*Transcendental *Logic

Horrible: The United States is doing such an unbelievably crappy job of taking care of its own citizens that charities created to deliver medical care to refugees in third-world nations are finding themselves desperately needed at home. That’s right, it’s so bad now that the richest country in the world — which your government assures you doesn’t need to concern itself with the billions-per-week it’s spending in the Middle East — is taking charity to get basic health care to its own working citizens. (The killer? Most of the people in need are insured — the insurance is just so crappy that it isn’t helping anybody. Er, except the insurance companies.)

Wonderful: That this charity exists! It’s called Remote Area Medical, and it’s truly an amazing volunteer effort. They’re my next G.I.F.T. recipient…how about making them yours, too? (Even if you’re not in the U.S., they’re also doing amazing work worldwide, well worth funding with that extra ten bucks you’ve got.)

Horrible: Did you know that no major U.S. corporations are giving funding to RAM? It’s run entirely on small donations. But what are corporations worried about; their stockholders have insurance. ::fumes::

Wonderful: Stan Brock, the leader of RAM, is a mind-bogglingly amazing guy. In stark contrast to the fat parasites in corporate and government circles who give RAM no funding, he’s given it his entire life. He has no family, takes no salary, and owns nothing. When 60 minutes did the interview about RAM, he was living in an abandoned school near the charity site and showering with a hose every morning.

…You gotta have a little faith, if humanity can produce specimens like that, that somebody somewhere can change this mess for the better.

But boy howdy, are we late in the game, coming in with fixes now. Oh, and speaking of band-aids on the titanic, an extra Horrible: goes to General Motors, which actually had the audacity yesterday to explain its latest round of fuckovers — sorry, “cuts” — with phrases like “We need to meet consumer expectations” and “because of high gas prices, it seems that people want smaller, more efficient cars”. OMG DID YOU FIGURE THAT OUT ALL BY YOURSELF JUST NOW?? SOMEBODY BRING THIS CEO A MENSA MEMBERSHIP STAT!

(Bonus topical congratulations to GM for doing its part to increase the size of the throngs of uninsured Americans. Nothing says “support the troops” like firing their parents and canceling the family pension!)

Okay, wow, I need to shut up.

*sigh* I’ll fess…things are worse than this post makes them look. Yeah, I know…I actually started this as a positivity exercise…write about Stan Brock! That’ll help! But it won’t, because everything is tainted by what happened this weekend.

I’ll have to post later with more details, but suffice to say, for now, that we in the foreclosure-prevention biz are calling yesterday “Black Monday”. For some reason that neither I nor the lawyers, brokers, and other professionals I work with can figure out yet, the Federal bailout of several large mortgage lenders on Friday caused every lender we work with to bail on their in-progress agreements and mortgage workouts with families in trouble.

Seriously. We got a wave of phone-calls yesterday from banks whom we thought were already committed to a workout, saying, “Nope, nevermind, no deals. We’re foreclosing.” We’ve had to call family after family and tell them that the solution we thought was a done deal is suddenly gone, and that there are no other options, since the few that there were (state programs and such) have also inexplicably dried up.

Overnight.

Obviously this puts my job in jeopardy and all sorts else, but really I could give a crap … I just can’t believe that all these people that we worked so hard to help, and the ones that are calling today looking for help, appear to simply be screwed. And until we figure out why, exactly, the banks are doing this, there’s nothing we can do, no alternative we can offer them that might sound appealing until we know what the hell they’re thinking.

(Part of me is worried sick that they’re thinking, “Woohoo, bailout! Now we don’t have to make deals with anybody!” Because if they’re thinking that, there’s nothing I or anybody else in this business can do. …On the other hand, why is letting a home go to foreclosure an attractive option?? I don’t get it…foreclosing costs a bank an average of $40,000, which is far less than the workouts we offer will cost (a typical workout might cost them a few grand in the long run). They swear, in public, that they want to avoid foreclosures too…so what the hell is going on?)

Okay. Did I mention that I need to shut up? Because I do.

Oh, wait — I need something else wonderful to close on. Um, um, um, er…Oh, how about this:

Wonderful: Two flamingly stupid rules lately look ripe for getting struck down: The Flint, Michigan pants-are-a-crime law, and the recent pro-industry court decision that seeks to make modifying computer programs in any way (via plugins, writing your own code, etc.) illegal. The ACLU is after Flint (go ACLU!), and the doofuses who passed the copyright law neglected to notice that what they’re trying to make illegal is expressly protected in the original copyright legislation, making it almost certain that the case will be overturned. Whew!

I kid you not:  I have spent the last 24 hours trying to figure out how I could write a post that would recommend the following book enough.

In the end, I probably can’t.  But I’ll give it a go, because to say nothing would be a capital crime of bookwormdom.

Look, I did something yesterday that I haven’t done, seriously, in about ten years — not since I started my first run in college, I think.  Because college makes you busy, and while you still read "fun" books, it’s no longer with the same all-consuming verve that they get read when you’re younger.  …Unless one comes along that grabs you by the hair, shoves your face into it and doesn’t let go until you’re satisfied in a way you forgot you needed to be.  (Yes, I meant that to sound like sex.  It damn near was like sex.)

Yesterday I read.  For about seven straight hours, minus bathroom and coffee breaks.  Yesterday I finished an entire book in ONE SITTING.  Thankfully this didn’t take me any longer, because I was fully prepared to blow off taiji and stay at work as late as I had to to finish it.  (Also, thankfully it was a slow day at work, because besides answering a few phone calls, I got nothing done.  Don’t tell my boss. ;)  About 5/6 of the way through, I started mumbling feverishly to myself and checking the clock, making plans for who I would lie to and how, or if I would just turn my phone off and lock my door, because I sure as hell wasn’t leaving until I finished.

The book is Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.  That link will take you to a free downloadable version; all hail Creative Commons.  (HAIL! HAIL! HAIL!)

I’m…I’m not sure if this was just the best book I’ve read since Xmas 2007 (when I got hold of Bridge of Birds), or if it actually changed my life.  Certainly I spent the whole rest of yesterday in a cloud.  Certainly I feel branded by some of the truths this fun little novel contains.  Certainly I’ve gone from being "a fan" of Cory Doctorow’s writing to a rabid fan, and certainly I’m trying to figure out the best way to get copies of this book into the hands of everyone I know. 

This is the most important book since 1984.  In fact, it IS 1984, written for our own age.  But don’t let that turn you off:  It’s also substantially more fun than the aforementioned classic (though I think the original is quite fun; but I know that my love of dismal, gritty stories isn’t shared by everyone). 

There are two things about Cory Doctorow, specifically, that just make this book.  One is his grand knowledge of modern technology, not just in electronics terms, but also in social terms.  The tech in this book is dead real; nothing that’s mentioned can’t either already be done on a wide scale, or already be done on a small scale, and is just waiting for its moment.  Some of the names are changed, but not very many, and there’s a solid bibliography where you can learn about anything you don’t know already.  As a technophile myself, I knew about most of it, but to see it all so well-understood, put together and presented in a real, vibrant, fictional world was breathtaking, to say the least.

But Sir Doctorow (who needs to get knighted asap; hell, give the man a duchy) is more than a knowledgable geek who writes stories.  He’s also a fantastic writer, one of the purer examples of why I love (good) science fiction writing.  His technique is absolutely transparent to the reader, meaning his stories race along like the good old breathless mindless fiction of our youths — like good comic books, like good adventure stories.  No pedantry.  No purple prose or long explications.  Fun.  You’re too busy, in Little Brother, loving the characters and gripping your chair and grinning and wincing and all that, to really realize what a gem of modern culture you’re holding, and how absolutely vital a piece of educational material this is for anyone living in the digitized Western world today.  

Now, I just have to figure out how to get this in everyone’s hands, yesterday.  It’s CC, so I could make copies and give them away…or I could just spam everyone with the URL and harrass them until they read it…Hmm.

Anyway, that’s what I did yesterday:  I read, no, devoured, a book whole.  And it devoured me.  Like 1984, reading this book changed things in my head.  Though none of the tech was really new to me, seeing it portrayed this way–understanding it this way–shoved some tectonic thinking hard into place, and opened up a portal to my youth that I’d thought was lost.  Part of me feels, all kidding aside, like it was saved.  Saved from complacency, obscurity, and fading into the background of a comfortable pseudo-American life. 

Wow.

GO READ THE BOOK!!!

Well, that was fun.

Quicken is apparently one of those companies that figures they’re the only game in town, and can thus be as evil as they like about actually making the product you purchase from them functional.

See, I got a new computer at work.  And I do our books.  So of course I took my legitimately-bought-for-a-very-steep-price CD of Quickbooks Pro and installed it on my new computer.  How unethical of me, eh?  Because the fact that I’ve given them money already doesn’t buy me the right to not be harrassed, pressured into giving them all my personal information, and treated like a thief.  Oh wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, the software informs me that now that I’ve committed the egregious act of upgrading my computer, which is totally Quicken’s business, I must call them and spend half an hour on the phone convincing them that I didn’t steal the software I bought before it’ll work again.

And how does one convince them?  Conveniently, by verifying all the information that companies like Quicken like to sell to each other for huge sums of money.  I don’t get any of this money, but I do get a lot of advertising directed at me for my efforts.  Yaaay, what a deal.

Thing is, I habitually lie on things like registration forms that ask for my personal information.  (I also habitually get less spam and junk mail than most people.)  So when the lady answering the phone starts grilling me for information, I tell her quite flatly that I don’t know, because I would have lied in order to avoid the spam and junk mail.  She gives me the usual line about how they would never sell my information, and I laugh at her, because I work with lawyers and I know exactly how they word a "privacy policy" so their agents can say that but they can still sell all the information they please.  Sorry, lady.

So, we go back and forth, me trying likely combinations while the lady acts like I’m some sort of untouchable because I would dare lie to a corporation that obviously has the right to know anything they want to about me, and ought to be consulted so that they can give me permission to upgrade my computer.  I tried not to be too mean — she is just a phone-flunky — but if it was unpleasant for her, oh well, don’t work for evil corporations if you don’t like getting yelled at.

Eventually I find an old email with the fake information I originally gave them, and she gives me the validation number, and an uneasy truce is reached.  But she still doesn’t want to give up:  "Would you like me to update this information, in case you have to ‘validate’ your software again?"

Me:  "No, why on earth would I do that?  I’ve written down the fake information I gave you so I know it next time."

Her:  "Well, yes, but it’s much better if we have your real information."

Me:  "Give me one reason why that benefits me."  Long silence.   I spit a few sentences of minor tirade about shady businesses trying to squeeze every nickel they can out of legitimate customers by treating them like poop.  (I don’t say that I was one inch from hanging up and getting a validation number–or heck, the whole new spiffiest version–from an "illegal" source, which would have taken me half the time and cost me nothing in personal info, and that it’s incredibly stupid of Quicken to make it so much easier and more pleasant for me to pirate their software than buy it.  If they can’t figure that out on their own, well, they deserve what they get.)  She retorts with the not-so-devastating "Well, I hope you understand why we do things this way."

I finish with, "Yes, I know exactly why your company does things that way.  It’s called greed, and it’s a revolting way to run a business.  Have a nice day."  Click.

The good news is, there are alternatives, and I’ll most certainly be buying one the next time we need to upgrade.  Mind Your Own Business looks good and has a neato name; and of course there’s PeachTree, which is a little much for us, but it’d be worth it not to need a permission slip from them every time I want to do anything to my own equipment.

We don’t kill nearly enough corporations in this country.  I mean, they’re legally persons, right?  It’s okay to have the death penalty in umpteen states for real live people, but we never kill corporations? 

I don’t get it.

Nor is Radiohead giving up all their precious profits in order to make a point.

Radiohead is a BIG band.  That means that they might, if the have a sweet, sweet contract going, actually occasionally make something, a penny maybe, on all those $20 CDs the recording companies sell for them.  For everybody else, who’s not a megastar, you lose money on CDs.

That’s right:  An object that gets produced for about a buck and sold for \$20 is making, typically, a negative profit for the musicians that wrote and performed the music.

(Now you see why the recording companies want you to have to buy a new CD every time you lose one, and not be allowed to loan them to your friends or give them away, don’t you?  Because that CD is pure profit…if you’re in the executive’s chair.)

CDs, my musician pals tell me, are advertising.  Oftentimes they cost rather than make you money, but you do them anyway because they get your name out there.  (Well, insofar as the recording industry lets it get out there, anyway.)

Now.  Radiohead, following the lead of some minor and a few other major acts, are going to be selling their latest album online, in digital form, for "whatever you want to pay for it".  They’re crazy!  say the pundits and wags.  You can’t do that hippy commie bullshit and expect to survive in this world!!!"

Well, look at the facts:  A digital record costs almost nothing to distribute (just the cost of bandwidth and web design, really).  Many people will just snag a copy for free.  But some people will pay for it — maybe up to \$5, because hey, compared to what it would cost even through iTunes, five bucks is a deal.

Basically, Radiohead "did the math" and figured out that, no matter how little their fans pay them for the music, they’re still making out better than they were under a recording contract.  AND THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING, isn’t it?  I mean, how many business deals can you look at and go, "If I stood on the corner and gave this away and asked people to please give me money if they wanted to, no matter how many people did, I’d still be doing better than I am now"?

In other words, in this case, the hippy commie bull is a better deal than the predatory capitalist monopoly.  Let’s all just pause a moment and wallow in our shock, shall we?

…

You know…It’s not very often that you get to look forward to pleasures that last for decades…but during the course of my life, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy watching the recording industry sink like a fat white Titanic.  That they are, and will, is the biggest affirmation of my faith in the free market that I can point to. 

::happy sigh::

PD

Like, the plague that’s lived in my sinuses the last week?  EEEEEEEvil.  However, I left work early yesterday and conked out for three hours in the afternoon, and WOW did that help.  I feel human again!  (And my precious schedule is back and rockin’!  Even though it’s in shambles, the new house is really helping, too - Getting up at 4 a.m. when you can leave the room, make coffee, get toast and play video games?  Piece of cake.)

Now.  The plague of "pirating" that so many companies are eager to claim as the cause of all their financial woes?  Not so evil, as I’ve discussed before.  

(Just the other day, on a news program, a songwriter blithely referred to the financial troubles he’s having "because CD sales are suffering due to pirating", and I had my hands halfway around his electronic throat screaming NO YOU IDIOT CD SALES ARE SUFFERING BECAUSE THE PRODUCT IS CRAPPY AND OVERPRICED before I realized that, um, I was accosting a television.  But seriously, don’t even get me started on the "ringle" — a CD single boasting 2 songs and a ringtone, for \$6-7.  WHY anyone would buy that, you may wonder, when you can get the 2 songs from iTunes for \$0.99 each, and make free ringtones from them using legal, already-available software?  Well, duh, nobody WILL buy it.  And then the RIAA will blame all the money they lose on "pirates".) 

But this week, Information Week reviewed[article] an interesting study[PDF] done recently by a huge association representing computer-industry heavies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, which sticks yet another fork in the "unauthorized use = pirating = evil" balloon.  Their results show that Fair Use "violations" of copyright are actually worth seventy percent more in revenue to the U.S. economy than "authorized" copyright itself is!!

Now, could that 70% number be a little inflated?  Possibly; while Google and Yahoo have some stake in keeping fair use loose and ready to rock, Microsoft and some of the other companies are usually firmly on the other side of the fence.  But assume that it is inflated, because hell, that’s a safe assumption with industry-funded studies anyway.  Still, the fact that Fair Use is worth more than copyright is pretty freaking telling, isn’t it? 

And not only is it telling, it’s unsurprising, at least if you know your American history.  Things That Wouldn’t Exist Without Fair (or even unfair) Copyright Violations is a formidable and powerful list, including items like:

*  Disney

*  Hollywood

*  The Internet

*  FM Radio

And other serious economic and cultural players.  Considering that the Internet alone is worth billions to the economy, and for the first part of its life existed almost solely to spread unauthorized chunks of copyrighted content (and still does a hefty amount of it today, to the benefit of many, many people), who’s surprised, really, that the economic value of Fair Use is so large?

Look, it’s really simple.  Copyright is supposed to exist to protect and encourage innovation.  And without a robust and flexible implementation of Fair Use, it tends to do exactly the opposite.  Look at how strict movie and music and software fatcats want to be about what you can do with what you buy — you’re only "authorized" to watch this movie at home, on your DVD player; you’re only "authorized" to listen to this music so many times; you’re not "authorized" to re-sell or loan out this game.  They’re thinking like fatcats tend to, putting their PROPERTY OF stickers all over everything they can, but in reality, what are actions like those going to do to their market?

Well, why ask the question?  Just look at the music industry.  Sales are plummetting, artists and music retailers and consumers all hate them, and predictions of their demise have become unanimous in the last few years.

All of this is just another splash on the mural I like to call GOOD THINGS WORK, BAD THINGS DON’T.  Sharing and commenting and modifying and parodying are good things.

(Sneezing forty times in one day is a bad thing.)