A single mother has been fined £75 for “littering” after her 4 year old daughter dropped a piece of sausage roll on the pavement.

I didn’t know the following, I just stumbled on it tonight on Digg. Apparently, Democrat ex-candidate and congressman Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO in the 1980s (Jimmy Carter saw one in the 1970s too). Actress Shirley McLaine was the one who made this known in her autobiography, as he apparently saw the UFO while he was visiting her:

“He saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent and observing him. It hovered for about 10 minutes or so and sped away with a speed he couldn’t comprehend. He felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind.”

A few days later, he was asked on national television if that account is true. Kucinich said it was, that he did indeed had seen a UFO. FoxNews shat on him the same day, calling him a lunatic. How classy.

Politically I don’t agree with Kucinich on everything (e.g. he’s against H1B and L1 visas), but he does seem pretty stable to me. If he saw something that was not explainable, it probably wasn’t. Except if the lack of B12 on his vegan diet made him see things…

Expect soon an interview with one of the “UFO Hunters” crew here on my blog. The show airs every Wednesday at 10 PM on History Channel.

That’s where the copyright law and myself are clashing. There are a few things in life that should simply be either cheap, or free. Education is one of them. Healthcare is another.

I find it disgusting having publishers sue schools. But you say, “most schools are private, commercial entities”. Yes, they are (at least in the US). But this doesn’t mean that you will have to strip students of knowledge, who have already paid a large sum to the school itself anyway and he/she’s out of money already.

The solution is exactly the same as the one I discussed about movies/music a few weeks ago. You have a centralized service where schools can license ANY work for really cheap, or pay a monthly fee, to license part of a work and then distribute that to their students. The distribution allowance should be covered in the student’s tuition.

Anyways, education should not be impacted by the copyright law that much, even if it stresses the Fair Use doctrine. While the Greek schools are not that great compared to the west European ones, at least education is ranging from free to really cheap. And nobody gives a rat’s ass about copyright on books when it comes to education, exactly because it is considered a higher goal for everyone, education is a priority. Many times I have talked with sarcasm and bitterness about modern Greeks’ elitism because of their glorious ancient past, but damn, one good thing that have come out of it is total priority on education. It’s part of the culture. My parents lived on beans so I could go to college. Over here, education is just another form of business, and as such, it’s treated as business. Hence the lawsuits flying left and right and the unrealistic tuition fees.

“Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room“, says NewTeeVee.

What better way to control the masses but make them want it? Sure, Comcast will originally say that you will be able to turn off these cameras, but given the fact that Comcast’s cable boxes are fully operational from afar, who’s to say that they won’t turn them back on and sell your privacy to FBI and NSA? Heck, who’s to say that behind all this is not Comcast but these agencies? Conspiracy theory you say? Sure, but that’s the kind of vibe I get lately.

As you may know, I am usually releasing my footage under the CC-BY 3.0 license. This license basically just asks for attribution if you reuse the work. There are some dangers though. What if some of your footage is used as an opening shot for a porn movie? Or what if a Neo-Nazi group uses some of your footage for their video propaganda? You see, if that’s not enough that controversial entities are using your footage, your NAME will be on their credits roll! Try to explain to CIA, NSA and FBI that you had nothing to do with it.

I had a long thought about this today, and I researched around a bit more. The CC-BY includes the following clause: “You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author’s honor or reputation“. At first, this clause sounds good. But then, you realize that the artist’s “moral rights” (as this thing is called), are not defendable in every country. For example, in USA this protection does not always work because the “moral artist rights” here have a very specific meaning in the copyright law that only applies to some bizarre cases about photography. In Canada, some European countries and Japan, this clause could protect you. But in any case, you wouldn’t know for sure until you sue. But do you really want to go that far for a bunch of cheap footage?

So, realistically speaking, I have three choices:
1. Drop the CC-BY and use a more restrictive Creative Commons license (that’d probably be CC-BY-NC-ND, as the CC-SA does not fully protect me either). Public Domain does not help me either, because by default the PD license can be dangerous for some other reasons, plus I won’t be able to find good music to accompany my videos — using a CC-BY song with a PD video asks for trouble.
2. Hire a lawyer and write a custom license, that has bits from the CC-BY and a modified “moral rights” clause that explicitly prohibits a (legally defined) immoral re-use of the work.
3. Stop worrying about it and let the federal agencies figure out that I was not part of any “scheme” out there that might have used my footage because of its liberal license and has subsequently credited me for it.

I choose #3. Let’s live a little, give something back to the world, and let the world decide what to do with that something. You can’t babysit everyone in this world. Although I wouldn’t be happy if my footage is misused in ways that put me in trouble or defame me.

Update: My JBQ, who can read legalese as comfortably as reading Harry Potter, believes that the quoted CC-BY wording above is legally strong enough to protect the licensor from immoral adaptations of his/her works, even in US. So, we are all good.

Ok, someone explain this to me please. What’s the big deal of having front page news of a guy having sex with a prostitute? As long as the club had a license to operate and prostitution is not illegal in the NY state (I don’t know, maybe it is), what’s the big deal? My problem is that by reading the articles both on BBC and CNN I can not figure out if what he did is possibly illegal or not. Nothing is stated about the legality of the whore club. Cause if it’s not illegal, then it’s no one business with whom this guy is sleeping with. Who knows? Maybe he can’t get it off with his wife anymore, and being a guy, he has needs. Getting it off with a whore says absolutely nothing about his work and his character as a professional.

“According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called “transactional” data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns,” writes the reputable WSJ.

For 50 years, but most importantly, for the last 15 years, the Republic of Macedonia and Greece are having some problems. Greece maintains that the “ancient Macedonia” is part of Greece and that this newly created country should not be using this name. The Republic of Macedonia on the other hand, maintains that they are descendants of the ancient Macedonians and that they should be using that name.

The problem is not really in the actual name. The problem is that Greece is afraid that after 25 or 50 years from now, Macedonia would start a war to “free” the Greek part of Macedonia and make it its own (a part which btw, is populated by 90% ethnic Greeks who even if they might be descendants of the same ethnic group, they now feel Greek more than anything else). Ancient history is very important to Greeks, and they won’t tolerate anyone telling them otherwise.

Macedonia today is nothing different than Greece was circa 1740. If you were asking a Greek person back then what his ethnic background was, he would tell you that he’s “a descendant of the Roman empire”. Only after the west powers decided to “enlighten” the Greek population (for their own purposes, of course), the Greeks became the fanatical chauvinistic Greeks we all have come to love today. Same with Macedonia, they were for too long under a regime that did not let them find a identity. When they gained their freedom, they HAD to find an identity. It’s something that’s essential to any group or country. And Macedonia, well, decided to be identified with ancient Macedonians. I can’t really blame them for doing so, even if not the whole of their country ever was part of the ancient Macedonia. All I am saying is that their claims are only humanly natural.

These days, Greece has vetoed the inclusion of Macedonia to NATO and EU if they don’t change their naming wishes. Currently, the UN is trying to help both countries to find a solution. They will debate for years to come. I have a different solution, a solution that should have been done 2,500 years ago.

The solution is to make both countries, a single country. Call it “Macedonia and Greece”, or call it “Macedreece” or call it “Greedonia”, I don’t really care. The point is, these two cultures have MORE in common than they think they do. Ancient Macedonians were very similar in their culture and religion with the rest of Greece. It takes guts to merge two countries, but it has been done in the past, and it can be done again, peacefully. Sure, that didn’t stop Athenians and Spartans from being into war every 5 years or so. And by the time Rome became strong and attacked, Greeks were so have killed each other, that it was too late to fight together against them. But they did think of themselves as ethnically similar.

My final argument is this: both cultures adore Great Alexander, and each one wants the hero to be their exclusive hero. And yet, all Great Alexander wanted for both, was a united Macedonia-Greece. By not having the wisdom to merge after 2,500 years, neither of you deserve him as its hero.

If your reply is: “yes, but modern Greeks and Macedonians are not as similar as ancient Greeks and ancient Macedonians were”, then my answer is simple: if that’s the case, then NONE of the countries should be using the words “Greece”, or “Macedonia” in any of their territories. But I doubt they would accept that. It might even be more politically acceptable to merge rather than see their peoples lose their identity. Because when losing your identity and ethnicism, politicians lose their grip to that country, and politicians are not ready to let this go. It’s all a game of power you see.

“The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the “global war on terrorism” has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project”, says Michael Meacher MP, UK’s environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003.

I do not personally oppose globalization and the oh-so-hated ‘one world order’, but I want it to be democratic (Star Trek child here, you see). I just don’t have the stomach for yet another totalitarian and oppressive Rome.

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report.

How the hell is this possible? I lived in Greek towns for over 20 years (where everyone knew everyone else), and I’ve met or knew from afar about 6,000 people overall. From all these people, I only heard of THREE people getting time in prison. One guy in the ’70s (drugs), one guy in the ’80s (the dumbass killed someone), and a guy in the ’90s (drugs). I mean, this new report shows that 1% of the Americans were in prison in the first month of 2008! I know only of 3 Greek folks from my town who went to prison spanning 3 decades!

I can only say that now that I live in USA, I am glad that I live in the the Silicon Valley area. Truth is, the west bay has very low criminality, as most people here are engineers with good salaries, people who don’t need to go steal or get violent. Elsewhere in the US though, things are not so rosy, indeed. I don’t think I could handle living in NY or LA, to be honest.

No wonder cop shows are so popular in this country. People need to feel some virtual re-assurance that the system works.