I Can See A Liar

No you are not hallucinating, this is the second entry of day because I wanted to provide an update about what has been going on with me as of late. And I divided my entries up because certain people, said that my entries are too long. So what has been happening lately? First off, I am slowly (very slowly that is) getting back into school-mode. It has taken a while to get back into the studious mode, especially after such a fun summer and missing class to attend Jinah's wedding. The first major development is that I have changed my academic specialization which was tailored, over to human-computer interaction (HCI). It became fairly evident that most of the classes I wanted to take were in the HCI specialization and that I am pretty much completed most of the HCI requirements anyway. Plus my tailored specialization was mostly HCI centric with a little IEMP (information economics, management, and policy) mixed in so I might as well stick with the majority.

Another development is that I am now working as a Lab Tech in the SI DIAD computing lab. During the summer, I was informed by my old boss at the dental school that they no longer required my services. So I had to find a job somewhere else. I did interview and was offerred a usability test facilitator position but turned it down as in I didn't think I would have enough time to do a decent job at it. It was good pay but there were a bunch of coordination issues that I would have to deal with. But I had a few part-time job interviews lined up with some different places on campus. Wish me luck becasue El Dave needs another job to pay the bills. The Lab Tech job is not enough hours but at least it allows me time to sit and study. Also of note, is that i have two new housemmates, although one of them officially lives here, I have yet to see him spend more than 5 minutes here. I guess those are the best kind of housemates.

But two very recent occurences have gotten me pissed off (hence the title of this entry is about seeing liars). The first is involves my good friend Phill, who did a kick-ass job as the videographer for my sister's wedding. Anyway, he got notified by some asshole web design firm, called Pixel Pops, that his website design "infringes" on one of their copyrights. This seems pretty apt at the moment, since I recently had a lecture in copyright law for my SI617 class this past week. For something to be considered copyright infringement, basically you have to steal someone's original arrangement and selection. This does not mean "look and feel" As long as your source code, graphics, and text are substantially different, and not copied from another site, it can have the same look and feel. Which is exactly what happend to Phill. His site is no doubt similiar to the piss poor design Pixel Pops is selling, but he arrived independently at his look and feel (meaning all the source code, graphics, text) are all his own. It is generally known as reverse engineering. It is how Compaq got their PC to be compatible with IBM. It is why many MP3 players not made by Apple, look unsurprisely like the iPod. It is according to my copyright text book, "copyright ensures authors the right to their original expression but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This principle, known as the idea/dichotomy, applies to all works authorship." Since Phill did not copy any of this firm's stuff, they don't have a leg to stand on. But since this is Bush's America, the little guy loses out. Phill is gonna change his site becasue he can't afford to fight this even if he is right. PixelPops (what a fucking retarded name) is just being a bully who pushes people around even though those people aren't hurting them (I sincerely doubt PixelPops can prove they have lost business becasue of Phill's site) but would probably crumble if someone did stick up to them. They are just betting that most people will say it is not worth their time. But life is unfair so the good guys lose in this battle. But if any of you want to help out with some karmic retribution, just hyperlink http://www.pixelpops.com with the text "piss poor design" or "asshole web design" like I have and then maybe we can in a very small small way plant a small small google bomb on their over-litigious asses.

Yet another occurence along the same lines, is that I found out a current student in my program basically stole the code for his website from a friend of mine, Zahra. Zahra is a very talented alumnus of SI who besides being a creative, hardworking HCI professional, is also a incredibly awesome person. It pisses me off this no-talent, no-class hack has the balls to rip off her code (and do a lousy job of it also). This reminds me so much of high school, where these supposedly high achieving asshole kids that I thought were my friends would lie and cheat without impunity and then be lauded for being so hard-working. I thought when I got to grad school, people would have matured beyond that. Apparently I am wrong. What makes this even more annoying is that SI is an information school, so we take classes in copyright and copyright issues are major topics here. It is like an IRS agent committing tax fraud. Of all the people who should know better, this low-life still does it anyway. And even more annoying, the thief is specializing in HCI and will no doubt use his stolen code to his portfolio to try and land a job after graduation. That pisses me off the most. Companies are going to be tricked into thinking its his work when in fact, he ripped it off so blantantly. I mean this is a total rip off right down to the fonts and even the text (which also he ripped off from someone else). I could do something, like report him - but I am undecided at the moment. Being cynical that I am, most likely nothing will happen to him. It is a fucked world where Phill (who did nothing wrong) gets jacked over but this no-talent thief, and, yes, liar, gets away with it. The vast majority of students here at SI are honest and hardworking. It pisses me off that this guy is giving us a bad name.

But I will try to feel better and realize that there will always be inequality and injustice in the world. Sometimes you just have to sit and eat it. Until next time, peace.