Okay, back? Good.

I thought it did a pretty good job of describing one reason that piracy is growing, so I shared the link on Facebook and Google+ with the following comment:

This is why piracy exists. The studios continue to drag their feet at offering competitive or reasonable methods to acquire the media. The studios are just as guilty of the loss incurred by the artist if not more so than the customer who pirates. The artist is also responsible for finding a reliable distributor who is not going to make it difficult for customers to acquire the content. Piracy happens because it has the competitive advantage, not monetarily, but by ease of access.

Then later that same night I came across Andy Inatko’s blog post commenting on the comic. I thought he had made a few good points in his commentary. His post is also worth the read and I suggest going over there to read it as well, but here is a quote from it:

The single least-attractive attribute of many of the people who download content illegally is their smug sense of entitlement.

…

Here’s the terms of use for commercial content: you have to pay for this stuff. This means either you need to wait for it to become commercially available, or if you torrent it today you need to buy it when it gets released. So long as you buy it as soon as it’s possible to do so, I can confidently reach for my “No Harm Done” rubber stamp. Some content is commercially unavailable because the publisher or distributor has no desire to ever release it. I’ll even go so far as to say that downloading it illegally is a positive thing; you’re helping to keep this creative work alive.

That’s right, it seems that Andy is wanting to wholly blame the consumer and their sense of entitlement. I agree that it may be partially correct that the consumer has a false sense of entitlement, but it fails to look at all the responsibility.

Most of the time this conversation comes up, it seems that each party is trying to blame one of two parties. The distributors or the pirates. I think that both these parties are responsible. I am one of them. I have and perhaps will again pirate content. But I rarely hear of anyone giving any responsibility to the artists for all this.

Many people think that the whole system needs to be changed, which I whole heartedly agree with. I think it needs to be scraped and we need to start over. I also think the problem is largely a political one. The distributors will not give us the content in a way we want it when it first becomes available. So we pirate.

Distributors, consumers, artists, and the system that we keep feeding are all to blame.

Distributors want a free-market system. A free-market system means that parties who distribute a product need to compete with all available methods of distribution. Suddenly piracy is available method of distribution when it comes to intellectual content. In this one special case the distributors now want socialism. They want the means of distribution governed. But only in this one special case.

Consumers want content. They want content that they like from the artists regardless of the distribution medium but also want a reasonable means of distribution. There is not any clear way for consumers to show the distributors that they are failing to satisfy consumer needs except refusing to purchase that content. But they like this content and would like the artist to continue producing this content, so instead they show that the content is popular by pirating it and the distributor rightly loses their share, but the artist and anyone else who might be involved in creation also lose their share unjustly. Consumers are realists. They realize that this is a capitalist system and do their best to abide by that system for the most part. When the system fails them some of them show their true desire for socialism, sharing content freely using torrents.

This is where the questionability of ethics come in. However, who can really say that it is unethical for consumers to refuse to be part of a dysfunctional capitalistic system that they had no choice but to be put into? Consumers could create their own system that exists within the same society at the capitalist system. However, two economic systems running alongside one another without having a negative effect on one another is just as dysfunctional a theory, if not more so, than the current capitalist system in place. Capitalists cannot find a reasonable way to rectify with those who did not choose and actively choose not to be a part of it, so they label them as unethical. They then fine them in attempt to force capitalist ideas on them or in extreme cases they jail them as an example for other potential descent.

The responsibility of the artist can be looked at here. Andy mentioned Louis C.K. in his article, which I think is a great example of where the artist took control of distribution in his most recent standup special and bypassed traditional distribution. He publicly stated that this was a success for him far beyond his expectations. The artist does have responsibility of choosing the best means of distribution to make them the most money, and right now it appears, at least the case with Louis C.K., the most cost effective method is no longer traditional media distribution.

Artists are a mix of capitalists and socialists. Some artists distribute their content freely, making money to exist in the capitalist system either with advertising or by a means that has nothing to do with the content they produce such as flipping burgers. While part of this blog is a journal of what I do with my family, there are posts such as this one which are meant for larger audiences. At this point I do not make any money from blogging. I have no current intention of doing so. I write on this blog as a means to get thoughts out so that they can be evaluated in the public domain. I have a different financial arrangement wherein my wife works and I take care of the kids and the house. Some artists of this type also live on donations from users of the content. This is popular with some open source software solutions.

Other artists are capitalists who want to sell their content at a premium and forego the advertising, but as I stated want certain methods of distribution governed by socialism as in the case of piracy. Some of those artists do not care about the piracy so much because they see it as another form of getting content out there while still bringing in some compensation from traditional distribution. Those artists realize that the current system is chaos and mostly just want to try to get what they can. For the most part, I think the artists just want to make sure that they can get their content to their audience and get compensated for it by the best possible means.

As previously stated, the distributors, consumers, and artists each have a role and interests they want to protect. The current system is obviously not suited to properly compensate for these interests, so until it does, piracy will grow.

One obvious factor of a new economic model is that distribution will be largely downsized. This means less jobs in distribution. However, we cannot expect to keep old systems in place simply because of employment. The music industry does not, for example, still widely produce phonographs because some factory workers would be out of jobs. Those workers had to find something else to do with skills they already had, educate themselves in another field, create another field, or starve.

I have some pet ideas on possible solutions to this whole conundrum which perhaps I will elaborate on in a future post. For now I am going let what I have written sink in and be up for others to possibly point out flaws in the reason or logic of what I have already said.

The trail we followed was about a mile hike from where we parked our car, to the lake, and back called the Wolf Run Trail. This trail was generously recommended to us by the kind lady at the desk in the Visitor Center located at the entrance to the reserve. She asked me if Jupiter was an avid walker and how we planned to carry Tsunami on our walk before coming up with the perfect suggestion.

When we first got out there we were up on a hill and the 15-20 mph winds made us wonder if walking trails at the reserve was such a good idea. However, soon enough we went down a hill into a valley, where the wind was being blocked by both land and trees, and it started to feel much better. Also, about half way through our hike, the Sun came out from behind the clouds and provided us with a bit more warmth.

When we got to Wolf Run Lake, we sat on one of several docks, which I was told are often used for children on class field trips during times of year with more predictably warm climate, and ate some snacks that Chris had thoughtfully packed in her backpack before we left on our adventure. We looked over the water, soaked up some of the Sun’s rays for a little while, and walked around the lake before heading back. We followed the rest of the trail back towards the car.

I think it is safe to say that everyone had a fun time. Even Tsunami was all smiles and giggles at the end. This place will likely get a few visits from us as the weather gets warmer and particularly during some of the events that they have scheduled for the summer. Obviously we could not wait until then to check it out though, as evidenced by our visit there today.

The other day he and our dog Bowser were glued to something that was outside our front window. Eventually I got curious as to what was so interesting. When I went to the window to see what they were looking at, I saw a firetruck parked right there in front of the house.

Jupiter asked me what it was doing out there. I looked around and did not see any smoke. I saw one firefighter talking on her radio and another one looking up at a tree. I told Jupiter that I was not sure why it was there. I posed a hypothesis or two as to what they might be doing out there. I said that maybe there was indeed a cat in a tree. I also guessed that perhaps they had found a fire hazard that needed to be addressed.

While it can be fun to make guesses as to why something is, the fact is that we do not know without some sort of evidence. In this case, the best way to find out why there was a firetruck and firefighters in front of our house was to go out there and ask one of them. So that is just what we did.

When we went out there, we made sure that we were not getting in the way of whatever it was the firefighters were doing. We also made sure they could tell that we were watching them, but waited for them to approach us before submitting our query. When a man in uniform did approach us, I stated my hypothesis about cats in trees and asked if that was correct. The man responded that this was incorrect with laughter and a smile on his face. Then he proceeded to tell us that there was a report of some out of place smoke in the area and that they had come to investigate.

Jupiter and I thanked the firefighter for answering our question and watched the firetruck drive away. We then went back inside and continued our day, Jupiter with a fresh example in his head as to how one may critically examine a situation to find out information on an unknown area of interest. There is no better educator than real world experience.

I had heard that Soulard on Mardi Gras was no place for kids, lest they get an early anatomy lesson. I disagree with that idea. I can not think of a better real world example to teach human anatomy to my kids. Learning through experience has always been a better way of educating than an institutionalized method, I argued. Either way, my excuse for skipping it had more to do with the sheer volume of people and traffic in the area.

Instead of going down to Soulard to watch the parade, we decided to get a king cake and some pączkis and, as we so often do with holidays and other annual events, make up our own thing.

For lunch I decided that Jupiter and I would sit in front of an episode of Hello Kitty eating the pączkis. As for Tsunami, he got a few tastes of the lemon filling from the one I was eating. He seemed to like it quite a lot. And, yes, that is a beer that I had with my lunch. Before you start dreaming up images of the 1983 bane of at-home dad’s existence, Mr. Mom, this is not typical when I am alone with the kids. Mardi Gras is, for me, an exception.

For supper, maybe I will make some spaghetti and we can all share the king cake for dessert. I will need the king cake to help settle Chris’s nerves when she finds out, by reading this post, that I let Jupiter eat in front of the television. This is a carnal sin according to her. I agree and also discourage it, but again, this is Mardi Gras!

Today the high is forecasted at 41° F, which meant we probably had just enough time to make a Frosty before the snow mostly melts down later today. It also meant that the snow would be good and soggy which is always best for packing snow in spheres.

The next step was obvious. I put Tsunami in his swing near the big window looking out in front of the house. This allowed Jupiter and I set out to build the snowman while I could still keep an eye on Tsunami, or more importantly, he could keep an eye on me.

As stated, the snow was just right for packing together, but that also means that it is good at collecting leaves and other yard artifacts as well. As you can probably see in the picture above, Jupiter is collecting quite a bit of it in the body of the snowman as he rolls it along. This did not cause us too much gruff though. It did not take too much of our effort to clean off the leaves that were showing on the outside of the snowman.

Once we were finished making our newest family member, Frosty Augustine, Jupiter and I posed for a few pictures and threw snow at each other awhile. After that we went inside.

Frosty had not been a member of our family for even an hour before he met his inevitable demise. I am sorry that Chris will never even get to meet him. But that is the way it is sometimes with snowmen. They have a much smaller lifespan than us humans, and it is something that we all have to cope with at some point each winter.

Soulard is historically a French neighborhood in St. Louis which now hosts the St. Louis version of the celebration. It has been said to be the second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the United States coming after the New Orleans celebration. This year’s Mardi Gras includes several events taking place as early as January 6th to February 21st. Some favorite events which I have took part in during past years are the ‘Run For Your Beads’ 5k, the Barkus Pet Parade, and partying in the streets on the weekend of the Grand Parade.

Run For Your Beads 5k

As I previously mentioned, Chris and I had signed up to take part in this year’s 5K. It was to take place on Saturday at 9:00 AM in Soulard. For us, the morning was pretty disastrous.

I typically do not get much sleep the night before a run. I get nervous and end up thinking about the race all night and simply cannot sleep. I have come to the point where I do not even try to sleep the night before a race anymore. I just expect to be up that night. Chris, on the other hand, does not typically have as much trouble sleeping the day before a race as I do. She fully expected to sleep Friday night. She did not. Not one ounce, according to her. This was only the first in a series of incidents that made Saturday morning a wreck.

Once we did get enough energy in us to start preparing to head down to the starting line, we ran into all sorts of woes. First, we could not find the backpack that we use to carry extra clothes and other items for after the race. While looking for said backpack, Chris had a bunch of luggage attack her in the closet. Eventually I found the backpack just where we put it before we moved, but then Chris could not find her running gloves. It was a cold, glove wearing, kind of day. I found her gloves in my jacket pocket with enough time for us to leave and get to the start line just as the gun would be going off. We left the house and about five minutes later realized that we forgot our race numbers. Crap! Back to the house. There was no way we were going to make it by the gun now, but we still wanted to run.

Once we finally got down there, we handed the car and the boys off to Antijen, and started heading for the start line. It was now twenty minutes after the gun had gone off, but we thought maybe there was still enough of the course set up for us to go. We took a wrong turn on the way to the start line adding another ten minutes to our late start. When we finally got to the start about thirty minutes late and asked if we could still run the course. We were warned that the course would probably not be marked very well anymore. We went anyway. It was not marked well at all.

Generally I run a race faster than Chris, but we were both starting very late and I did not want either Chris or I to run an unmarked course alone. I decided that I would go her pace and we would finish this messed up morning as a couple. At this point things started turning around. It was very cold and we really did not know how the course was supposed to go, but we muddled our way through it together. The part that went through the Budweiser plant was already blocked off by the time we got to that point near the end of the course, so we had to skip that. Other than that though, we did finish the race. Together. Dead last.

You know, it was a shit-hitting-the-fan kind of morning. But Chris and I rolled with the punches and we ended up with a couple of firsts on Saturday. It was both of our first time finishing a race last, which may not be something to brag about, but was a first none the less. It was also the first time we ran a race together. I liked that.

Sorry to Tom and Antijen for having to put up with our crazy morning. Tom did pretty well as a standard, start at the gun, participant of the race. Antijen was a lifesaver when we were frantically trying to figure out what the heck we were trying to accomplish. Thanks guys.

Barkus Pet Parade

Yesterday was Barkus. We took one of our dogs, Sunny, to march in Barkus last year. This year we have two kids, one of which is still an infant, so we elected to go as spectators.

It was, again, a very cold day so we bundled up tight. Despite the cold weather, there was quite a few people on the streets of Soulard for the parade. There were so many dogs there that it actually set a new world record for “most dogs in costumed attire gathered in a single location.” At a count of 1,326 dogs in the parade, it shattered the record set in Japan last May of 603.

Compared with Saturday’s experience, it was relatively uneventful. We sat around eating sub-par vendor food, which is somehow always extra delicious for sub-par food at event such as this. We shared a hurricane, which we both agreed seemed to have less rum in it than the cocktail’s recipe calls for. Then we each had a beer from one of the obscure microbrew vendors who had something other than the always watery tasting Bud Light. Soon after that, the parade started.

There were some pretty good dog floats out there. One float had two dogs riding a tandem bike which was pulling along an organ. Another was an alligator float complete with several dogs dressed as alligators riding atop it. We collected our beads from the folks who were tossing them out, as well as some free Beggin’ Strips, which were plentifully tossed out by the parade’s sponsor, Purina. Then as the boys were indicating that they were getting cold and tired, we went home.

So far, Mardi Gras has been bittersweet for us. I do not know if we will participate in any more of it this year. The boys and I may go down to the Grand Parade next weekend, if the weather cooperates a bit better, but other than that we look forward to next year’s run and pet parade.

Sometime after realizing that there are no supernatural deities, only natural humans who like to think they are gods, I adjusted my habitual response to sneezing to gesundheit. It took me a little while to adjust, so I completely understand why some of my non-religious friends hold to the ‘bless you’ response that they grew up using. Despite my understanding however, I will usually make some smart-ass remark such as, “Jesus can do nothing to stop my body’s natural reactions”. This is merely my crass sense of humor. It is nothing personal.

The switch was long before I had kids to pass the habit down to. For a while, I decided not to say anything at all since saying anything has a basis in kooky superstition. The truth is, anything I say to a sneeze has absolutely no affect. It is nothing more than an attempt to proliferate another unnecessary tradition of manners. It is as futile as prayer.

Then one day I sneezed and Jupiter said to me, ‘bless you!’ While this is mostly harmless, I was uncomfortable with this newfound habit of his. I decided that the best way to rectify this was compromise with my own example. I went back to using gesundheit.

I have been using gesundheit around Jupiter in the case of sneezing for a while and he started to pick it up. Except for one thing. He had a little trouble pronouncing the word gesundheit and what he said actually came out “goose eyed”. I thought this was perfect. Since then it has become our family’s custom. Whenever someone sneezes, the appropriate response in the Augustine household is now ‘goose eyed!’ I am happy to grant the use of this tradition to anyone else who would like to use it as well.

Even though I have chosen to take my running on the treadmill, there have been plenty of really good running opportunities outside during these relatively mild past couple of month. It was ideal for most runners. The type of weather that many runners could not pass up under any circumstances. For the past two months though, I did.

Tuesday night I was itching for a run. I checked the weather to find that it was a brisk 34° F. I looked out the window to see a bit of snow had accumulated on the ground and there was a drizzly mix of rain and snow falling from the sky. This is the type of weather that makes many runners who do not have a treadmill wish they had. As for me, I got some shorts and a long sleeved shirt on and said to my dog, “Bowser! Let’s go!”

I do not know what it is about adverse conditions that make me want to go out, but they do. One organized run that Chris and I did in Nebraska was for the Humane Society in the cold of December. Each time we ran it was very cold and there was plenty of snow on the ground. By the time we were done I was always ready to get back in the car, but I also think it was one of the most fun runs we participated in during the year.

Chris and I are signed up to run in a Mari Gras 5k in Soulard this weekend. I ran last year and did pretty well. Much better than I am prepared to do this year, for sure. This year I think I will take it a bit easier. Maybe I will even stop for a hurricane after mile two instead of skipping it for a better time. After all, it is Mari Gras. Drinking is part of the fun!

Stephanie Dulli of Washington, D.C., says “hearing nice things absolutely is romantic and a turn-on.” But she’s with the 25% who say “seeing your spouse as a great parent” or the almost 20% who say it’s when your spouse cleans the house or makes dinner that gets them in the mood for sex. “There is nothing sexier in the world than when my husband is giving the baby a bath without me asking. … If he takes it upon himself to do the dishes or the laundry, that’s such an act of service, and that’s another way he shows he cares for me. I find it dreamy.” Dulli has two sons, ages 3 and 8 months.

The rest of the article is a good read too. It exposes a study that shows that, while marital sex is not popularized in pop culture, most married women find it very important in their marriages. It tends to be thought that marriage marks the end of sex in a relationship but, according to this study, that is just not true.

On a more personal level, I have no complaints.