By now, most everyone has heard about what happened at Digg… but in case you haven’t…

     The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) started sending Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requests to Digg, whose user-supported community were giving kudos to some little cyberpunks who decided to post Cracks which would allow users to steal licensed content from HD-DVD movies.  These DMCA requests merely asked Digg to take down links to the crack-codes, which their community users had posted.
     Users on Digg revolted as the company began complying with the DMCA requests, and posted thousands upon thousands on links to the illegal material.  Eventually, Digg was forced to concede to the mutiny, as it put an enormous amount of pressure on the dotcom’s small number of owners.

     Digg shouldn’t’ve had to exhaust their resources trying to fight this stuff.  And this is the downfall of user-supported communities on the Internet… And the users who think it’s a matter of “free and protected speech” are actually just a bunch of thugs.
     There, I said it.
     And I’m right.

     Let’s think of it this way:
     Some guy is standing at your local Mall passing out keys that fit the front door of your office, along with a flyer that has your Alarm code on it.  Is that illegal?  Yes.
     The same guy goes and puts your office key and Alarm code on the bulletin board at a local University.  Is that illegal?  Yes.

     But if he went home, and posted the information on the Internet, along with a precise method to guarantee that you could create that same office key using materials you already own, then some asshat Lawyer would claim that it’s protected, free speech.  And that is completely wrong, and defies all logic.
     So I have to ask … What’s the difference between a guy doing any of those three things, and passing out “key” to crack an HD-DVD movie?

     There is no difference.  It is illegal.  It has been illegal.

     And anyone who helps the guy do it?  Aiding and abetting.  That’s been illegal for a few hundred years.

     But money talks… You can guarantee that right now, over this controversey, a bunch of Lawyers will get together with a plan to make money by setting ridiculous precedents, becoming experts and what can only be called bullshit.

     It’s happened before.  For instance…
     It was illegal to trade child pr0n.  However, a lot of people felt it was okay to do it via the Internet, and had Lawyers prove their case.  The overwhelming excuse by Lawyers was, “It’s the Internet — it’s not real.”
     *cough*bullshit*cough*
     Finally, a bunch of other Lawyers got together and decided to make a law against “trading child pr0n on the Internet.”  Did we need that law, when “trading child pr0n” was already illegal?
     It was a way to make a bunch of Lawyers a pile of free cash from an unsuspecting public who felt that giving Lawyers and lobbyists some money was the only way to make it end — instead of starting a grassroots campaign to enforce the existing laws that made trafficking child pr0n illegal.

     It really sucks that people won’t realize that.

     If you call someone and threaten their life, it’s illegal.  If you do it over the Internet, it’s illegal.
     If you have a restraining order against someone and they harrass you, it’s illegal.  Even if they do it over the Internet, it’s illegal.

     Why do we keep letting pedantic Lawyers tell us none of this stuff is real?

     Tell your Representatives: if it’s illegal in real life, it’s illegal on the Internet.  This kind of Legal seperation has to stop!

     Unless it’s between two consenting adults…

     [ Maybe I’ve watched too much Penn & Teller ]

     A few months ago, I was using a urinal in a public restroom, minding my business.  As I zipped and turned, some idiot, for reasons still unknown, swung a punch — and missed.  I quickly used the momentum of his failed blow to spin him and throw him down hard.  I held his face to floor for several minutes, all the while explaining the reason this was a bad idea.  Eventually, he said, “Uncle” and I pulled my knee from under his shoulder blade.
     With tears streaming down his face (which, considering his aggressive condition, may have been more to do with several minutes of close proximity to years of stale urine and industrial strength floor cleaner than actual pain), he proceeded to leave the establishment.
     Although he apologized to me and several other patrons for the trouble he’d caused, he did scream, “F#$* you all!  I’m never coming to this place again!” exactly one second before exiting the building.  This is expected behavior from an aggressive asshat.
     Apparently, said asshat had already caused a lot of problems.  Some of the regulars, who had observed the last portion of the short-lived melee, found the situation altogether hilarious.  It wasn’t long after that I was sitting at the bar (no one would find that shocking) drinking an on-the-House pitcher of beer.
     We laughed, discussed, and I was accepted as “part of the family.”  Eventually, the subject of our banter became “restroom etiquette.”

     Though we did not create this video (the fine folks at Zarathustra Studios did it, using The Sims 2, Sim City 4 and some other cool stuff), many of these same subjects were touched upon…

If not of satan, then a spawn of said demon.
They are almost as bad as Wal-Mart, yet another corporate money-grubber I hate with a purple passion.

I went to pay my monthly Comcast bill online by check, although I didn’t have much money and needed money right away so I went to the check into cash on getwell. Have technology, why not use it. Save a stamp, save a tree.
Well, when I clicked submit, it gave me an error message and number, which I’m glad I wrote down. So, I called and went through an seemingly endless barrage of the same automated questions being asked over and over by an annoying voiced robot. Then, as has been every other time I’ve called Comcast, I was put into the standard holding pattern like an Airbus 300 waiting to land at Los Angeles International Airport.

I was given clearance to land, and began my decent into the always fun world of call center customer service.

I spoke with girl this time who said she didn’t see any pending payments or anything and that I should just make my payment over the phone.

So, I did. With my debit card, which goes immediately. Come to find out 30 minutes later, the internet payment had went through and here is my confirmation.

So, I call them (Comcast) back, I go through the automated answering phone maze again and back into the standard holding pattern like an F16 circling Baghdad, only to talk to a not so pleasant or helpful fellow named Josh. They can’t stop either payment, he says.
“Hello.” Say I, Just reverse the charges on the debit card, pal!!??!!”

To which Josh says repeatedly, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Once payments are through, they are through and there is nothing we can do about it. I spent more than 45 minutes of my valuable time, not to mention all the hold time, fighting with Josh about how all of this is not my fault.
I would have never paid over the phone had I not received an error message up on the clicking of the submit button.

So, I get on my cell phone and call the bank whilst on hold . And, as the useless bloodsuckers they are, can’t stop any payments, as both are technically electronic payments.

Color me screwed. So two payments in the amount of $153.00 are going to be sucked out of my bank account because Comcast’s website sucks on severely proportionate levels

Now I’m on hold with them again, as they always have higher than normal call volume.

     Last week, I inherited a website maintenance customer from a partner company.  After getting everything working on Wednesday afternoon with the Indexer team, I sat back and waiting until the next time they’d call.

     On Thursday, I was forwarded an e-mail saying there was an additional issue with their site.  I looked at the file dates, and of course, one of the files in their e-Commerce software had been modified at 9:03AM on 19-Apr-2007.  I rebuilt the file, inserted the requisite variables, and called the customer.
     “No, I haven’t been in it,” he said.  “I just got this stuff yesterday.”
     Clearly, someone had.  The site worked perfectly fine when I left it on Wednesday.  Regardless, I took his explanation, and asked that he setup an account with us.
     “No, all this stuff should be part of the Setup,” he monotoned.  “My wife does all of the billing, anyway.”  Eventually, he promised to have her called me on Friday, 20-Apr-2007.

     Friday came and went without a phone call.

     Monday came, and there were new issues.  At 3:30PM, interns at the company called me to tell me that they were unable to login to the website’s backend yet again.
     Investigation showed that files had been changed at 2:30PM, an hour before they called.  I told them I would call them back, made the required changes, and got it all up and running again.

     The first intern I talked to didn’t know anything about setting up an account with us, but would pass me onto the person who did that.
     Of course, the second intern didn’t know anything about setting up an account with us, but would pass me onto the owner.  “Oh, she’s not in, but I’ll have her call you back tomorrow!”

     Today … I never received a call from them.  I called the company again, attempted to speak to the owner, and was told, “Oh, I’m sorry she didn’t call you back.  But she doesn’t know you, and isn’t comfortable setting up an account when she doesn’t know what it’s for.”
     “It’s for fixing your website,” I explained.  “I’ve been trying to get hold of her since last week.”
     “No, really?  You didn’t talk to anyone here,” she said in a sarcastic tone.
     “No, I spoke with your sysadmin, her husband, last Thursday,” I explained.  “We need to get this situation resolved.  I need to speak with her, and get this straightened out.”
     “Well, what is it that you do?” she asked.
     “Well, you call us for help, we fix it.  Like when you called me yesterday,” I explained.
     “Well, she doesn’t know you, and, uhh, we might not use you anyway.”
     “That’s a bit rough,” I said firmly.  “You’re leaving me in a position where my only recourse is to revert the fixes I’ve made and leave you with it.  I don’t want to have to do that…”
     “Well, okay, I’ll call her right now,” she agreed.

     An hour later, I get a call from my partner company.
     “Mark, she’s going off that you’re making terrorist threats against her website!”
     “Man, I’m still trying to get hold of her.  Her intern said she wouldn’t call me because they don’t know me.”
     “That’s ridiculous … I sent them the e-mail last week!” he exclaimed.
     “Yeah, and it’s their sysadmin’s position that if they break anything on the site right now, that they’ve already paid for it with setup,” I explained.  “But he’s going to have his wife call me, only, she won’t talk to me, because she doesn’t know me.”
     “Well, she said she’s not going to do business with any company that starts making terroristic threats against her website.”
     “Maybe you should give her the number for Homeland Security,” I told him.

     We had a bit of a laugh at the nonsense of the situation.

     Nobody can fault me on my Customer Service skills.  For that matter, no one can say I’ve ever been unfair when issues like these have arisen.

     This is simply a client who’s attempting to get out of paying their bill.  A previous maintenance company allowed them to pay with barter dollars, so I’m guessing they’re a bit miffed at having to come up with cash or a credit card to for the service.

     Some customers nobody needs.

     But in the meantime — I’m a website terrorist!  *thumbs up*

     Should I start wearing a turban?

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Oh God, he’s going to talk about Dub-yah.”  You couldn’t be any further from the truth.  Why would anyone in their right mind protest the leaders of their country?  I mean isn’t that why we elect our leaders to keep our BEST interests at heart when they make our decisions for us?  If you disagreed with your leaders, would it not be better to stay on the same level and right them?  Numbers don’t lie.  If you had enough backing then you prove you’re right.  Magically, things might change.

But no, I simply want to make a simple observation, war protesting just sucks now.  What happened?  Have we as a culture forgotten how to be creative in the face of adversity and disagreement?  More specifically, to borrow a line from an old song “Where have all the flowers gone?  Long time passing…”  I couldn’t sum it up better; the protest song has become all but a lost art.  Who can we look for to fill the void, the Dixie Chicks?  Heh, I’ll admit they are cute, but cuteness does NOT mean talented by any means.  The last time we needed protest songs we could look for the Beatles, Donovan, Edwin Starr, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse and the Grateful Dead just to name a few.

That’s a crappy ratio if you ask me.  But it does prove the point that there really is no reason to protest the current involvements of our great nation.  Rather, I suggest we protest the lack of support.  I truly believe that nothing can be achieved since our collective heart just isn’t into protesting now.  So I have this bit of advice to offer to protesters out there, get more creative or ship out.  (Preferably to New Zealand where they always need more liberally protesting types of people.)  Bon Voyage!