Month: June 2003

More recycled material. Someone on a mailing list I’m on asked about people’s preferences for cigars.

(rant)
Definitely (or defiantly, the other word the spell checker suggests)
one of my hard boundaries. More so cigarettes – double yuck. Nothing
like kissing someone who tastes like licking an ashtray. Nothing like
burning eyes and hacking lungs. Nothing like visiting loved ones dying
in the hospital. Nothing like massive companies churning out products
whose only use is to cause death. I consider myself a libertarian and
I don’t like restricting what people choose to do in their own homes –
but at the same time I’m pleased to see smoking bans and the tobacco
companies being litigated to death.

That was always my problem with the Clinton thing – I really don’t care
about the president’s sex life (even if he’s lying about it to
Congress), much less what consenting adults choose to put in each
others orifices (orifi?). But a cigar? Bleh.

Plenty of other fringe activities I appreciate and/or participate in –
even ones that are potentially harmful to participants. Tobacco isn’t
one of them.

I guess the best I can say is that cigars (quality ones) aren’t quite
as nasty and chemical-filled as cigarettes.

But still. Yuck!
(/rant)

My uncle sent me a thing about sending your junk mail back in their postage-paid envelopes, as well as leaving telemarketers on hold. Here’s my response. (Yes, I’m too lazy to write anything fresh!)

I find that getting rid of my home phone (using only the cellphone) has been really useful in killing phone spam. I hate it when the phone at work is for me ’cause it’s ALWAYS some dork trying to sell us computer equipment and I’m the “computer guy”.

The postal mail that bugs me the most isn’t the credit card offers, etc – but the “newspaper” garbage – ez saver, pennysaver, etc – that are usually sent out by the local newspaper despite the fact that I don’t subscribe and have asked them not to.

Or the ones from tree trimmers, roofers, etc. that they jam in my garage door handle or leave on my doorstep or doorknob.

Finally – I wish the post office would just raise rates a lot – say, to 50c or so – and then leave it there for a long long time. Ten years should be sufficient. And charge everyone that much – don’t give a discount to the spammers.

But a better idea is what I call the “letter rate” stamp – stamps that don’t have a dollar amount on them, but are good for mailing a letter – forever. Buy as many as you want (at today’s rate) – when the rates go up you don’t have to bother with penny stamps or worse, returned letters. Ditto for the $3 express mail envelopes – buy as many as you want – their stamp is good forever. The Post office would certainly make more money from people buying early. Probably makes too much sense though.

I remember a few years ago when I was at the post office (to have something weighed – now there’s a PITA) and I was looking at all the stamp collecting stuff on the walls, and wondering why the hell they bother – and I realised, every stamp they sell that they don’t have to deliver is pure profit. Now there’s a scam. What the hell is the government doing in that business?

(A friend asked readers for blog subjects, here’s my response. I know I’ve ranted on this before, but I can’t be bothered to search my own archive at the moment. Oh, there it is.)

When I buy a CD, what am I actually buying? Apparently, some very limited usage rights, and a shiny plastic shell – but not only are my rights not made clear on a disclaimer on the disc, I’m not sure anyone really agrees on what these rights are. I’m not allowed to use it in any way that might conceivably make me money – at a concert, over the radio, whatever; I can’t play it in my restaurant or aerobics studio without paying the RIAA (or whoever). Fine. They’d really rather I didn’t play it on my computer, make mp3s out of it, make backup copies for my own use, make my own mixes, sell the CD to a used CD store, or buy one from that store – but either technology or pesky constitutional issues still allow some of these in some form. If the disk gets scratched – I can’t get a replacement for a discount. If I accidentally double-buy one I already own – too bad so sad for me unless the record store takes returns. If my house burns down – thousands of dollars of CDs up in smoke. If I “own” the record, and I want a CD or to download it from a music service, I have to repay full price. And even so – almost no money from my purchase actually ever gets to the artist who created it.

I would like to be able to purchase a media-independent licence for music – with reasonable, specific rights defined by some Creative Commons style document. These rights should include rights to cover/included artwork contained with the media. And for which a large portion of the licence fees go to the artist and producer of the music. I could then “show” this licence anytime I want a copy of the music/materials on some form of media – and pay the media distributors a reasonable price for that service.

You’re very, very bored, and you have lots of boxes of useless business cards.

So far I’ve only made one “level one” Menger sponge. People at my office have stopped asking about things like this, after I hung the geodesic soda straw dome from the wall.