Doh! I went back to being an anime fan -_-
Did I mention that I dropped out of anime fandom like 7 years ago? Yeah, went to Japan, got into Hekiru, and pffft went all other interests. Besides, the new anime them was pretty crappy, and also I was so busy with work and Hekiru that I didn’t have time to waste in front of a TV.
Well, that was then, this is now. I just graduated from INSEAD on 16th Dec 2004, and armed with a freshly minted, highly expensive MBA, went to spent Christmas with my family in Whistler and Las Vegas.
The snow sucked in Whistler, and I don’t gamble.
Is it surprising that I spent most of my time online? No? Hmm… let me add that for some strange, bizarre, unfathomable reason, could have been boredom perhaps, or the recent furor in the news, I decided to try out Bittorrent. Yeah, that evil evil filesharing program. You know, it’s ridiculously easy to set up and use, which is why it’s so feared. Anyway, I discovered that Bitttorrent is still quite alive and kicking even after all that shutting down in the news. And, I discovered that Bittorrent is THE fansubber’s dream distribution medium.
Back in the old days fans swapped tapes. They went on USENET, contacted subbing groups, mailed stuff out, waited for stuff to come in, collected a bunch, gather together in a dark seedy room with powered video/audio splitters and the best commercial VCRs and shielded cables money could buy, and ran those suckers. BTW, “real fans” never traded licensed anime, in case you were wondering :P
But now, nowadays, it’s all digital. After seeing it in action, I can understand why all copyright holders are terrified. It’s ridiculously easy, it’s incredibly pervasive. If it was this easy to buy stuff, they’d be singing all the way to the bank. Instead, it’s (almost) perfect piracy.
Hmm, I was going to talk about how I managed to rediscover anime, but it looks like it’s turned into a rambling. Ah well, in the interest of adding something intelligent to the topic, I’d say that I’m more impressed than ever at the implications of the Internet on human creativity. When it becomes possible for anyone to publish their (original!) creations and have the ability, in theory, to reach the entire world, that’s when each person has a chance of reaching their true potential and power. Before, you need money, a champion, or political power, that sort of thing, to make yourself heard. Now you can do it on your own (sort of… there’s too much junk on the Internet now to believe you could be heard unless you’re pretty unique or niche or have tons of money or some way to generate news).
Plus, the fact that anyone can access the Internet means also that everyone has the potential to know a huge amount. I don’t know if you can say this make you smarter, or better, or an expert. But, it has removed limitations on the information a person can access. And that means that one person, on their own, should be able to accomplish a lot more in a lot less time.
Think about it. Nowadays, it’s not what you know, it’s how well you can go about finding out what you need to know. People, and the power of the machine.
So better pray that the accuracy and purity of information is somehow preserved. It would suck to lose this resource.
