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Jumping to The New Dimension Why 's that bird looking at me like that? Grow
that beard! I decided to consult a very special source. I knew the answer wouldn't necessarily be to my liking, but I composed a question for WONGO BOY™. When I finally got up my nerve and sent it in though, I found that someone else had beaten me to it! Here's the link, but I'm warning you, don't click it if you can't stick it. Wongo tells it like it is, so long as you can understand him.  For those too scared to trust an aboriginal consultant, I'll explain: it's like the gods aren't angry, only bored, and threw the Switch of Fate to "Diabolical Beyond All Comprehension" just to see what we would do. This is all too much to fight head-on, you understand. Some will want to pick a single issue they're familiar with and go to war and that's just great. For instance: I'm so pissed at what the goons have done to streaming audio, if there were an army I could join to liberate the music, there I'd be. The RIAA has launched a cultural attack, you know, but butting heads is for the younger bucks (and I HOPE YOU DO! ) As for me, I think I'll just stop shaving. I
know, I know... So for you, it might be just a fashion. For me, it's heavily symbolic. It has to do with pride, my sense of who I am, or more accurately, what I know now I can be: FREE! (Hoo and hah!) What a relief, I have to say. I can't tell you when it hit me, but I had this vision of myself and everybody who wants to jumping to the next dimension, looking down from somewhere else at all the crazies flailing in the scum. [If this leaves you completely in the dark, I'm afraid you'll have to visit WONGO BOY™.] They really are insane, you know. Somewhere only yesterday I read about the Army Corps of Engineers defending dumping toxic waste into the Potomac near D.C. by arguing this was good for fish because the poison might be driving them upstream where there aren't as many fishermen to catch and kill them. I am not making this up. [Note: for clarification of this issue, go here.]  I swear this phrase just came to me as I sat down to type. "Quantum warrior," said the quiet little voice inside my head. What the hell is that, I wondered? Here's what Webster's has to say, with the more relevant definitions in red: "quantum, n. 1. quantity or amount. 2. share, portion. 3. a large quantity, bulk. 4. a. the smallest excitation of a quantized wave or field, as a photon or phonon. b. the fundamental unit of a quantized physical property, as angular momentum, and the smallest amount by which its magnitude can change. -- adj. 5. sudden and significant." All I can say is, I'm excited, all right. And if my "sudden and significant" excitation is a "fundamental unit" of a "wave or field," well, glory halleluja! (This has to do with more than just a silly beard, in other words. But I am changing and I want it to show. Someone had better warn my wife.) Apple?
Helloooo, Apple?! With regard to Apple, I'm very worried about what recent developments with regard to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may signify. If you read what Wongo says, you'll get a sense of what's at stake and the danger I think Apple's in. It has to do with emphasizing entertainment, the Macs as "hub of your digital lifestyle" thing. You know the drill. As marketing ideas go, it was really pretty cool and good enough that now the other side has picked it up. The mere fact of things being digitized, however, has made possible the DiGiTaL NiGHTMaRe of the DMCA, the RIAA's cultural assault, Microsoft's Palladium, digital rights management (DRM), and a host of other evils. When all I had were vinyl records, for example, the only way to stop me making a taped copy of one I wanted to share was to send someone to break into my house and steal it, break it, or beat me up. See what I mean?  Intel for one has already sold its soul for DRM*, and pretty soon PCs will have "Sieg, heil!" built right into the motherboards. This is as real as the nose on your face and is coming at the personal computer industry like a freaking zombie blitzkrieg. There will still be computers, but you won't be able to do the same kinds of things with them, surprise! (Maybe the poison will drive us farther upstream, ha-ha.) As far as I'm concerned, this is part of that whole Switch of Fate scenario I opened with. I don't know what Apple can do about it, other than for Jobs or someone else to "go quantum," join the wave, and break on through. I mean it. I can't say precisely what I mean, but I know it's the only way. Now plug in those guitars and wail, poor boys & girls.
Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr had lots of fun writing this and is heading into Santa Fe this week to pick up a new copy of MacAddict so he can learn how to run OS X on his 8600. Page 62, he thinks. After that he's moving in with WONGO BOY™. * DRM: Digital Rights Management.
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"GRACK!" is © copyright 2002, John H. Farr, all rights reserved
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