Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

Sometimes, I just don’t understand the academic community. I ran across a story about how Italian academics protested the Pope’s visit to a university based on his view of Galileo’s treatment. The Pope had to cancel the visit.

For the record… I agree that the the church mistreated Galileo, and that there should have been more official church recognition of that fact. However… It’s silly for academics to think that they should silence the pontiff when they believed that the ravings of a lunatic jihadi at Columbia were a “learning experience".

IMHO, the academic community should be ashamed of itself. All of the basic reasons used to protest the the Pope (leader of theocracy, outrageous views) and the reasons used to listen to the jihadist (freedom of speech, diversity of views) could be applied to both cases. At this point, I think that academics should consider the meaning of “intolerance".

I’m testing a new way to get rid of comment spam. I’ll let all of you know how it goes.

In a move that can’t be popular at RIAA, Sony BMG has finally decided to drop Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions from downloaded music. Well, I’ve been telling the music industry for years to stop biting the hand that feeds it. DRM was a stupid idea whose sole beneficiary was the industry that generated DRM code.

That’s right… I’m sure it was my ranting that caused them to change their minds… Two years later… Without consulting me directly.

Sometimes, you see a headline and you just have to shake your head. It looks like spam king Alan Ralsky may go to jail for various charges including “pump and dump” stock price manipulation. Does this mean that I will no longer get 15 spammails a day telling me to invest in some whacked-out Chinese stock? I sure hope so.

Hopefully, Mr. Ralsky will get paid back for all of his sleazy deeds… and his lawyer will to.