Doublethink and Newspeak

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. – George Orwell, “1984”

I just finished listening to Lawrence Lessig’s keynote speech at Oscon, titled free_culture. It’s huge (9 MB), and it’s over 30 minutes long, but you must listen to it.

In the not-too-distant future, if trends continue, I will have violated several laws by even thinking about this speech…much less linking to it and quoting Mr. Orwell.

Here are a couple of great sites to get you up-to-speed on this issue:

Opposing Copyright Extension, Protecting the Public Domain by Dennis Karjala
Copyright’s Commons
Free the mouse!

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Monday Mission 2.32

It’s time for another Monday Mission kiddies!

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Church, Carpentry and Mayhem

Ah, what a lovely Sunday. The weather was beautiful–much cooler than of late. I woke to find that the Mrs. had already made coffee, so I settled in to watch highlights of Pedro whooping the Twins, followed by a couple of episodes of Ground Force. Alan Titchmarsh appears to be one of the nicest people in the world…and that Charlie Dimmock (yowsa!).

Church was uneventful (the way I like it). I didn’t screw up in choir, and the pastor’s message was uplifting. No heavy meetings afterwards, so all-in-all an excellent Sunday morning.

We came home to put together Pepperkat’s new dresser. It’s only a $100 Target special, but we looked at Rooms To Go and decided that cheap is good. [ Side rant: The R2G room packages aren’t too bad, actually, but individual pieces are way too expensive. On top of that, after spending that kind of money, I would expect free delivery or to pay a nominal fee. But no! They charge $90 to deliver. ]

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Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Say Wha?

Two very strange pieces. Mere words cannot describe. Enjoy(?).

Tales of the Plush Cthulhu
[ Presented by Scott ]

Weebl and Bob
[ Dug up by Mordant Carnival ]

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Slowly Sinking Season

I’ve got a new catch phrase for the Sox (a la the 1948 Boston Braves): Pedro and Lowe…and pray for snow…

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It’s MOHAA Time

This weekend marks the first monthly MOHAA session. Sgt. Grump is hosting the game, while Cableman is setting up two Roger Wilco servers (one per team) to handle the chatter. I can’t wait to frag some NAZI’s…or Allies…depending on what side I wind up taking.

Posted in Life, the Universe and Everything | 1 Comment

Powers of Ten

Just flew back from North Carolina (and, boy, are my arms…oh, never mind). Anyway, I was going through the 14,000 messages in my Inbox, when I found this one from (Formerly Red) Menace. One of the exhibits at the Molecular Expressions website is Powers Of 10–an interactive Java piece that takes you from 10 million light years away from the Milky Way Galaxy down to a single proton in decreasing powers of ten.

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Y.A.U.T.

Yet Another Useless Trip…this time to Ahoskie, North Carolina…yee-haw. See you this weekend.

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Monday Mission 2.31

Here’s this week’s Monday Mission from PromoGuy.

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Like, um, Okay

I just saw it again, and I still have tears in my eyes. The dance sequence at the end of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is one of the funniest things on film.

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