Personally I am disappointed that I didn’t take that call from Sean Parker when he called me a week before Peter Thiel put his 500K to work. Not that I could have (at that time matched that), but I certainly would have put 25-50K to work there given Sean’s track record.

Such is life. Grats to all of Facebook. A well deserved win.

You might ask WHY I was doing that.

Well, because it’s too freaking hard to type in a code when what they should have done is put a QR code there for us to use along with the option to do a scan from WITHIN iTunes on the iPhone. While they are at it why don’t they put a bar-code scanner in that app so that when I am at a store and see some music I want I could just scan it and buy it online..? Why oh WHY!!!

Come on Apple use the technology that you create to make our lives easier.

Ok, seriously this would be an awesome addition to the iTunes app on the iPhone. What do you say Apple? Wanna help us be even more addicted to your services and products?

Wake up and Smell the Coffee…

Anyway, this was interesting and wanted to share it.  More later if I get motivated to rant a bit.  So this is just a rantling.

Check out:

YouTube and An Inconvenient Truth

YouTube suit called threat to online communication

YouTube law fight ‘threatens net’

Shame on them.

Listening Post Blog at Wired.com

Comcast Hoodwinks FCC. GreatFirewall of China in the US of A.

Enjoy! and wakeup and smell the coffee folks…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aYeRrGwo.r4k&refer=us

United Air to Charge Some Fliers for 2nd Checked Bag – Bloomberg

This wouldn’t be so bad, if I hadn’t just experienced one flight cancellation, lost luggage, a scheduled change and short connect times just on the way out.  On the way back the canceled two flights, changed the flight time, and got in late.  I have to say, to expect someone to pay extra for this kind of service is WAY too much.  Now do I agree that they need to be able to charge for an increase in fuel costs.  Yes, but charge me for it directly.  Up the ticket price, add a surcharge for that cost, anything other than charge me for additional services that already suck.  This is just unbelievable.

I don’t know what the rest of you think abut things like this but it’s outrageous.

Also it brings up for me the question of “should I continue to fly United?”.  I have flown them most of my business career and have been very loyal to them.  But they are starting to fly more like ValuJet than the old United I knew.  Thus I have to state here that I am not going to fly United if there is another choice.  When I fly I want good value and United just has hit the bottom of the list for friendliness, cleanliness, price, ontime service, and ability to get my luggage to me at all.  So I say good bye to United, and hello to Virgin or any other airline that will get me there with reliability, on schedule, and not lose my luggage.  It would be good if along the way they could be pleasant to me as well.

Let me here what you guys think about this….

Now on the surface this sounds like a good idea, I mean why should an illegal immigrant get a drivers license.  Hmm, good idea, but there are lots of ramifications.  The first of which is further intrusion of the Federal Government into our daily lives, where if I recall we have a constitution and bill of rights are supposed to be in place to keep them out of our private daily lives, and they are supposed to stay out of the states lives and let them do what they feel is best for their citizens.  But all of that aside, this only serves to drive illegal immigrants who are here working, and producing income etc. underground.   Currently in order to get a Drivers License most if not all states require you to have insurance.  With this move, all of the illegal immigrants out there will no longer have to have insurance, or a valid drivers license.  Just like laws and police to keep immigrants out of the country in the first place don’t stop them from coming in, this won’t stop them from driving, all it really does in put further burden on those who are citizens.  It doesn’t stop anyone from driving.  I mean we have government officials driving without licenses or suspended licenses driving what is to stop an illegal immigrant from driving.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121601754.html?nav=rss_metro

Washington Post Article

To me it is clear that if I copy something and use it in something that I create I am walking a fine line and one that I had better know the ins and outs of.  Unfortunately MOST people don’t take the time to understand what those are.

I am working on a bit of info that should hopefully explain the concept better and will post those in the next few days.  But for now there is a golden rule that works on and off the internet.  Do unto others as you would have them do to you.  If it’s not alright for someone to mess with how you make a living then don’t mess with others.  If you would like to have credit put into a mashup, then give credit when creating yours.  If you don’t like the republican party using your photo to show what a good job they are doing in Iraq, then don’t use someone else’s to show what a great job they are doing of messing up in Iraq.  It’s really very simple logic.  You wouldn’t go into someone’s house and take their painting off the wall and add it to you art.  The argument that the door is open and that anyone leaving the door open is giving permission to come in and steal isn’t valid.  No way no how.

So when you go to use someone else’s work, regardless of HOW you use it first rule is to give credit and quote it.  If using someone’s photo without prior permission give them credit, and then send an email ASKING if you can.  If they tell you, you can’t, take whatever it is you created DOWN and do it again with a different graphic, hopefully one who the creator has given you permission to use.

Parody is CHANGING something to say something else.  Again a fine line, and you had better know what you are doing.  It isn’t hard to find out, but the laws around it are pretty clear that you can be sued for using something that you don’t have permission to use.

So wake up smell the coffee…  “Get it?” copyright 2007 Firebrand

Check this out: Wired Blog Story about Infringment