Those wacky guys at my favorite company are at it again, this time from Great Britain. Everyone’s favorite monkey-dancin’, chair-throwing CEO, Steve Ballmer, was bellowing about the alleged patent violations the Linux community is guilty of infringing on. Funny thing is he called out RedHat specifically, and he did it from a country where the Lanham Act, which prevents people from making unfounded claims that harm another business’ reputation, couldn’t touch him. Very brave, Mr. Ballmer. Why don’t you come back to the US and spout that same geyser of crap for everyone to hear? If you’re so confident about the patent violations, get your ass back to the country where RedHat resides and put your money where your mouth is. And while you’re at it, why don’t you STOP GRANDSTANDING, STOP FUDDING, AND SHOW US WHERE THE INFRINGEMENTS ARE!?

It never ceases to amaze me how disgusted I can become with Microsoft. I encourage everyone to look at free alternatives to their crappy, bloated software. Check out Open Office for your word-processor/spreadsheet/chart packages/etc, use Firefox for your web-browser, and if you’re feeling brave and a little computer savvy, investigate a Linux distribution like Ubuntu. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. And if you’re already convinced, take a look at the Sue Me First, Microsoft petition; add your name and a comment and issue Mr. Ballmer your own challenge.

Steve, you get a Heads-Up Award for your stupid and cowardly mudslinging. Please don’t throw a chair at me…you’ve earned it!

0E 5D 0D 7B B4 E6 B8 5A A4 28 8A DC 00 44 D0 2E

The fine folks at Freedom to Tinker were nice enough to deed me my very own 128-bit number. They have a script that will generate a bright, shiny number for you too if you just go over to the article. This is in response to the debacle over the last several days involving another 128-bit number–namely the AACS decryption key that allows HD-DVDs to be played. The key was recently discovered and a utility was posted to back up HD-DVDs to the computer.

AACS responded just as you’d expect a cluebag anti-piracy company to: DMCA notices to tons of bloggers. This obviously didn’t go over so well, and resulted in an amazing backlash by bloggers around the globe, who posted the key, or links to articles with the key, to Digg. I have to say, I’m simply amazed at the responses of companies in this day and age; the bigger the deal you make out of something, the more you can assure yourself that everyone will seek it out and broadcast it.

Now, that said, let’s turn to another angle in this case: the utter stupidity of ‘Digital Rights Management.’ WHY are companies allowed to get away with protecting ‘their’ rights at the expense of my fair-use rights? Yet another bullshit example of this and the statements by AACS Chairman Michael Ayers allows me the privilege of awarding him and AACS in general the very first DecafGeek Heads-Up Award:

Congratulations, AACS; I’m sure you won’t learn anything from this entire ordeal. And you better not use my number in your next futile DRM scheme!