BBC to release shows on Zudeo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6194929.stm

BBC to release shows in high quality on Zudeo, Azureus’ video sharing site.

Unfortunately, they’re still going to be selling them, while still providing them for for viewing for free on their respective bbc web pages(but only for UK citizens).

This might make piracy easier; one person buys it then shares it. No encoding from TV, and no having to wait for DVD release for high quality. High quality for a simple purchase by one person online, then seeded over ThePirateBay or any other piracy torrent site.

The United Nations

People extremely critical of the institution of the United Nations do not understand its conceptual necessity. Usually concerns regarding the United Nations are about sovereignty/autonomy of their independent nation. This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the institution, as it is not a governing power, or “super nation”, but rather an intermediary for autonomous and sovereign nations.

The rationale, at least as presented by prominent Western political philosophers, and completed by Immanuel Kant in his work Perpetual Peace, is that a there is a universal moral law, that all persons have certain rights. To ensure these rights we implement constitutions, implementing means to operate societies, and have representatives to enact government to ensure these rights. We require representatives, and thus a republican government, for this reason: nowhere in democracy is a principled moral basis, and rather just the arbitrary will of the majority; this gives us the common political and legal saying, that we have a government of “majority rule with minority rights”. We follow a government because of a social contract, an agreement to allow the rights of all to be protected by allowing ourselves to be subjected to a government to implement these protections. Contracts function as an agreement that respects the rights of all participants. Contracts, or treaties, between governments then are agreements to mutually respect the rights of the participants, often as the individual governments are operating to serve the rights of its constituents. Governments, laws, and thus courts function to mitigate any failures of respecting the mutual rights agreement established in the contract. The question then becomes: who, or what, is to mitigate any possible failures in international agreements? This gives us the need to have the United Nations as the international mitigation of any treaties, or contracts; also, as an institution of rights, its goal is to work to guarantee the rights of all; most important its member nations, in the form of their being protected in treaties as well their autonomy. So national sovereignty, or autonomy, is maintained, while at the same time rights are protected.

What people are doing, then, when wanting to act without the United Nations, is to undermine the principles of their government and their own human rights. It’s not that we shouldn’t be concerned about our nation’s sovereignty, but instead that we should not confuse an institution ensuring mutual respect to an institution taking away national autonomy and freedom.

Is Firefox just a browser?

http://xkcd.com/c198.html
Image from xkcd.com

To so many people, their computer and technological affiliations are becoming a way of life, a basis for their identity. Mac vs. PC vs. *nix/*BSD, Internet Explorer vs. Firefox vs. Opera.

It’s not about the quality of the technology, it’s about making oneself feel superior through the competition of technology. We, as individuals, don’t even have a real stake in the battle, but because of our use and affiliation with it we end up feeling compelled to defend it as to justify our own past decisions.

If you’re a ___-fanboy and identified, in one way or another, as such then it means you consider the well-being of whatever ___ as important to your own well-being and sense of worth. To defend your viewpoint, then, much to the annoyance of other people who don’t want to hear about how ___ is so great a thousand times, is for the sake of your own self-esteem.

But seriously, stop, because I’m not putting your self-esteem over my own sanity.

Hello world!

Welcome to smeg’s web blog.

I’ve had many failed blog attempts in the past, but those were on sites where it was more designated as a “journal”/diary, and keeping a documentation of my life is vain and boring. Reminding myself of how mundane I am seems like a great waste of time.

I hope to do a lot with this, and my aims are to discuss whatever topics come to mind. Probably meaning computing, science, politics, news, philosophy, religion, and life(mine or otherwise) in general.

And if I end up not doing much with this, I’ll at least have a domain to show off to the other nerds I come across.