Tech Whore
Beating a Dead Horse
2002 Technology Rehash
A new year is upon us. It’s a time to reflect on the past, a time to look to the future, and more importantly, a time to get shit-faced drunk, embarrass your friends, and pass out in the corner. 2002 was an interesting and scary year for technology. Between the financial downturn of dot-coms and the fizzled out Microsoft Antitrust investigation, no one knew where to run for safety. During the fall semester, I tried to touch upon three important topics: MP3 distribution and online copyright protection, the poor condition of the SAIC computer labs, and threats to the preservation of online privacy. But before I can look to the future, I must provide an update on the past.
SONY, YOU IGNORANT SLUT!
According to a recent court case, Internet service providers must agree to requests by the music industry to hand over the identities of individuals who are allegedly illegally downloading music. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the music industry can force Internet providers to give them information upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk’s office, without a judge’s order.
I wish these people would get it through their wee little brains that “illegal” distribution of music over the Internet and peer-to-peer networks is a good thing for musicians, songwriters, and the recording industry as a whole. As a cable Internet user, I can download the one or two songs that I want to hear from an album and actually become more interested in the artist. As time goes by and I like the artist more, I end up becoming a devoted or, at the very least, interested fan who goes out and supports them by buying their music. In the long run, downloading and trading MP3s is good for the music industry and not a threat to it.
IT’S MY SCHOOL AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO
Working in SAIC computer labs has become a little less agitating with recent purchases of eMacs. Of course, network integrity and computer maintenance are still horrendous. In any given lab only about two-thirds of the computers may actually work to a high enough level to allow any decent work to get done — that is without encountering missing fonts or printing problems, not to mention system crashes.
With Apple’s latest operating system OS X 10.2, codenamed Jaguar, the software in SAIC computer labs now have a good foundation to upgrade to. Okay, sure QuarkXpress hasn’t come out yet for Jaguar due to the company’s typical delays. For some reason Quark refuses to upgrade in a timely manner. They prefer to lag behind while the rest of the computer industry has not only jumped on the bandwagon, but also logged a few miles. At least the older version of Quark can be run in the meantime, albeit with stability problems. Of course, there’s always Adobe InDesign. But for the most part, people don’t want to learn an entire new program so instead they wait, and wait, and then wait some more (Did I mention that people have to wait? Okay, just checking.) for the upgrade to QuarkXpress.
PRIVATE EYES ARE WATCHING YOU
As if the Homeland Security Act and USA Patriot Act weren’t enough, Big Brother government will know even more than they need to through the Total Information Awareness (TIA) project. The government is looking for terrorists and to do this they feel they need to look at every American’s personal information. Each citizen’s credit card, medical, school, and travel records are being put into a national database by looking through private, commercial databases.
This action is a clear violation of Fourth Amendment and privacy rights. It has been said that it would take something like the attacks of September 11 to make citizens be more complacent with giving up some of their Constitutional rights. The problem is once one right has been given up the rest are soon to follow.
Now that we’re done reflecting on the past it’s time to move on to the future. A future that’s filled with unknowns and uncertainties. Well, I think I’ll just get drunk instead.
Logo by Rebecca Kramer