Light is where you find it...

Thank you Toledo Marie

Free Microsoft: A License to steal.

My RSS Reader showed me this...

Then I read ...

Windows Is Free

The impact of pirated software on free software

by Dave Gutteridge on August 15, 2007

... I wanted know how Dave Gutteridge had managed to read my tiny little mind. I also wanted to quote the entire post because it is so good but that would be a form of er, uh, well, stealing.

Here are some things that I have learned through the years...

1. People started out "borrowing" Windows in the early years... with Microsoft's tacit approval.
2. People do not realize that they are buying an separate OS when they buy a computer.
3. People do not discriminate between the OS and the computer (Reference my posts on "Microsofting")
4. "I already have Microsoft Windows on my computer. Why should I change?"
   
5. "Just what do you mean, 'You don't own the software.' I bought it didn't I?
   
6. "It's not like Microsoft really cares about little old me and just one more copy of Office."
   ... and last but not least...
   
7. If the retail cost of an item exceeds the perceived value of the item then it is "OK" to steal it.

Seems this is a meme who's time has come...

Best read of the year - so far

-wolfgang.lonien.de

who points to...

Windows piracy

(Bonus link: Why 'Windows Is Free' doesn't cut it for me )

(Disclaimer: I am not advocating stealing anything. Lets review the title... "Free Microsoft" This is a directive and not a declaration. Liberate Microsoft from all the encumbrances of being a commercial entity. "A License to steal." Is a social commentary on today proclivity to "borrow" a legal commercial instrument, a license, for personal use. It does not suggest permission to commit a felony.)

I am so affluent...

...that I can afford:

Cost of the War in Iraq

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To see more details, click here.

Pssssst!...Hey buddy, can you spare an extra $200 MILLION for another day in Iraq?

As always, thanks Milton.

Empire: The Sun never sets on Google...

Google bowls for Microsoft Office buyers with free StarOffice

Free StarOffice... Free, says it all.

More to follow...

- 30 -

Post Secrets

Sound bites and the lone voices...

Recently lone voices have carried across the digital expanse. Voices carrying the questions and sentiments of peace in a time of great conflict. Voices that serve to remind us that we have a choice. Voices that urge us to choose. Voices that extol the virtue and morality of peace.

Hearing those clear voices I reflect back upon a piece that I wrote many years ago in a time when we faced conflict and social turmoil. It was the time of the birth of the sound bite. It was the time of media polarization. The sound bite sorted us all out, for or against, pro or con, left or right, hawk or dove. The 20-second message was on point. There could be no room for dissenting perspectives. Soon there was no room for humanity...

Amid Warring Cries

Amid warring cries for peace

we have heard the lullaby

and succumb to the dreamless sleep

rocked in the handmade cradle

of the eternal holocaust.

We drift a warm bed made

when half the world away

a mother cries, “My Sargent son

of only nineteen years is dead;

laid aside his hero father.”

To enter the maternal void

of wedding white she bespeaks

the seed of new cries, she carries

tears to his shroud, accepting

his honor within a folded flag.

There alone to join as one:

we have laughed and loved,

and now fought and died,

all in the name of freedom,

it's golden chariot to ride.

As the one, another yet becomes,

amid warring cries of peace

we drift a warm bed made

to enter the maternal void,

there alone to join as one,

as the one, another yet becomes,

rocked in the hand made cradle

of the eternal holocaust.

Struggling with my 20-second sound bite polar disorder I seek to hear the message of my heart. There the lone voices resonate.

upon the canvas
in my kitchen
the meal I prepare
to paint
is to nourish
as bright image for the moment of the eye
and sadly if simply left then to rot and return.