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Posted on 10.10.06 by Widge @ 4:15 pm
This is the silliest goddamn thing I have read all week. Check out the list. Where do they go first? Legislation. That's right. They want you to go to Parliament. And for my fellow Americans who have no clue, I'd like to point out that this has nothing to do with George Clinton. Think about this for a second: they want you to get government to tell the people who own these properties that they can only provide these properties to you in a certain way. Why is this bad? Because this is government. Any power you can give them can be perverted and twisted for their own benefit. Don't believe me? Here in the States we just got rid of a phone tax that was implemented to pay for the Spanish-American War. There actually had to be a fight to get rid of it. It's not like the government was going to go, "Whoops! Guess what? I'll be damned. We missed that one. Our bad. Here, let's take care of this for you." No, they were willing to keep taxing and taxing away. Look at it another way: here in the States, they think the Net is made of tubes. And not the band from the 80s, I mean actual tubes. Do you really want people who are that technologically backward passing laws about technology? And finally: it's not the government's job to protect you from DRM. They can barely protect you from [insert name of actual threat here]. You want to know how to deal with DRM? Here's Widgett Walls' handy guide for how to deal with DRM: 1. Stop fucking buying stuff with fucking DRM on it. That's it. One step. If you want to convince an industry to do something, hurt them at their wallet. They have the right to provide this stuff in any form they want. And you have the right to tell them to go fuck themselves. Show them how you're buying nothing but non-DRM shit from now on, and they will come around. Or they'll die. If you're willing to do that, great. If not, then you're showboating and you're wasting everybody's time. Sorry, but that's the way of it. Found via Boing Boing. And it's probably posts like this that keep me from getting linked on there, he said, smiling. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.09.06 by Widge @ 10:19 am
Jonathan Miller hosted a most excellent series on the BBC entitled A Rough History of Disbelief. In it, he interviewed a who's who of deep thinkers about religion and the lack thereof. It was such a kickass series that they came back with The Atheism Tapes, which featured expanded versions of the interviews they only took snippets of for Rough History. In this one, Miller sits down with physicist Steven Weinberg. Excellent stuff. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.08.06 by Widge @ 4:00 am
Something Else is about to go down for maintenance. Stand by. Update: Okay, I think we're back. If anything looks wonky, yell at me. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.08.06 by Widge @ 3:40 am
Crude but excellent video detailing prayer and why it's equivalent to a lucky horseshoe. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.07.06 by Widge @ 2:39 am
So I already ranted about the online gambling ban here, but here's something that really struck me as odd: an article over at the BBC talking about how this proves that the Net can be easily controlled. Excuse me?
So you admit that it's not going to work and this is proof of the fact we can clamp down on the Net? Say what? I forget the number of people who are doing nothing but trying to plug the holes in the "Great Firewall," but I believe it's in the five digits. And they can't keep up. Seems to me that's proof that…well, you're flat wrong. In fact, when it comes to online gambling and the true reprecussions of all this nonsense, you'll forgive me if I side with Cringely on this one. The Net escapes. The Net can collectively think its way out of just about anything. It was created to survive a nuclear war–and granted, the devastation of a nuclear war can sometimes seem small in comparison to the lingering devastation of bad laws–but still, it's too robust to just roll over and go, "Oh, you got me." Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.07.06 by Widge @ 2:22 am
First this: I've already talked about global warming and after reviewing my previous bit on the subject, everything I could want to say here is already in there. However, two quick things. First up, if anyone's claiming that skeptics of manmade climate change are in the fossil fuel industry's pocket, then I'd like to state that I'm not. In fact, I'm pissed that I'm not. If a representative of the fossil fuel industry would like to contact me through the website, I'd appreciate it. Also, notice this exchange:
Did you get that? I don't want to talk about specific things that have been offered up to take care of the situation, I just want to talk about the situation. Does the situation warrant something to be done? He even says that: "something should be done." He can't refute Inhofe's statement–whether or not the statement itself is correct I can't say, mind you, he just can't refute it–so he backs up to a generality for his defense. What did I say? "1) Something must be done. 2) This is something. 3) Therefore, it must be done." Congratulations, Mr. O'Brien. You could be a lawmaker! In fact, lest you think I'm going all rah-rah for Inhofe–check out his last statement there. He agrees! Something must be done! Why? Because he's a lawmaker! Now I get to sit back and watch any commenters harangue me for not caring about the environment. Or something. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.07.06 by Widge @ 1:41 am
Let's think about this for a second here. You've got four kids. You want to ban Harry Potter from schools. Wait–why? Because you think it's a secret way to get kids interested in Wicca? Lady, I hate to tell you this–but I know some Wiccans. They can't make brooms fly or turn lead into gold or anything cool like that. If they can and they haven't hooked me up with some magic by now then I'm going to be pissed. But be that as it may. It's fairly obvious that you can handle keeping your four kids from reading Harry Potter. So if you've got your kids covered, just exactly who are you trying to protect? Ah, everyone else. It's not enough that you can affect your own children. You want to control what everyone else reads too. So not only do you think that you and your family are too weak to handle reading Harry Potter and come out with your faith unscathed…you think no one else can handle it either. God forbid (no pun intended) that later in life they should get ahold of some Richard Dawkins or some Robert Anton Wilson or anything that might make them think. They're in danger from J.K. Rowling for crying out loud! Man, that must be a really sad spiritual place to be, don't you think? Oh, and thank you Victoria Sweeny for having common sense and using it to protect the students of Gwinnett County from people like this. It's bad enough they should be in public schools without having this to deal with on top of everything else. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.04.06 by Widge @ 1:01 am
Overkill is getting a Wordpress update. It'll be wonky until I ping back here. Update: Should be fine now. If you find something wonky, let me know. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.03.06 by Widge @ 5:34 pm
Now I can walk around talking to myself and people just assume I've got a very tiny headset. Sent from the MDA. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 10.03.06 by Widge @ 5:46 am
Thank God those geniuses in Washington have made it illegal for banks and credit cards companies to make payments to online gambling sites. I mean, wow, those online gambling sites could have snuck across our open borders or smuggled something in through our wide-open ports and, you know, maybe have performed some heinous act that could have killed scads of people and punched a big fucking hole in our economy. Or they could have, you know, threatened our freedoms or liberties in some vague unrealized fashion. Now I can slip into sleep resting easy that this #1 threat to our country has been nullified by squashing Americans' freedom to gamble online! Thanks, Mr. President! Thanks, Congress! Thanks for having your priorities straight! Fucking morons. Filed under: General BS
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John Robinson is a writer of prose, poetry and comics who also writes under
the pseudonym of Widgett Walls.
This is my latest book. Short stories written especially for you, or at least someone who reminded me a lot of you at the time.
