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I remember the time when I asked myself where all the men have gone after watching 300. It seems the world today has become so scrupulous that everyone has been “pussy-fied” that they don’t stand up for their beliefs without having a overall idea of the repercussions first.

I’ve seen many people who have become so inconsistent with their principles that they only stick to their guns if they know they can win – other than that, they’d rather play it safe and kiss some ass if need be just to stay in the game. Those people make me sick.

The Spartans on the other hand, put up a good show of sticking to their guns regardless of what fate awaited them.

But today, one of the most popular news sites in the internet, Digg; which has been recently under attack by its very users – for compromising their democratic principles – has finally made a decision.

Founder Kevin Rose had this to say:

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on, Kevin

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How evil the RIAA is

On a more serious note, here’s a an audio sample of Ray Beckerman talking about the RIAA law suits. DefectiveByDesign.org, as it’s name implies is also against DRM 1 Digital Rights Management itself, on grounds that I will not discuss in this post. But the bigger issue of the RIAA suing innocent people is what’s being discussed. You can skip the introduction by Peter Brown and go directly to what Mr. Beckerman is saying (at about a minute and 47 seconds into the clip)

In case you need it, the transcript’s available here. If you live in the United States, please spread the word. Hell, even if you aren’t, spread it anyways. Digital copyright laws are bound to affect us one way or the other no matter where we live. Read More

Notes

Notes
⇡1 Digital Rights Management
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Evil empire?

3 tales of how a bit of success has made Apple evil–you be the judge

via MacMerc

Actually, in all honesty, Apple has never blindsided people when it comes to their technology. They release stuff with people fully aware what the limitations are (save for the iTunes part). The real issue for me is how Apple is losing its dedication to the people – which is one of the major reasons why they are still afloat despite a measly overall market-share.

As one article pointed out before – Apple supporters are loyal supporters. They may be a cultish lot, but hey, it works! This entails that [Apple] gaining market share is probably close to minimal (over time), but they sure aren’t losing any customers once they’ve gained them.

So the people aren’t going anywhere… despite what Apple has been doing. While true that Apple is “honest” with its customers most of the time, they tend to take advantage of the customers’ ignorance. They don’t read the fine print anyways, so might as well do this and that… charge em a hefty bill, and still come out looking good, and remaining honest”

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