Nathan Myhrvold, the Microsoft veteran who founded the patent-trolling giant Intellectual Ventures, loves to complain about the “culture of intentionally infringing patents” in the software industry. “You have a set of people who are used to getting something for free,” he told Business Week in 2006.

[... In] demanding that this infringement stop, Myhrvold isn’t just declaring war on what he regards as Silicon Valley’s patent-hostile culture. He’s declaring war on the laws of mathematics. The legal research required for all software-producing firms to stop infringing patents would cost more than the entire revenue of the software industry. Firms infringe software patents because they don’t have any other choice.

(Emphasis added.)

I work for a company that builds services that can help organizations of every scale – from one-man startups to multi-billion-dollar corporations to scientific research labs — stop worrying about the complexities of managing their own infrastructure.  Basically, startups can get as much infrastructure as they need with no huge up-front investment, and large companies can get as much as they need without having to invest huge amounts of money in data centers and hardware maintenance.

Well that sounds great, you’re thinking, but how is this relevant to software patents?

Startups aren’t exactly swimming in money, so the software patent system gives startups two options:

1. Spend more than their entire budget just figuring out whether they need to pay someone else even more money.
2. Ignore the vast body of existing software patents and just deal with potential lawsuits if and when they come up.

Large companies generally don’t have this problem; they build portfolios of software patents, and cross-license their entire portfolios to their competitors, who return the favor, often with little or no money actually changing hands.  However, they aren’t completely immune; any random person with a software patent can sue large companies for infringement, sometimes winning huge settlements.

The reason this is relevant to my job is that I am building systems designed to help startups build what they want to build — but if software patents make startups seem too risky (who wants to do a ridiculous amount of patent research before you can try to start a business?), then a lot fewer people will be willing to take advantage of the stuff I do every day.

The software patent system is broken for other reasons, too, but money is something everyone can understand, and when not even the wealthy have enough money to follow the rules, something is fundamentally wrong with the system.

Without further ado, here’s the cartoon:

There are a lot of things wrong with the information conveyed in the cartoon, let alone the comments made by people who have read it, so I’ll deal with the cartoon itself first.

1. Baptism is not the only requirement to get into heaven.

The cartoonist is portraying a situation which could not happen. If a proxy baptism really were the only thing standing between Anne Frank and entry into heaven, then she would not be annoyed, she’d be thrilled.

You see, according to LDS doctrine, a proxy baptism does not magically convert the recipient to our religion; instead, it merely offers them the opportunity to accept or reject it. In order for baptism to be the only remaining obstacle preventing Anne Frank from entering heaven, she would have already had to learn and accept the teachings of the gospel. If that were the case, then she would be eagerly awaiting a proxy baptism.

When we’re baptizing living people, we only baptize those who have repented of their sins. However, we have no way of knowing whether the dead have repented because, obviously, they’re dead. So, we do a proxy baptism for everyone, and each person may choose whether or not to accept that proxy baptism.

2. There’s nothing special about the water used for baptism.

We are baptized in water, by immersion, as a symbol of death and resurrection – but that’s not what makes baptism what it is. It’s not the outward act that makes a person baptized.

Instead, baptism is a covenant between God and the person being baptized. When I was baptized, I promised God I would keep His commandments, and in exchange He promised me that I would be able to get into heaven. God will keep His promise, so long as I keep mine.

Without that covenant, baptism is just a fancy way to get wet. This applies to the dead just as it does to the living — if Anne Frank had no interest in abiding by the principles of the gospel, then any proxy baptism done for her would have no effect.

3. Being a victim of the Holocaust or a bestselling author has no bearing on a person’s salvation.

I realize some people may take offense at that statement. I am not trying to downplay the horror of the Holocaust, but in order to avoid confusion I cannot mince words or tiptoe around my point.

The scriptures are rather clear on this subject — in order to gain entrance to heaven, one must live the principles of the gospel. No tragic death or bestselling book can compensate for an unwillingness to accept the gospel.

Indeed, Christ taught that no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of heaven, and that unless a person is born of water and of the Spirit (referring to baptism), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Jesus added no exception for bestselling authors or victims of large-scale genocides.

4. Marriage in heaven doesn’t work that way.

While I do not deny that (by LDS doctrine) there will be some polygamy in heaven, I do not believe that the majority of people in heaven will be in a polygamous marriage.

You see, I do not believe there will be significantly more women than men in heaven, and I do not believe it would be fair for some men to remain without wives while others have a dozen. Perhaps some men will not want wives; perhaps some women will not want husbands. It’s somewhat pointless to speculate on that.

Instead, let us assume that roughly equal numbers of men and women desire to be married in heaven. Further, let us assume that most women will want a husband to themselves, and that most men would want a wife to themselves. (This is, I think, a reasonable assumption.) It should be immediately obvious that polygamy could not be widely practiced in such a situation.

As an aside, I’ll also point out that eternal marriage (“sealing”) is another ordinance which must be done for the dead by proxy, and that the LDS Church does not perform that ordinance for the dead unless we have some record of them being married in this life.

5. Why would Anne Frank remain 15 years old after death?

For that matter, why would the Mormon guys all be old?

It would not make sense for us to eternally remain the age at which we died. I see no reason that our physical age at death would have any bearing on how we will look or feel after death.

6. What’s with the caged dog?

I’ve read comments that indicate it might be a reference to Mitt Romney’s dog, but I have no idea whether Romney has had a dog which died, nor why that would be relevant in any way to this situation.

While her experiences with some members the Church are unfortunate, most of the information she presents as fact is simply not representative of Church doctrine.

This is a somewhat lengthy post, but I feel it necessary to correct the misinformation Carrie is spreading. If you’re not interested in a long post about the LDS Church, I won’t be offended if you stop reading now

Alright. Now that you’ve decided to keep reading, I’ll jump right in, starting with Carrie’s very first paragraph:

There has been much talk recently about whether America is ready for a Mormon president. This tolerance question should cut both ways.

[...]

Meanwhile, though the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently found that 56 percent of Mormons think America is ready for a Mormon president, the church isn’t exactly welcoming of outsiders.

… Not welcoming of outsiders? As of December 31, 2010 we had 52,225 active full-time missionaries, each of them specifically called to try to teach “outsiders” the gospel. Most of our church buildings have written in bold letters underneath the name, “VISITORS WELCOME”. Church members are encouraged to bring their friends to church.

But, perhaps she simply means that Church members don’t like voting for non-members:

Mormons account for 57 percent of Utah residents yet some 91 percent of Utah state legislators self-identify as Mormons. The state that’s home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has elected only two non-Mormon governors in nearly 116 years and has sent just one non-Mormon to Congress in the past five decades.

The fact is, most of the people running for office in Utah are Mormons, so it should come as no surprise that most of the people that get elected are Mormons. It’s a little silly to use that to conclude that Mormons are somehow unwelcoming of “outsiders”.

But let’s see what the Church’s instructions are regarding voting:

Latter-day Saints as citizens are to seek out and then uphold leaders who will act with integrity and are wise, good, and honest. Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties.

I don’t know about you, but it seems somewhat difficult to find political candidates these days who “act with integrity” and are either wise, good, or honest (let alone all three).

A given political candidate may hold any number of a wide variety of positions on a wide variety of subjects; unless the candidate has been in office before, it is difficult to know how that candidate will behave in office.

As it happens, the LDS Church holds its members to a rather high standard. In order to remain a member in good standing, one must obey the teachings of the gospel. In particular, if I want to remain in good standing, I must be honest in my dealings with my fellow man.

Why is this relevant, you ask? It’s quite simple — if I know nothing about Mitt Romney other than the fact that he’s an active Mormon in good standing with the Church, then I can make several accurate assumptions about his character and how he will behave in office. I may not be able to specifically predict his choices on a given issue, nor can I say whether I will agree with him on everything, but I can say for certain that he will act in accordance with the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to the best of his ability and understanding.

I can’t say anything with that level of confidence about any of the other candidates, in any political party. This is one reason religion is an important factor in voting; it tells you something about a person. If you’re looking for someone who will uphold the teachings of Christ, will you vote for the man who goes to a Catholic mass once or twice a year and never even glances at a church in the meantime, or will you vote for the man who you know reads the scriptures and prays regularly?

As you can see, it has nothing to do with whether I welcome outsiders, and everything to do with what I know about the candidates as a direct result of their religious beliefs. I would wager that the same is true for the vast majority of Church members — we vote based on who we think will best uphold the Gospel of Christ, and I really doubt an atheist will ever be better at upholding the Gospel than an active member of the Church.

Now, let’s get back to Carrie’s article. We’ll see that she’s not basing her comments on the Church’s official doctrine, but merely on an unfortunate set of personal experiences that she may or may not be remembering correctly.

Yes, Mormons love families. But the family-values facade applies only if you stay in the fold. Former Mormons know the family estrangement and bigotry that often come with questioning or leaving the church.

Her family treated her poorly when she left the Church, therefore all Mormons must be the same, right?

It gets worse:

The church I was raised in values unquestioning obedience over critical thinking.

This is not true on several levels. First and most basic is that from a very young age, we tell our children to do three things, in this order:

1. Search the scriptures
2. Ponder what you have read
3. Pray and ask if it is true

Missionaries teach the exact same series of steps to people of all ages. When I served my mission, I encouraged people to ask questions, to think about what things meant and whether they could be true. Then I invited them to pray and ask God, and testified to them that if they were sincere in their search for truth, God would answer them. And guess what? He did.

Never have I once heard anyone in the Church encourage “unquestioning obedience”.

Perhaps Carrie was simply unfortunate enough to have a misguided teacher or two. (I do not deny that some Church members might say such things; that does not make it Church doctrine, nor does it mean Carrie should judge the Church harshly as a result.)

Next Carrie moves on to issues of a scientific nature:

But I struggled after realizing that Mormonism’s claims about anthropology, history and other subjects contradict reason and science.

Carrie might have thought there were contradictions, but there are not; unfortunately, because she did not specify any of them, I cannot give any counter-examples.

Moving on:

While many faiths’ irrational claims are obscured by centuries of myth and rubble, the LDS church lacks the moderation and scholarship of its older peers.

I have no idea what this even means… so I have no idea how to respond. It’s not possible that she’s unaware the Church funds several respected universities with strong science programs, because later in the article she says she went to one of them.

[The LDS Church] also stifles efforts to openly question church pronouncements, labeling such behavior as satanic.

Again she leaves us with no examples, but I have never seen a Church leader do such a thing. I *can* give a counter-example, though; a while back, the Church came out officially in support of California’s Proposition 8. At no point did the Church require members to vote either way on the proposition, nor did the Church punish members who disagreed.

Carrie continues:

Critics of Mormonism include geneticists, Egyptologists and even the Smithsonian Institution, which stopped Mormon apologists from claiming the institute viewed the Book of Mormon as a factual document.

The first two are true, but not surprising. The third is true, to some degree; the Smithsonian did issue various statements over the years regarding what it viewed as problems with the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, the Smithsonian’s statement is full of all sorts of holes, and isn’t a good source if you’re looking for valid criticism.

At any rate, there are critics of every organization and idea, and those critics come from a wide variety of backgrounds. It would be equally accurate to say that critics of Mormonism include the Pope and that one atheist guy who lives down the street, but that doesn’t make it relevant to the subject at hand.

While studying at Brigham Young University, I spiritually imploded after learning these things and other facts outside official church curriculum. Disturbed, I met with a high-ranking Mormon leader who told me to quit reading historical and scientific materials because they were “worse than pornography.” BYU’s dean of religious education wouldn’t answer my growing list of questions. Other leaders told me that questioning is acceptable so long as it’s done secretly.

This series of descriptions is what disturbed me, and is what prompted me to write this post. I want to make this abundantly clear:

Carrie’s experience is in no way representative of Church doctrine, nor does it reflect what I have heard from Church leaders.

However, I can’t help but think she misinterpreted some of what she heard. Did that high-ranking Mormon leader think she was reading anti-Mormon literature of the sort that is mostly invented accusations and mudslinging, in the guise of “history”? If so, yes, I would agree that such things are “worse than pornography”.

Did BYU’s Dean of religious education refuse to answer her questions because he couldn’t, as Carrie implies? Did she ask him in person, and if so, did he have time for such a discussion? If she wrote a letter or e-mail, how does she know he even read it? Deans aren’t exactly flush with free time. With no context to go on other than what Carrie says here, there’s no way to know, but given what I know of BYU, I find it difficult to accept her words at face value.

As for what “other leaders” told her, there are a number of pieces of advice that bitter memory could turn into “as long as it’s done secretly”.

I will reiterate again: I have never heard a Church leader advise a member to stop trying to think for themselves.

Salt Lake City’s male gerontocracy told me to avoid books and marry, but I could not stomach all their teachings.

(I’ll admit, I had to look up the definition of “gerontocracy”. I guess it’s technically accurate.) I’ve never heard Church leaders tell anyone to avoid books. Quite the opposite; the Church is rather emphatic in its encouragement that all Church members, male and female, seek a well-rounded education.

For example, mainstream Mormons banned polygamy in 1890 to obtain Utah’s statehood, but they continue to perform temple ceremonies that “seal” one man to multiple women in the hereafter.

I have two problems with this statement. The use of the word “mainstream” implies that there are Mormons who did not ban polygamy. Let me be clear: any Mormon found to be practicing polygamy is immediately excommunicated from the Church. Polygamy is not tolerated.

That said, I am unsure if I can explain “sealing” in this limited space to everyone’s satisfaction, as it would extend this discussion far beyond its current scope. A simple definition is that sealing makes a marriage eternal. If people are interested in a more thorough discussion of the topic, I would be happy to write another post on it, just leave a comment with that request.

Suffice it to say that her statement is only true in cases where there is a sealed couple where the wife dies, and the husband subsequently remarries; if both the husband and the second wife agree, the second wife may be sealed to the man as well. (If they choose not to do that, they may instead choose to be married for the duration of this life, rather than for eternity.) Nobody is forced into such an arrangement (though you could argue the first wife is), and it does not happen outside of that situation.

Those whose spouses leave the church are sometimes encouraged to get divorced and remarry a faithful Latter-day Saint.

Um… no. The Church would never advise or encourage a divorce based solely on the basis of a spouse leaving the Church — quite the opposite. (I’m quite familiar with how the Church handles divorces, and it’s not exactly a trivial process. If you want to annul a sealing, you have to convince everyone up the ladder that it’s necessary. “My spouse left the church” is not, by itself, sufficient reason.)

Non-Mormons are not allowed to attend family members’ weddings in Mormon temples.

This is true. I can understand why some see this as a bad thing. But it’s not an issue of “non-Mormons”, it’s an issue of “Mormons in good standing”. A Mormon who is not obedient to the gospel of Christ would not be permitted to attend, either.

Many gay Mormons have been driven to suicide, deeply conflicted about whether acting on their sexuality is, as the church teaches, a sin.

This does not surprise me. Some people choose suicide, as unfortunate as that is, but it seems disingenuous to blame the Church for those suicides. You may as well blame the FDA for the suicide of a chronically overweight person who could not reconcile their desire to eat more delicious ice cream with the FDA’s recommendations that an all ice-cream diet is not healthy. As the saying goes, don’t shoot the messenger!

The Church does not teach its members to avoid, antagonize, or otherwise mistreat individuals who identify themselves as homosexual. Quite the contrary; we are to treat them with love and respect, and encourage them to study the gospel of Christ. This does not require an antagonistic, fearful, or demeaning attitude; those attitudes are actually counter-productive.

With public interest in Mormonism so high, I hope the scrutiny will help break down the church’s fundamentalist trappings: secrecy about its finances, anti-women doctrine and homophobia, to start.

This is Carrie’s first mention of “secrecy about its finances”. Does she have some objection in particular? At any rate, the Church’s financial practices are well-documented, even if the actual numbers are not public.

I’ve never heard “anti-women doctrine” taught by the Church, so this is another accusation that falls in the “didn’t give examples” bucket. (I suppose you could count her vague references earlier in her article as examples, but if they count, they’re inadequate.)

As for “homophobia”, that’s just silly. There is a rather large difference between being afraid of someone for their sexual disposition, and simply teaching that acting on that disposition is wrong. As I said earlier, the Church does not condone antagonizing or mistreating homosexual individuals.

Perhaps someday the church will not excommunicate, fire and demote people who want honest, church-wide dialogue about Mormon history and doctrine.

That’s a serious accusation to level against the Church without even an example… and I rather doubt it has happened to someone who just wanted “honest, church-wide dialogue about Mormon history and doctrine”.

Carrie spent this entire column arguing that the LDS Church needs reform.  But she failed to do one very, very important thing (or if she did it, she failed to mention it, and thus missed the point of it entirely): She did not pray.  You cannot ignore one of the most basic principles of the gospel, and then complain that the gospel does not work.

Carrie, if you ever read this, I encourage you to do what we teach our children: Search, Ponder, and (most importantly) Pray.

The author, Sam Harris, starts by mentioning his daughter asking him where gravity comes from. That’s normal enough, kids ask questions. His answer ends up being, “I don’t know.” That’s fair enough. He continues:

What if I had said, “Gravity comes from God”? That would be merely to stifle her intelligence—and to teach her to stifle it. What if I told her, “Gravity is God’s way of dragging people to hell, where they burn in fire. And you will burn there forever if you doubt that God exists”?

What if, indeed? But then he makes this rather absurd claim:

No Christian or Muslim can offer a compelling reason why I shouldn’t say such a thing—or something morally equivalent—and yet this would be nothing less than the emotional and intellectual abuse of a child.

I have a couple of problems with this. First and foremost is that as a Christian, I could offer several compelling reasons he shouldn’t say any such thing — not the least of which is that it’s not even vaguely true. God doesn’t drag people to hell, and merely not believing in God will not result in “burn[ing] there forever”. (Granted, some Christian sects, such as the Catholics, do believe that last part, but I’m Christian and I don’t, so I’m sticking with it.)

Second is that he made himself a get-out-of-jail-free card: the phrase “or something morally equivalent”. That lets him dismiss anything I might say he should tell his kids instead as “something morally equivalent”. After all, anything a Christian would tell us to tell our kids on this subject cannot possibly be anything other than emotional and intellectual abuse of a child, right?

As a Christian, I can say with certainty it that if and when my daughter asks me that same question, my answer won’t be “gravity comes from God”, nor will my answer be “I don’t know.” I’m not saying “I don’t know” is the wrong answer; I don’t know Sam Harris or his daughter, so I can’t judge how well she’d be able to understand. But my answer to my daughter will be “big things pull on small things, and we call that gravity.”

Now, it is true that I believe God created the universe. Indirectly, God is responsible for gravity, just as God is responsible for, well, everything. But it’s a rather large stretch from there to “God made gravity so that he could burn people in hell for not believing in him”, and frankly, it’s intellectually dishonest to try to equate the two.

I actually agree with the reason Sam gives for why 9/11 happened:

… because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors. The worst of these ideas continue to thrive—and are still imparted, in their purest form, to children.

I also agree with him when he says we have to stop teaching our children certain things:

That means we should not terrify our children with thoughts of hell, or poison them with hatred for infidels. We should not teach our sons to consider women their future property, or convince our daughters that they are property even now.

However, his characterization of the belief that God created the universe is less than intellectually honest:

And we must decline to tell our children that human history began with magic and will end with bloody magic—perhaps soon, in a glorious war between the righteous and the rest.

I see no magic in the story of the creation found in the scriptures. At least, no more magic than I see in my science textbook.

“But wait!” you’re about to say. “There’s no magic in science textbooks!” And guess what? You’re right. There isn’t. There’s no magic in the creation story, either.

One the one hand, we have the Bible telling us that God said “Let there be light”, and there was light.

On the other hand, we have our science textbooks telling us that something caused a pinpoint of energy to destabilize and explode into an entire universe. (Don’t try to tell me that nothing caused it. All effects have a cause, and the Big Bang was one whopper of an effect.)

Is it not possible — logical, even — that these books are describing the same event? There, no magic, and all I needed to use to show it was a little plain and simple logic.

As for the world ending with “bloody magic”, well, the same basic logic applies. I see no magic involved in the descriptions of the Second Coming (and in fact the vast majority of those descriptions are merely things we’ll be doing to ourselves long before Christ shows up). Unfortunately, Sam Harris does not see fit to explain his argument, and merely assumes we will believe his description. As such, I won’t spend any more time on it, other than to say that he’s clearly describing it that way for the shock value.

Next, he lays out what has to be one of the most eloquent trolls I’ve ever read:

One must be religious to fail the young so abysmally—to derange them with fear, bigotry, and superstition even as their minds are forming—and one cannot be a serious Christian, Muslim, or Jew without doing so in some measure.

There are two “arguments” here — I say “arguments” because he provides absolutely no support for his claim — and they are as follows:

1. The deepest failures in educating our young are only achievable by religious people.
2. If you are a “serious” Christian, it is inevitable that you will derange your children with fear, bigotry, and superstition to some degree.

Wow. Derange? Really? Is this post supposed to be a coherent argument against religion? Because I’m pretty sure I accidentally read a mudslinging match instead.

For the first claim, well, history can show otherwise. Hitler’s youth rallies are perhaps the best example, and for that matter it’s one that allows me to leave it at that and move on.

The second claim is rather more easily disassembled. There are two points I will make.

1. If I show otherwise for any particular Christian, Sam will point to “serious” and conclude that my exemplar is not a “serious” Christian.
2. If I show an indisputably “serious” Christian who has raised a scientifically enlightened Christian child, then Sam will merely point to the child’s belief in God as proof of “superstition” and conclude that he was correct.

In other words, Sam has presented an “argument” with enough loopholes that he can apply it to pretty much any parent-child relationship in a religious family. This is not the stuff of logical debate, it’s an elaborate troll.

Such sins against reason and compassion do not represent the totality of religion, of course—but they lie at its core.

Here Sam begins to show what he’s going to be getting at. He isn’t arguing that certain religions go contrary to reason and compassion (compassion? how?) — he’s arguing that religion inherently goes against reason. And of course, yet again he provides no evidence to back up the claim.

His next paragraph attempts to anticipate the objections that “people of faith” will have: that religion has done so much good in the world, etc etc. Unfortunately, he fails to address the actual objections that any half-intelligent reader will have. Amusingly, he claims…

The groves of faith are now ringed by a forest of non sequiturs.

Kettle, meet pot.

Now, even worse, he proceeds to directly and openly contradict himself, and then doesn’t bother explaining the contradiction:

… it remains a fact that some of the most terrifying instances of human conflict and stupidity would be unthinkable without religion. And the other ideologies that inspire people to behave like monsters—Stalinism, fascism, etc.—are dangerous precisely because they so resemble religions. Sacrifice for the Dear Leader, however secular, is an act of cultic conformity and worship. Whenever human obsession is channeled in these ways, we can see the ancient framework upon which every religion was built.

In other words, he is arguing that:

1. Only religions are capable of the worst atrocities.
2. Some of those atrocities were committed by groups other than religions, but they’re kind of cultish so they’re basically religions, so we can keep pretending non-religious groups can’t do stuff like these non-religious groups did.
3. These non-religious groups use some of the same social frameworks that religions use, therefore let’s blame religions for everything.

Man. I’m choking on the non sequiturs, even just paraphrasing the claims.

Put more simply, Sam redefines “religion” to include all non-religious groups that did really bad things, and then concludes that all religions are therefore bad.

I trust I don’t have to explain why that’s a stupid argument?

Sam’s second-to-last paragraph attempts one last jab at all religions:

What defenders of religion cannot say is that anyone has ever gone berserk, or that a society ever failed, because people became too reasonable, intellectually honest, or unwilling to be duped by the dogmatism of their neighbors. This skeptical attitude, born of equal parts care and curiosity, is all that “atheists” recommend—and it is typical of nearly every intellectual pursuit apart from theology. Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under.

Talk about non sequiturs! His first sentence is irrelevant, but nonetheless incorrect; for example, a rather strong argument can be made that the Soviet Union’s fall was in part caused by its attempt to suppress all forms of religion among its citizens. (In other words, the attempt to deliberately suppress religion can and does damage society.)

Furthermore, a “skeptical attitude” is not all that Sam and his fellow atheists recommend. Talk about intellectual dishonesty! He spends an entire article arguing that religion is harmful and all Christians who teach their children about God are abusing their kids, and then tries to pretend that he’s merely advocating skepticism?

Come on, Sam… How stupid do you think your readers are?

In conclusion, I want to point out that Sam’s agenda is not all bad. I do agree with what he thinks should be our goal:

But humanity has a larger project—to become sane. If September 11, 2001, should have taught us anything, it is that we must find honest consolation in our capacity for love, creativity, and understanding.

However, his methods leave much to be desired. He talks about striving for love and understanding while simultaneously arguing that the people he disagrees with are child abusers merely because they believe in God.

For an article purporting to demand intellectual honesty, Sam, you’ve sure done your best to avoid it.

Well, I’m a few days late, but no matter. A few hours ago, I downloaded the free AVG Rescue CD (well, the bootable USB stick version). A few months ago I used this program to successfully de-virus a neighbor’s aging laptop, and years ago I ran AVG as my computer’s anti-virus, so I feel confident trusting the AVG Rescue software.

The AVG Rescue CD is a small bootable linux image which downloads the latest anti-virus definitions from AVG’s servers and then scans your computer’s hard drives. It will then allow you to delete or quarantine any viruses it finds. It’s a pretty handy tool – I highly recommend you keep a spare USB stick around with this installed, just in case.

Now, I was quite confident I do not have any viruses. I booted from the USB stick, updated the AV definitions, and proceeded to scan both hard drives. (I had forgotten how long it takes to scan several hundred gigabytes of files.)

This is what I found:

Obviously I could not simply take a screenshot, so you’ll have to put up with what my iPhone 4′s camera could do, and hopefully you’ll forgive me for taking a crappy picture that cuts off the rightmost portion of the text.

“But wait!”, you’re saying. “There are some viruses found!” Don’t be hasty – allow me to give some background. First, I have not used Thunderbird since I switched to Google Apps (which I mentioned having done in my first post in that Slashdot thread). That switch was, as mentioned, before March 18 of last year. Note that these hits are all in Thunderbird directories.

The first two lines are referring to a file named something like UPS_receipt_8492.zip, and AVG says a virus named FakeAlert was found in the file. The last two lines are referring to another copy of the same file. When I looked at the full file path, my surprise faded — this was Thunderbird’s Junk folder! So, being junk mail, I have never opened it, and really I should have deleted it. (Well, really, I should have cleared out this old Thunderbird data entirely.)

The other lines all refer to a trojan horse called “Generic13.BBVH”. This is actually a false positive; the two executables in question (“64K Movie.exe” and “64K Movie2.exe”) are a pair of really nifty programs which procedurally generate a 3-d environment with some nice shiny eye candy and some accompanying music, all in an executable weighing in at less than 64KB. For what it’s worth, the e-mails containing those executable attachments were uploaded to my Google Apps e-mail account along with the rest of my (non-Junk) mail; Google’s anti-virus does not complain about the two files.

So you can see for yourself, I’ll mirror the two files for you here:

- 64K Movie
- 64K Movie 2

You can also google those and find other people’s mirrors. You can scan the two files yourself; some anti-virus programs will give false positives.

So, one year and counting running Windows with no anti-virus, and no viruses. It’s not hard, you just have to browse responsibly.

Download audio file (week8.mp3)

I actually completely forgot what song this was from, and I had to look it up in my key, so perhaps it was a little too obscure.  At any rate, it was from Bohemian Polka, starting at 00:16.20.

So, up on the top of the page, you can see a new tab labeled “Amazon Web Services”, where I have listed the PHP classes I’ve completed, and there will also be subpages for each class with example code.  The comments on those pages will serve as a place for people to ask questions and get help with the classes.  Hopefully this will be useful.

Common sense tells us that when I purchase a product that advertises a feature, then I should be able to use that product with that feature. If I buy a deck of pinochle cards, I should obviously be able to play pinochle with those cards. If the manufacturer later decides that it only wants its customers to play three-handed pinochle, and they tried to take the issue to court, they would be laughed out of the courtroom, even if their package included an EULA saying they can do so.

I bought a Playstation 3, which advertised the ability to run Linux as one of its features. It also advertised the ability to play Blu-ray video discs as another feature. Common sense tells us that both of those features should continue to function for the lifetime of the product. Unfortunately, SCEA, you have decided that you are special, and that common sense does not apply to you.  You have decided that you can arbitrarily force customers to impair or disable one of those advertised features.

You recently filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against a few hackers who decided that when they bought a “Playstation 3 computer entertainment system” which advertised the ability to run Linux, they should be able to use it for that purpose.

You are filing charges against people for deciding that they should get what they paid for. You should be laughed out of the courtroom.

With the exception of a difficult and essentially worthless hack by GeoHot, these hackers were content to leave your technological measures alone, uncircumvented. It was not until SCEA removed existing functionality from already-purchased Playstation 3s that fail0verflow became interested in circumventing the restrictions built in to the Playstation 3.  Were they interested in piracy, there is no reason they would not have made these efforts years ago.

I’ll repeat that so it’s clear: nobody cared about hacking the PS3 until you, Sony, deliberately removed functionality that your customers had already paid for.

Smartphones can be legally jailbroken, despite the fact that jailbreaking requires circumvention of technological measures, and despite the fact that jailbreaking enables piracy. Why are you pretending the Playstation 3 is different?

My Dell laptop is a computer, and I am legally allowed to run whatever software on it that I wish. My iPhone is a computer, albeit a small one, and I am legally allowed to run whatever software on it that I wish, despite the fact that such use requires circumvention.

My Playstation 3 is a computer — you yourselves make that clear in your motion against geohot and fail0verflow — and I should be legally allowed to run whatever software on my Playstation 3 that I wish, whether or not such use requires circumvention.

But your real problem is that your motion pretends that 1201 (f) does not exist. Indeed, fail0verflow’s express purpose from the beginning has been to achieve interoperability (which they have made abundantly clear at all times), and their activities to recover the signing keys were specifically necessary to do so.

In other words, SCEA, circumvention required for interoperability is not subject to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.

Sony, no lawsuit you bring now will have any effect on how much piracy occurs. You cannot blame the results of your own actions on fail0verflow or geohot. If you remove advertised features from a device, then enterprising users will figure out how to get those features back.

Your antics are both absurd and amusing, and if the court does not decide against you, then others will take up the cause again and again until we can change the court’s mind.

I will end with a word of advice: the solution to your problems is to restore OtherOS. Hackers would again lose interest in hacking the Playstation 3, and you would regain an item for your feature list.

You obviously do not value the goodwill of your customers. Until you have demonstrated that you have reversed that position, I will not be buying any of Sony’s products.

Download audio file (week7.mp3)

Dare to Be Stupid!

I think the next clip is fairly hard.

Download audio file (week8.mp3)