Perette's Journal: 2012

Contents

1. Coding foo

2012-02-02 20:15 (Thursday) journal

CRC calculation of arbitrary length polynomials and values in a language with no native binary operators or loops (only recursion): fun!

2. SOPA & the Greedy

2012-01-18 16:14 (Wednesday) journal

So the media companies, owned and lead by the rich superwealthy, want SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) so that the rest of us can't pirate things and have to pay for them. These are companies like Time Warner that charge exorbitant rates for cable TV and other entertainment.

But we all know we're being screwed everytime we pay the cable bill, or $20 for another copy of a 70-year-old Walt Disney movie (but now on the latest media format). But what do we do about it? We grumble, piss and moan, and most of us pay it. And a few go pirate things, because they're fighting being screwed with screwing back.

But what's the real solution? On our end, the real solution is to stop watching, stop paying. Everytime you pay an overinflated cable bill, you're consenting to their fees. So fuck'em, tell them to shove their fees. Go to NetFlix, or read a book.

The solution on their end? Well, SOPA. They've got the money, they've got the power to buy the laws, they've got the power to enforce their extortion. Unless, of course, we opt-out of it altogether and go read a book, or go to a coffee shop and talk to people, maybe gather some friends—while we're at it, we can start planning a revolt. Maybe when they've made it too expensive to dull ourselves over with the glowing glass eye or fuckbook on the interwebs, we'll have time to devote to problems of our country and the way things (don't) get solved, maybe even realize things never get fixed by asking politely.

And then we'll come to the realization that we the masses need to be a threat. We need to own guns and be ready to exercise our duty to use them to overthrow things when they go wrong. It's not that I want to go risk my life fighting in a war at home, just that things aren't going to get better... because what's forcing them to get better? Our owning firearms and having the (apparent) willingness to use them creates the power that gets us be listened to.

And SOPA? The greedy should really know better. As long as we're distracted with our bread an circuses, they can keep screwing us in the financial markets, and turning our tax dollars into all kinds of tax incentives and pork-belly spending and wars that aren't in our interests but somehow end up lining their own pockets.

So please, you greedy sons of a bitches, come take away what poor, meager entertainment I get in the name of keeping a few dollars away from the pirates. Take away the thing that keeps the rest of my ilk preoccupied, the thing that you use to push your ideas and agendas into the masses' minds. Take away the thing that distracts us after a hard days slaving at making you fuckers money, with little enough for our own—the masses need more anger at you after the last few years.

Kill SOPA, and things will just drag on as they've been. Pass SOPA, and it'll be one more thing in the long train of abuses and usurpations that step by step are pushing us toward the next revolution. I say, full steam ahead.

3. The Coder

2012-01-05 09:39 (Thursday) journal

For some reason I've had Kenny Roger's The Gambler running through my head, though in a slight variation:

        You've got to know when to malloc,
        Know when to calloc,
        Know when to check for NULL...
        When the code is run.

        You never count your array
        without checking out the length first
        There's no need to be a'crashing,
        when you're doin' sums.