I just realized a few minutes ago, which is absolutely amazing, that today marks the 11 year anniversary of the end of the legendary Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
The last comic written by Bill Watterson was published on April 4th, 1994 and didn’t really provide any closer…
I recently read this entry over at ZDNet (Slashdot story here). Now call me naive (or stupid, whatever), but I think this is definitely a good thing.
For those of you that don’t care to read either of the articles, Microsoft has filed 215 separate lawsuits against people who have both spammed (96 suits) and attempted to phish information (119 suits) from users of their free Hotmail email service.
For too long have we sat idly by and watched our mailboxes slowly fill up with more and more unrequested, useless crap. Too long have we simply been resigned to be reactive to the problem of SPAM. For once, I’m quite happy to see Microsoft take the front and do a little proactive defense. Of all the people and companies in the world today, Microsoft is probably the only one that has both the public eye and the private funds to manage a campaign against the scum of the internet.
I was particularly impressed by the fact that Microsoft was actually contacted by the Texas Attorney General’s office with a list of domain names owned by a particular spammer, in an attempt to see whether they had in fact been heavily spammed by him. Apparently, Microsoft runs about 100,000 separate email accounts on their free Hotmail service that are easily guessable by spammers and which simply sit and collect data about those that are spamming them. With this information, both Microsoft and the state of Texas were able to start a firm case against the 22-year-old advertising major listed as the fourth largest spammer in the world.
Granted, I don’t think that lawsuits are a quick fix, nor a one-stop solution to the problem, but I think this is going to provide the publicity and probably the foundation for a larger anti-SPAM campaign that will, very eventually, help to stop the growing problem of SPAM entirely.
This does, however, bring up an interesting question. Where do we draw the line with legal action? Microsoft suing spammers is ok, but the MPAA suing file swappers isn’t… This is an interesting question, and one that I don’t really have an answer to. It’s probably more than a little hypocritical for us to think that one set of legal action is alright, when it meets our needs, but when it interferes with us getting our music, it’s a very bad thing. Unfortunately, this is very true, and an argument that I can’t easily defend against. I may have to simply resign myself to being a hypocritical fool and accept the scorn that comes right along with that…
I was digging through a box of things out of my old desk, from when we cleaned up recently. I forget what I was looking for, but I saw an old paper heart form high school.
You see, back in high school, every Valentine’s day, they would rotate between girls and boys. Every year, one of them would get a heart, and wouldn’t be allowed to talk all day. The first person of the opposite sex to get them to talk would get their paper heart.
Well, this particular year, it was the girls who got the hearts, and the guys who tried to steal them, and I actually got one to talk. I don’t remember how or when, all I remember is getting her to talk. Her name was Jennifer, and I still have her (by now wrinkled and beat up) paper heart to this very day.
I don’t know why that was such a big deal, because when Maggie, Ryan and I went to the school the other day, on our way out we passed Jennifer in the stairs, and she didn’t seem to pay any notice to me. It just made me think about old times and cute chicks.
As most of you probably know by now, I had to take my mother to the hospital this morning for some minor outpatient surgery on her wrist (they were attempting to repair some muscle damage associated with Carpel Tunnel Syndrome). After waiting for more than 3 hours, I was called back into the recovery room to talk to the doctor that performed the surgery and then to the nurse who gave me instructions on what not to let her do, etc.
As most of you probably also know, I can’t stand blood, guts, needles, surgery, or anything relating to any of them. Simply being in the recovery area, looking at all the tubes from the IV and the heart and respiration monitor totally freaked me out. By the time my mom was ready to get dressed to leave, the nurse had me go back out into the waiting room and wait, simply because I was about to pass out (or vomit all over the floor, one).
I suppose the most notable thing about this morning, however, was the paperwork I had to sign upon her discharge. When I looked down at the line I had to sign and read the caption “Signature of Responsible Adult”, I realized something.
I’m an adult now.
Like, a real adult.
Yes, that was the first moment when I realized the cold hard reality of my life. The moment when I realized that I’m not a kid anymore and that there’s no going back.
And so I started thinking. When did this happen? When did I suddenly become responsible? When did I become this “Adult” person? What did it? I’ve been working since I was 15 (as soon as I could drive on my own), then the car payment, and then the credit card. Which one did it? Which one ripped the childhood I’d never really had to enjoy away from me?
I watched Garden State the other night (mainly for Natalie Portman). There’s one line I remember from the movie, in which Andrew (played by Zach Braff of “Scrubs” fame) is talking about that feeling of “home” you always have as a kid, and how you wake up one day and realize that that feeling is gone, and you spend years trying to get it back, until you finally get married and create that sense of “home” for your own family. It’s really scary, but I think today was the first time I ever really felt that feeling. I don’t know if it’s permanent, or if it will eventually fade away when things in my life slowly return to normal, but it scares me - a lot.
I’m not ready to be an adult yet, but I know I can’t cling to childhood forever, so where does that leave me?