Dark Rantings

Calling All ReplayTV Commercial Skippers

As many readers know, EFF sued 28 Hollywood movie studios last year on behalf of five owners of ReplayTV 4000 units in response to studio claims that consumers who automatically skip commercials are breaking the law. The lawsuit asked the Court to rule that commercial skipping is fair use and NOT copyright infringement. After months of litigation, EFF has finally forced the studios to give up their threats and concede that our five clients can skip all the commercials they want with their ReplayTVs without fear of legal action.

So where do you come in? We've won the right to skip commercials for five consumers; now we want to make it 500, or if possible, 5,000 - the more the merrier. If you own a ReplayTV 4000 series unit or know anyone who does, contact us immediately. We are in the process of finalizing our negotiations with the movie studios and would like to get similar protection for everyone who has a ReplayTV and uses it for automatic commercial skipping. Contact us at:

nocommercials@eff.org

For more information on the case, please see our ReplayTV archive

P.S. If you use some other technology to skip commercials other than a ReplayTV 4000 series unit, drop us a line as well. While you may be outside the scope of the current case, we will be looking to bring similar cases in the future to guarantee the fair use rights of all consumers, no matter what technology you may use to enjoy them.

Posted by mikki at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

p>I've lived in many areas of the world, and I must say that I have had more power outages in the Commonwealth of Virginia than I have dealt with anywhere else, including the Middle East.

So it was not a terrible surprise last night, during a storm, when we lost power for about 4 hours. During that time, I used my laptop to dial in and check the status of power in the region, and perhaps find out whether or not there was any information about when we could expect power back. While I was there, I decided to send a message to customer service asking them when my power would be back, and asking why they haven't finally bitten the bullet and BURIED our phone lines, so falling branches wouldn't routinely take the power down.

This morning, I received an email from them, saying in part:

Posted by mikki at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In yet another example of the rampant "it's not MY fault'itis" that seems to be sweeping America, the lastest and possibly most moronic attempt to blame someone else comes from - the close friends in fascism to the RIAA, a motion picture executive.

It can't POSSIBLY be that people aren't going out to the movies so much because the movies SUCK. It can't possibly be because it's oftentimes more convenient to wait for the DVD (which makes the MPAA a ton of money anyway) rather than put up with misbehaving brats and adult brats who won't shut up during movies. And it can't POSSIBLY be because our lives are more busy. Instead, let's blame free speech.

In this story Rick Sands, COO of Mirimax claims that text messaging devices are to blame. Yes, those horrible people expressing *gasp* OPINIONS might actually be cutting into his bottom line. Those naughty people who send messages to their friends not to waste 2 hours and up to 20 bucks to watch a crappy film, NOT the crappy film itself, are to blame.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if someday a corporate executive stands up and says, "We lost market share because we have a lousy product. We're sorry. We'll try to do better next time." Stop the presses!

Posted by mikki at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is just patently unfair. After all these years I NEED GLASSES!!!! This is TERRIBLE! It's another sign I'm getting old. Who the HELL made up these lame and stupid rules? I feel like an old granny or something. For the first time in my life, I need GLASSES! Oh the indignity of it all!

Posted by mikki at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The lame and stupid "Defense Zone" meant solely to save the shrub's butt has again been shown to be completely and utterly impotent as some poor dumbass, likely taking off from after the Frederick, MD air show last night, busted the defense zone, scrambling F-16s whose afterburners blasted over my house. As happens SO often, the jets lost their quarry, and the hapless nincompoop escaped with his pilots certificate intact.

Before counting up the amount of money in jet fuel alone spent on protecting us from some poor fool in a 4 seat aircraft, think about the stupidity of the whole operation. How long does it take to fly a small plane doing about 110 knots per hour from let's say Gaithersburg, MD to the White House? Eyeballing it off the sectional, looks like 17 nautical miles. So, let's estimate how long it would take to get there in a 172... Figure maybe a 2 NM climb out at 60 kph, 2 minutes there. Then we need to go 14 NM more at about 110 KPH 7.6 more minutes. Then about 1 minute for a dive. Total time, 10.6 minutes.

Let's see....can you get a pilot from wherever he happens to be, to an aircraft sitting on the ground, get that aircraft started, taxi it to the runway, talk to the tower to make sure that nobody else is coming in or going out that you might hit, take off as quickly as you can, find where the aircraft happens to be, distinguishing it from the Cessna 206 operated by an unnamed agency that flies over the White House often enough to be spotted by many individuals, attempt an intercept, and then shoot it down if the aircraft does not comply in less than 10.6 minutes. I think NOT.

It would take even LONGER to figure out if the pilot complies with the ADIZ instructions and gets a discrete squawk code before taking off. In the ADIZ, anything that is already "ok" to be in the ADIZ isn't watched as closely until they deviate from their flight plan. So the same plane takes off, doesn't call anyone, but has a discrete squawk saying "I'm ok" to the controllers. The airplane turns toward the White House. The air traffic controller tries to contact the person. "Hey you....talk to me" for about 2 minutes, THEN notifies the guys who notify the pilots, THEN the pilot runs for their airplane.

So once again we have a stupid "band aid" security measure that does nothing for real security, and only makes the shrub feel better, like the double secret pop up temporary flight restictions 30 nautical miles around wherever the shrub happens to be campaigning. These "pop up" TFRs come up so quickly that pilots are often caught unaware and find their certificates rescinded because they didn't know that the president had targetted the area for campaigns.

Lame. Very very lame.

Posted by mikki at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My throat is sore as hell. I feel miserable and crappy and icky. I had the feeling I was coming down with something, and wouldn't you know it? Today BLAM.... sore throat and all. Last night I was up til 4 trying to recover from attempting to upgrade perl, and the contingency plan for what happens if everything blows up. But wait...there's more...

I was feeling like maybe I shouldn't go to Tae Kwon Do when I get the phone call from BRUCE saying he had scheduled 4 kids to come in so that I could give them evaluation classes. So I had to go in... bleah. On the way in, there was a massive thunderstorm and everything was doused with rain, and things flooded, and everything else was crappy and icky and I was soaked, etc. So I walk into the place and it STINKS like sulfur. Bruce tells me he was using a nail gun that uses gunpowder. Great. Just what I need. I'm allergic to sulfur. Yum yum. So as class continues, my head starts swimming, and pounding. So I go to get a diet coke out of the fridge, stepping loudly and squishily into a HUGE PUDDLE OF WATER. The AC had been dripping condensation in a big flood all over the storage room floor. Oh joyous rapture. Bruce said he knew about it. Well why didn't he put a BUCKET UNDER IT?

Well, after putting the bucket under the errant AC unit, we find that the only way to stop the flood is to turn it off. In 99% humidity, turning off the AC into a poorly ventilated small brick building with people working out and sulfur in the air is sure to put anyone off. By the time class ended and I got home, the throat was burning, nose was running, head was aching, etc. So I went to bed. Could I sleep? NO! Foo!

Posted by mikki at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are selfishly leaving and going to college. To HELL with this education stuff. It affects ME now, therefore they should not be allowed to go. This could be awful. I'll be stuck with BRUCE all by myself. Somebody save me. I think that maybe I should just commit suicide NOW before the rush.

My Naboo is leaving....my Zini is leaving. Whatever shall I do? Egads.

Posted by mikki at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I hadn't flown for a very long time, nor operated in the Shrub's latest brilliant idea, the ADIZ, so I thought I'd go to Leesburg and get a CFI and go flying. Thought maybe I could get an instrument check out as well, so i could do some more practice and get my skills back to the point where they should be. This should all be pretty easy, right? HA! Little did I know I was dealing with .... Mr. "By The Book" who wasn't quite sure WHAT book he was even using.

Everything started out innocently enough, with Mr. CFI giving me the keys, POH, and location of the Seminole we were going to fly. Not a bad airplane. Brand new just about. So I let myself in, did the preflight (finding the fuel drains was amusing) and got everything ready to go. CFI comes out and tells me now we have to go file a flight plan. Hmmm..thought that would be something he would have done already. Guess not.

So off we go to Leesburg Flight Service, right next door, file the ADIZ plan (direct FDK), call Potomac Approach before start up, got the squawk, started her up and taxied on out to 17. The aircraft had no checklist of any use (gee, thanks) so I had to rely on memory for most things. Since I was flying a twin, I never use the fuel pump, so brain farted on that. CFI finds this to be a flagrant violation of something or another and mutters to himself. Uh, ok kid. If there was a CHECKLIST maybe I wouldn't have FORGOTTEN, but since I told him I hadn't flown in ages, you'd think he'd be nicer. Anyway, I told him I didn't know how to use the Garmin 430s in the aircraft to fly approaches, but he seemed to think that was ok anyway, he'd set them up. Fine says me...and off we go.

CFI hadn't asked for, nor did we recieve any notams on the construction going on at Frederick. When we arrived, I didn't notice anything weird because I wasn't looking up... hit the fix, went outbound on the VOR (after explaining to CFI that you don't use the LOC outbound, read the chart...) reached the fix, did all the right stuff, intercepted inbound and kept it within 1 dot. When I looked up, I noticed this uh...displaced threshold 1/2 way down the runway at FDK. I suggested FDK because I wanted a long runway to practice t/o and landings. This was not it! Egads. I put it down anyway, nice landing, brought it back around and we just about had time to do some air work and get back to Leesburg.

On climb out, CFI noticed I hadn't raised the gear. I would later be admonished for this, as yet another example of my poor procedures. Sheesh. Didn't seem to matter that I did steep turns to within 100 feet, and slow flight with no problem even after not having flown for forever. Nor did it matter that I shot the loc into Leesburg with less than 1/2 a dot off and squeaked the landing.

In the debrief I was basically told that I might be somewhat safe VFR, but I shouldn't take any passengers, and IFR was right out. My procedures were awful, and I needed a lot more practice. Well gee. Thanks. I think the kid just wanted more multi time and thought I'd fly with him some more.

Now, in most cases, I'd be the first to say that when a pilot starts bitching about a CFI's "check out" that it's usually that the pilot is lousy and the CFI is just being prudent. I think that perhaps the "old bold" pilot is just dangerous, and whining because the CFI saw that, and called the pilot on it. However, I can also see the times when the CFI is expecting much more out of a student than is practical, and also not taking into consideration what happens when you haven't flown for ages. When I asked him, he admitted that nothing I did was "unsafe." He was just "uncomfortable." This discomfort, I believe, was his inexperience and lack of multi and instrument teaching showing.

This is not to say that I don't need practice. I most certainly do. This is not to say he wasn't right about my procedures needing work. Yep, they do. But I'm not unsafe, and I should be competent to fly IFR with just a few more hours with ANOTHER CFI :-) Hey Paul, you busy? :-)

Posted by mikki at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Really makes you want to give up your time and effort to coach kids in sports activities, doesn't it? From CBC News comes this stupid story

A man in New Brunswick is taking the province's amateur hockey association to court after it passed over his son at an awards banquet.

Lawyers for the association were in court on Tuesday trying to have the case dismissed.

At last year's awards banquet, Stephen Croteau, 17, was sure he'd win the awards for playmaker of the year and most valuable player. He had scored 27 more points than his closest competitor.

But Croteau lost, getting only one vote out of 10 at the banquet, and Croteau's father, Michel, decided to hire lawyer Euclide Lebouthilier to sue the association.

"Stephen Croteau has been denied something that was rightfully his. He has a right to know what happened," said Lebouthilier.

Charles LeBlond, the lawyer for the province's amateur hockey association, says there are no legal grounds for bringing this kind of dispute to court.

"You would be giving people the right to advance the most frivolous of claims in situations where there's simply no basis for it," said LeBlond.

LeBlond says Croteau had no reason to assume the awards were his.

Croteau's lawyer says the family tried to appeal the association's decision but wasn't allowed to. They felt that going to court was their only option.

Stephen Croteau is suspended from playing pending resolution of the lawsuit.

Posted by mikki at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Imagine, if you will, finding out that a member of your family dumped his wife and child for someone he met on the Internet, and later told that same child that he was attempting to "break up their family?" Also imagine a person who would tell his wife to get a hotel room so he could entertain his new Internet sweetie in their home.

Yes, here you would find my lame ass brother who married a bovine who has the nerve to peddle a book on "triumph over eating disorders" while listening to the voices in your head, and tries to sell "weight management" bulloney. See here where the bride completely obscures the reverend with her girth. And see here for the voices in your head ad for their "Spa." CHT must stand for "Certified Hamburger Tester" or perhaps "Corpulent Homewrecking Trollup"."

Posted by mikki at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The weather won't allow me to go to my 25th high school reunion. Well, all I can say to that is, "I HATE YOU, WEATHER!!!" And I don't know if I really wanted to go anyway, and see all those people who dissed me while I was growing up and vulnerable and all that stuff. And why am I OLD enough to have a 25th reunion anyway? Huh?

Well I should complain to management about this. It's just plain UNFAIR. Yeah, that'll do it. Grrrr.

Posted by mikki at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)