Minh’s Notes

The following exchange was edited out of Saturday Night Live’s coverage of the final presidential debate, in order to allot adequate time for applause:

• Moderator: “Since you two clearly do not endorse the negative words your campaigns have used against each other in the last few weeks, would both of you care to summarize your campaigns in a single, hopefully positive word? Sen. McCain, you first.”
• “Joe-the-Plumber.”
• “One word?”
• “Hyphenated.”
• (Headline: “Joe-the-Plumber’s Name Hyphenated”)
• “All… right, and you, Sen. Obama?”
• “Look—”
• “That’s all the time we have for tonight, live from all of us at Saturday Night.”

That’s about all the politicking you’ll find on Minh’s Notes this election cycle. TV comedy – Fox News and MSNBC included – have done a wonderful job covering the campaigns this time. Though I wonder if I’d have more to say (read: more fodder) were I still in Ohio around now, deep in the heart of Pro-America.

Entry №1268, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 1:18 PM | Edit | Permalink
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A water treatment plant supervisor in Emporia, Kansas, declining to state whether the water had been tested for pharmaceuticals:

Well, it’s because of 9/11. We want everybody to guess. … We’re not putting out more information than we have to put out.

That just gives the bad guys a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Thanks a lot. (See also: security through obscurity.)

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In a filing with the FCC, NBC explains how P2P file sharing hurts the corn growers’ bottom line:

These losses do not merely harm elite, wealthy enclaves of film producers in New York and Los Angeles. Because of our nation’s interlocking economy, two-thirds of the lost earnings and lost jobs are in industries other than motion picture production. For example, in the absence of movie piracy, video retailers would sell and rent more titles. Movie theaters would sell more tickets and popcorn. Corn growers would earn greater profits and buy more farm equipment.

The filing cites this report from the Institute for Policy Innovation, which elucidates:

In sum, motion picture piracy affects not only the movie studios, but all the various businesses that supply the industry or buy from the industry, and the people who work in those businesses. Thus, the impact of movie piracy extends well beyond movie stars, all the way to the teenager selling popcorn and candy at the theater, the company that markets the candy, the farmer that grows the corn, and the workers that pick the farmer’s crop.

In other words, they think it goes full circle: the teenager selling popcorn at a movie theater will be out of a job thanks to his friends downloading movies. Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge debunks this corny load of FUD.

Via John Gruber.

Entry №1148, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 9:15 PM | Edit | Permalink
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