My Own Biggest Fan

Bill C-60 is designed to bring Canadian Copyright law into step with the U.S.’s DMCA. This is a bad thing. Digital-Copyright.ca has created an easy to use method to send an email to each of the candidates in your riding a letter telling them that you do not support such a bill. Please take the time to read why you should be concerned about this and send off the letter.

Here is a sample of the letter.

From: myownbiggestfan
Subject: Digital Copyright letter from constituent

Dear Lee Richardson, Heesung Kim, Brian Pincott, John N. Johnson,
Trevor Grover
(Calgary Centre candidates)

Copyright law, and the changes proposed in Bill C-60, are of concern
to me. While copyright is most often described as a balance between
the interests of creators and the interests of users, the debate has
been dominated by special interest industry lobby groups representing
intermediaries.

Bill C-60 may be supported by these industry groups, but is highly
controversial with creators, and not supported by users. Industry
lobby groups such as the Canadian Recording Industry Association
(CRIA) can no more legitimately claim to politically represent the
interests of creators than the owners of the major banks can claim to
politically represent the interests of people who have bank accounts.

Thousands of Canadians, including hundreds of people who are in
creative or innovation industries, have signed the “Petition for
Users’ Rights” which articulates a more balanced vision. Creators
support this balance as they realize that creativity builds on the
past. In order for there to be a future generation of creators we
must limit the control of past creator or non-creator copyright
holders.

English Petition text

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/petition_en.pdf

French Petition text

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/petition_fr.pdf

More information on the petition

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/

Do you support this balanced vision?

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) has
also sent questions to each of the parties.

http://www.cippic.ca/en/projects-cases/election-2006/

Could you offer your own thoughts on these questions? What you have
to say on these issues is important to my decision of who to vote
for.

Sincerely,
Myownbiggestfan

Of course, mine had my real name on it.
from Boing Boing as usual.

The rise and fall of my excitement starts when I read at frightenstein.com.

The Hilarious House of Frightenstein will officially be released on DVD on September 27, 2005.
Available in the US only, the release will begin with a single DVD with 4 of the 30-minute versions of the episodes. If successful, more will follow.

The DVD is being produced from 3/4″ tapes and I’m told the quality is fantastic.

The original music for the Wolfman segments WILL be intact.

That’s all I know officially for now. I’m promised a press release soon that I can post that will have all of the details.

Hopefully a Canadian company will follow suit…

The Hilarious House of Frightenstein @ Amazon

This show was a very important part of my childhood. The news that I will be able to watch these shows over again, and again, and again, tickles something deep inside.

I wonder if this guy’s segments will scare the living daylights out of me, like they did when I was 8.

Then the disappointment sets in. Oh Damn! I look at the Amazon.ca site for the DVD and it seems that this is not the original Canadian release of the show. The reviews sound DIRE!

The show was originally produced as a one-hour show, with no laugh track. This is how it was broadcast in Canada in the early 70′s. When it was later syndicated in the US, the episodes were cut to a half-hour and a laugh track was added. Unfortunately, the four episodes on this DVD were from the US syndication package.

And

Like the other reviewers I too am disappointed that there are only 4 episodes (how about a boxed set?) and what’s with the laugh track??? There was no laugh track when the show was first aired! It definitely takes away from the mood. Imagine “Frankenstein” with a laugh track! Also, the editing is a bit sloppy.

Who the fuck gets this shit wrong? Why is the world so fucked up? It can’t even get the DVD release of a kids show right, how do we expect to achieve world peace?

instead of getting to work on time I surfed the interweb and got excited about the following things.

Record company offers free mp3s to buyers of vinyl albums

A beltbuckle holder for the iPod Nano

(both from Boing Boing of course)

Diesel Sweeties is offering free shipping on shirts, I finally ordered my internet debate shirt.

The Optimus keyboard that got everyone all hot and bothered six months ago will be released February 1st.

No price figures yet, though.

It’s a compulsion.

Next week, it will be (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66.

Richard Stevens 3 has a new blog to catch all the odds and ends that don’t make it into or fit with Diesel Sweeties, his very kick ass comic. So far it is a little hit and miss, but I have faith it will be a good read.

There, he pointed his readers towards the program Pixen, that looks quite promising. Sort of a Microsoft Paint for Mac OS X. (which I have been wanting for quite awhile) It is donationware and open source, two things that I approve of and support.

Myownbiggestfan has pledged their support to ‘pledge to never purchase a CD contaning any form of Digital Rights Management (DRM),’ and wants you to do the same! Simply by clicking http://www.pledgebank.com/boycottdrm/ you can show the world that you’re ready to start making a difference, alongside other like-minded people.

Myownbiggestfan’s pledge will close on 6th February 2006 and they only need the support of 500 people before their pledge goes into action.

Thank you for your support!

– the PledgeBank.com team

Yes, that also means I will not be buying music from the iTunes Music Store. No, it isn’t binding in any way or petitioning anyone, but this is still something I support.

Our Public Airwaves
A new vision for Canadian broadcasting
www.PublicAirwaves.ca

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Please visit our campaign website to send a message to all the party leaders.  Tell them you want a firm commitment to increased funding for Canada’s most important cultural institution.

But there’s more. The campaign website has a full page of important information about CBC and the financial problems it faces.  There is also a page with questions you can ask at election meetings or when candidates arrive at your door.  You’ll find it all at: www.SupportCBC.ca

To make CBC an election issue click HERE.

Thanks for your support!

Arthur Lewis
Executive Director
Our Public Airwaves
arthur@publicairwaves.ca

If you are interested in Linux in any way, you probably can figure out how to install a distribution. Picking one can be the tough part. Sometimes one has special needs that they might not know how to deal with when picking the correct one. Basic needs like installing on an old computer, or technical ones like needing a specific type of app installer can send you scurrying around the internet, ready to pull your hair out. The Linux Distribution Chooser asks simple questions steering you in the right direction, and offer information to the beginner when the questions may get a little to technical. It is a great resource.

The distro it pointed me to was Kubuntu.

Blonde jokes usually suck, but this is pretty funny.