jr conlin's ink stained banana

SAN JOSE — The following is a statement by J R Conlin, Guy who understands the internet and how things actually work on the so-called statement regarding "Blackout Day" by the Chairman, CEO, Ex-Senator, and Mortgage expert, Chris Dodd.

"Only the day before Internet Blackout Day, after the White House, various Internet professionals, and pretty much the rest of the planet has stood up and say <expletive> NO! to a hastily cobbled together, slap dash, obvious power grab being rushed through congress from two fronts, Mr. Dodd and company are saying how this is unfair. Because they obviously know how to play fair.

Granted, the sites most prominently calling for citizens to come to their rescue are the sites that would be most directly effected by the bills that Mr. Dodd wants to rocket through our elected representatives so that they can shut down the phantasmal threats that they see, must like previous threats that needed immediate action lest his industry suffer forever.

Still, how does one react to the fact that Mr. Dodd's own reaction was a statement, dictated to a secretary, and drafted as a document "published" on the internet, without option for public comment or discussion? Quite possibly with the un-typed "Your's sincerely, yadda yadda, type that up and post it up for those low lifes will you sweetheart?". Maybe accented by the clatter of ice cubes in his glass as a subtle reminder that his gin also needs topping.

i think that description pretty much sums it up.

And frankly, he can go get stuffed."

About JR Conlin
He's just some guy, but one that bets he's done more for the benefit of society that Mr. Dodd.

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For more information, contact:

Your Elected Representative
In Congress
And let them know that SOPA and PIPA are horrible.

Right, so with SOPA and PROTECTIP, the media industry has declared war on the Internet. Thankfully, a few folks have decided that since money is free speech in this modern world, they're not speaking to the theaters.

That doesn't mean sitting around listening to Gran'ma talk about the war all Christmas, though. The Internet provides lots of options for holiday fare. What's more, since a lot of laptops/tablets/doo-hickeys have HDMI output, you can even plug these into the big screen and watch there. Plus, if you decide to donate to or buy any of these, you'll be giving money directly to the folks, which is what the MPAA and RIAA have been saying we should do anyway. (Which is odd, considering how little they give, but that's beside the point.)

Here's a list of movies that are going to be more fun than paying $100 to take the family to watch a regrettable flick:

Rufus the Dog's Christmas Carol – A heart warming classic that reminds me more of Henson's Muppets, than Disney's.

Cinematic Titanic's Santa Clause Conquers the Martians – A personal holiday tradition of mine. A horrible movie improved by the original cast of MST3K.

Rifftrax presents the Magic Christmas Tree – The other half of MST3K present their own commentary on a classic (and disturbing) movie.

If you're not into that sort of thing:

Sita sings the Blues Honestly, if you haven't seen this movie yet, you need to. It's funny, charming, sweet, poignant, and it was blocked from theatrical release over music rights issues regarding the public domain songs used.

Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon damn funny $5, from a guy absolutely not motivated by greed.

Toss a 1/4 cup of popcorn and a tsp of oil in a brown paper bag, nuke for 2:30 (or until it doesn't pop as much), crack open your beverage of choice, and enjoy some holiday fun where you can pause for bathroom breaks.

i'm pretty sure the last movie i sat and watched was "How to Train Your Dragon". Partly because it was on during one of those free preview days and i figured i'd record it. About two months later, i got around to watching it because i was sick. There are a couple of other movies clogging up my DVR that i should also consider watching. Maybe.

i'll also note that i have no idea what the currently popular story lines are for most TV shows, or who's leading in what reality game show, or whatever.

Truth be told, if the TV is on, there are about 5 shows i regularly record and watch, otherwise it's local news and weather.

This doesn't mean that i sit in a cave, it means that i just find the internet far more entertaining than the latest steam-punk, high action adventure of some previously public domain work (that was better in the original form anyway). My wife is kind of the same way, and she watches far more TV than i do.

i know that this scares big media. To be honest, if i were in the business of making sure that the limited content i produce is under my strict control, i would be too. i think the worst part is that the internet also shows that creativity is actually pretty cheap. There are millions of great ideas out there (along with the trillions of horrible ones), and the "wisdom of the crowds" helps do what a lot of studios used to do. We no longer need professional filters. Amateur ones work pretty well.

Granted, there's an easy model that studios could adopt that would guarantee that they stay profitable and useful for decades, but it's not my job to tell them, and considering their constant attempts to kill what i find far more interesting than them, i'm sure as hell not going to help them.

For now, i'll just ask a question that's been bothering me since i first heard about ePARASITE, SOPA, and the other Death to the Free Net bills that are out there: In light to what the Internet has contributed to society, what has the MPAA and RIAA done to improve things in the past 30 years?

While quizzing my Dear Wife about what, exactly, he was getting for her points (yet another restaurant is offering random points for purchases) , i remarked that, thanks to the wonders of data mining, tying your info to other stores data is pretty easy. Granted, if there was actual value for tendering over your buying habits, i have no problem providing a set of information for them. Whether or not that information relates to me depends on the value of what i'm getting back.

My wife knows that and commented, "Next time, i'm going to call myself Jane Smith." i offered that she should call herself "Jennifer Lee" instead. Why? Well, it helps to know the population of a given area. The best way to hide is to be in the largest possible crowd.

Turns out, that's actually even more true now than before. What makes you distinct is what's different about you. If you reduce the amount of perceived uniqueness about yourself to the smallest possible value, you fall into the data mining noise. What's hard, however, is trying not to be unique. Since the big tip-off there is the number of plug-ins you may have installed. i'll note that i have:

1. Google Earth
2. Google Talk
3. Google Update
4. Java Deployment Toolkit (*This is disabled in my browser, but still detectable)
5. Java Platform SE 6 (*likewise)
6. NVidia 3D Vision
7. Picasa
8. Quicktime
9. Shockwave
10. Silverlight
11. iTunes

None of those are particularly "unique", but the combination of installed versions (presumably, the fact that i keep things up-to-date) all contribute to a fairly unique signature.

i'm still mulling about how to ninja the plugin information so that it's harder to detect uniqueness, but i'm not really sure how to do that without blocking version number detection from the scripts and that's not something that i can easily control. i wish plug-in vendors didn't publish that info so readily, but not much i can do about that. i'm not really sure how to best solve the problem, which is fine by me.

Because it means i get to try and figure out how to do it.

We're in the final stretch for the Humble Indy Bundle 3, which is both an awesome collection of games for awesome charities and i will not be taking part in any of it.

i'll probably write a check to the charities, mind you, it's just that i've come to the realization that i'm not really good at games. i love them, but considering that i've got the last two sets of HIB games still sitting, nearly all of which unopened and unloved, on my drive, it doesn't really make sense for me to pretend anymore.

What's worse is that i have no idea why games aren't quite as much fun to me anymore. Hell, growing up you couldn't get me to not play games. i used to hang around the arcades constantly and pump way too much of my summer income into them. The highlight of summer for me was going to the arcades in Ocean City, MD and seeing what new games came out and trying my hand at them. Now, even though i've got the time and a fairly choice set of gaming platforms to play on, it's just not happening.

i'm not twitchy enough to play the FPS games like CoD or the like. i loved Portal, but haven't really worked up enough gumption to play Portal 2. i think the last game i played to completion was Macharium. Even the old school games i used to play constantly (like Defender and SFRush2000) don't get me fired up to sit down and play.

i've got TF2 somewhere on my spiffy PC and am happy to play the occasional (as in one ever few months) training game.

i feel like i am a failure to my generation.