What If...

Reprinted from Leo Laport's Blog

What if…

September 29th, 2007

What if you bought a computer that you couldn’t install any of your own applications on? (Stupid, I know, but what if?)

What if that computer required you to sign up for two years Internet service with one particular company, and prohibited using any other ISP? (Not that the ISP subsidized the price or anything - the computer wasn’t cheap.)

What if some bright guys came along and figured out how to install your own applications on the computer? And then showed you how to choose your own ISP? You’d do it, right? I mean, why not, it’s your computer. But wait.

What if the company that made the computer sent down an update that checked to see if you had installed your own applications and deleted them if so?

What if that same update checked to see if you were using the required ISP, and if you weren’t turned the computer into a useless, unfixable, piece of glass and plastic?

Would you ever buy a computer from that company again?

Would you ever trust a company like that again?

Addendum: Some Apple and cell phone customers seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, so let me put it another way.

Let’s say you’re selling me a cow. You tell me that that cow is being sold for the express purpose of making milk. I agree, and buy the cow.

Later I decide that I’d prefer to make cheese. You say that’s a violation of our agreement and kill my cow.

When I paid for the cow it became my property, to do with as I please. If you don’t like how I’m using it you may choose not to do any further business with me but you don’t get to kill my cow.

And, by the way, warning me you’d kill my cow if I keep making cheese doesn’t make it all right.

The lawyers will point out that contractually I agreed to your terms. True. But I don’t think the contract said anything about killing the cow did it?

Apple’s sole redress is to halt all support of my phone. If we let Apple destroy our property for not following the rules we’re telling the music industry it’s ok to destroy a hard drive containing illegal songs, the cable company to fry our TVs for stealing cable. That is vigilante justice and a direct threat to the rule of law.

From: Leo Laport's Blog 29 Sept 07

It's Fall Again

It's fall here in Winnipeg, well it has actually looked like fall for some time, but it officially became fall on the 23rd. Fall is my favourite season, cool crisp (7c) air, no bugs, the colours and the expectation of the winter to come. There is a set of 'things to do' like cleaning, putting the gardens to bed. And now that we have sod, everything is much cleaner to work around and psychologically less weighty, I didn't know until we had that done how much it was weighing on me.

There is a chunk of work still remaining to do, as well as some fixing up because the sod wasn't down for so long. But now I'm beginning to actually look forward to my work outside. I'm off to camp on the weekend and that should be fun as well - time to spend out with my brother and other friends at camp, maybe a little reading time and time with my own thoughts will be nice.

I've been reading a lot recently, maybe part of my fall mood as well. Everything from Warhammer 40k fiction to David Suzuki is on the table right now.

Kiddo is 2.25 years old now, and continues to amaze me, being a dad is becoming what I had hoped it would be. Unlike the first year where he was for all intents a poop machine (food in poop out not much else). He's interactive, curious and luckily for mom and I, he is generally a happy kid. Like all parents of 2 year olds we have our struggles with 'I wants' and 'not nows' but when he's snuggled in my arm watching, and quietly talking about, Bob the Builder on TV it's great fun. It's hard to be concerned about much at those times. By Christmas he'll be 2.5 years (wow) and will be getting into the season. As active Anglicans, we intend to make sure that we observe Advent, and tell the Christ story as well as the secular Santa story and I find that a good Fall season will feed into Advent and Christmas very easily.

I'm off, cheers!

Photo Credit: Fall Creek Falls cwage

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