What more can I say? I’m amazed. Encryption up next I guess…

IPRED painkiller ad

There’s a lot of discussion about the Swedish Ipred implementation. Basically, the government want to allow rights holders to be able to sent threatening letters to people downloading copyrighted material, outsourcing law enforcement to private interests.

Here’s my favorite contribution so far – the Green Youth of Sweden edited the well known “Ipren” ad, as seen to the right.

Ipred
Unintelligence 400mg
Stops technological development and cultural exchange. Reduces integrity.

For politicians out of touch with reality

As far as I’m concerned, the most disturbing aspect of the new law is that it will make investigation of child pornography and other serious crimes on the Internet harder. Apparently, copyright laws must be implemented and defended at any prize whatsoever. If you thought that the media industry comparing file sharing with stealing cars was too unrealistic for anyone to really agree, think again. If you press the download button, you’d better think twice – to some you’re worse of a criminal than child pornographers or basically any other criminal on the net. You’re the lowest of low.

I’ll have that pain killer now, thanks!

At the moment I#m taking a rest from reading the book “Affluenza – The All-Consuming Epidemic”, second edition. (New and Improved, just like in the ads). I’m wondering about where our high-tech society is really carrying us. I can see a pattern of corporate owned technology (protected by patents, just to be safe) designed to push our consumtion closer to, or even past, our limits. A credit card mayhem is wrecking havoc, creating the slave labour of the 21st century.

“A powerful virus has infected American society, threatening our wallets, our friendships, our families, our communities, and our environment. We call the virus Affluenza. And because the United States has become the economic model for most of the world, the virus is now loose on every continent”

You are susceptible to the affluenza virus; do you want to step out of the hamster wheel? (Yes / No / Cancel)

Update: Valuable treasures can sometimes be found at Pirate Bay, if nowhere else.

The reason for asking this is that I met a woman (while hitch-hiking) who was talking about the hitch-hiker culture of the 60′s and 70′s. According to her it was much more of a social movement than just about traveling. So, if it was sort of a social movement, it’s not enough to ask why the hitch-hikers disappeared, we also have to ask where this social movement went, or did that disappear aswell?

Let’s start with the easy question. Why did the hitch-hikers disappear. I would say that it’s probably mainly due to two or possibly three changes. First we have the spread of the freeways, where you’re not allowed to stop you can, nor to hitch-hike in the first place. That made longer distance hitch-hiking a real pain. Next we have the cars which became more easily accessible, possibly in combination with better public transport, which reduced the need for hitch-hiking. A third explanation could possibly be the mental barrier of fear against picking up strangers, providing that is a factor that’s changed over time. This is a rather common explanation, but I’m skeptical about it. I think most people have always been negative towards picking up strangers and this argument could just as easy be just another “things were better in the past” kind of argument. My opinion is that peoples fear of strangers isn’t really getting stronger over time; more like the other way around.

Ok, to the point already! Where did the social movement go? Well, when one technology fails a social movement, maybe they find other paths. Being pushed away by the freeways and laws they might well have found new ways on the Internet. Only this time it’s not about traveling, it’s about a place to sleep. (Well, sometimes the hitch-hiking turned out the same way I hear.) Breaking against the commersialistic approach of hotels, motels and hostels, they found something revolutionizing. Please join us at couchsurfing.com!

“intelligent software” – 648,000 hits
“unintelligent software” – 72 hits
“smart software” – 496,000 hits
“stupid software” – 35,200 hits
“clever software” – 60,200 hits
“dumb software” – 9,640 hits

Ok, lets sort a bit:
“intelligent software” – 648,000 hits
“smart software” – 496,000 hits
“clever software” – 60,200 hits
—
“stupid software” – 35,200 hits
“dumb software” – 9,640 hits
“unintelligent software” – 72 hits

I think you get the point. There is a clear preference of terms like intelligent, smart or clever to describe software. Sounds reasonable, right? I think not. Intelligence to me is about thinking on your own, critically evaluating information, adding complexity. What most people in reality expects from a computer is the opposite. You expect it to do repetitive calculating tasks, handling massive amounts of data without making changes to it on it´s own.

In fact, what most people would define as intelligent is probably what annoys them most if done by a computer. If you knew exactly how your friends react to everything you say or do you would get annoyed and probably thinking they’re either boring, stupid or both. When your computer doesn’t reacts the way you expect, on the other hand, that´s what makes you the most annoyed with it.

Consequently, I would like to propose to all you software makers to enter into the domain of dimwitted software. That´s what we really want from you!

Y’know, there’s such a proverb: “To piss off the bus driver, I’ll buy a ticket and then walk all the way instead of taking the bus”. That’s what you are doing.

As long as you are the only guy in your company who does things “your way” as opposed to “their way”, as long as you use OSS yourself but adapt it to MS software when used for any collaborative purpose, you are helping nobody and doing nothing but wasting time and being an extra pain in the ass for the sysadmin.

Förvånad upptäckte jag att kritiken framstod för mig som fullständigt rimlig. Här är anledningen till förvåningen:

För mig handlar fri programvara om en maktförskjutning i användarens riktning. En decentralisering. Det är inte ett stort företag som äger programvaran och det är inte deras föreställning om hur, var och varför programvaran kan köras som avgör dess funktion. Det är vanan vid frihet som är skälet till att jag har svårt att hantera begränsningarna i MacOS eller Microsoft Windows. Men jag har tänkt mig att maktförskjutningen ska komma underifrån; av att användarna delar med sig av friheten till varandra och att allt fler börjar efterfråga program som inte begränsar dem. Jag har tänkt mig att jag och andra förändrar världen genom att ta teknologin i våra egna händer och visa hur livet ser ut i en fri värld. Kanske upplevs mitt engagemang bara som en nagel i ögat på systemadministratörer och andra användare.

Så om vi nu ska få till en teknologisk decentralisering, hur ska det då gå till? Var ska den decentraliseringen börja? Uppifrån, nerifrån, eller någon annanstans däremellan? När jag kör Firefox på jobbet fast vår IT-enhet inte egentligen tillåter det, är det då en olydnad som är konstruktiv, eller väcker jag bara ont blod gentemot fri programvara hos IT-folket?

Kanske handlar det om att ta lagom långa steg. Att ta steg när tekniken är mogen och när människorna är det. Att vara droppen som urholkar stenen, istället för regnet som översvämmar hela skiten. Eller också förblir vi en liten skara entusiaster (nåja, kanske inte så liten ändå) i frihetens land.