A Posteriori

Ordinary people tremble in fear of lawsuits. This is because lawyers are expensive, and if somebody rich and powerful sues an ordinary person , that person is immediately threatened with financial hardship and perhaps bankruptcy. The rich and powerful have no such fears, and can abuse the legal system to their hearts’ content.

We are all subject to laws, and at some point most of us have to establish our innocence. Justice should not be the sole right of the rich, corporate and powerful.

In certain instances, the government has tried to settle this imbalance. There are rental boards (tenants rights), public attorneys, labour relations boards, etc. However, these are for very specific legal situations, and don’t cover the vast majority of the population. For instance, when it comes to employer-employee relationships, the employer has a distinct advantage in legal matters, especially if the employer is a large corporation with a substantial legal department.

It’s time to strike at the heart of this imbalance. Like the universal public health care system in Canada (or what it purports to be), the legal system should also be publicly funded, and universal.

The steps for the federal government to take to implement this system would be drastic, but feasible:

1. Call a national referendum to implement the universal public legal system, with the following stipulations:
   • Nationalize all law firms that deal with federal law.
   • Cap lawyer salaries at $50,000 Canadian.
   • Assign a randomized procedure for assigning free publicly-paid lawyers to the defence of prosecution.
   • Require that provinces account for their legal costs for social programs affeccted by federal transfers.
   • Change the equalization payment formula in such a way as to refuse to pay the legal cost portion of the provincial government’s social programs until it, too, adopts a universal public legal system. This would be justified by citing budget concerns for elevated “private” legal costs.
   • Invalidate all lawsuits initiated in response to the referendum and the proposed changes upon a favourable referenduum result.
2. Use the results of the victorious referendum (capping the lawyers salaries should guarantee victory) as a mandate to coerce the provinces into reforming their respective legal systems in the same manner.

The randomized process of assigning lawyers to the different parties in the case would see one side potentially getting a Johnny Cochrane calibre lawyer, while seeing the other side getting a Lionel Hutz like lawyer. Given the tremendous pressure on both sides, there would be a strong incentive on both sides to settle, but this pressure would apply to both sides equally. Corporations could no longer bully individuals into lopsided settlements out of fear of outrageous legal costs. Corporation and individuals would have to deal with the legitimate fear of losing the case.

The pressure on both sides to settle, as well as the capping lawyers’ salaries would drastically reduce legal costs.

Putting everyone on the same legal footing would breathe new life into our liberal democracy as ordinary citizens would suddenly become empowered to initiate positive changes for the good of all through renewed access to the legal system.

This idea smacks of socialism and government intervention. Given the acute failures of capitalism lately (globalization, insane software patents in the U.S., perpetual copyright, corporations deliberately underfunding their pensions), I make no apologies for proposing legislation with an flagrant socialist bent.

Power to the people!

There are many conventions and standards that have been adopted in various procedures, processes and mechanisms due to historical reasons that no longer make any sense. One example is the use of the QWERTY keyboard layout, despite the superiority of its seldom-used Dvorak alternative The Intel x86 architecture is still the most widely used PC and low-medium server architecture, despite that architecture dating back to the late 70’s and superior architectures, like Alpha or Sparc, that are far less common.

Another stupid convention is one used by English-speaking Canadians. It’s the use of French-language terms to differentiate among people whose first language is English, French, or another language. If you’re American, British, Australian, or from some other English-speaking country, chances are you don’t have a clue what the words “anglophone”, “francophone”, and “allophone” mean. Here’s a brief primer:

Anglophone A person whose first language (and presumably mother tongue) is English.
Francophone A person whose first language (and presumably mother tongue) is French.
Allophone A person whose first language (and presumably mother tongue) is neither English or French.

This vocabulary is taken straight from the French language. As an “anglophone”, it’s really not my place to criticize those “francophones”, nor their linguistic conventions, since French is only my second language, and one that I’ve not quite mastered. However, as somebody who’s very particular about the use of his first language, that is, Canadian English, I find it absolutely idiotic that we’ve chosen to use this limited vocabulary.

For instance, how am I supposed to distinguish between someone whose first language is Spanish and someone whose first language is Italian. Oooops! They’re both “allophones”.

Furthermore, how the hell am I supposed to communicate with the rest of the English-speaking world when they don’t know what in blazes I’m talking about when I used the words “anglophone” or “francophone”.

Pardon me for being so blunt, but this is retarded!

I say we adopt the same convention as the British, that is:

“Anglophone” = “English-speaker”
“Francophone” = “French-speaker”

A person whose first language is Spanish is a “Spanish-speaker”. A person whose first language is Italian is an “Italian-speaker”.

Doesn’t this make much more sense?

Now who do I need to talk to to submit this enhancement to the Canadian English specification?

If you’ve seen a veritable storm of blog postings in this space tonight, it’s not because I’ve had a flash of inspiration or I’m ripping off somebody else’s blogs.

I used to have a blog at bloglines.com, and decided to migrate all of my existing blogs here instead of maintaining my blogs on two separate sites. Blogsome has a feature-rich interface that’s a huge improvement over bloglines, which is more of a blog portal (which they do well) than a blog hosting site (which it does in a reliable, but very basic way).

Just to prove that I own the copyright to all the blogs I posted tonight, my old blogs are still hosted here:

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/WordWarrior

It has been revealed this week that the Bush administration has sued Google after that company refused a U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) request for all of all the searches run against it over a week long period. It was revealed a day later that all the other major search engines: Yahoo!, MSN and AOL all mostly complied without incident or protest.

The reasons the subpoenas were issued had nothing to do with a criminal investigation, nor were they backed with a search warrant signed by a judge. It was a request initiated and backed solely by the DoJ without any charges being laid. The stated reason for this action was to “search for evidence” to aid the Bush administration in gathering evidence to reverse a Supreme Court ruling overturning a 1998 law on Child Pornography. The DoJ wants to gather enough evidence for it to appeal that judgement and re-enact the law. In order to do so, it must prove that internet search filters for child pornography searches do not work.

First of all, let me clarify that I am staunchly opposed to child pornography. However, I don’t think this is the real issue here.

How is gathering evidence that somebody found child porn through a search engine, as opposed to simply demonstrating that a search can be performed using that search engine, bolster the DoJ’s case for re-enacting the 1998 law? I simply don’t understand their reasoning, and I haven’t yet heard any convincing arguments to that effect.

Given the absence of a criminal investigation, criminal charges being laid, any kind of search warrant or judicial approval, the legal basis for such a subpoena would appear to be tenuous at best and totally misleading at worst. There has been zero oversight in this process. All this amounts to is a fishing expidition.

With the DoJ’s case on such apparent light footing, why are the non-Google search engines complying? Why should private companies aid what is essentially a glorified overzealous prosecutor in gathering “evidence” to support its legal case?

According to the Register, Google isn’t completely altruistic in that they’re not necessarily acting out of the purest motivation to defend their customers:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/21/gonzales_vs_google/#just_in

Nonetheless, Google is defending their business model and trade secrets. Ergo, Google is acting in its own best interest and, indirectly at least, in the interests of their customers. The other search engines, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL, appear to be acting against their own best interests, afraid of offending to current administration and potentially seeing their share prices drop from shareholder fears of lawsuits. Google, which is still a majority closely held stock (by the owners), can afford to stick to their guns.

Nonetheless, as in the case with Google and the book publishes (subject of October 21st, 2005 blog http://bloglines.com/blog/WordWarrior/2005_10), Google appears to be far more inclined to defend its own interests as a company against powerful opponents, like the DoJ or book publishers.

Google may not be the most altruistic company or the most devoted to privacy, but it has more fortitude than any of its competitors. Perhaps that is why it, and its customers, continue to thrive. This is also why I will continue to use Google, but boycott the other portals.

These days, the copyright debate seems to be framed, mostly by the content provider industry, as a stark choice between two extreme outcomes:

1. Free and unimpeded access to all copyrighted material with zero protection for content providers and artists.
2. Content that is restricted severely and solely according to the rules set by the content providers, with no input from the consumers, with draconian penalties with those accused of copyright infringement.

The debate is further framed under an absolutely fallacious presumption that all content providers and artists wish to completely restrict the copying and distribution of said material. Some artists wish to freely distribute their work without compensation, or license their content under a limited “Creative Commons” arrangement.

In order to “protect” their copyrights, content providers have begun experiment with a variety of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. DRM is a mechanism by which content providers, through either hardware, software, or both, restrict the ways in which digital content (music, movies, digital literature) can by copied through copy protection. It also restricts how digital copies can be used, for how long, and on which devices. There are presently several competing flavours of DRM. Suffice it to say, all of these variations on DRM were established without the consent of the end users in any way shape or form.

In the rush to implement DRM, consumers’ legitimate concerns are not being taken into account. These concerns include the fair use of content for which they’ve paid, including the right to make backup copies of this material, and the ability to transfer said content to portable digital devices, like MP3 players.

A group of consumers (ie copyright users) has finally spoken out in opposition to this seriously flawed and simplistic paradigm, and the way in which DRM is being used to enforce this paradigm:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/18/drm_consumer_opposition

In light of the Sony rootkit debacle (in which Sony CD’s were found to have surreptitiously damage users’ Windows computers), it has become painfully obvious that the content providers cannot be trusted to unilaterally impose the rules of the game. Somewhere in this process, some powerful third party must defend the legitimate interests of copyright users (ie consumers).

The only way DRM can be made to be fair is through government regulation. All DRM schemes, by law, would have to conform to a government-defined DRM specification. Among other things, the specification would have to include the following requirements:

1. Support multiple computer operating systems, including (but not necessarily limited to) Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
2. Support multiple digital devices, including all MP3 players, portable movie players, etc.
3. Allow the consumer to make backup copies of the content.
4. Replacement of any lost or destroyed copies of the content with a free digital copy or a physical copy at minimal cost to the consumer.
5. Full disclosure of the nature of the DRM included with the physical or digital copy of the content.
6. Full warranty against damage done by the DRM mechanism to a user’s equipment, including computers, portable devices, etc.
7. Deposit of a fully open and non-DRM’d digital copy of the content with an appropriate government agency, to be disseminated to the public upon expiration of the content’s copyright.
8. Severe restriction against any included mechanism to allow the content provider to collect data on the consumer’s use of the content or any other content or any other activity on the consumer’s computer.
9. Allow the free and unimpeded distribution of content by those artists or content providers that wish to do so. The DRM mechanism for a copyrighted work should have an “off” switch for content providers.
10. Require that the source code for the DRM program be fully disclosed to the government agency, with a current copy maintained by that agency. This code can be audited at the initiative of the DRM agency to ensure that it’s complient with the rules above.

It’s absolutely senseless to expect content providers, who represent only one side of these transactions, to solely run the system in a way that is fair to the other side, the consumer. it’s time for the government to get involved.

1. View preferences with a simple keyboard command for any application (command-comma).
2. Alt-tab (command-tab) navigates between whole applications, not open windows, which is far cleaner and more intuitive. Command-tilde navigates between open windows of a single application.
3. Other running programs do not take the focus away from the main program currently in use, the way Windows does.
4. Exposé, which is far cleaner and intuitive than the Windows taskbar or X Window multiple desktops.
5. Security that’s far more solid than Windows, and much more user friendly than Linux/FreeBSD.
6. Superior keyboard design, including close ESC key, volume controls, caps lock button that lights up and eject.
7. Intuitive, simple, secure and reliable installer system. The installer uncompresses folders containing application system files from an archive (like zip) file. These folders, once installed, are represented graphically as a single icon. The applications files are quarantined in a single folder and not scattered throughout the filesystem piecemeal as they are in Windows or Linux/FreeBSD. Uninstalling the program in question requires only dragging and dropping it into the trash.
8. DarwinPorts, an open source porting system that’s very reliable, rich and intuitive, but not yet as complete as Gentoo’s or FreeBSD’s.
9. Absolutely no hardware or driver issues. Mac OS X is written exclusively for Mac hardware.
10. The overall look and feel of the OS is so much more aesthetically pleasing than any other windowing environment.

The New Year is always a fitting mechanism with which to start fresh. It’s a time for reflection, but also a time to look forward. However, many make the mistake of using the new year as an excuse to forget who they really are, frailties and all, and pretend to be someone they could never be.

Fitness clubs make a fortune out of suckers deluding themselves into thinking they will magically go from an overweight slob to the paragon of fitness. Smokers believe that they can go cold turkey. These people miss the whole point of self improvement.

Self improvement is about evolution, not about forced dramatic metamorphosis. One can’t go anywhere without understanding and remaining mindful of where one has been. Evolution is a slow and gradual process, and good habits can only be established over time with a great deal of patience. Old unhealthy habits must be shed, and new ones formed meticulously, but progressively.

Each evolutionary step must be taken after a great deal of self-analysis, and much thought. The motivation that is built for this step must be pure, and cannot be born out of fear, insecurity, or a desire to overcompensation for a perceived shortfall. The person making the change must visualize the change beforehand, anticipating any pitfalls or any other demotivating factors, and compensating for such hurdles.

For instance, losing weight and becoming healthy is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Such an end state requires gradual, incremental changes to diet, lifestyle, routines and one’s outlook on life. It’s not enough to simply go on a diet and join an exercise club. It requires a routine of visiting the gym to be integrated into that person’s lifestyle, and for a person’s eating habits to be forever changed.

We all follow a path. Finding that path, and staying true to it should be the goal of every enlightened person, as well as any person striving for enlightenment.

With the coming of 2006, consider carefully the next step in your personal evolution. Happy New Year!

In spite of the varied myths that dot the North American cultural landscape, the dating scene is a very brutal and merciless place. Indeed, the casualties are diverse and numerous. These casualties stem from rejection, but also from a twisted process of character manipulation and abandonment of one’s essential convictions for a form of individual assimilation.

The challenge of dating involves making a choice between presenting oneself as an entirely different person and confronting oneself . It is a direct test of one’s integrity and principles against one’s fear of loneliness. This fear becomes more pronounced as one gets older.

With regard to the first choice, the direct question with which one is confronted is “do I make myself more likeable, superficial or complicit in order to quell my deep-seeded desire for companionship?” The temptation for the weak and unprincipled to answer that question in the affirmative is compelling and in some cases irresistible.

With regard to the second choice, it takes far more courage and spiritual fortitude. A good and worthwhile relationship is one in which the partner challenges you, including many of your assumptions and pre-conceived notions. A worthwhile relationship is one that adds value to one’s life through positive change, without requiring a compromise of deeply held principles.

In my opinion, despite the degree and frequency of failure, the only possible choice in the second one. Without deeply held moral principles. it’s impossible for one’s life to have any real meaning or direction.

Granted, well-meaning and well-thought out compromise has its place, and is in many cases essential to a working relationship. Such compromise must have as its ultimate goal the genuine improvement of one’s life within the context of the relationship. When compromise is initiated solely to save or establish a relationship, then such compromise is valueless.

Valueless compromise is counter-productive in the long term because the falsified favourable image will eventually abate and the underlying incompatibility will be exposed, destroying the relationship is a spectacular fashion.

So the moral of the story is:

• Be true to oneself
• Find one’s true path
• Follow that path without wavering

Eventually, someone worthwhile should join you on that path. If not, then it’s better to walk the path alone than to deviate aimlessly from that path with somebody else.

First of all, I want to offer my sincere condolences to all freedom loving Europeans who just had the Orwellian Data Retention Act imposed upon them by the “democratic” European Union government.

While this development is indeed tragic, Europeans are not without recourse. Nonetheless, while a freedom lover’s first instinct to avoid data detection may be to encrypt all their communications, this would not be wise, or prudent, or effective. The use of encryption will raise a red flag to the Ministry of Love, or whatever they’ll call the department responsible for monitoring internet communications. That department will doubtless view the encrypted communication as an attempt to mask criminal activity, and act accordingly. Many countries, including the UK, make refusal to hand one’s encryption keys a jailable offence.

Instead, freedom lovers such as yourselves should employ a markedly different strategy. This strategy would be the exact opposite of that facilitated by encryption. Your goal should not be to reduce the amount of information logged about you. Your goal should be to drastically increase the amount of data logged about you. The more data the system must track the better. A freedom lover should not view the ubiquitousness of junk on the internet as a curse, but as a blessing.

Remember that there is only so much aggregate hard drive space in the world. The key vulnerability in the system is that there is they can’t write infinite logs for your internet habbits. Even if they manage to find enough hard drive space to log all this data, there is a limit to the extend to which they can index useful information in your logs, especially if there’s too much info in those logs for them to isolate the useful, pertinent information that they need in order to successfully blackmail, and thus, control you (the true purpose behind Data Retention).

Therefore, insofar as your recorded internet communications data is concerned, it should be your goal as a freedom lover to strive for a noise to signal ratio as close as possible to 100%. If you’re concerned that the Ministry of Love will frown upon you posting to an anti-war mailing list, then drown out the signal with subscriptions to multiple Gilmore Girls, Britanny Spears and Sponge Bob mailing lists, as well as multiple Canadian Antiques Roadshow and Desperate Housewives discussion forums. If you also subscribe to the Noam Chomsky newsletter and fear reprisals, then mask you anarchist sympathies with frequent automatic refreshes of the Star Wars, 24, and NYPD Blue home pages and latest news pages, as well as allowing each of your 100 alternative webmail addresses to be added to mailing lists of various spam sites, including, but not limited to, Bonzai Buddy, Gator and any site linked from any of the myriad of pop-up ads you see on a daily basis.

Remember that as far as you’re concerned, there isn’t nearly enough s&#^ on the entire internet to mask your true surfing habits. A Gmail account has 2 gigs for your emails. Use it all! Your ISP probably has either unlimited bandwidth or 20 Gb per month. Use it all! (yes, even if it’s unlimited). If your national government does not incur a 300 billion Euro deficit in the first year paying for all the bureaucrats to track, filter and categorize the sheer volume of junk you and your fellow internet users surf, subscribe to, or post, then you’re not doing your job as a freedom-loving patriot.

Fight data retention! Drown out the signal with noise! Overwhelm the infrastructure and government bureaucracy! Power to the people!

The phrase itself is a flagrant lie. “Intellectual property” comprises copyright, patents, trademarks and trade secrets. None of these legal mechanisms involve ownership of said “intellectual property” in any way shape or form.

From Google.com:

Copyright: A copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by government for a limited time to protect the particular form, way or manner in which an idea or information is expressed.

Patent: A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of an invention.

Trademark: A word, phrase, symbol, or design, or combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods or services of one party from those of others.

Trade secrets: A trade secret is a confidential practice, method, process, design, or other information used by a company to compete with other businesses.

Copyrights and patents are rights over the subjects of the copyrights or patents over a limited time. The individual or company in question is granted an exclusive right to reproduce or use said subject over a fixed period of time, after which the rights to these subjects expire and they fall into the public domain. Trademarks do not expire, but at the same time, a trademark could just as easily be a word or phrase commonly used in the English (or any other) language (ex “Office”), therefore, the individual or company can’t claim ownership of that phrase in that language. It’s debatable whether or not trade secrets comprise “property” or if they’re just confidential information. Regardless, even confidential information must be surrendered to society as a whole (as represented by the government) under appropriate circumstances where illegal or immoral behaviour is suspected.

Taking into account the above, the case for the “intellectual property” verbiage is weak at best and totally deceitful at worst.

It is absolute wrong for corporations or individuals to claim ownership of what are mostly temporary rights that are conferred by the government for the purpose of granting certain incentives to encourage innovative behaviour. These mechanisms represent a pact with society, and should not be interpreted by those granted the benefit of such mechanisms, and especially not by society as a whole, as being God-given rights to these corporations or individuals. In order for these “intellectual property” holders to continue to benefit from such mechanisms, it must be understood by all those involved that society itself must benefit from these arrangements, otherwise society as a whole must have the right to revoke or further limit such mechanisms.

Society, culture, innovations, phrases and words, confidential information and especially ideas ultimately belong to society as whole. The debate over “intellectual property” must reflect this fundamental truth.

The substance of each specific “intellectual property” mechanisms is the subject of another blog. However, in order to have an honest debate, we need to have honest verbiage. Let’s stop calling it what it isn’t. It’s time to dump the phrase “intellectual property” and replace it with something more descriptive and open.