Takumi's Blog

In my social studies class this trimester our project was to research a particular topic, present it in 15 minutes, and discuss it in the class for about 1-2 hours. The topic we discussed today was about the war in Iraq. We talked about some of the lesser-known issues involving the reason behind going to war, and we talked about what the US should do now, and whether other countries should be involved in helping resolve conflicts and if their involvement would help ease Iraqi’s view towards the western world.

Our teacher brought two books to class, one is called Rogue Nation by Clyde Prestowitz, and the other is called The U.N. Exposed by Eric Shawn. Rogue Nation is about America’s abandonment of the ideals we had been promoting for the past thirty some years, and the U.N. Exposed is… well, it’s about the flaws of the United Nations.

I’ve only started reading Rogue Nation today, but there was one quote that I really agreed with and thought I’d share. The quote is by former the former EU Ambassador to the United States Hugo Paemen, and goes like:

Domestically you [the United States] have the wonderful system of checks and balances, but in foreign policy you are completely unpredictable, and your pendulum can swing from one side to the other very quickly, while those of us who may be deeply affected have no opportunity even to make our voice heard, let alone to have any influence. This is really worrying because while your intentions are usually good, your actions are frequently informed by ignorance, ideology, or special interests and can have very damaging consequences for the rest of us.

I think what Paemen says here is a really good point, especially in today’s world where every country is more interconnected then ever before. It’d be great to know what others think, so feel free to leave a response

I love free things. If I could get music for free I would, but a lot of us understand that nothing is really “free”. I get that, and that’s why I buy music on iTunes instead of download it via a p2p network. I’d prefer to give away a lot of things for free too, but then I wouldn’t be making any money, and without that little bit of income, I wouldn’t be able to continue what I was doing.

It might just be me, but I feel obligated that if I’m going to use something that someone else created, that I should compensate for it. I listen to music a lot, I watch video a lot, and use software a lot. If I just keep taking all of that for free, then the people making it wouldn’t be able to keep making it, and that would mean I don’t get the enjoyment I used to.

I think Steve Jobs understood that all of us would pay for music, if it was affordable, and what we got in exchange for the money was something that we wanted - 99 cent downloads, instant enjoyment, good quality. I think he’s trying to do the same thing with video (be it TV shows, music videos, or movies), and I’d love to support him in that, but the quality of the video just isn’t good enough for the $1.99~$12.99 price tag.

A lot of my friends would agree with me when I say that we listen to music many, many, many times more than we watch a single episode or movie, so I don’t see why the movie industry won’t let Apple provide better quality products to customers that would prefer to pay and download then download for free off of a p2p network.

Hopefully this will change in the near future, I love using iTunes to manage my media, and can’t wait for it to manage my video too.