The issue of whether Christian young’uns should be sharing music via P2P has made a lot of news lately, even a Salon (premium) article. The Gospel Music Association (granted, not an unbiased party) recently released a study that concluded:

…born again Christian teens are not much different than are non-born again teens in terms of holding an anti-piracy moral position. Just 10% of Christian teens believe that copying CDs for friends and unauthorized music downloading are morally wrong, compared to 6% of non-born agains.

I find the attitudes that sharing music isn’t wrong interesting, and this is an interesting angle.

I certainly think that the recording industry is pursuing the wrong strategy by fighting music sharing tooth and nail. And it’s ultimately a doomed strategy. I think they’d be much smarter to embrace technology and find ways to make money from it, instead of desperately hanging on to the existing system.

But, regardless of whether the current laws are fair, the law is the law. It’s currently illegal to share music, and I struggle with that. I’m not saying I’ve never downloaded music. (I have, in fact, but I found it too much trouble). Also, I don’t think music sharing is any different from software piracy, and as a software developer, I can see who’s harmed by software piracy.

So, I struggle with the issue of following the law, regardless of my perception of its fairness. No answers, but I understand the public dialog.

This entry from the blog Body and Soul covers about every thought I’ve had recently about the war in Iraq as well as many I haven’t had. It’s a lot to digest.

A New York Times article discusses some designers’ call to simplify technology. These people claim:

There is too much needless complexity in the world, he argues. Technology, which was supposed to make our lives easier, has taken a wrong turn. In 20 years we’ve gone from the simplicity of MacPaint to Photoshop. While the first fostered a creative explosion, the second gave birth to an industry of how-to books and classes. And such complexity is commonplace, Dr. Maeda says. Despite the lip service paid to “ease of use,” “plug and play,” and “one-click shopping,” simplicity is an endangered quality in the digital world, he adds, and it is time to break free from technology’s intimidating complexity.

And of course they mention Microsoft Windows. I see their point, but they offer a tired argument. Can you do all the things with MacPaint that you can do with Photoshop? Of course not. PhotoShop (or Word, Windows, etc.) may have a zillion features, but these are programs with lots of users with very different needs. Sure, any individual user may only use a small subset of a program’s features, but there’s a group that needs every feature that’s been included. Contrary to what these folks imply, we aren’t just making things more complex for its own sake.

This morning I took my camera in the car on my way to work, hoping to snap photos of waving man. Considering I see him at most maybe once a month, the chances were slim. But lo and behold, I did pass him this morning. But I had to turn around and come past him again in order to get photos. He didn’t seem to realize it was the same car that had passed the other way a minute before, and if he noticed me snapping photos as I passed somewhat slowly, it didn’t stop him from waving.
Amazingly, I managed to get a couple of decent photos and not crash my car.

Since I titled a recent post “Office Snacks of Mass Destruction,” I thought I’d investigate the use of the term “X of mass destruction.” A Google search for the phrase “of mass destruction” excluding the words “weapons” and “weapon” returns 41K+ results. Guess it’s an official cliche now. Glad to see I’m such a cutting edge trendsetter.

Some highlights of the search results:

• Sales strategy article: Presentations of Mass Destruction
• A recipe for Chicken satay of mass destruction
• Infrequently updated Weblog of mass destruction (gee, that’s a surprise)
• An eWeek article on patents of mass destruction

Tonight I used three types of toxic insecticides: aerosol spray that shoots the Jet Of Death© 20 feet to kill the wasps that have built nests around the eaves of our house and some stuff that mixes with water from the garden hose to kill bugs that have attacked some shrubs in our yard. In the course of putting up the extension ladder in order to reach the wasps, I discovered–the painful way–a new fire ant bed and used the third chemical to wage the next battle in that unending war.

For the second time this week, someone has burned popcorn in the microwave at work. To my knowledge no corporate drone in America has ever succeeded in popping microwave popcorn at work without, at best, sickening their coworkers with the smell, and at worst causing the building to be evacuated. At least the fire alarm makes a nice break.

If I were very articulate about my faith, this is pretty much how I would sum up my view on faith. Or, in bumper-sticker form: it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.

One of the shortcuts on my drive to work is on a street that runs next to a residential area. This street doesn’t get a lot of traffic and I often see the residents of the neighborhood out walking and jogging along the street. But there’s one man who always brings a smile to my face when I occasionally see him.

I call him, without much creativity, ‘waving man.’ As he takes his morning walk through the neighborhood, he waves heartily at every passing car, and if you wave back he waves more vigorously and bows. Based on the bowing I saw the other day when I followed a couple of other cars down the street, it looks like other drivers are as familiar with him as I am. He’s always a refreshing site on my otherwise boring commute.