Normally movies do not affect or move me much in any way.  Really I can not think of one single movie that ever really has.  That is until, last night, when I watched this movie.

I watched the new movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas last night.  This was a very emotional movie with an almost unbelievable ending.  If you are unaware of the ending of this movie, it will be one that you would have never expected.  Unfortunately it shows the reality of the holocaust.

I encourage everyone to take time to watch this movie.  This is probably one of the best movies that could be shown in school on the issue also.  Unlike other movies, this movie has the ability to personalize it to you, make you feel guilty (even though you aren’t), and bring the reality of the issue into your life.

How could humanity be so cruel?  That is what I was asking myself.

In the end of the movie I was left with many mixed emotions.  I had a feeling of of sadness, guilt, a little joy for a little bit of revenge, but sadness for that revenge at the same time, and most of all I felt sickened.  Sickened by the fact that most of what the movie showed actually took place.  Although the main plot may have not been real, it easily could have happened (and we really have no way of knowing it didn’t).  It shows us that our bad deeds can come back to haunt us, and even affect us in ways we never could imagine.

Again, I urge you to watch the movie.  After watching it, you should also encourage others to do so also.

Windows 7 is the new Microsoft Operating System that will succeed Windows Vista. Currently Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows 7 for people to try and give them feedback on. Today I will give my review of Windows 7. Keep in mind that I have not given Windows 7 a whole lot of time so I am mostly just going on first thoughts.

Overall Windows 7 is a very good, attractive, and apparently stable operating system. They have introduced a new task bar that may take some getting use to for some people. For me, I love the new taskbar. Overall the desktop (including the taskbar) looks very much like the KDE desktop in Linux. Microsoft also packed in some very attractive desktop backgrounds that I believe many people will love.

Another good thing is they removed all those annoying security warnings that annoyed anyone who ever used Vista. No more having to give yourself permission to do whatever it is you want to do on your computer. Yes there is still some warnings that will popup now and then, but so far its pretty even with what you would expect from Windows XP.

One very bad thing about Vista was how slow it ran. This was mostly because it had so many graphical enhancements that you were using all that valuable CPU time and RAM to make your computer “pretty”. Windows 7 has returned that computing power to where it belongs, your applications. Windows 7 runs much faster that Vista and you will notice it right away if you upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 when it is released.

Microsoft also claims they improved the boot time for the operating system. This means when you turn on your computer, it should be ready for use quicker than in the past. From my testing, on a fresh install, this seems to be the case.

Microsoft has also introduced a new type of networking into Windows 7. They call it HomeGroups. This is sort of like a workgroup, except with added security. This should allow inexperienced computer users to share their pictures, music, and other files with other computers on their network in a secure environment. This is a great feature for those who do not understand networking, but for those who do it is probably not needed.

Overall Windows 7 appears very stable. An Intel employee actually thinks the beta is so stable that he has it running on his desktop and said he would install it on desktops throughout Intel if company policy did not have a rule against using beta software. This is a very high praise for Microsoft. I expect Windows 7 to be the most stable operating system ever released by Microsoft.

One thing is for sure, Microsoft seems to have picked it back up after the utter failure that was Vista. Vista was actually so much of a disaster that the future of Microsoft operating systems was unclear. Microsoft even had to “rename” Vista to just get people to try it “again”. Windows Vista was basically a repeat of Windows ME.

Now that Windows 7 is on the doorstep, Vista will die a quick and silent death in the computing world. Windows XP will probably also now start to slowly fade away and be replaced by Windows 7. Keep in mind that Windows 7 will eventually get a name and won’t be called “Windows 7”. My suggestion: “Windows Savior”.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of Artists), which represents major labels in the recording industry, stated on December 19th, 2008 that they will no longer sue individuals who violate their copyrights by illegally downloading their music from P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file sharing networks.  Instead they will attempt to utilize pirate’s ISPs to get them warned of their violation or even have them disconnected. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10126914-93.html)

At first this sounds like great news.  No more worries about getting sued for downloading your favorite tunes.  However, I do not believe most people even worried about this as you would have a better chance of winning a multi-million dollar lottery than getting sued.

Nevertheless, after over 30,000 people were sued by the RIAA, the RIAA has determined that suing people was not advantageous.  Oh, and it was also costing them a lot of money in legal fees.  Another big factor was probably how the RIAA is now looked up on as sort of the devil of the internet.

The RIAA during their suing frenzy sued young children, single moms, Grandmas, individuals without a computer, dead people, and thousands of John Does among others.  These lawsuits were solely based on IP’s the RIAA determined has violated their copyright.  Due to many false positives, the RIAA sued many innocent people.

So how did they get false positives?  Well, this can happen from IP spoofing, bad comparison of what time the offense took place and the owner of that IP at that specific time, and something new many P2P networks do which is inserting fake IP’s in order to mess up people like the RIAA looking for offenders.  Another possibility is someone downloading the music through the person’s home WIFI connection or through a Trojan on the person’s computer allowing the offender to proxy their download through an unwilling participant.

As you can see, suing people was never a good idea.  I mean, who attacks their own consumers like that?  All the RIAA really accomplished through their suing campaign was winning them a bad reputation and giving file sharing networks such as BitTorrent publicity; which in turn made them even more popular.

So now the RIAA has a new tactic.  Instead of suing individuals, they will send threatening warning letters to ISPs of those who download their copyrighted material.  Their hope is the ISP will forward the letter to the client and either throttle their connection speed, disconnect them, or do one of those after a three-strike policy.

Will it work?  Well, that is to be seen.  In my opinion it will not work.  Let remember here for a second that about 20% of those who have internet connections use P2P networks and download illegally.  This means the bigger ISPs would receive hundreds, if not thousands, of letters from the RIAA everyday.  They would have to pay someone, actually many people, to sort through these letters, find out who owned that IP at that time, and then contact by email, phone, or mail the person who the RIAA claimed, key word, violated their copyright.  That right there is a lot of man power that will cost the ISP money.

If that is not enough, think about what happens if an ISP disconnects 20% of their customers.  If they don’t have your service you don’t get paid, and if you don’t get paid you lose money.  Then you have the legal funds that the ISPs would have to pay in order to fight the few individuals who take these ISPs to court for disconnecting their service.  Yes I know having an internet connection is not a right, but people will sue.

So, this method the RIAA has come up with will cost ISPs money.  That is a fact.  Will the RIAA reimburse the ISP for their monetary lose?  Somehow I think not.  Even if they do the RIAA could never afford to reimburse every ISP of every single cent they would lose for doing this.

So the question is, will ISPs cooperate with the RIAA and should they?  I think the answer is no and no.  ISPs can not afford to start attacking their customers due to complaints about the RIAA.  For one, it’s almost impossible for the ISP to confirm the accusations by the RIAA.  Plus, if ISPs start doing this for the RIAA they will be flooded with similar notices from many other copyright big-shots such as the evil MPAA and others.

What about due process?  The ISPs would almost have to give some form of due process to their customers in defending themselves against these claims.  Other wise both the ISP and the RIAA could be at risk for discriminatory civil suits against them by angry customers.  Since there is really no way for the ISP, or even the RIAA to confirm a violation of copyright the customer’s word pretty much wins.

Let’s not forget that it is not even the ISPs place to get involved in issues such as these.  Nor are the ISPs required by any law to partake in this new RIAA plan.  ISPs are fully protected by the US DMCA when copyright infringement takes place over their networks.  Therefore the ISPs really have no motivation or need to become “copyright cops” of the internet.

It’s going to be interesting though how this will play out.  Will some ISPs cooperate?  Maybe, but I think very few will.  Really though, it does not even matter if they do or not.  File sharing of copyrighted material is growing and will continue to grow.  There is no stopping it.  The quicker copyright giants like the RIAA figure this out the better for them.  It is time the RIAA stops trying to kill file-sharing and instead utilize it to maximize their profits.

Please feel free to post your comments on this.

I am going to start a new line of posts on my site that I am going to call “The J-View”.  These posts will on the main page of my site with all the other posts that actually have to do with things about me and my life.

These posts however will be about things not related to me, such as interesting news articles, technology subjects, sports, and more.  Basically anything I decide to write about that is not related to me in any way really.

It is my hope that I will get more traffic to my site from search engines on these topics that I write about and that people will participate in discussion with me about them through my site comments feature.

I should have the first few posts in this category up soon.