Did you watch Futurama when it was on Fox Network?
If you did, do you remember this one particular episode where Fry was sleeping and an advertisement ran through during one of his dreams and when he woke up, he told Leela that he dreamt an advertisement and Leela said he didn’t dream it but rather, it was some kind of advertisement transmitted via some kind of wave by some marketing firms to the brain for marketing purpose?
(Pardon me but w00t! 68 words in one sentence!) In short, everybody sees commercials during their sleep without wanting to see it.
When I first saw that episode, I laughed so hard that I cried. That idea was so funny because the notion itself is an impossibility. It is so impossible that it is absurd and such extreme absurdity is so impossible, that it is funny.
Currently the US Senate, in the real world of course, is considering an act known as the Intellectual Property Protection Act. As the name of the act suggests, it aims at protecting intellectual properties. Many in the entertainment industry, including the RIAA have hailed this as the way to go.
I haven’t read the whole act yet and I plan not to read the whole boring stuff. But, according to Wired, the idea of fair use might be bulldozed by this act. More:
However, under the proposed language, viewers would not be allowed to use software or devices to skip commericals or promotional announcements “that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture,” like the previews on a DVD.
Yup. If the act is passed, we can no longer skip commercials. That is one step closer to Futurama’s joke. But I will not laugh on this one.
p/s – there is a growing expectation of Malaysia repegging the ringgit from 3.80 to a dollar to 3.30 to a dollar. Now, this is my first chance to speculate in the face of this appreciation. I should convert almost all of my dollar denominated currency into ringgit before the revaluation and then buy back the dollar. Sounds like a plan!
Now, where can I find a billion dollars…
