Sony and Anonymous
Posted on 04. Jan, 2012 by Dan Soucy.
This video was posted a week ago, expressing a grand plan to hack Sony in opposition to its support of SOPA. Since then, the reaction from the public and the media has demonstrated large-scale cluelessness (read the video’s comments for a taste).
“Anonymous” is a name that can be used by anyone on the internet. When “Anonymous” does something, what that actually means is that one or more people using the name did that thing on behalf of everyone who identifies as “Anonymous”.
A statement like “Anonymous will hack Sony” is not a warning to Sony. It’s a request made to other people identifying with the name. So, “Anonymous will hack you” really means “hey, somebody should hack these guys, does anybody feel like doing it?”. Likewise, “Anonymous will boycott Sony for reasons xyz” is effectively saying “let’s boycott Sony, here’s why they deserve it”. The fact that the media scrambles to publicize anything anybody says under the name Anonymous plays directly into their hands.
If enough capable people feel like doing it, then it gets done. If not, it doesn’t. So no, Anonymous does not make promises, nor does it go back on them. Statements like “Anonymous never does anything” demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system works. If you’re mocking Anonymous for “attacking the wrong people” then you are way off-base. That video was released by a single person. If people don’t feel that Justin Bieber deserves to be attacked, then he won’t be. If they do, then to be honest, he probably does.
The point of hacking something like the PlayStation network is to make these complex issues directly relevant to the everyday lives of a large demographic. A convenient side effect of hurting the users’ experience is that it can cost Sony financially, but that was never the primary goal. The goal is to draw attention to the unethical behaviour of this company, for its support of SOPA, its obsession with drowning all of its products in DRMs, or anything else that could be considered harmful.
Sony is already on the lengthy list of corporations that I’m not going to fund. In that sense, I myself am participating in a Sony boycott (though as a pretentious indie).
And could somebody tell me who the fuck Kim Kardashian is?
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Franchise Reboots Are Bullshit
Posted on 25. Nov, 2011 by Bran Rainey.
I’m about to rant about a movie, and if you’re someone who’s stupid enough to whine about how it “doesn’t matter”, you should go read another article. I know that it doesn’t matter. Saying that something doesn’t matter just so you have an excuse not to talk about it is just a stupid, condescending remark that people with no interest in the subject say in an attempt to make themselves feel important. I’m well aware that movies are not more important than global politics. I’m still capable of ranting about them without blowing it out of perspective; if you think I’m not, that’s a consequence of your own arrogance.
With that out of the way, here’s something I’m completely sick of: the James Bond franchise.
For 20 straight movies, it had a consistent style. Whether or not you actually like it personally, it doesn’t matter. The objective fact of the matter is, all 20 of these movies had basically the same tone and meaning to them: a light-hearted story about a spy with plenty of humour thrown in, meant for entertainment only. As the times changed throughout the 30+ years that these films were released, they each updated the franchise to fit the times without completely altering the franchise. For that reason, every Bond movie up until Die Another Day was at least recognizable as a Bond movie.
But since 2006, Eon has produced two Bond movies (with a third currently in production), all of which are part of their “rebooting” of the franchise. None of these new movies are even remotely similar to the old movies, other than sharing one actress (whose character has been changed beyond recognition). Now, I really don’t care if people like these new movies. I personally don’t, but that’s not the point. The point is that this “reboot” is completely unnecessary and insulting — not just to fans of the old franchise, but to anyone who puts their money forward to Eon.
What they’re doing is part of a big trend nowadays: companies that have or gain the rights to a franchise, change everything about it other than the names, and claim it’s a “reboot”. People who liked the series before will buy the new rendition even if they don’t like the new direction the series is taking, so the company is successful. The thing that’s so insulting about this trend is that these “reboots” aren’t just a new direction that the series is taking — they’re entirely different series released under the same name solely for the purpose of making a quick buck.
Yes, I am aware that making money is the point of a company, but they’re supposed to hide that fact by making quality products that are actually worth money in the first place. If you need to defend a company by saying that they’re just trying to make money, you’re an idiot.
If you want to make a serious, true-to-the-books rendition of James Bond, go ahead and do it. But don’t call it James Bond. There’s already a franchise using that name. There might be an argument for using that name anyway if the new franchise were closer to the books (since the books had the name first), but that’s not the case at all. The Bond stories were trashy stories about a spy written for pure entertainment, and the original film series already is the movie adaptation of that. Even if the new Bond movies are superficially more similar, their tone and style is nothing alike; the new ones act like they have some kind of deep meaning behind them. That’s the only part that actually matters, not the superficial crap like whether Q should be named Major Boothroyd or not. If you don’t believe me, look up what Ian Fleming had to say on the subject: he was alive for much of the franchise’s early history and thought it was exactly what he wanted: a fun story about a spy.
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My standard response to receiving Microsoft Office attachments
Posted on 14. Nov, 2011 by Dan Soucy.
I’m sorry, but I was unable to read the attachment you sent me because you sent it in Microsoft’s proprietary Word (Excel, Powerpoint) format.
Microsoft has been steadily changing the format of their Office documents with every release of Microsoft Office. They have also not released the details of these formats, which means the only program that can reliably read the file you sent is the same version of Microsoft Office that you wrote it with (or newer). People with older versions of Microsoft Office, or people who don’t own any version, cannot reliably read these files.
This means we cannot exchange information until one of two things happens:
1. the information is sent to me in a standard format that I can read with a program of my choice.
2. I purchase and install the newest version of Microsoft Office (and anything else I need to run it).
I will not be doing the latter. A good standard format to use is the PDF, and I humbly request that you not send Microsoft Office attachments to anybody in the future. Some people may feel that not owning the latest version of Microsoft Office is somehow their fault.
(For more information, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html)
If you’re still using Microsoft Office, do yourself a favour and install LibreOffice.
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My Favourite Class of the Semester (By Far)
Posted on 29. Jun, 2011 by Dan Soucy.
Introduction to Fundamentals of pre-English 101 meant a lot of things to me. On some days, it was a chance to interact with my classmates on a meaningful level – on other days, it was the time to catch up on things I had meant to do the previous night, but was not able to due to not being tired. It was in this class that I learned to question the nature of things and their meaning with regards to my life. It was also in this class that I noticed my hands are a funny shape, with fingers poking out at odd angles. If this had been a math class, I might have had my protractor, but alas, it was not.
I feel like this class has improved my writing dramatically – I have moved from sporadically writing about anything to frequently writing about nothing, which is obviously a great leap forward. I look forward to this time next year when I will hopefully be writing constantly but seeing no ink appear on the page at all.
Possibly the most important thing I’ll take away from this class is the way words are spelled – especially big words, like “irony” and “refutation”. Orthography is surely one of the most important fields of study of our time, second only to religion and possibly archaeology. I now realize that there can only be one way to spell “refutation”, that it must include at least two ‘t’s and an ‘f’. Any other way is just wrong. Back in my dark days, I might have drawn a surfboarding shark by mistake.
I have accepted how important it is to use commas in the prescribed way, and only the prescribed way. Smooth phrasing and logical sentence structure should always come second to tradition and conformity. It has also come to my attention that when using quotation marks, a comma needs to be placed at the end, but before the last quotation. Regardless of whether it makes any sense whatsoever, and even though it mutilates an otherwise perfectly good string of characters, that’s just how it’s done. Best not to question it.
The students in this class are of a very educated folk, and I know I am very lucky to have had this opportunity to teach them and to learn from them. The experience shared will surely last a lifetime or two. In particular, the ones who think war censorship is nifty are the ones who will forever plague my memory. I do hope though that that one girl will come to accept that Swedes are people too, even if they do talk funny. It is a very good thing the prof took attendance every day (and deducted points for absences) or I might not have gone at all, and such wonderful fortune may have passed me by.
There have been untold times when I’ve walked into class practically blind and left feeling as though I had had my eyes opened for the very first time, with some new fantastic revelation. Have you ever seen The Matrix? It was like that, only with more poetry. Well, more Spoon River Anthology, anyway.
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The Smoking Stigma
Posted on 22. Jun, 2011 by Dan Soucy.
Every single one of us makes unhealthy choices on a regular basis. Eating pizza, spending too much time at the computer, having sex with strangers, you name it – somebody’s doing it right now. We don’t do it for any particular reason, other than because we like it and want to. It’s the same reason why people jump out of planes with nothing but a piece of nylon strapped on their backs. They know there are about twenty things that can go wrong, each one ending in an immediate death, but they do it anyway because they get a kick out of it. Why is it that parachuters are lauded for their bravery while smokers are shunned in public?
I’d like to think people don’t judge others on their personal preferences, but that’s just not the way it is. Smokers are assumed to be morons even more quickly than artists are assumed to be gay. It would be really nice if we could all realize that what a person chooses to spend their time and money on really doesn’t say very much about who they are. I’ve met plenty of smokers who are perfectly rational people, and far more than my share of dickheads who would insist that tobacco is the devil’s blood and should be outlawed.
Yes, smoking is dangerous. I know it, you know it, and every smoker knows it. They’ve decided to take the risk of getting sick in thirty years in exchange for some short-term pleasure. Stop pretending you don’t do the exact same thing. You do, and you should keep doing it. It is never a poor choice to want to be happy.
So, for fuck’s sake, stop pointing at every person you see with a cigarette and telling me all about their bad life choices. It’s their life – let them do what they want.
