Tag: Torrent

The Re-Creation of Online Piracy

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The Wife says “Yes. OMG yes. Sprint includes Hulu and Amazon. Attention TV and movie producers. Too many little services. Yuck.”

Torrenting is becoming a thing again. I hate to break it to these content producers but they are enabling the pirates with their greed. This development of multiple owner/provider services is why ASCAP is a thing that music does. No one wants to watch only the video that NBC has the rights to anymore than they want to listen to only the music that A&M has the rights to. These are simple, easily understood lessons to learn. It is just too bad they aren’t learning them.

Adventures With Malware

I’ve been testing running Windows as a smart consumer for the last couple of years. Having bailed on attempts to run Linux without becoming a programmer; and having very little inclination to become a programmer just to run a computer as a user (although that mindset is slowly, ponderously, altering) I decided to just see if I can make Windows work in the limited fashion I’ve been using it of late.

Rather than installing 15 different programs to sniff all my information exchanges from the various networks I utilize as I have seen others do in the past, I decided that I would rely on the native scanners and firewalls that come with Windows now.

Confession time.

I don’t actually run Windows 8, 8.1 or whatever they’re calling the new Windows these days. Microsoft, cleverly figuring out that consumers skip every other release of their OS’s, have skipped calling their new 0S Windows 9 even though that should be the number on the release, and are calling it Windows 10.  Now, I haven’t figured out what version of Windows that Microsoft will deem LTS (long term support) next, so I’m not spending any of my limited funds on an OS that they put out simply to smother some fire that they inadvertently started.

I run what was on the system when it was sold to me (although I’m in the process of converting the laptop to Linux) and that version is Windows 7. I liked XP, stuck with it for as long as I could. XP was the last version of the OS that Microsoft deemed LTS, as was Windows 2000 before that.  Windows 7 has been a nice stable platform for several years, so I’ve stuck with it.

Starting in Windows 7 there were native malware and virus detectors.  If this wasn’t the first time, then it was definitely the first time I noticed them or was willing to rely on them.  Virus scanners seem to be in bed with malware writers of late; witness McAfee being offered on sites that are clearly on the fringe of respectability, when McAfee once upon a time was a legitimate virus scanner that I couldn’t live without.  Now if you rely on them or a Norton product, you’d be better off not finding the internet, if either of them actually let you on it.  So relying on a native Windows application that offered to screen malware and viruses seems as legitimate as actually paying someone else to keep your system virus free these days.

Realizing I was giving up ever visiting a porn site, or sharing a music file, video or anything more sophisticated than email, I set to work.  The native program in Windows was/is called Microsoft Security Essentials, and for the last two years, that has been the only program that I’ve run on this system that does anything related to malware screening or virus scanning.

When I go anywhere on the internet, I use a third party application to do it.  I never allow Windows to do anything aside from run programs which are native to this computer. This is a habit formed since I first started using Windows back in the 3.11 days.  Internet Exploder, er Explorer, has always been the most utilized vector for spreading malware, so I never use it on a website that I don’t trust completely.  Trust like the vault at my bank (and I don’t bank) So I use Firefox or Chrome, or whatever non-native browser that looks promising today, to go to websites.

Having been an MMO player for the last 5 years, I haven’t had a lot of use for porn or music anyway. MMO’s (Massive Multiplayer Online games) are notorious for sucking up all your free time.  The most challenging vector to manage, when dealing with online gaming, is how you get your addons updated. This is because every game has some cheat or other that you have to add to it in order to make it easy enough to complain about in online forums.  This process required a bit of legwork and investigation each time I changed addons or games.  There are addon managers that aren’t too shady, so if you are careful about what you click, read everything and check every toggle before you agree, you can generally lease your entire life to online games and not worry about anyone else stealing it.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’m beginning to have trouble reading.  This is the biggest challenge I face, being a compulsive reader.  Every now and then the eyes fail to track properly, the mind wanders and I miss a paragraph of text, forcing me to curse loudly, backtrack and start over.  Consequently I’ve taken to downloading a lot of content from Audible and various streaming media sites, taking care to make sure that the programs I’m using are pretty solid.

Most audio is only available if you buy it in advance. This is a battle I’ve been fighting since the days of MP3.com and corporate music’s foolish belief that they could stand in the way of file sharing.  To this day I strip audio that has restrictions on it, if I have a need to move it from some system that is recognized to one that is not.  Fortunately for Audible and my limited non-MMO free time, most of the systems I fiddle with these days are recognized by Audible or have Audible apps on them.  Consequently their heads-entirely-up-their-asses DRM remains on many of the latest works that I’ve purchased from them.  I don’t know why they still keep DRM on their files, Amazon has offered native unprotected MP3’s for years, which is why Amazon is about the only place I will buy music (rumor has it that iTunes now has unprotected MP3’s as well.  Too late Apple!) and Amazon now owns Audible.

But they do and I roll my eyes and live with the frustration.

Still, it presents an obstacle to sharing files with family members once you’ve purchased them.  Technically you can share them, according to Audible.  But you have to share them on systems that are recognized, and you have to authorize the hardware with the software, hold your mouth the right way, sacrifice your newborn and leave a pint of blood.  Just a bit of a hassle.

Consequently I have resisted buying audible content that I actually have credits for, if I know I’m going to want to share that content with family members later.  That resistance has now officially ended my Microsoft only malware testing period.

The Wife expressed an interest in a particular work recently. Having just given a pint of blood last week trying to share an Audible file, I went out and found an unprotected copy of the work she wanted, rather than try that again. I did notice some odd behavior in the dialogs, but that reading problem I mentioned caused me to miss exactly what the prompts said.

Hilarity ensued, if hilarity involves 30 plus hours of digging malware out by the roots.  Malware writers are a humorous bunch. They piggy-backed a lovely bit of work in on my foolishness.  Calls itself Unideal. But it’s not just Unideal. It’s also Youtubeadblocker and a few other names aside.  Installed itself as a false virus scanner under yet another name. Runs banner ads across websites sponsored by Robin Hood. Specifically places ads in areas that Ad Blocker takes ads out of.

What is the moral of this story?

I don’t think there is one.  File sharing was never a crime for me, because the things I share I either end up paying for anyway, or never would have paid for in the first place because it wasn’t something I wanted after listening to it once.  The one time I’ve been caught torrenting (by HBO) was the time I was a paid subscriber (won’t be doing that again) who couldn’t actually watch the programs I was paying for due to faulty transmission by my cable provider. If you enjoy HBOGO now, you should write me a thank you letter. That service exists because of people like me.

defective by design

Were it not for DRM on Audible books, I would have simply used credits that I have on my Audible account to purchase the work my wife was interested in directly. But because of suspicion and doubt, the nagging insistence that if payment is not secured in advance no payment will be made, you must step outside of the protected boundaries of commerce and make back-alley deals with less than desirable types.

Were it not for the backwards nature of copyrighted works, and the DMCA that protects them, it would be possible to take material that the copyright owner has abandoned on a previous format, update it to current formats and be able to charge for the time and effort spent transcribing the material (a service which does have value) without opening oneself up to punishing fines for daring to think that abandoned works deserve to be preserved.

Perhaps there is a lesson here about keeping your software and hardware up to date, but as a disabled person living on a fixed income, it’s a bit much to ask me to purchase new hardware and software every few years just so I can keep current.  I have a test license for Windows 10 which has been made available to me, and in the next few days I may be testing that software after I get my second drive running a version of Linux I can count on.

Redefining Piracy

Huffington Post Tech article

I know I’m wasting my time here because the entertainment giants have all stacked the decks in their favor and defined piracy as any activity that they don’t approve of, but just how many of these legally defined pirates profit from their activity? How many of them would have the money to pay for the entertainment that they share for free? How many people will have their abilities to function in today’s world hampered by these bumbling attempts to stop something that wouldn’t exist were the content simply made available when desired at a reasonable price?

Aren’t these media conglomerates simply shooting themselves in the foot, alienating potential future customers with harassment? The music industry has been forced to the table, and the low per-song price through iTunes and Amazon is the result of their capitulation to the new information reality we live in. The instantaneous access to information that the average user demands. The savviest of new bands now offer their music directly from their websites, and even offer free songs to draw people in. They do this because they know that their audiences want more access, more music, and they want it right now, not after they visit a store and make a purchase. Get your music from the source, cut out the middleman.

What piracy remains in the musical realm is the corporate properties that haven’t learned to play ball, want to charge more and won’t put their libraries online. Study after study has shown this; that if the content is available, people will pay for it. I balk at being forced to buy music libraries a third time (once on tape, once on disc, and again on unprotected mp3) I will still go to torrent sites to pick up copies of music that I’ve already paid for twice. However, with the emergence of remastered music that is of superior quality to CD, even I am admitting that I may have to buy the music again, for a fourth time.

No, the yelling and screaming about PIRACY! comes from the MPAA and corporate television entities these days. They still haven’t figured out that the game has changed. When the average movie goer starts boycotting corporate films and embraces independent content (something that is already beginning to occur) maybe they’ll figure it out.

If I download a song, never listen to it, and then delete it, have I profited? If I download a movie or television show, if I pay for a subscriber service, can’t access it, and then download a torrent copy of the exact show I already paid for, but then don’t watch or listen to any of it, have I stolen anything? The corporate property owners say you have, and you are a pirate. I’d simply like them to prove how the temporary existence of a file on a computer system represents anything other than a cost, not a benefit. If I can’t be shown to have even watched or listened to the files in question, but the files belong to the corporation that objects to their existence, I’d say they owe me storage fees for holding the information for me. But I’ll happily wave the fees and simply delete the files. Let’s see how many checks show up in the meantime.

Facebook & Facebook

Amazon Un-box; Uninterested

Talk about false advertising. Got a message in the inbox promoting:

Amazon Unbox Holiday Treats: No-Cost, Exclusive, and Topselling Downloads

I don’t know how many people checked into this, but I’ve been intrigued for quite some time about the future of media on the internet, so I thought I would check it out.

First off, if you want to find the No-Cost portion of the advertisement, you have to dig pretty hard. Some of the No-Cost content is labeled, but you have to actually go several layers into the transaction before you can select the No-Cost portion of the content that you want to try out.

No-Cost isn’t really being truthful, either. Oh, it’s true you don’t have to pay anything, in the way of money up front; however, you have to submit to downloading their viewer (which has exclusive rights to play their content) and you can only play the content on one system; nor can you burn it to disk to play it on a standard DVD player. So if the system you download the content onto isn’t the one you want to finally play the content on, you’re out of luck, and into the Cost part of No-Cost if you want to actually view the content.

Never mind some of the horror stories circling the net about lost downloads and Tivo’s; I have a hard time believing that Amazon would not refund a transaction that didn’t end satisfactorily for the customer, but I’m not willing to hazard even a few bucks on the service until there is some process in place for allowing me to watch purchased material wherever and whenever I want.

[FYI Hollywood mogul types; this is what it means to ‘buy’ something. You get to use it the way you please; and, by the way, the Torrent files I download for free don’t have any restrictions on them. Yes, I haven’t purchased any rights when I download a torrent file, but I don’t appear to have any rights when I do put out cash for properly licensed material anyway, so I don’t see the downside for me; well, other than being hounded into the grave by bloodsucking corporate hacks with nothing better to do than punish their customers]

Until that time, when I have rights to use the material in a normal fashion (i.e. play it in the average video player, display it on the average TV screen) I’ll be sticking to purchasing plain old (used/cheap) DVD’s and ‘free’ torrent downloads.

My apologies if your children don’t get to attend Harvard because of this. My children might actually be able to attend college on the money I save (did I mention I was skipping out on the upgrade to HD-DVD/Blueray? There’s some major savings there) What an ironic turn of events.

Connect America = Control of the Internet

It’s not making much news, but Hillary Clinton has a proposal that should have all of us running away from her in abject terror.

No, it’s not the completely predictable proposal to force us all to pay for health insurance (that’s a yawner, from where I’m sitting) it’s the story being reported in this AP news story:

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called for a national broadband Internet system and permanent research tax credits…
“The nation that invented the Internet is now ranked about 25th in access to it,” Clinton said in her latest speech directed at the middle class appeals.
Called “Connect America,” Clinton’s broadband network would give businesses incentives to go into underserved areas, support state- and local-based initiatives and change the Federal Communication Commission rules to more accurately measure Internet access.

Can we say FCC as a national internet service provider (ISP)? If a federal agency is given authority over the internet, can there be any doubt that they will become the ultimate ISP, and govern the internet as they govern television and radio broadcast. Even beyond that, rules changes allowing FCC regulation of the internet will give the FCC regulation of cable television as well.

Let’s imagine, shall we, that the self same government agency that has so famously declared certain words as unspeakable over the airwaves, and certain body parts as unviewable on television, can now determine what will or will not be acceptable on the internet.

Obviously there will be no more porn (and no more porn channels on pay-per-view, either) but that’s just the start. How about access to information on sex education? How about medical journals? And why stop there? How about an internet ‘fairness doctrine’. Political forums would be subject to requirements concerning equal times on the forum for dissenting views, or be faced with closure.

But that’s also only the surface. This is where the real money is. Access to all materials that have ‘cloudy’ licensing issues will be blocked. Peer to peer will be history. Torrents a thing of the past. If you want music or movies, software or whatever, you will have to go to the license holders and pay whatever price they ask. No more testing on the QT to make sure the product will work for you, not unless you can find someone with a duplicatible hard copy. No more catching that missed episode of you favorite TV show by accessing a torrent file.

“Follow the money” the saying goes, and I think I can spot where the money is coming from, and where it will be going, if Hillary gets her wish on this issue. Forget socialized medicine; we’re talking basic information access here.

But that’s also just the tip of the iceberg. Putting the gov’t in charge of internet access puts us in the same category as China; where anything the gov’t doesn’t approve of will be blocked. It opens up the door to a 1984 type scenario where information and history are completely malleable, where truth is whatever those in charge deem it to be at any given moment (we have always been at war with Eastasia…) because they can simply dictate that the records be changed, and there won’t even be the gaping holes in the photographs next to Stalin to point out that something is missing.

Is anyone still so naive as to think that once the camel’s nose is under the tent that the whole camel won’t shortly follow? That giving the gov’t the ability to provide access to the internet won’t eventually lead to active control of content? It’s happening now everywhere the gov’t is involved; the internet will be no different, and is already no different in places where internet access is provided at gov’t expense; the attempts to control content in libraries are a shining example of this.

We should run screaming from suggestions such as the one floated by Ms. Clinton. Better yet, we should vow never to listen to (much less elect) someone with such a shaky notion of what real freedom is.

Postscript

I left that screaming tirade just the way I wrote it. Get a load of that guy, would you? What I find amusing is the fact that no one coined the term Hillary Derangement Syndrome in her entire time in politics, but they sure are quick to jump to the defense of demonstrably insane conservatives by calling their opponents insane.

I have eaten a Big Bowl of Crow since publishing this and other thoughts on many subjects. Here is the text of the AP article I was winging on about. I can’t find it anywhere on the internet when I search it now but I saved a copy when I wrote this article.

The Associated Press Go to Google News
Clinton: Internet Access Key to Economy
By PHILIP ELLIOTT – Oct 10, 2007

MERRIMACK, N.H. (AP) — Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called for a national broadband Internet system and permanent research tax credits, while also quoting comedian Stephen Colbert for the second time in a week in a swipe at the Bush administration.

The Democratic front-runner and New York senator said that if elected she would invest in high-tech fields in order to sustain the high-tech jobs that are critical to economic prosperity and strengthening the middle class.

“The nation that invented the Internet is now ranked about 25th in access to it,” Clinton said in her latest speech directed at the middle class appeals.

Called “Connect America,” Clinton’s broadband network would give businesses incentives to go into underserved areas, support state- and local-based initiatives and change the Federal Communication Commission rules to more accurately measure Internet access.

“I see this problem in New York. A lot of the utilities don’t want to connect up our isolated, rural areas. And they also don’t want particularly to go into our underserved, poor, urban areas because there’s so much money that can be made in Manhattan and our suburban areas,” Clinton said. “It was like when we had to electrify the country in the 1930s. Utilities didn’t electrify places because it wasn’t cost effective for them to do so. Well, we’ve got to play catch-up.”

Clinton said the Internet is the new necessity for economic development.

“In the 19th century, we invested in railroads. In the 20th century, we built the interstate highway system. In the 21st century information economy we need to invest in our information infrastructure.”

Clinton also advocated making permanent the research and experimentation tax credits, which more than 15,000 companies have used since they began 1981.

“We cannot rebuild a strong and prosperous middle class if we don’t have a new source of new jobs,” Clinton said. “Our country is a country of innovators. We’re not acting like it right now, but we have all the potential to get into gear quickly.”

Clinton also repeated a pledge made last week in a speech to the Carnegie Institution for Science to give researchers increased freedom and to end the politicization on science. She cited Colbert, the Comedy Central news anchor with a pseudo-conservative personality.

“To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, that great philosopher, this administration doesn’t make decisions based on facts, it makes facts based on decisions,” Clinton said to laughter. “By ignoring or manipulating science the Bush administration is letting our economic competitors get an edge in the global economy.”

Later Wednesday, Clinton lashed out at Republican activists for questioning the financial need of a 12-year-old who spoke up on behalf of Democrats who sought an extension of the State Child Health Insurance Program. Bush vetoed the bill that would have done so.

Some conservative bloggers suggested the family of Graeme Frost had granite counters in its Baltimore home and could afford health insurance. The family said its counters are made of concrete.

“I don’t mind them picking on me; they’ve done it for years,” Clinton said to laughter from the audience at Symphony Hall in Boston. “You know, I think I’ve proven I can take care of myself against all of them.

“But President Bush and the Republicans should lay off Graeme Frost and all the other children who are getting health care because we have decided to do the right thing in America,” Clinton said.

Associated Press writer Glen Johnson in Boston contributed to this report.

Hosted by Google
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Reading back through that press release, I can’t tell the difference between what I think the internet should be now, and what she was talking about then. Since the Orange Hate-Monkey has nixed the net neutrality rules that we fought so hard to see put in place, we are now dominated by corporate information providers who can shut any or all of us off for whatever reason they like even though the internet is the only way to get some forms of business transacted these days. If the FCC ran it, and that isn’t even what she was talking about but let’s go worst case, at least they would be required to provide me with internet access. Corporations do not have to suffer the indignities of serving the poor and undeserving, even when denying service is the same thing as signing a death warrant. 

Sick(o) in America

John Stossel picks up the gauntlet that Michael Moore threw down, and slaps him silly with it; in less time than it takes to watch the overrated ‘documentary’ Sicko. Here’s a quote from the online article,

There are many problems with health insurance, but that doesn’t mean we should put the government in control. If it’s decided that health care should be paid for with tax dollars, then it’s up to the government to decide how that money should be spent. There’s only so much money to go around, so the inevitable result is rationing.

It’s just the law of supply and demand. Lowering prices increases demand. Lowering the price to nothing pushes demand through the roof. Author P.J. O’Rourke said it best: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”

When health care is free, governments deal with all that increased demand by limiting what’s available.

20/20 – Stossel – American Health Care in Critical Condition

I have watched both Sicko and Stossel’s 20/20 special. While the interviews with the individuals struggling with the problems of the healthcare system were emotionally compelling in Sicko; as usual, the emotional argument is used to blind the viewer to the real culprit in the problem.

Sick in America, John Stossel’s response to Sicko, lacks none of the passion that Micheal Moore pours into his film, and yet deals in clear truths and verifiable facts. He discovers the real culprit behind the healthcare crisis. The real culprit is government.

The Canadians lamenting the lack of insurance coverage in the US is a classic example of using emotion to obscure the real problem. Why doesn’t the Canadian socialized system pay for services rendered in the US? Or any other country? If it was truly free service for their citizens, it would be free wherever the need arose. This is true of all the socialized healthcare systems across the world. There is no charge to the end user, provided he goes to a funded provider; and that’s the catch. The government pays for the service through taxes, and rations the healthcare that is available based on the funds that are provided.

This is also why drugs are cheaper in other countries. Prices are artificially lowered through agreements with those countries single payer systems. This should explain why the pharmaceutical companies don’t want to you to import Canadian drugs into the US. At some point they will simply stop providing the medication at reduced prices, since they can no longer profit from it’s production. Profit is why anyone engages in business in the first place, and healthcare is a business.

The one thing Moore got correct in Sicko was the scathing criticism of the current health insurance system. Once again, he missed the real culprit. Government regulation has created the current health insurance system. HMO, PPO, etc. Just more three letter acronyms for government created systems. If you agree to be covered by an HMO, then they, like the government in other countries, tell you who can treat you and for what.

I love the fact that he spent so much time in Europe. What a beacon of economic health France and the other European economies are. I also love the way he never addresses how much they pay in taxes for the lavish services provided. Sadly, it’s not that much more than we do here in the US for the lack of services that we have. That doesn’t mean we should pay more for better service. Logic should dictate that we demand to pay less, and provide our own ‘safety net’.

Let’s make something clear here; we are not Kaiser Permanente (Moore’s whipping boy of choice) In fact, the healthcare industry itself is not Kaiser Permanente. Based on the criminal behavior documented concerning Kaiser Permanente, I would think there would be charges filed somewhere against them. But then, their behavior is regulated and endorsed by the government. The same government that Moore thinks we should hand over the rest of healthcare to.

Only a dedicated socialist, like Micheal Moore, would consider it an indictment that we provide healthcare to prisoners, people held against their will (and as far as Gitmo detainees are concerned, held without charges) prisoners have no ability to provide for themselves, while citizens of the US do without healthcare; and, of course, the Cuban government bent over backward at Moore’s request to treat his boatload of sick people. What a media coup that is. Cuba heals the sick overlooked by America’s evil capitalist system. Especially the neglected Ground Zero workers.

My sister spent several years at Ground Zero, helping with the clean up effort. She, along with thousands of others still suffer from the after effects of being exposed to the air around Ground Zero. Health problems that the government still denies has anything to do with working at Ground Zero. The government has lead the way towards disenfranchising those heroes of Ground Zero. The insurance companies are simply following the government’s lead, just like they always have.

Except that the system might be evil, but it most certainly isn’t capitalist. All of the government managed systems are no different from the fascist corporatism of Il Duce‘s Italy; just another variant of socialism. Yes, the system currently in place is already a compromise. See how well it’s working? Don’t you want more of the same?

I’d like to speak for a significant portion of America’s uninsured. We don’t want universal health care. Some of us are uninsured by choice. The cost of insurance outweighs the benefit provided by insurance. (The only way the cost is justifiable is if a family member has some long term expensive-to-treat disease, and then the insurance company disallows coverage based on some obscure clause in the policy. I have seen this happen before) Forcing us to contribute to a universal system through a greater tax burden will simply drive us further into poverty. We want the freedom to choose what we want insured, and to get the same tax benefits as any other insurance provider. We want to negotiate prices directly with our doctors and hospitals, and we want the choice to remain uninsured if we deem it necessary.

Let charity provide the ‘free’ services. Only charity really can. All other arrangements involve the use of force on one or another of various groups. This is unacceptable to those of us who believe force should not be involved in normal social relationships.

It’s worth mentioning that I followed the sentiment of Michael Moore in his film, and refused to pay for the privilege of viewing his film, just as he does not wish to pay for the privilege of getting healthcare service. Instead I found an alternative source for the material. Anybody with access to a torrent program may do the same. I don’t reward thieves for promoting government as their method of choice.

John Stossel’s special has been broken into segments and is available on YouTube. Let him know you support his views by contacting him at ABC. There’s also a blog entry over at Downsize DC on the subject of the healthcare system, as well as an entire section of the website over at CATO.

CATO Weekly Video on the subject of “Sicko”

There really is no excuse to be uninformed on the subject.

Editor’s note, 2019. Hard to believe that the guy who wrote this was applying for disability while he was typing it. Most of my early writings on the subject of government programs have proven to be misguided at best, hypocritical at worst. Hypocritical, like the above post. Another one of those posts that I’d rather hit the delete button on than write an apology for. Oh well. The Bowl of Crow covers this too.

I still don’t think much of Michael Moore or his documentaries. It just so happens that his opponents are even more jaded and hypocritical than he is. Just watch anything by Stossel since joining FOX news and you will see just how dishonest his presentations have become. Possibly always were.

To use the phrase socialized medicine is to repeat oneself needlessly. All medicine contains costs borne by the public at large. All of it. It is a classic case of an economic externality, which is why businesses toss the cost of healthcare around like a hot potato. No one wants to foot the bill, therefore everyone must be forced to foot the bill. How that cost is paid equitably, while providing access to limited facilities equitably? How can these costs and benefits be spread across the world, granting every living person access? Those are the really hard and important questions. Questions that I am finally fully cognizant of lacking the knowledge and expertise to solve. It’s about fucking time, if I do say so myself.