The rights of Geeks

[Darryl Smith]

Whilst I am not in favour of what the cinema did, I am in general in
favour of their rights to be able to restrict laptops and cameras into a
cinema. There is too much piracy of movies today, and this has an effect
on the bottom line of the production. It is their right, and they are
entitled to enforce their rights. Laptops, walkmans and cameras can be
used to make copies of the content - an illegal act. It is just like not
being permitted to take a recording device into a live concert.

And before I am accused of being anti-geek or anything of the like. I am
not. I am so much of a geek it is not funny. And I do stand up for my
rights when I have them. The last time I was in the USA I visited a
senior member of the Hollywood community (He has an Acadamy Award
himself...) and was able to convince him that installing Mod Chips or
running LINUX on an X-Box was morally acceptable. 

[On the subject of Wireless, the one time I have ever used 802.11 to get
free internet access was from the Holiday Inn, Hollywood... 2005 N
Highland Blvd, about 100m north of Hollywood Blvd. I found an open
access point to the south, and got a good signal when I put the USB
access point in the window. The only reason I used it there was that the
dial-in I had was too expensive since the hotel was charging long
distance for calls outside the area code... ]

Darryl

---------
Darryl Smith, VK2TDS   POBox 169 Ingleburn NSW 2565 Australia
Mobile Number 0412 929 634 [+61 4 12 929 634 International] 
Darryl at radio-active.net.au | www.radio-active.net.au  

-----Original Message-----
From: wireless-bounces at lists.samba.org
[mailto:wireless-bounces at lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of Adam Smith
Sent: Saturday, 17 May 2003 10:32 AM
To: wireless at lists.samba.org
Subject: Re: The rights of Geeks


Fight the power! ;)

Adam Smith
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alastair D'Silva" <deece at newmillennium.net.au>
To: <linux at lists.samba.org>; <wireless at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2003 3:40 AM
Subject: The rights of Geeks


> Firstly, my apologies in advance to those of you who do not thing this

> relevant.
> 
> I just had an ugly experience, and am making moves to correct it. 
> Below is a copy of what has been posted to Slashdot (with the HTML 
> stripped).
> 
> Vote with your feet people!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have you (as an adult) ever been disciminated against because of your 
> tendancy towards geekdom? Well, I have, and am not happy about it. 
> What can we do? We'll have to let these businesses know that this 
> behaviour will not be tolerated! We are geeks, hear us roar!
> 
> I just got home from the local cinema (Hoyts Woden in Canberra,
> Australia) after watching Matrix Reloaded, at least, that was the 
> plan. After waiting in line for 2 hours, the manager approached me and

> said that my laptop was not permitted in the cinema, and that I would 
> have to leave it in the car or leave in their possession, neither of 
> which seemed like a reasonable choice as I had work stored on the 
> laptop that was not committed to CVS yet. After some discussion, I 
> stated that I'll leave my laptop in their care, provided that they 
> provide me with a signed receipt stating that they accept full 
> responsibility for it whilst in their care. Well, they gave me a 
> receipt, but blatantly refused to take any responsibility for the 
> machine. About this point, the hired muscle steps in and starts 
> ranting on about how secure it would be (totally missing the point 
> that I wanted someone responsible for my work if the machine is lost).
> 
> Now, I was faced with two options - relent and potentially lose my 
> work with no recourse, or ask for a refund. I chose the latter, which 
> is where the problems started. I sat down on a couch and started 
> coding, when the hired muscle came over and stated that I had to move 
> to the foyer - fair enough, except that the manager had removed all 
> the couches before asking him to move me!
> 
> At this point, I was getting a bit frustrated, and told them that 
> there was another laptop and 2 cameras inside anyway (since my friends

> had them, and in fact Hoyts staff had seen the cameras being used 
> while we were waiting). The manager stated that he didn't care, and 
> that he had done his job. The hired muscle had stated that there was 
> no way a laptop could have got past him, and I offered to show it to 
> him when my friends came out. He agreed, thus implying that there was 
> no problem with me sitting in the foyer until the movie finished. 
> However, a few minutes afterwards the manager spoke to the security 
> guard again who then asked me to leave the cinema. When asked why, he 
> replied it was because the staff had to leave and the cashboxes would 
> be unattended (how do they protect them from those watching the movies

> then?).
> 
> Well, I couldn't be bothered arguing, so I left, but could not shake 
> the feeling that I was treated unfairly. The only way I can see to 
> educate these businesses is with our feet, so I call on my fellow 
> geeks to voice their frustrations and expose these businesses to the 
> community at large. For those who wish to let this cinema know their 
> opinion, email me (badhoyts at d-silva.org) and I'll print out and hand 
> deliver the responses (after removing your email address of course).
> 
> If there is enough response, I'll dedicate some time to setting up a 
> website where we geeks can voice our criticisms and commendations to 
> businesses.
> 
> -- 
> Alastair D'Silva           mob: 0413 485 733
> Networking Consultant      fax: 0413 181 661
> New Millennium Networking  web: http://www.newmillennium.net.au
> 
>