First of all, I would like to explain that
this piece is about piracy, and computers. It did not come down to me with a
title, so in the spirit of copyright infringement I asked for this one.
Harribu- (Swa. to spoil, wreck, damage, etc.)
Harribu-(Sheng. to relish,take pleasure in, even despoil) syn. ji-enjoy
Now, I am writing this to you on Word,
Microsoft Word. If I was in my room, I would have used Open Office writer which
I could have downloaded for free, but I had to make a point, so Word it is.
Behemoths and dominants are widely hated, often justifiably so. They regularly mess with our privacy and play with
our money. New versions and updates, and exorbitant prices for the same old
crashing products and marginal improvements. It is for this reason that
Microsoft, the world's largest technology and Software Company is also one of
the most reviled persons on the planet. Even all of Bill Gates's do-gooding, the
colossal sums he donates to charity and his wife's trips to Kibera, has not
served to improve Microsoft's stock in the eyes of many people around the
world.
Meanwhile, other technology giants
including Google (GOOG), who run most of your blogs, own your YouTube and scan
your Gmail ( hence all of those adverts directing you to Kikois, phonecards and Swahili
jewellery) escape censure perhaps because they are new, or because they have a
company motto, the one, no doubt emblazoned on every Google heart that
reads, ‘Don't be evil'. A company which after plenty of haggling with pro-privacy, anti-hacking activists decided that they would
delete your information from their files after two years. You should be pleased,
plan A was to keep it for eternity.
Back to Microsoft . This week just gone,
many of these Microsoft haters found themselves with even less reason to love
the company. A headmaster was found guilty in a Russian court and sentenced to
a fine of $194 (Microsoft Office Professional retails for £459 and £369.99 for
using illegally obtained software. The computers at his school were found to be
running on Windows bandia, exactly
the sort of thing you would get in my hands as I type this out. Now, unlike the
Russian headmaster Alexander Ponosov (the only way I can conceptualise Russia in
my mind is visions of Dr. Zhivago or the Government Inspector), I am not on a
wholly bandia system but I do enjoy a
whole host of illegal services online as I guess do most people.
For my movies and TV shows, I regularly
visit alluc.org ( a library of links) which then directs me to veoh.com (great
interface and very fast loading, now with player that downloads), dailymotion
or the DivX website (very fast loading and even with a desktop dimmer!!) or
sometimes even plain old YouTube, from which sites I have enjoyed several
movies, some even before they premiered. Viacom who publish many of these
movies, expending great treasure in their creation, are trying to make an
example of YouTube but you get the feeling it is impossible to referee the
internet and ultimately technology will rule for the little man. There was a
time when only the world of the nerd knew about bit torrents but now even my
extremely ignorant e-lover is an expert at torrents and file sharing services.
She also knows everything about codecs, converters and peers.
So it was perhaps that the Russian
headmaster, thinking this culture of software and content piracy was so
pervasive as to have become legal, decided to appeal an earlier court decision
that threw out the charges against him. He wanted he said to be exonerated, for
he had not he said the slightest clue that the copies of Windows on his
computers were illegal. The second judge unlike the first one, was not so
generous and even as Redmond protested its non-involvement it asked the poor headmaster to pay
up the 5,000 roubles.
Be warned, it could be you. For my safety, I only use pirated software in other people's rooms.
The writer is currently watching the latest
episode of Desperate Housewives (21) while Heroes (episode 22) buffers in
another window. His girlfriend does not know about his e-lover, but she knows
her torrents.
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NBC shows Heroes for free on its website
How much does Bill Gates the greatest philanthropist (sic) pay for titanium from the Congo? According to him and the other Bill-- Clinton, Laurent Kabila is one of the new age African leaders who will lead Africa to new economic heights.tsk tsk