Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bootleg Software Guy Cries Foul

Steve Bragg is a technical consultant of a local school system by day but in the evening he sells bootleg software.
"It's a side project," Steve explains. "Hustle money to put away for my new kid."
For several years Steve would crack security codes on Adobe, Microsoft Office and Quickbooks so he could sell the software.
"Adobe was the easiest and the most lucrative because Creative Suite costs something like $900 brand new and I could find buyers at $150. It was a win win [situation]"
That was until other software hacks began driving the price down.
"They killed the golden goose," exclaimed Steve. "Now I see the same Rosetta Stone software that I would steal and then resell for $100 going for $25 or less. How am I going to make money off this stolen software when guys like me are stealing it and selling it cheaper? They're taking food out of my mouth!"
BRagg said that if things keep going like this in the stolen software market he was going to have to move to Russia to take footage of early release movies to turn into dvds to sell in the Philippines.
"I'll do what I have to to overcome the obstacles set up by these bootleg software hacks who are more conniving than I am."

Acidification of Oceans

Has anyone checked out the story on the acidification of the oceans? It's a couple pages long and not nearly as interesting as Hog Hunters or Storage Wars or performances by teenagers covering songs from 1970. Yep, it's a real yawner. But Joe Romm is the writer who is putting out more content than anyone on the condition of the climate so that's why he's tops on my blog roll. It's mostly doom and gloom and "sky is falling" stuff that would make any sane person drink a bottle of Southern Comfort. Especially when time scales like 180 million years are being tossed around and make the Mayan calendar read like a school lunch menu. It's also safe to say that one person can not affect any change in something as vast as the ocean. Yes, mankind chose to pollute it by default and no change is on the horizon as long as it's easier to dump waste into the ocean than not create it in the first place. Of course you could quote the part in the article that claims 96% of marine life already was wiped out 250 million years ago by some volcanoes erupting in Asia. So, who cares if the same effect is caused by iPod manufacturing and long rides to Target to save money on toilet paper? Well, some people care, some people have no idea it's happening and some people are indifferent.

The oceans are acidifying? I am...






The full article .





Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.