Jesus Christ, at last, can I breathe now ? Is it OK to breathe now ! The stifling atmosphere of going after normal people while the real criminals get away seems to be coming to an end. Fingers crossed. Obama closes Gitmo. A prison where torture is condoned which extracts inaccurate confessions that make life more dangerous for the rest of us ! Any military affectionardo knows that it was proven years ago that torturing someone completely destroys any hope of getting anything accurate out of them ! That is what was being pushed by these “legitimisers of stupidity” that have stalked America, this country and the rest of the world.

Now Gordon Brown has backed down from keeping secret Ministers expenses. Now we also have the Minister for Intellectual Property, David Lammy actually talking some sense on the subject of file sharing (also see Slashdot and here). You don’t have to agree with what he says. The music industry are still quite entitled to put their views across for stricter legislation. But it is very refreshing to at least see a balanced viewpoint and outlook on the subject. This is what was missing in the Bush and Blair years.

Can you breathe better yet ?

Lammy also revealed that he had a different opinion on file sharers than many people in the music industry. He pointed out that there’s a big difference between organized counterfeiting gangs and ‘younger people not quite buying into the system’. He added that ‘we can’t have a system where we’re talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms. People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap — there’s a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television. ( Source )

Of course no one should be collecting those bars of soap and selling them down the market. But the music industry spokesman seems to completely miss the point …

However, one anonymous representative of the music industry responded to his comments in The Times, saying that ‘the relative cost of stealing a bar of soap from an hotel might be small, but if it came to seven million people nicking the soap each year, which is what we have in the music industry, I’m sure that hotel chain would do something about it.’ ( Source )

“Nicking” ? He does’nt get it does he ? “Nicking” would be taking the bars of soap and, as I said, selling them off down the market … a nice little earner mate .. sort of thing.

So, apart from the “anonymous” spokesman, we are moving away from the ridiculous position of criminalising people carrying out perfectly innocent pursuits in the privacy of their own homes. If a true pirate is arrested for selling copies of CD’s or mp3’s that he got off the file sharing networks then fair enough, but most people don’t do this. Why should they if they can get it for free over the sharing networks ? Having people sharing music in this way leads to an improved knowledge of what music is out there and greater sales for the music industry because people develop more informed and refined tastes. If the industry would just go with the flow and treat their consumers as adults who are growing and developing in a changing world then they would discover some very interesting and profitable marketing strategies I’m sure.

I wonder what other developments there will be in areas where the Bush / Blair oxygen restriction was causing a retarded debate to develop. Time to decompress ?

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day

when black will not be asked to get in back,

when brown can stick around,

when yellow will be mellow,

when the red man can get ahead, man

and when white will embrace what is right.

That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Say Amen.

Rev. Joseph Lowery delivered this paraphrased version of a Big Bill Bronzy song in his President Obama inauguaration. The “white will embrace what is right” part has been, absurdly, touted as some kind of racist remark. Only somone completely ignorant of the struggle for black and white rights could possibly come to this conclusion.

In President Obama’s press conference today (21st, January) he signed in an “ethics in Washington” bill. With barely camouflaged comments about the Bush, as well as other administrations, using power for personal gain and for doing favours for their friends. Immediately the ties of Bush and Blair to the Pharma industry came to mind. I don’t like making ungrounded accusations (I actually typed the “typo” undergrounded there … a Freudian slip if ever I’ve seen one). But the Obama administration is right. They cited the Freedom of Information act as being manipulated … specifically clauses to do with information that can be held back for defence or other reasons … in order to cover up inconvenient information. I suspect that previous administrations have been partly doing this kind of thing to do favours for the Pharma industry. Probably corrupting FDA and medical procedures in order to pass very dangerous drugs on to the market, and then excusing suffering and deaths as either “side effects” or the fault of the user. I can only hope that these episodes will come to light as time goes on. I don’t like being proved right about my “suspicions” but sadly I suspect I will be.

Anyhow, onto happier things. I fired up BBC News to see this gem on the page …

( LOL ! ) So as Obama was passing an executive order to restrict conflicts of interest from lobby groups, Brown was doing almost exactly the opposite ! Thankfully he seems to have backed down, no doubt unless the hypocritical, double dealing, mealy mouthed corruption is seen by all the world for what it is !

A series that comes highly recommended is “Science and Islam”.

Much of Science was developed in the West and Islamic countries, but this story has been hidden by hundreds of years of Western dominating and political attitudes. This program was very even handed and entirely unreactionary or deliberately provoking. But there is no coincidence that Bush talked of a “Crusade” against Islam. The West became dominant partly because of the discovery of the Americas just when the Islamic empire was in decline. That discovery financed the “Big Science” that the Islamic world had been doing up to then. Sadly that fostered a superior attitude in the West that is still predominant today.

This is what really drives “911 Truthers” in my opinion. They cannot face two facts.

One. The West regards it’self as superior to Islamic countries that “need domocracy”.

Two. Acts of political and military manipulation have been carried out against Islamic countries that have fostered the development of Terrorists.

So, there are some rather uncomfortable truths. Do we imagine that acts of violence come out of nowhere ? It’s about time to lay to rest the ghost of the Bush comment “You’re either with us or your’re against us” … or even “You are justifying the deaths of 2000 people”.

That binary thinking must stop ! The world is not made up of either winners or losers ! People live in a rich language of life where all histories and points of view must be allowed to coexist.

So on this eve of the inauguration of President Obama I hope the world can apply it’s hopes of change and betterment into honestly doing the hard work and applying those hopes.

EDIT: I wrote an article about this earlier.”Lost: Is Modern Society Deserted From It’s Past ?“. Partly about the Star Trek Enterprise episodes The Forge“, “Awakening“ and “Kir’Shara“. Those episodes are very clever in the light of what I have learnt. There really is hidden and repressed knowledge. Covered up by those “who fly under the raptors wings” as Star Trek put’s it. I’m convinced now that Enterprise was cancelled by the suits because it made them very uncomfortable. They were too late though.

Trident nuclear missiles are £20bn waste of money, say generals

“Britain’s nuclear submarines are “completely useless” against modern warfare, and the £20bn spent on renewing them is a waste of money, retired senior military officers said yesterday.”

…

“The fact is that Trident is an inappropriate weapons system. You can’t see Trident being used against something like nuclear blackmail by international terrorism. It is a cold war weapon. It is not a weapon for the situation where we are now.”

Statements from the former head of the armed forces Field Marshal Lord Bramal, and Retired army general Lord Ramsbotham, amongst others.

What extraordinary times ! Is anyone paying attention to all this ? Twenty years ago we were still in danger of doing the unspeakable, a scenario explored in “Planet of the Apes” as well as the animal like brutality that was driving it.

Now nuclear weapons are an obsolete geopolitical weapon. Even more decrepit is the likes of Blair and Bush going on about their “70 year” War on Terror and STILL keeping on the nukes, as if another screeching horn of hypocrisy could add a healthy tune to their little dance.

Listen as the dinosaurs hit the dirt and raise huge clouds of dust ! While we were cowering in the shadows like quivering mice these leviathans of the global story stomped around scaring any little furry animals in their path.

Now the sun has come out ! Little mice scurry blinking into the Sun ! The times we live in ! Where are the carnivals in the street blaring out the celebrations over the death knell of the spectre of global destruction ?

EDIT: I was just reading a letter in The Times. The writer was stating that removing Trident would remove any kind of bargaining chip in situations of real threat. Hardly up to date reasoning in the age of the advanced aircraft carriers (being built in the UK) and other advanced technologies. The carriers are already designed to be different from the old style, Cold War, carriers. They were built partly to support Helicopter search and destroy submarine missions which are now no longer needed.

The letter writer also suggests modern wars have become “messy and fuzzy” (paraphrased). Haven’t they always been ? I don’t think there is any such thing as the “clear and simple” war. Their argument is that this makes conventional weapons less effective. What has made Iraq and Afghanistan such an affair is the corrupt hypocrisy of people like Bush and Blair. The spectre of Cheney, and the fashion(?) of the “career” war played for political gain. It is no small miracle of the commanders, soldiers and workers on the ground who have somehow managed to stop the entire thing turning into a total disaster.

So the “messy” war really means the very badly motivated war.

The writer has a point though. Nuclear weapons have been and still are used for their threatening value. But their time is over. Remember the scene in the Planet of the Apes film when you see an ICMB as a figure of worship in a temple ? Well now the priests have been exposed for what they are. CND and Gorbachev did that service for the world. Sadly this does not mean the total vanquishing of the nuke. Is the Times letter writer so unimaginative as to think that the very same Generals who call for the cancelling of Trident ICMB’s will not keep the tactical nuke in their armaments ?

Whoa ! It’s all happening at the moment. Expect a few more posts .. maybe.

Just been working through my Pc Gamer indie games. Good to see a thriving world of game innovation and fun .. like “Frozzd”.

I tried to load up a game called “The Blob” (using Ogre engine) but I have not got it to run it yet for some weird reason. Nevertheless this paragraph caught my attention on the review page …

Perception vs. Simulation

What’s really interesting about De Blob, as Joost points out in his Gamedev.net post, is that the actual physics simulation of the main character is a simple rigid body sphere. Even though the game feels like you’re controlling a blob of fluid, this is entirely accomplished by the presentation. The squash and stretch of the blob and the squishy-sounding audio creates the illusion. It’s a very powerful example of how our internal, mental simulation of a game world can actually be much more complex than the computer’s underlying simulation.

Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell people for ages. No wonder games like Crysis have such bad resource usage problems. The designers seem to have become confused. Or were they hassled and pressured by commercial forces ? Either way, they have forgotten that video games are based on the art of illusion. What can be accomplished in the MIND of the player is far more powerful than anything a graphics card can do. This is sort of like expecting high end audio systems to make the music sound good. If the music is no good to begin with then no amount of money thrown at it is going to make a difference.

The article continues …

Player perception is an important lesson for game developers to learn. You could enhance the fidelity of your physics simulation, or you could simply create the illusion of enhanced complexity. The flipside is possible, too, where a player could perceive a physics simulation as less complex than it really is. When you design a system, keep in mind that players spend more time playing the game in their heads than they do playing thehard-and-fast numbers inside some piece of silicon.

The Stargate is all around you. When you walk out in the evening from your home and look up, you are immediately sucked in and transported to every corner of the Universe in an instantaneous moment of enlightenment.

Every Man and Woman is a Star.

( Inspired by this )