Copyright this.

I really should stop reading articles about copyright protection, it always make my blood boil.

Kat wanted to buy the Sims 3 while we were in Best Buy but I recalled the company that puts it out was responsible for putting some pretty nasty root kits on customers machines to 'protect' their game from pirating. So in the process of installing a game that you have *bought the rights to* they install software on your machine that you don't ask for, don't know about, and controls how many times you can install the game. I'm looking at you SecuROM.

Kat and I had a tense moment where she wanted the game, but I refused to buy/install it on my laptop if it came with SecuROM. Happily having a Internet enabled smart phone allowed me to make some quick searches and find out that the Sims3 does not have that execrable piece of software, so we bought it. Oddly enough even though the Sims3 doesn't have that rootkit I've still lost access to my machine, Kat won't give it back to me.

Ooh, while we are on that subject the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills department in the U.K. seems to think that the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should pay 25% of the costs of warning users that they may be fined for downloading copyrighted material. As somebody on the slashdot forums put it:

Would you penalize those that build highways for giving road racers the smooth and long pavement on which to drive recklessly? It's not their fault that people choose to break the law (or in this case, violate copyright).

As somebody else on slashdot pointed out, the people are responsible for funding the vast majority of the U.S. government:

2009 Income Taxes

Individual: $915.3B

Corporate: $138.2B

Expand that + sign beside Income Taxes, yet it is the corporations that have the most influence on the laws due to lobbyists.

Grr.

Kat and Nikki outside Coronado

On a positive note, Nikki and Mario had a good visit. We took all kinds of pictures, played Wii, visited and saw dolphins. I also discovered the iDVD application that comes with any Mac so I created a DVD of all the pictures and videos that will play on a normal DVD player connected to a television. Pretty cool. Of course televisions have a lousy resolution so most of the pictures don't look fabulous, but at least you can watch them on the television.

Hey Mario, the helicopter misses you.

We also discovered that we could have gone for a romantic long weekend at the hotel Coronado's "Beach Village" for a measly $25,000, scroll all the way down to the bottom. We walked by those places while we were wandering around, I didn't realize the people in there had so much damn money. Heh, I like how the $25,000 option has small print that says "Taxes and $25 daily resort charge not included.". Oh come on, if I just coughed up $25,000 for four days I'd be pissed that they would tack on another $25 dollar charge per day *after*. I'm rich, pander to me! And exactly what is "bath butler service in your cottage."? That sounds sordid. Oh wait, I'm rich .... pander to me!

Kathleen had her last day of classes on Friday, so now she has graduated from Mueller College. Woo Kat! Of course now comes the State exams, the national exams, and all the paperwork. Boo paperwork!

I'm keeping busy a with new project that highlights the schizophrenic ways of large corporations. The VPs claim that the project is of utmost importance on one hand while cutting funding to key people who deliver items to my project with the other hand. I don't understand the myopic views of large corporations, but then again I don't work in the rarified environment of upper management. The worker bees are continuing to do "more with less" and at the same time we've managed to build a museum celebrating the companies history. Uh-huh.