h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Before I start reading through my backlog of posts, I want to get something off my chest.
I got given a copy of a movie the other day (freeright), which was a three-part documentary on corporations, originally filmed by TVOntario for a series called 'The view from here'.
Watching it made me so mad, that it took me three attempts to watch the whole thing. I can handle most emotive techniques, and most bad news. I've lived with a lot, and so my ability to cope is much better than most people's. However this documentary is not emotive; it is simply a portrayal of facts. And those facts are the most disturbing I have ever encountered.
Even just thinking about it is making my hands shake with rage.

The first part starts with the statement of fact, that in American law, a corporation has the same legal rights as a human. This started with the first legislation about fair treatment of slaves, and was usurped for commercial purposes. The directors went on from this premise to say: "Well if a corporation is legally the same as a person, then what /kind/ of a person are they?"
It went downhill from there.
The usurption of slave-right legislation was /nothing/ in comparison to some of the travesties asserted later, in the name of commerce. Don't even get me started on what happened during the second world war.

If anybody actually wants a copy of this movie, feel free to e-mail me at jermsg777 (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) nz (until further notice, of course,) with a postal address. I'll try to send you a copy, although I'm not going to guarantee reliability of supply. I may also ask for a few dollars to cover postage and the cost of a blank CD. It's in some kind of computer format; .AVI I believe.
Just don't blame me if you contract insomnia, or radical impulses to burn down a department store or something.
And I apologise in advance for the poor video/sound quality in places; that's how it arrived in my hands, too.

i still cant believe i missed you!!! and this is one of the last times i'd get a chance to talk to you for a lenghly ammount of time... school starts for me on tuesday...


hmm... i'd like a copy... but i dont feel like going to burn down a department store, or being upset at the moment...as it is such a lovely day out. but you can tell me more about it if you like.

and the pictures of my room are coming as soon as i find the digital camera...

You might have issues letting me know your postal address; I don't imagine you'd be comfortable with that. A PO box would be ideal, or maybe a helpful relative's address...

Good to hear you're having a lovely day! So am I!

hooray! we're both having lovly days!

and i wouldnt realy have aproblem sending you my address, but my mom would kill me... so i dont think its a good idea... becasue if i was dead i couldnt talk to you anymore.
and i have no helpful relatives... actually for the most part i dont like any of my relatives and come to think of it, i dont think any of them would help me...

Oh arse.

Unless you were able to pretend that the CD which arrived in the mail /wasn't/ send by somebody you met online, then I can't think of an alternative.
Unless you download it yourself. Do you have decent 'net speed?

yeah.
i wish i liked more o fmy family. its a big problem, becasue my mom tends to be rather big on family...

i could try and pretend that, but theres a reason i'm a good kid. my mom jsut knows everything! i cant seem to hide anything!!! so i'm not sure that'd be a good plan, if she found out then i'd probab;y never be allowed on here again.... besides the fact taht when i joined this she made me promise never to give out my address.

and yes i do have a decend net speed

She's going to have to realise that she can trust you sooner or later. It sounds like it's not perverts or stalkers on the 'net she's worried about; she just doesn't trust you to talk to the right people. And ignore the wrong ones.
I see that happening so often; usually when the parents know more about internet sociological standards from the news than from first-hand experience.

Anyway... you have decent 'net speed, which makes it a moot point right now anyway, since it'd be easier for you to download it than for me to send it to you anyway.
Do I remember correctly that you said you have Kazaa?

yeah. i know. and i think you're right. *sigh**sigh**sigh* and you're right, she hears terrible things on the news, so shes afraid for me. but one day i'll move out, and then i can do whatever, if i choose to do that...
she doesnt trust me!!!!

and actually i have winmx.. but you were close

My parents never trusted me either; it's taking me a long time to get over it. They were also never proud of me. Probably why now I find that pride and trust are the two strongest emotions for me. Possibly also why I don't have many friends; it takes a lot for me to trust them.
You may find the same yourself, in later years. You've really got to move out and experience different type of social interaction to be able to get a decent perspective on the type you're experiencing now...

Not familiar with winmx. It's a P2PNode application though, right?
Try a search for 'The Corporation'; find an AVI (probably) file around about 668M. That'll be the one.

i'm so sorry your parents were never proud of you!
i dont have that problem, i'm very lucky. my parents are proud of me... even if it frequently feels like the're not.

and as for not having many friends becasue i dont trust people... i used to do that, but then i spent a long long time being very very depressed. so now i'm at the stage of jsut being open wiht people and if they dont like me well then they can you know what as far as i'm concerned... but i dont tell jsut anyone everything. that would be a very bad move, in my opinion. very few people get told stuff.
you're one of the few, becasue even if you dont trust me i trust you.


i'll try looking for it now

Thanks. I'm getting over it. Well... I'm learning to cope, at least.

I'm still hoping to find out that it's simply the nature of the society I'm in at the moment which makes it hard for me to trust people; most people I meet in this country I shouldn't trust anyway. Even my closest friends don't know every major thing about me.
This doesn't mean I don't trust /you/. I have no reason not to, at this point. However the only thing that would stop me from truthfully answering any question you asked me is the context; on hootoo there is no such thing as a private post.

theres a lot of people out there you shouldnt trust... but there are some you can... and i figure as long as i dont go telling things to people htat i dont know if i can trust. i like to test people out wiht little things first... then if that works out i can move on to trusting people more.
for example i once knew someone who i couldnt trust at all, glad i'm rid of her now, i got a bad mark on a math test once and guess what the first thing out of her mouth was the next time she saw my mom.. yep you guessed it. she had to tell my mom about my bad mark... and she really enjoyed it!!!

well i'm a trustable person... i know... of course i'd probably say that even if i wasnt trustworthy wouldnt i?
and you're right there is no such thing as a private post. sometimes i forget that.... but oh well. perhaps i should make friends here and then talk on email.... i wonder if that would work... hm... probably not. i cant say i've met all that many people i'd trust enough to tell them stuff...

The 'some you can trust' people seem to be /very/ thin on the ground here. By here I mean here in NZ, hot here on Hootoo.

You've already got my e-mail address; that should give you some idea of how much I trust you. I'm sure conversations with people over e-mail /are/ more private, but not ultimately so. Don't use hotmail if you can avoid it.

At least it was only a bad mark that she betrayed your trust with. A true friend could blackmail you to 'naam and back, if they cared to. And a bad maths mark is such an insignificant thing, in the grand scheme of it all.

*looks nervous*
why not hotmail?... i use hotmail... *thinks nervously about swiching back to yahoo...*

and your right a bad mark its a very small thing. but at that time it was a very big thing ofr me. i really cared a lot and would cry if i did badly. it didnt help at all that my parents were so serious about getting very very good makrs...

yay1 jerms trusts me enough to give me his email

Did you read hotmail's privacy policy before you signed up?

Yahoo's just upgraded their service; if you still have a valid account you might want to restart using it sometime... GMail's aparrantly pretty good too, but I don't know much about it 'coz it's only just out of beta-testing.

Hmm... this is strange. Microsoft have hidden the part of their privacy policy regarding the information contained in your e-mails. I was going to post a link to it for you, but now I'm going to have to search for it. Meanwhile, what I can remember of it said something like: "The information contained in any e-mail, or any e-mail attachment, you send or receive to or from your hotmail account, becomes the property of Microsoft and its subsidiaries. Microsoft reserves the right to read, edit, alter, and send any such information through hotmail, using your account." etc. Pretty scary stuff.

eekk!!!

thats not jsut pretty scary! tahts terrifying!!!!!
i cant believe it!

ok its time for me to get yahoo! and only use hotmail for msn.
that is unbelieveably scary!

i didnt read the privacy policy.... and i jsut let my yahoo account lapse!

Perhaps you shouldn't watch 'the corporation' then... invasion of privacy is /nothing/ compared to some of the stuff they reveal on there. And at least I've never heard of Microsoft /using/ that clause - just the fact that they /can/ is scary enough.

I do miss messenger, though.

its free so i dont see why you cant use hotmail for messenger and yahoo for email....

maybe i wont eatch the corporation... i couldnt find it anyway.... so i think its jsut as well

"...use hotmail for messenger and yahoo for email...." I do; what I meant by 'I miss messenger' is that I don't have messenger installed any more. There's not much point having it at home, because I don't have a 'net connection there yet, and I can't install it here.
Wait! I forgot about e-messenger!

Is your MSN name the same as your e-mail address?

yep. kraken_27 thats me!


someone sent me my horoscope by email... i dotn believe in all that... but it was quite accurate!!! it was kinda scary. i'm thining of starting a journal entry jsut to find out what other people think... what do you think about tht idea?