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Showing posts from July, 2012

Don't Pirate, Support Alternatives

People just consider the marginal cost of the media when they steal it and don't consider it as theft. But most of the cost is for the licence, you've stolen a piece of data, just like one can steal an idea or steal a name or steal a title. You don't deprive the owner of the item, but you do deprive him of the value of your extra copy. If I steal your idea without your permission and implement it and gain from it, without giving you your cut, then I have deprived you from those gains. What really disgusts me is when people justify piracy this way as their means to acquire material if they don't agree with the price and distribution mechanism. That's the same kind of thinking as that of a thief, a thief doesn't want to pay the price of something so steals it instead. That is bad for everyone. If one is really angry at the movie, music and software production and distribution industry or their prices and media, stop consuming their stuff.

We Don't Need No Population Control

Yes, the world can't sustain the current level of growth of population forever if everything else continued to be done in the same way. The reality is, everything else doesn't continue to be done in the same way. If we kept on using wood like we did 100 years ago, we would have run out long ago. It's not because we suddenly came to this realisation, it's because we ended up in a position that other materials are better and cheaper to use and used more of that instead. You know, economics.  Population growth through birth is also subject to the same economics, these things adjust themselves, it's beautiful. Starvation is not an issue of a lack of resources today, it's because of the lack of efficiency and distribution and horrible economic atrocities committed by the governments of some third world countries.  We produce more food than we consume, and waste some, yet people go hungry in other places. Just because the problem in these areas woul

Life in the First World, and London

You leave the house, with your car parked in the garage, where you could get to the garage through an inside door. Garage door opens electrically with motors.  You drive to work, you park in the parking garage underneath the office, get out and walk to take the lift up to the floor where you work.  After work you can drive past the ATM and get some cash out, and to the drive-through take out and get some food, and drive home, and park in the garage. When you go shopping, it's to a mall, where you can park. The mall has a roof over it, so when it rains the water doesn't fall onto your head when you move between shops, and has air conditioning so you don't break too much of a sweat doing your shopping in summer, or heating in winter. It's only when I moved to London that I realised this way of life is not obvious, and people spend much more time just getting the basics done like getting to work and back and shopping, and also less free time to spend w