutants and never got through the second level. I think I got TO The second level twice.. maybe? it was brutal. I recently downloaded it again for an emulator thinking that I just sucked. No it’s not me.. it’s really not. The Rom Site that I found game on had a comments section, There were 50+ pages of people complaining that it was way to hard. So knowing what my previous track record was I found the action replay codes and determined that unless I wasn’t making sufficient progress in an hour of play I would not use them. After about 25 minutes I turned it off. Hour be damned, I am not going to bother.

I play through current Console games now and I unbelievable disappointed. Games are so easy compared to what they used to be. Not only that, they are short. Very short. To go through a game in under 10 hours isn’t unexpected in fact it’s welcomed by most of the current gaming community. I am finding more and more that I am a platform gamer, that is what I like. I like MMO’s for the epicness of storyline and consoles for fun. Consoles are much less frustrating then dealing with the Chuck Norris mentality of most games trade/general chat. But I don’t play Console games because they are easier. I play them because of their wide range of originality and just fun. Admittedly after years of denial and rejection I am a Mario fan. I’ve played through most of the Sunshine, and I’m currently (slowly) working my way through Galaxy with every intention of finishing it. More so than that, I am a Nintendo/Sony fan. I do not care for the X-box or its games. I’m not a First person shooter type of guy, I’m a RTS RPG side-scroller action type of guy. Would I prefer it if some games were harder? Eh, They’ve taken care of that by Putting multiple difficulty modes on most games now. I play Metroid 3 on Medium difficulty because it’s just the right amount of Fun, frustration and satisfaction rolled into a near perfect action game. I play Galaxy because it’s simply fun, it challenges my coordination and it has the right amount of difficulty to keep me on my toes. The storyline is a rehashed repeat that has been the same outline for most Mario games; but this is one of those rare cases where less is more. I don’t need top notch graphics, nor do I need to spend $500 every 6 months to upgrade my PC to keep on top of current rising standards to maintain playability for my games either it works on the platform or it doesn’t. The goal in the end is if it’s fun then it’s worth doing.

There has been an awful lot of press release info on the Warner Brother Purchase of Turbine inc. The most interesting speculation, has been what new MMO’s Turbine is working on. There has also been a lot of speculation that this MMO is a Harry Potter MMO. There is a lot of Credence to this thought process and it the HP franchise lends itself heavily towards this as a theory. It’s already got a built in story, Houses, classes, factional, plus an element of PVP, and fluff content, plus a great set of villains and plot lines. Truly, after seeing the world that Turbine has done with Lord of the Rings, if anyone could pull off an HP MMO. Turbine could, and they could do it well.

But The more I Thought about this, there were a few things that came to mind.

First. The HP Franchise for WB has been a cash cow. they’ve made money Hand over fist, and it would in a lot of ways Behoove them to keep the cash cow going. But I think this is also a target audience that also likes HP, may not be so Interested in an MMO. The Demographics really just don’t fit well enough to Risk that kind of Venture.

The proper answer didn’t occur to me until just recently when a my brother in law, a fellow geek showed me a new MMO he’s playing and how much he likes it. After some discussion about it’s highlights and what he loves about it. The answer struck me. While yes, This seem cliche and over used it makes a lot of sense.

Lets take a look of what other franchises and or companies that WB owns. Castle Rock, New Line, Fine Line, Tolkein, DC comics. Granted this is a fraction, but these are the ones that I would declare had some significance. The one that has been over looked is DC comics. DC was purchased by Warner Brothers in 1969 and they’ve put out a handful of mediocre Superman and Batman Films, and they’ve put out a few REALLY good ones. But it’s mostly been an under used IP Franchise That still has a lot of popularity. As Marvel was being purchased by Disney, and the Comic Book fan were in an uproar, WB was giving Feeding Turbine Money to the tune of 80 Million+. And Quietly putting together a new MMO. The WB Purchase went off without a hitch, and people cited that WB had controlling interest in the Tolkien Franchise, and Seeing that it was WB giving money to Turbine the automatic assumption was an HP MMO. Not really thinking, or knowing that DC is owned by WB. It happened long enough ago that most Comic book fans didn’t have the public outlet that we have now. The purchase wasn’t a world wide announcement. I’m willing to wager that Most DC Comic Fans realized that DC is owned (subsidiary) by WB

City Of heros, City Of Villians, Champions online, All have hit a demographic that is kind of exclusive to the hard core comic fan. Champions online Character creation is so extensive that if you were willing to put the time in you can custom create a character that is so accurate to the original it’s almost plagiarism. I first played Champions on my Brother in laws Account, and built a Character that looked so much Samus Aran that you’d mistakenly think that it was. Plus it was fun to play. My In law has this fantasy book in his head that he’s writing. He’s used Champions online to build his characters, he’s tweaked out every detail of how they should look. All of these MMO’s have done very well for both the fan and the non fan.

So when you sit back and look at the larger picture. Turbine has made a very successful MMO based off of a movie and series of books that New Line Cinemas did a fantastic job with. (also part of the WB)

Warner Brothers is seeing Marvel Rake in the cash from their IP’s and are starting to realize that their own DC IP is very under utilized in todays media. WB has announced a series of new Movies leading to a Justice league movie, Marvel is doing an avengers movie. There is some creditably to suggest that WB is after a demographic that is mostly of untouched by most mainstream MMO’s. It’s not far fetched to assume that WB is after a DC MMO to run in Sync with their own Movie franchises.

This is the View from my Front porch after the rain cleared up. This photo does not do justice to what I experienced this morning.

Video Game Characters doing what they do best.

Click for full image.

I was asked to write a guest blog for a friend of mine over at kikastrophe.net. I was honored to comply. I spent a good amount of time considering the audience and what to say. As this was my first measly attempt at spewing meaningful drivel for someone else. As I spoke to laura about this, we discussed a number of topics. One particular one about a goal she has about doing 101 items in 1001 days. It was during that part of the conversation that she became my muse for the post, and the words flowed like water through a fresh spring.

You can see the original post here it’s entitled:The world ends with you

I’ve come up with a name for specific situations. I’ve deemed this “The blizzard effect”.

Most gamers and non gamers alike know who, what, and/or at least have heard of World of Warcraft. When WoW First went public, it was ran sacked with hackers, item dups, money dups, 3rd party programs that would level your character and craft *FOR* you. To attempt to control this complete out of control situation, Blizzard introduced a monstrosity into the internet with something they called the Warden client.

The Warden client alone is single handed one of the most invasion programs I’ve ever ran through a de-compiler.

It loads with the launcher, then loads into memory and sits dormant for an unknown amount of time, until something is sent over the TCP/IP line to trigger it and turn it on. It at that point scans your task bar, what you have open, what webpages you have open what programs/processes you have running, if you have your Root directory of your C: open in a window it’ll scan through every folder on your drive looking for anything that might be suggestive that you Hack.

They have security reasons for doing this and it has cut down and eliminated this kind of cheating. It doesn’t change the fact that the Warden client is still scanning your tax records, photos of your family and your private porn collection of your spouse/wife. The client can be disabled using the Sony Rootkit, which if you know how to use it will pull it out of memory. Those instructions are readily available but not easily follow. Most are written obscurely.

The reason why I bring this up is because clever hackers have gotten a hold of it, reverse engineered it, and are using its roots to do exactly what it’s intended to do. Personal invasion, secondary effect. Infect people with Viruses, and probably attempt to steal password, and Credit card Social security numbers. They take screenshots of popular scanners and copy their interface they check your processes to see what’s running, download the proper interface to make you *THINK* that you have a virus and wait for you to click a button so it can install itself on your machine. Most of this really high virus technology, is already programmed into the delivery method via the Warden Client, that blizzard now provides to all hackers free of charge!

Blizzard updates the warden client to keep it from being removed, and Sony releases a new root kit for other reasons, which just happens to also remove the new warden client, and viola, the blizzard effect strikes again now new and improved and even HARDER to get rid of.

Symantec posted on it’s blog that it uncovered a server that had 44 Million stolen gaming accounts. The numbers and values of said accounts ranging in price from $5  to $28,000 .

World of Warcraft for example had 220,000 stolen accounts in this database. two of the biggest “losers” in this DB was A company called Wayi Entertainment. Which is a Website in Taiwan, which I’m not sure if it’s peddling Hentai, mail order brides or if it’s a dating website.

And PlayNC which is a division of NCsoft. (Guild wars, City of Heros, Linage 2)

For  more information click the attached link

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/44-million-stolen-gaming-credentials-uncovered

Last friday, in commemoration of pac-man being 30 years old google changes their logo to a playable version.

Google Celebrating 30 years of Pac-man

This to me, was ingenious.

This morning I was pointed to another article.

http://www.crn.com/it-channel/225200162;jsessionid=UXFSVLVOSKLAZQE1GHPSKH4ATMY32JVN

This one citing that “Online denizens spent over 4.8 million hours playing Pac-Man on Friday”

Now, Pac-man was easily one of my first video games.  Most anyone over the age of 21 has seen or played pac-man, and at least knows what it is.  The insert coin button gave you two simultaneous players.  sharing the same lives, so you had to be careful. When I got to level 9 I realized that I had been playing too long and I had to force myself to stop for the day. 4.8 Million hours played in a 24 hour period. I’d believe it I know I contributed to a fair amount of time on it. I’ve had to keep myself from playing it again today now that I’ve found it again.

Addicting…  yet so nostalgic.

Props to Google, this was simply genius.

And incase you lived in a cave on friday. the pacman logo is still available to play

http://www.google.com/pacman

I read this article written by Jaime Skelton, about Real death in a virutal world, I felt it meritred repeating as most people just *don’t* get it.

—-

The virtual worlds we live in like to gloss over issues of mortality. In most MMOs, characters die and then can instantly respawn, either at a graveyard located not too far from the scene of their death or, in some circumstances, right at their freshly-fallen corpse. Even many of the game’s heroes seem incapable of dying, coming back in a phoenix-rising fashion, while villains merely have setbacks. In order to preserve a perpetual world, MMOs offer a sense of perpetual life.

In a sea of anonymity, where even in the darkest world life is still pretty good for the player character, it can be easy to forget that somewhere beyond the renders and wild landscapes, beyond the outlandish armor and flawless persona, there are real people. This is an argument often brought up when players find themselves ruthlessly trolled, insulted, and harassed online by the anonymous crowd, a group of people who feel it’s safe to say whatever they like because there are no real world repercussions. Set aside the crude behavior, however, and you’ll find that every player is at some point guilty of showing a lack of human awareness for the person on the other side. This ignorance isn’t usually voluntary; the nature of our gaming simply creates a wall that acts as any long-distance communication does. It prevents us from the face-to-face, non-verbal communication that proves crucial to human understanding.

Words like “cancer”, “hospital”, and “coma” have a draw powerful enough to bring a person out of their virtual sanctuary and into the realm where life and death situations are real. These are words I’ve had to deal with this week, as I received surprising news that a dear uncle of mine had cancer, was in the hospital in a coma, and wasn’t expected to make it through the night. My uncle isn’t a gamer, but his sudden plight – and the word “cancer,” which chills me deep in my marrow every time I hear it – brought to mind the second person I loved and lost to cancer in my life.

I met Naganatae in Lord of the Rings Online. She was a deeply dedicated officer of the guild I had joined, and would spend her entire day working hard to help both the guild as a whole, and to help individual members. By all online appearances, she appeared to be one of those people who didn’t “have a life”; the kind that lived off of Cheetos and Dew in mom’s basement while spending all their time online. Given that “Naga,” as we called her affectionately, was a very secretive, quiet person, it was easy for anyone to make assumptions about her and her lifestyle.

Over time, I got to know Naga better, and we soon became fast friends. She was still very secretive, but I found we had many interests and viewpoints in common. There were days when she would suddenly get upset and log off, or she would say she was feeling sick and disappear for a few days before returning. Every time she came back, however, she promised me she was okay. I believed her.

It wasn’t until the last month I knew Naga that I found out “sick” meant cancer. She made me swear to secrecy; even our guild leader, a very kind and empathetic man, had no idea. There were only three of us who knew her condition, and only one who knew how bad it really was. When she disappeared from having ISP problems, and time passed into over a month, the one person who knew her best finally voiced his fears and said that he was sure she had passed away. It wasn’t until a few months later that we received the obituary and I found out so much more about the friend I had lost; how amazing she was as a person in the real world as well.

You can call me a sap, but life in LotRO was radically changed for me after losing Naga. I tried to hold a memorial service for her with the guild, but plans failed to follow through. I fought with other guild members who hadn’t been as close to Naga as I had, and didn’t show the level of mourning I wanted them to in my own grieving state. My interest in the game faded fast, and I eventually quit. Even though I’ve returned to LotRO since then, I haven’t been able to bring myself to the multi-game guild (which I’m still a member of) or even the server I once played on. It’s as if I’ve been frozen in that emotional moment.

The loss of an online friend is nothing new, but something experienced on a larger scale when it happens in an MMO context. A player may have been known by hundreds in his gaming community, even though very few may have actually known the person behind the avatar. Not many people are forthcoming about their personal mortality in a virtual setting; it’s as if we want to minimize our impact if we should “go.” We want our lives to remain anonymous, even to the point of shielding some good friends from the truth.

When death strikes an online friend, it’s hard to know exactly what to do. There are no established standards of etiquette or grieving for virtual worlds. Certainly many of the stages of grief are the same as losing someone you knew in person, simply because the understanding of another human being’s identity crosses long-distance barriers. Some things, however, get lost in translation of distance and personal, physical connection. There is no attending funerals for closure, no connection with family and friends outside the virtual space, no easy way to obtain real-world information to pay a visit to a grave or send condolences to a family.

To the outside world, the grieving that online players suffer seems strange. Many grieving players have been told, “They were just an online friend – it’s not like you actually KNEW them.” The assumption is that online relationships have less value, less emotional meaning, than in-person relationships. While I’m not one to idealize text or graphically simulated relationships, there is plenty of evidence that online relationships can offer, at the least, the foundation for meaningful interpersonal relationships. That is to say that there is some essence of a “real” relationship when we speak with and get to know other people in cyberspace. Our grief, too, is real, even when the relationship developed had no in-person contact.

In order to cope with their loss, many players set up memorial services and role-played funerals. These events can be a great method of closure, but often end up experiencing a different matter of ‘grief’ as other players intrude on the ceremonies to disrupt and disturb them. Such acts are often a mix of intent to make other people miserable, and a political statement made to mock emotional attachments to virtual relationships. Funeral crashing is nothing new, however, and little can be done except to make ceremonies more private and to report offending players for harassment.

Closure is better found elsewhere when it comes to grief and loss in virtual worlds. Our virtual gaming communities are not geared well to cope with death, something that seems to result from the lack of in-person interaction that can offer physical comfort – a hug, a smile, and physical closeness that offers a specific psychological benefit. The best thing to do when confronted with loss is to turn to the people who can offer that physical closeness and comfort, to the same people you’d seek out when losing a friend in the “real” world. Then find a way to honor the person you lost, in a way you know best to do. For some, that may simply mean taking a meaningful action in-game. In my case, losing Naganatae made me take up supporting cancer research in her honor.

Death may be the hardest confrontation for any player. For all that have lost an online friend, and for all those that will, know that your grief is normal and that you are not alone. After all, there are people being the characters we meet, and some can touch our lives quite profoundly.

–

In the Old Testament of The Bible, “Lucifer” does not refer to the fallen angel. “Lucifer” (light-bearer)is a generic title referring to the morning star (Venus). As such, it has been used throughout history to refer to Satan, Christ, and others. With this in mind, Isaiah 14:12 starts out “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”. Taken as a separate verse, this appears to refer to the battle of angels – however, the PASSAGE starts at Isaiah 12:4 “Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon” and towards the end is Isaiah 14:22 “For I will rise up against them saith the Lord of hosts, and cut of from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, Saith the Lord.” Thus Lucifer in the Old Testament refers to some unnamed Babylonian king.

Therefore  the term “Lucifer” is a translation mistake.

Parody of  ”Bad touch” From The Bloodhound Gang

I wasn’t going to write about this because it’s everywhere but it’s finally getting under my nerves.
So a random Apple Employee “Accidently” left an Iphone 4g Prototype on a barstool. A guy found it. Contacted apple who blew him off. So he contacted the guy who ran Gizmodo, and sold it to him for 5k. Gizmodo then contacted Apple who said “No that’s not a prototype it’s fake” so They did a review on it and took it apart. GIzmodo made 220k in Revenue for showing the prototype. Apple then comes out and says “Oh okay.. yes it is.. can we have it back?” and Gizmodo returned the phone to them, as long as apple promised to not raid them.

Apple agreed.

A week later, The police raided his house confiscated 4 computers and the signed agreement from apple saying that they would not go after them, and now Apple is sueing for Stealing? Are you serious? Following which, they raided the guys house who FOUND the phone in the first place? Both people which if who ATTEMPTED to return the phone to Apple, both times to be told that no no it’s not the real one.

I’m disgusted with Apple and the way that they have handled themselves. This comes after closing the platform making apps far more restrictive. Removing apps from the appstore and then blaming someone else for a company mistake?

I cannot possibly be the only person finds this ridiculously stupid. I hope Steve Jobs pulls his head out ass soon. They opened being against big brother, not being like everyone else. They made a Statement when they went public which their ad campaigns. Now you ARE Being Big Brother. You ARE another Monolithic Microsoft-cloned asshole. I was seriously considering dropping Linux and Windows entirely to go to a MAC-OS platform. But if this is how you treat people who tried to RETURN a phone that your employee is responsible for losing? You break your promise to not raid someone’s house and then turned your back on your word and did it anyway?

You’re a damn communist Steve Jobs. Considering how you treat your employees and your avid and loyal customers, which I’ve covered in detail in a different post, you’re a controlling manipulative bastard. You’ve done this once before and it caused you to lose your company the first time 20 years ago. Maybe you remember it, and maybe you’ll stop yourself before you get your ass kicked out again.

SPOILER… it’s obvious.. Buffy never loses… This video is up for a Webby Award in the mashup section. GO VOTE and support this BRILLIANT piece of Video!

http://www.youtube.com/webby?x=remixmashup

The Original

The Remix

A couple of people who commented on the Remix in the webby awards illustrated a very specific point that I have unable to put into proper words. I want to quote them directly.

jennpozner

“The main characters in Twilight seemed to embody antiquated, sexist gender stereotypes. Edward Cullen…spies on Bella, he stalks her (for “her own good”), he sneaks into her room to watch her sleep (without her consent) and even confesses to a deep, overpowering desire to kill her…”

lindsay.m.jolly

“Before you start talking about domestic violence maybe you should read Twilight or watch the books -- sure it isn’t great to encourage violence but it is certainly better than encouraging millions of young women to embrace the idea that the most perfect relationship includes threats of violence and stalking, as Edward commonly does with Bella.”

It’s one thing to write a book based around vampires, it’s another thing to make them abusive to people they are supposedly completely enraptured and in love with. Yes, Spike and Drew were abusive to each other, but that was their nature! They were vampires! Joss didn’t humanize and romanticize them! They were mean horrible, Brutal and soulless creatures! Stephanie Myers has created and romanticized the idea that being a woman and being abused is perfectly acceptable for “the perfect relationship” where he has flaws that are “enduring and charming”, and the poor man can’t control himself despite his best efforts. Shame on you Myers. Seriously.

Read the notes of the guy who created it, the answer to the question What would Buffy Do?