random neuron misfires

Well, today was Monday, and it was fast sand furious. I slammed through my day job work on the train, in the office, and now on the train again. Overall the day was amazingly productive, and hopefully will be doubly-so tomorrow.

But here’s a quote that pretty much sums up a good portion of my day:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.”

Now they have two problems.

[ History of that quote can be found here ]

This is just a minor rant, but I think it bears mentioning.

There’s seems to be a new social behavior appearing in many circles now. I’ve been watching it increase in popularity and frequency for the last couple of years. I work in New York and my exposure to thousands of people every day greatly magnifies my awareness of this problem.

I’ve been using Bluetooth headsets for several years with my Palm PDAs and phones, as well as with my laptops and computers at the office (as audio devices, for Skype and so on).

I’ve probably had no less than a dozen separate headsets in the last 3-4 years. One of them was put through the wash by my wife at the time, another one was crushed, and the others are somewhere in my collection, replaced by faster, smaller, more-capable devices.

When I’m using the headset, I keep it in my ear. When I’m not on a call, I take it out. Herein lies the change in the social behavior of many people who use these headsets; they leave them in ALL THE TIME, whether they’re on a call or not.

My daughter is almost 4 years old and even she knows that when you’re not on the phone, you take the headset out. She sees me take it out when I’m off the phone, and she knows. I didn’t have to teach her. For her, it’s the signal that the call is over, and my attention can be directed towards her, listening to her, attending to her needs.

What are we teaching our youth here about being social and having people skills when we’re out in public? Nothing. We’re breeding more anti-social personalities and making our interactions with others “cold” and insensitive.

People who leave their bluetooth headsets in lack this signal. When you’re talking to someone, are they on a call? Are they listening to you? Are they playing music on their ipod over their bluetooth headset? Where is their attention?

You don’t know. You can’t tell.

You’re talking to someone face-to-face, and all you can see is that damn blinking blue LED on the side of their head drawing your eyes away from focusing on what you’re trying to say.

It’s rude, it’s distracting, it looks stupid, and it isn’t making our social interactions any more rich or fulfilling.

People wear them while they drive when they’re not on a call, and mostly on the driver’s side ear, so they can’t hear as well out that side of their vehicle.

What did we do before bluetooth headsets came around? Did we just strap the phone to our heads in anticipation of the next call?

Of course we didn’t!

It doesn’t make you look cool, important or special. Take the headset out, when you’re off the phone. Seriously.

ThinkPad laptops include a proprietary interface called SMAPI BIOS (System Management Application Program Interface) which provides some hardware control functionality that is not accessible by other means.

This driver exposes some features of the SMAPI BIOS through a sysfs interface. It is suitable for newer models, on which SMAPI is invoked through IO port writes. Older models use a different SMAPI interface using “thinkpad” module from the “tpctl” package.

Unfortunately, out of the box it does not build on Ubuntu or Debian systems, because of the way those Linux distributions structure their kernel source and headers in /lib/modules/…/ and /usr/src/…/

It is a simple one-line patch to fix the tp_smapi Makefile to get these package to build on stock Ubuntu/Debian systems:

--- Makefile.orig       2008-03-21 14:07:34.604072067 -0400
+++ Makefile    2008-03-21 14:13:07.669091731 -0400
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 X:=$(shell false)
 KVER        := $(shell uname -r)
 KBASE       := /lib/modules/$(KVER)
-KSRC        := $(KBASE)/source
+KSRC        := /usr/src/linux-headers-$(KVER)/
 KBUILD      := $(KBASE)/build
 MOD_DIR     := $(KBASE)/kernel
 PWD         := $(shell pwd)

Basically you need to tell the KSRC variable that the kernel source is in /usr/src/linux-headers-1.2.3-foo/ and not in /lib/modules/1.2.3-foo/source/.

If you want to build tp_smapi with HDAPS support (and you probably do, if you’re on a laptop), then you’d build it as follows:

make load HDAPS=1
make install HDAPS=1

Depending on your particular configuration, you can then put tp_smapi and hdaps in your /etc/modules file to load at boot-time.

I personally use tp_smapi to set the charging and discharging thresholds of my Thinkpad batteries (3 separate Thinkpads at this point; T61p, T42p and X61s).

$ sudo echo 30 > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/smapi/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh
$ sudo echo 90 > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/smapi/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh

The values above tell tp_smapi to begin charging the battery when it reaches BELOW 30% of its total capacity, and to stop charging the battery when it reaches ABOVE 90% of its total capacity.

There’s a lot of other things to play with in here, and here is a table showing some of those options, courtesy of ThinkWiki.

Here’s what my battery details are on the T61p as I type this:

$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info 
present:                 yes
design capacity:         84240 mWh
last full capacity:      86790 mWh
battery technology:      rechargeable
design voltage:          10800 mV
design capacity warning: 4339 mWh
design capacity low:     200 mWh
capacity granularity 1:  1 mWh
capacity granularity 2:  1 mWh
model number:            42T4511
serial number:           21169
battery type:            LION
OEM info:                SANYO

I’ve been on the prowl for a better bag to carry my gear and files to my new job in Manhattan. I currently am using a real leather bag made by US Luggage. The model is the U.S. Luggage Wide-Body Computer Briefcase and it is hands-down the best computer bag I’ve ever used.

The problem is the weight, and that it only has a shoulder strap, not backpack straps.

It has pockets perfectly built for everything you could possibly need (the photos on Amazon don’t do it justice). The front pockets have “sag” guides, so when they’re fully opened, stuff doesn’t just come spilling out. There is so much room in the bag that I’ve even had trouble filling it fully. It’s deceptively large.

When I put in my two laptops, file folders, notebook, reading material power supply, iPod, various chargers and gadgets, snacks, CD drive, laptop cable lock and so on… it’s approaching 30 pounds, all sitting on one of my shoulders. Walking through the streets of New York or commuting on the subways with this bag on my shoulder is very uncomfortable.

So I’ve been looking for a new bag. I searched eBags, Oakley, LowePro, JanSport, NorthFace, Crumpler Bags and dozens upon dozens of other companies for the perfect bag.

My requirements aren’t that extreme, but so far nothing has even come close to meeting the bill. Here’s what I’m looking for:

1. First and foremost, it should have a comfortable strap/harness system, that leaves both of my arms free to use for whatever I need; opening doors, sliding my Metrocard and so on.
2. A bag that can hold two laptops comfortably, padded and protected from damage from anything else inside the bag. I have a 15.4″ Lenovo T61p and a 12″ Lenovo X61s that I carry with me.
3. Something that doesn’t scream “COMPUTER BAG! Steal me! Expensive contents inside!“. It should look like a nice, professional bag, without being overly “teen” or unnecessarily flashy.
4. Enough internal pockets to segregate the basic computer gear: AC power adapter, iPod, pens, phone, business cards, network cables, calculator and so on.
5. External pockets within quick and easy reach for snacks, drink bottles, keys and other small-but-need-to-reach-quickly kind of items. External pockets should also be safe from any potential thieves and pickpockets that are riding the subway with me.
6. Something that can stand on its base without help, or having to lean on something. I don’t want my bag to fall over on its face or its back when I put it down.

It’s pretty simple. A bag that can hold the same gear as my USL D921 bag, weighs less and that I can wear as a backpack (arms free).

There are a few companies that make a backpack-style harness with a clip mechanism that lets you convert your existing shoulder bag to a backpack, but it looks… like something I’d never want to wear in downtown Manhattan. ThinkTankPhoto makes a nice one that appears to be fairly well thought-out.

Then, there’s the next notch up: hiking backpacks. The Osprey Atmos is really, REALLY nice. They have a very unique, breathable harness system that keeps the weight and the wet off of your back. Even their shoulder straps are perforated to help vent the heat off of your body. I found a good review of the Osprey Atmos that goes through a lot of its features.

The downside to this approach is the physical size and that these bags generally have one big main compartment, designed in “stuff-sack” style. This means I’ll have to keep my laptops in their own laptop sleeve or slipcase. That’s not such a bad idea, because I can then take the laptop with me in any bag I choose. It increases the bulk a bit, but also makes my choices a lot more flexible.

The problem with MOST laptop slipcases, is that they don’t really protect the laptop from anything more than scuffs from neighboring equipment in the bag. There’s no impact protection, no bending/flexing protection. Here’s what a basic sleeve looks like:

A decent padded one looks like this:

Oakley makes a really nice pack called the AP Pack 2.0, but I can’t tell how large it is ON a person, or what the inside really looks like. There’s no Oakley store near me that I can touch and feel this bag, so I can’t be sure it’ll fit my needs.

A lot of computer’esque bags seem to have the right kind of pockets, layout and configuration, but they lack a quality harness or padding or some other critical component that I would require. They all seem to fall short in some showstopper way or another.

Does nobody make a decent “Urban Commuter” pack yet? I know I’m not alone in this category. I see hundreds and hundreds of people every day on my commute carrying too much bag, not enough bag, or looking like they borrowed their high-school child’s backpack for the day. It’s not pretty.

For the moment, I picked up a LowePro Transit Backpack until I can find something better.

I use a lot of VMware images in my day-to-day work (community and otherwise). Snapshotting, adding software, removing software and testing various packages tends to create a VERY fragmented virtual machine.

Since these are basically multi-gigabyte files, thrashing the virtual disk because it gets fragmented, plows performance into the ground, so I tend to try to defragment these volumes as often as I can.

There are 4 basic defragmenting programs; 1 of them built into Windows itself:

1. Disk Defragmenter (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter)
2. Diskeeper Lite (may no longer be available, but you can still get it from here).
3. Raxco PerfectDisk 2008
4. O&O Defrag Free (also available via MajorGeeks link)

Each of these has it’s positive and negative points… the only one I’ve tried that actually will “pack” the files into one contiguous amount of space, is the Raxco PerfectDisk product. This is useful if you tend to grow and shrink your VMware volumes, or want to be sure there is no wasted space in the virtual image while you transfer it over a network or to different machines on a LAN.

Diskeeper Lite is the only one I’ve found that BREAKS the Windows default disk defragmenting tool after you uninstall it. Once you install Diskeeper Lite, it registers itself as the default defrag tool (but doesn’t actually ASK you first, grr!).

When you uninstall it, you don’t get the built-in Windows defrag tool back… you get a broken snap-in. It will fail with the following error in a popup dialog:

Snap-In Failed to Initialize: CLSID:{43668E21-2636-11D1-A1CE-0080C88593A5}

Then you’ll see the Disk Defragment snap-in window with the following displayed:

Snap-In Creation Failed. The Snap-in is not created, it may not be installed properly.

To fix this issue, enter the following commands from Start -> Run or from a cmd.exe command shell to re-register the components that Diskeeper Lite broke:

  regsvr32 dfrgsnap.dll
  regsvr32 dfrgui.dll

Lately, O&O Defrag has been causing X to dump on me, dropping me out of vmware and out of X and anything else I had running at the time. Oops!

I’m back to the default Windows defrag tool for now. It isn’t fast, it doesn’t pack files into a contiguous block, but it comes with the OS and it doesn’t crash my GUI or vmware.

I’ve been using IM in various formats since back in the BBS days with a program called IceChat that I ran under RemoteAccess Pro BBS.

I moved on from dial-up BBS systems to Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and have continued to use IRC for the last 14 years near-daily for personal and professional business needs with a program called Bitch-X (text-mode) and then later a program called X-Chat (gtk+ based with support for lots of plugins).

A few years ago there was some controversy about the licensing of X-Chat, specifically for Windows. If you want a completely free, unencumbered version of X-Chat for windows, use the version from Silverex instead.

Then I moved on to using Instant Messaging (IM), via a program called ‘gaim’, which was a multi-protocol IM client. Within the same interface, you could aggregate your AOL AIM, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, ICQ and other accounts into one place. Life was good.

Then the developers began having internal turf wars, and they broke it. Badly.

Then they renamed it.

Then they removed all of the previous gaim releases (which is actually a potential violation of the GPL licensing which binds gaim and is also directly violating the Terms of Service of Sourceforge, ahem).

Then they began removing more and more of the useful features of the client.

Then they broke it again. And again. And again.

Then they closed off their irc channel and began banning people who differed with their philosophical opinion on what features should and should not be allowed in the client. Right now there are 172 users in the project support channel (##pidgin on Freenode), and 45 of those users are permanently banned.

Now they’ve removed the ability to let the window manager decide where it should place the application’s windows and you can no longer resize the edit box. Because of all of the turf wars and in-fighting, Jabber servers outright block pidgin clients from connecting (but those same Jabber accounts work fine from other IM clients; Linux, Windows and Mac OSX).

And now there are enough pissed-off users of pidgin that a group of developers have released a project called “Funpidgin“, which puts back most of the features that the core Pidgin developers removed, and Funpidgin promises to remain in lockstep with the core pidgin releases.

Open Source projects like X-Chat and Gaim should not undergo this kind of turmoil. We’re here to HELP, and to create communities, not to act like children and crack and sever communities apart.

But it looks like my professional and personal colleagues and friends will be migrating away from these “kiddie war” applications to Skype and FWD, where adults work on the code.

The new TrueCrypt 5.0/5.0a was recently released, and because I’ve had to make a [few] [previous] [posts] on how to patch it to build and run cleanly on Linux, I thought it only appropriate that I follow that trend here with version 5.0a.

Here are some of the new features in TrueCrypt 5.0/5.0a:

• Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts). (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
• Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100% (Windows)
• Mac OS X version
• Graphical user interface for the Linux version of TrueCrypt
• The TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard now allows creation of hidden volumes within NTFS volumes. (Windows)
• XTS mode of operation, which was designed by Phillip Rogaway in 2003 and which was recently approved as the IEEE 1619 standard for cryptographic protection of data on block-oriented storage devices. XTS is faster and more secure than LRW mode (for more information on XTS mode, see the section Modes of Operation in the documentation).

  Note: New volumes created by this version of TrueCrypt can be encrypted only in XTS mode. However, volumes created by previous versions of TrueCrypt can still be mounted using this version of TrueCrypt.

• SHA-512 hash algorithm (replacing SHA-1, which is no longer available when creating new volumes).

  Note: To re-encrypt the header of an existing volume with a header key derived using HMAC-SHA-512 (PRF), select ‘Volumes’ > ‘Set Header Key Derivation Algorithm’.

To build this to run on Linux, you will need two things:

1. Download the tarball version of the 5.0a source
2. Download the latest stable wxWidgets library (wxAll in that list)

This version requires a little more than the previous versions, because it now includes a fully-graphical UI like the Windows version has for quite some time. If you simply enter the ./truecrypt-5.0a-source directory and try to build it with ‘make’, you’ll get the following errors:

Compiling CoreLinux.cpp
Updating library Core.a
make[1]: /src/compiling/truecrypt-5.0a-source/wxrelease/wx-config: Command not found
make[1]: /src/compiling/truecrypt-5.0a-source/wxrelease/wx-config: Command not found
Precompiling SystemPrecompiled.h
In file included from /usr/include/wx/platform.h:88,
                 from /usr/include/wx/defs.h:19,
                 from /usr/include/wx/wx.h:15,
                 from SystemPrecompiled.h:9:
/usr/include/wx/chkconf.h:47:9: error: #error "wxUSE_DYNLIB_CLASS must be defined."
/usr/include/wx/chkconf.h:55:9: error: #error "wxUSE_FILESYSTEM must be defined."
/usr/include/wx/chkconf.h:68:9: error: #error "wxUSE_DYNAMIC_LOADER must be defined."
....

This is because the required ./wxrelease subdirectory is not built or prepared. Steps to building this correctly are as follows:

1. Unpack the wxWidgets source tree into some local directory. I put mine in /src/compiling/, but your own path may vary. The version used at the time I’m writing this post, is version 2.8.7 (direct download link from SourceForge). This will create a tree named ./wxWidgets-2.8.7.
2. Unpack the TrueCrypt 5.0a source into another directory. This will create a tree named ./truecrypt-5.0a-source.
3. Change into the ./truecrypt-5.0a-source directory and run the following:

   WX_ROOT=/src/compiling/wxWidgets-2.8.7 make wxbuild

   You will see the following output:

   Configuring wxWidgets library...
   Building wxWidgets library...

   This will build the ./wxrelease subdirectory of the ./truecrypt-5.0a-source source tree.

   You’ll get the following warning, which you can safely ignore:

   ./wxWidgets-2.8.7/src/gtk/gsockgtk.cpp:134: warning: ‘wxDummyGsockVar’ defined but not used

4. Now run the following:

   WX_ROOT=/src/compiling/wxWidgets-2.8.7 make

   As you build this, you’ll see the following warning:

   Compiling PlatformTest.cpp
   PlatformTest.cpp: In static member function ‘static bool TrueCrypt::PlatformTest::TestAll()’:
   PlatformTest.cpp:243: warning: unused variable ‘finally243’

   And these:

   TextUserInterface.cpp:70: warning: unused variable ‘finally70’

   TextUserInterface.cpp:297: warning: unused variable ‘finally297’

   Unix/Main.cpp:55: warning: unused variable ‘finally55’

   You can safely ignore this and similar warnings. They are simply internal self-tests, which checks the line of source code in that file, as follows:

     // finally
     TestFlag = false;
     {
             finally_do ({ TestFlag = true; });
             if (TestFlag)
                     throw TestFailed (SRC_POS);
     }
     if (!TestFlag)
             throw TestFailed (SRC_POS);
   
     TestFlag = false;

That’s it. Now you should have a truecrypt binary in ./truecrypt-5.0a-source/Main which includes full graphical capability.

Main/truecrypt: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

If everything builds clean, the new TrueCrypt 5.0a GUI will look like this:

If you’re wondering who to vote for in this year’s elections, the process just got a LOT easier.

The United States Senate has just granted retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who were found to be illegally wiretapping millions of innocent, law-abiding citizens without warrants, without FISA approval and without any legal foundation.

President Bush himself even stated that he would veto any bill that hit his desk that did not include an immunity clause in this specific matter.

Senator Kit Bond from Missouri was quoted as saying:

“…permitting lawsuits against the companies would lead to public disclosure of vital intelligence-gathering methods and would discourage the private sector from cooperating with the government in the future.”

How did your favorite candidates vote? Here’s a quick rundown:

McCain: No (supports retroactive immunity)
Obama: Yes (voted to remove the immunity clause)
Clinton: Did not vote (abstained from voting)

McCain voted to continue the wiretapping, thus proving that he is truly antithetical to a free society.

Obama voted to keep the telecommunications companies accountable for their illicit activities. That’s really no different from where they are today, where they continue to illegally wiretap citizens of the United States without cause, warrant or legal grounds.

Hillary Clinton abstained from voting on the measure at all.

For me, that just discounted ALL of the candidates from my short list of whom to vote for in the 2008 elections.

The full breakdown of the voting per-senator can be found here.

Vote wisely in 2008, because the very foundations this country was founded upon are literally at stake here. If we make a mistake and put the wrong candidate into office, we will have lost what little remains of our freedoms and the Constitution that upholds them.

As I continue to shave and optimize my hybrid working environment to gain more productivity out of the limited hours I have in every day, I’ve been working on consolidating my calendaring needs across the three platforms I currently use (soon to be 4):

1. Linux Development environment (I do everything on Linux)
2. Windows Financial environment (I use this for Microsoft Money, some Office 2007 work and several Palm conduits and plugins that don’t have Linux equivalents)
3. Web
4. Mac OS X (not yet introduced into my workflow)

I have a lot of calendar items that need to be in various places so I can get to them when I’m working on that platform. This means when I’m on Linux, I need to see my calendar in Evolution and J-Pilot.

When I’m in Windows, I need to see the same calendar in Microsoft Outlook.

When I’m in a browser or not on my native Linux or Windows machines, I need to be able to see my calendar in Google Calendar.

All three platforms must reflect the same EXACT data, without being out of step with any other. So far, this is working very well, using my Palm Treo680 as the middle-man delivery mechanism.

Recently it came to my attention that I need to have clients see where my free/busy time is, and start booking their own slots of my time into the free spots that I haven’t personally blocked out yet.

To do this, I’ve had to leverage and expose my Google Calendar to the public.

On Windows, I’m using a tool called “CompanionLink for Google Calendar” to get my calendar data from Treo → Outlook → Google Calendar. It’s non-free, but it had a decent trial period and its usefulness won me over, so I registered it.

But there was no obvious way to get Evolution to read back those calendars, so I could see when external people (i.e. friends, clients) were adding things to my calendar to book my time for them.

Enter “evolution-webcal”, a seldom-discussed binary that lives in /usr/lib/evolution-webcal/ on most GNU systems (/opt/gnome/lib/evolution-webcal/ on SuSE)!

Basically all you have to do to get Evolution to read in your Google Calendar calendar files is the following (all on one line):

$ /usr/lib/evolution-webcal/evolution-webcal \
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/p%23weather%40group.v.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

The way you get the .ics calendar URL you see above, is by:

1. Log into your Google Calendar account
2. Click the little “V” chevron to the right of your target calendar in the “My Calendars” block on the left sidebar
3. Select “Calendar Settings” from the popup menu
   
4. Towards the bottom of the “Calendar Details” tab on the right side, you’ll see two sections: Calendar Address and Private Address. Click the [ICAL] item on either of these (choose wisely)
   
5. Cut and paste the URL provided in the popup window into your evolution-webcal command above.

That’s it. Now Evolution will have your new Google Calendars listed under the “On the Web” category in the Calendar’s view.

Now I can see the same thing in Evolution as I see in Outlook as I see in Google Calendar, without any discrepancies. Whew!

If Mozilla Thunderbird is your thing, there’s an extension to Thunderbird called “Provider for Google Calendar” that allows you to read/write to your Google Calendars from within Thunderbird.

It’s a start. Now where did I put those extra 32 hours I need in every day again?

Here we go again…

I’ve found myself using a lot of movies and DVDs with my 3½ year-old daughter while we’re driving around, using a portable DVD player.

NOTE: That same DVD player, I purchased about 7 years ago from Tweeter, and it still beats the current portable DVD players in features, longevity and most-importantly, thickness. Today’s portable DVD players are thick, bulky and have an external battery that increases the overall footprint of the unit significantly.

The Panasonic DVD-LV70 that I purchased (along with extended warrantee and extra battery of course) is the thinnest DVD player I’ve seen, and it lasts forever.

Back on track.. when I start up a DVD for her, I have to sit through the obligatory 2+ minute Anti-Piracy spool on the beginning of the movie she wants to watch, then I have to sit through the 2-4 minutes of introductory commercials after that, rife with plenty of flashing, ADHD-inducing imagery.. such imagery that a 3½ year-old does not need to be subject to it.

I should note that these are movies designed for infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. I find it very hard to believe that my daughter or her peers are going to go duplicating and uploading copies of “Little People” or “Strawberry Shortcake” to torrent sites. Really.

Attempts to go to the “Top Menu” via the DVD player’s navigation buttons produces a red circle-with-slash through it, likewise pressing the “Next” or “Previous” buttons on the unit. You literally have to sit there and watch it through, before the player’s navigation/menu buttons become available to use.

Today, I wanted to start up a movie for her while she calms down for a nap, and I actually paid attention to the anti-piracy rhetoric on the intro, and thought to myself how absolutely incorrect and misleading this commercial is.

“You wouldn’t steal a car!”

“You wouldn’t steal a television set!”

“You wouldn’t steal a DVD!”

“Downloading pirated movies IS STEALING!”

Actually, no it is not. Downloading pirated movies is a copyright infringement, but it is most-definitely NOT stealing.

Let me throw out an accurate analogy:

If I steal your bicycle, I now am in possession of it, and you no longer have it. I have deprived you of your bicycle. This is stealing.

If I go to your house, and take a series of high-res, digital photographs of your bicycle, then go home and recreate the exact same thing in my workshop, tube for tube, identical in every way to your bicycle… have I stolen your bicycle?

NO! This is NOT stealing.

The industry would have you believe that you have stolen money from the artist, from the production company. That the artist would have made money if you purchased the item legitimately instead of downloading a copy that was infringing on their copyright.

You can’t “lose” something you never had to begin with. If you didn’t pay the artist, then they lost nothing.

I wish the industry would start getting this right, because the incorrect, misleading messaging is obviously not having any impact on the problem at hand.

What this enforced messaging IS encouraging me to do, is to rip the DVD, strip out the garbage, mental and subliminal imagery, and re-burn my own copy that does not include this offensive, dangerous material.

At least then, my daughter can watch the movie she wants, uninterrupted, without having to go through the “Clockwork Orange” behavior at the beginning of every show.