Thursday, April 23, 2009

Chat addict

Yeah, I am a chat addict too. And I'm not afraid to admit it. I said to myself I'll never chat again, but that's just silly in today's world. The key is moderation. Not the kind where people remove your posts, but where you force yourself to spend only a couple of hours a day, give yourself a quata, and punishment if you go over that. The punishment could for instance be to not log in to any chat rooms for 3 weeks. You have to be strict on yourself because if you are not careful as a chat addict your life will be spent hehind the screen and keyboard. Don't underastimate it. Although many people use it jokingly, It is a real disease and could ruin your life. So after a long time on IRC with my favourite friends on Starlinks #ircbar, a long time ago. I picked up my chat addiction again at nobodyhere.com. Where they have this great chat application where you are a bug in a sink. I first heard about it because they recieved a webby award and It's such a creative site. The one who we fondly call our Creator publishes under the pseudonym "Jochem Niemandsverdriet" where he shows us his strange flash creations and view of the world he supposedly lives in.
Also he has allowed all of us to log in to his site and leave messages. There is only one condition: you have to pick a bug as an avatar, but don't let that bug you. So we are all bugs and that's just fine. I'm proud to be a bug! I love being a bug!. So in Second Life I got myself a bug avatar aswel. Go BUGS!

This is where the nickname Henry Hackit originated from. Being a flash designer and web-application designer myself, I soon figured out some stuff about the chat application and some bugs in the website. Now you don't go about doing some potentially irritating things under your real name, so I needed a cool nick. Hence Henry Hackit was born.
It didn't take long before the entire community either loved or hated me or were about to leave in fear. I like it when you love me, I hate it when you hate me but please don't leave because of a few small bugs(pun intended) in the system. The amount of commotion that I caused startled me. And I had become to love the site and their bug people so much that I had no choice but to apologise and promice to help our Creator to fix the problems. So I did. And the temporary nick that I used to stir up things grew on me so much that I kept using it.

So don't worry bugs, I don't have any dangerous hacker powers, I can't steal your identity or figure out your IP numbers(even if that were important)
I am however still able to read your private posts and pose as your bug. But that's just because Jochem never implemented the changes that I sugested. I just choose not to do that anymore. I mean, what's the point in pointing out errors if they are not going to be fixed?.

Don't bother to ask me for the stuff I know, or how to do it because I won't tell you. I just love the community too much.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Copyright

Copyright is not nescesarily bad. I fully endorse that people who create works of art should be properly paid for their efforts. But not indefinately and certainly not enforced as a means to stop other people from creating related works. And most certainly not for the berichment of third parties who pretend to stick up for the rights of the artists while giving them only a small percentage while violating the fundamental rights of others in this persuit.

But Science and knowledge is another matter. Once knoledge is not allowed to be spread, and even hindering a very useful product in its development by a form of copyright or patent then I rebel. Because knowledge, in my opinion has its primary goal in the greater good of all mankind and therfore should be spread freely and without restriction.
The berichment of a single man or group should never hinder mankind as a whole.
That is why the funding for research projects should not be left to an open market by means of patents, because the open market is all about restricting the competition.

Copyrights, good.
Patents, bad.

Do you have any idea how long I have wondered why the multi-touch system was never created? How long I have been waiting for it? The thechnology was not the limiting factor here, it was a patent and someone wanting a lot of money for simply writing up the idea and filing it. Finally Apple bought it and now, we find multitouch gestures in many devices. Lets just hope Apple will be wise and generous with it's new patent that anybody could have thought up but was afraid to use.
But why should we hope? lets get rid of the patent system and find a better system that actually pays the real contributors and lets everyone benifit at a low cost. That shouldn't be so hard, now should it? Or does someone have a patent on that idea already?