Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

DRM is Dropped!



Big news! Apple has decided, along with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, to drop all DRM from iTunes. How fantastic is that!? Not only that, they will also be dropping the price for individual songs, unless they are very popular. I can now do all of the things I was prevented from doing with DRM like putting music on my non-apple mp3 player (I have an iPod) and...and...certainly not sharing music thats for sure. 

I Will Not Remain Silent


“We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did,” the airline said, “but we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount and cannot be compromised.”

...however the dignity and humanity of your passengers only matters if they are not from the Middle East.

This story is the exactly why I wear my "We Will Not Be Silent" in Arabic shirt. Why must we go to amber alert every time we see a hijab or hear someone speaking Arabic? Success is ensured in our cunning plan our scaring all 1.8 billion Muslims away from this country by perpetually inconveniencing them especially when we pick on the lawyers. Great Job Americans. 

We Will Not Be Silent is a protest campaign organized by Artists Against the War as a call for action against the racism occurring against Arabs and Muslims worldwide. You can order a free shirt in Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, German, or Hebrew with Arabic. There is also a story about a gentleman who was harassed in JFK airport simply for wearing one of these shirts. My favorite quote is, "Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area ..."We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don't have a translator. Maybe it means something else." Obviously! Terrorists have decided to stay away from technological communication and talking to each other; they have moved on to mass producing t-shirts with messages on them. How effective. 




My Problem with 'avian' and 'swine' Flu

I really dislike the term "Swine Flu". Let's do a quick review on Influenza. There are many different types and strains of the virus, but the type that we are always referring to is Influenza A (They strains vary by the make up of certain proteins eg H1N1, H2N5, etc.) . Some of them are specific to different animals including birds, pigs, and humans. The virus can mutate one of two ways. It can have random error in its replication, or more than one strain of the virus can infect the same individual and they can mix together (reassortment). So let's say there is a pig specific flu going around in the pig community, but it isn't too bad--little piglet ts only need to stay home from school for a day before they get better. There is also a human specific flu going around in the human community that has a similar effect on little kids. These two flus aren't too bad because each population has their respective immunities. One day, a human with human flu sneezes on a pig and the pig is able to catch it. Then, her piglet comes home from school and gives her pig flu. The two flus undergo reassortment and make a new hybrid that can be spread to humans. Farmers Jane and John both die because they have no immunity. Now that you know how influenza works, please realize that the 1957 flu could have been called "duck flu" and the 1968 could have been remembered as "swine flu". My point is that one cannot label a flu by the animal it originated from because it is misleading. When you say "swine flu" one thinks you mean that a pig has the flu.