the madness continues

Spring '08 schedule posted here.

One of my favorite things about being sarcastic and cynical is that people take all of the stupid shit I say seriously. Often this leads to people thinking I'm kind of out there. Sometimes people take offense. Most of the time, though, people just think I'm agreeing with them and not making fun of them. I love it. Love it, love it, love it.

On the filesharing front, I read an article in the Times yesterday where they talked about proposing network-level content filtering for the purpose of stopping piracy. This would mean that instead of searching the p2p nets for people sharing files, or placing automatic filters on the YouTube servers (or, God forbid, your own computer) to weed out copyrighted material, the search for pirated material would be happening at your ISP.

In short, all of your internet traffic would be analyzed by your ISP (Comcast, TWC, what have you) for potentially copyrighted content zipping through your intertubes. This frightens me, and it should frighten you. Your own ISP, who you pay an exorbitant amount of money each month (for something that should be free, no less), is going to assume that you are a criminal and have computers checking your internet traffic. "But Jon," you say, "I'm not a criminal! If you're being a responsible, law-abiding citizen, you should have nothing to hide from the interweb cops!"

I'm not even going to address the ethics of filesharing right now, since that horse has been beaten well into the ground. The ISP is treating you like a criminal and invading your privacy, yes, but even that might not be enough to convince you to be concerned. Rather, let me just remind you that we all have something to hide. Because the internet is for porn.

I'd like to close with another reminder that I hate everyone: Drug Approved, Is Disease Real?