There Won't Be No Country Music...

...or any kind of music, for that matter. Not from the boom box I've had for a couple of years, anyway.

The other day, it abruptly started making an odd noise, and I had to yank the plugin.

So now I've woken up with 6 a.m. insomnia and decided to see if it would work again--play a little soothing music, help me get back to sleep. I plugged it in and tried it, and while it didn't make any funny noises, it wouldn't play a CD, either. As I turned on a light to look on it, I saw a blotch on the inside of the LCD that I thought at first was a liquid crystal leak...but then as my eyes focussed better, I saw it was...little tiny roaches.

My life sucks.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"

I took a little advantage of my insomnia this morning to call and make an appointment on the campus health center to get a problem looked at that's been bothering me for a few days. I have a canker sore toward the back of my tongue that has been making it slightly painful to eat. I was a little worried about this, because last year at about this time, I had a whole passel of canker-type sores, all around the back of my throat, which made it nearly impossible for me to swallow anything. The doctor prescribed a noxious glutinous numbing solution that I was thoroughly sick of by the time it was over--but it did the job of numbing my throat, I have to admit--and some antibiotics to get me through it, and a hearty infusion of homemade chicken soup from the parents (thanks again, parents!) didn't hurt either.

Anyway, it's apparently just an ordinary, if very persistent, canker sore, and the doctor prescribed me some creme for it, and a few days of Amoxicillin, an antibiotic. Hopefully that will do the trick. I feel kind of silly going to the doctor and getting prescribed $14 worth of medicine...for just a canker sore. But I'd rather be safe than sorry, and at least the doc was free since I'm still in school for one more semester.

I'm waiting for my classmates for the project we are to work on again, as I was last week. I'm getting a little worried about the project, to be honest. It seems like we're a little behind where we ought to be, and we have another report coming due in a week or so. We haven't even started coding yet. I'm just afraid this is going to lead to a lot of hard work, and I'm a little nervous about possibly being accused of not doing my share. It sure feels like I'm not doing a lot. I'd like to do more, but again, I'm a little worried about my abilities.

It really doesn't help matters that every class I'm in this semester either requires a final project or flat-out is a final project. I have to help (1) write a database app for a small business (this project); (2) write a Java app for a small business type of environment; (3) teach a training course in Web Images at the local library; and (4) do a value chain analysis of five companies in a chosen industry.

I am going to be soooo glad when this darned semester is over with.

A Letter Published!

I just noticed I've had a letter published in Wired's "Rants & Raves" letters to the editor section. It was in response to an article about Disney propagandizing against peer-to-peer file-trading (as with Napster & Gnutella) in an episode of one of their cartoons, and I took the opportunity to point out that Disney has always taken a dim view of possible threats to their intellectual property. (I actually have had a letter published in their letter column in the past, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was about. Oh well.)

Since I don't know how long it'll be up/accessible, here's a copy-paste of the HTML source for it.

Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 9:41 AM
From: Chris Meadows (robotech@eyrie.org)
To: newsfeedback@wired.com
Subject: Disney's Peer-to-Peer Pressure

Your article "Disney's Peer-to-Peer Pressure" (October 24, 2001) states: "In recent months, (Disney) has taken a rather hard-line view of copyright in a digital world."

"In recent months" nothing, Disney has always been a hardliner on copyright. It may be an exaggeration, but it is something of a truism to say that you can always tell when copyright duration will be extended -- because that invariably happens whenever Steamboat Willie is about to pass into the public domain. Today, hundreds or thousands of books from the 1920s, 30s, and so on languish in limbo when they should be available freely to everyone, thanks to Disney's fear of losing copyright and trademark control over their characters.

When DVD and DivX first hit the scene, Disney was one of the biggest supporters behind DivX, a medium which allowed them substantially more control over who got to watch their movies. (As a result, they were relative latecomers to DVD -- in fact, when they licensed Miyazaki's films, including Princess Mononoke, they had to go back and renegotiate DVD rights, because Disney hadn't thought to include them in the original deal!)

Disney isn't just hardline; they're one of the driving forces behind the perpetually extensible copyright. I just hope someday people will realize what they're doing and stand up to it.

They actually cut one of the paragraphs from the original email, but I don't really mind. The missing paragraph would have come right before the last one, and goes:

And historically, Disney has always been one of the strictest litigators of unauthorized use of their characters. Remember the uproar over the daycare center that had them painted on its walls?

I think you'll agree it really doesn't lose much from that little snip.