Excellent points Kevin. I’d be lying to say that my perception of a “geek” label doesn’t have something to do with the way I see them treated in youth, but come to think of it I wasn’t much of a geek in real sense in my high school, but a bit of an outcast (at least for the first two years) for various other reasons, most including simply being a bit different and shy in general.. The real geeks, guys who seem to know it all and always had awesome grades, I actually admired them.

About RIAA/MPAA and materialism/consumerism and independence.. I tend to agree.

Derrick, I’ll check the site out. From briefly that I looked at it already it mentions a movie, but I couldn’t find where to see it yet.

Thanks!

Danijel

Have you heard about the Young Entrepreneur Society from the http://www.YoungEntrepreneurSociety.com? It has lots of interesting business stuff in the site.

Re: The RIAA/MPAA. I’m one who finds the idea of “redemption” to be quite romantic. I honestly hope that Microsoft comes to find, after pushing against it so hard, Free Software to be important. At the same time, I hope the RIAA finds it’s true destiny in supporting *gasp* recorded art.

If they adopted a “sharing-ambivalent” attitude and instead worked to promote music and video, they would create an environment where so much talent would ooze out of the masses that they’d be able to pick-and-choose which ones they decided to promote. Say they’ve got a performer they think is awesome, but not sure how they’d do commercially, they could try internet viral-campaigns with videos on YouTube and downloads via torrent. After a buzz is built, they could take the “big risk” in mastering CD’s and selling them in traditional outlets as well as DRM-Free downloads from music sites.

The MPAA could do the same thing perhaps a bit differently. The problem isn’t so much the organizations themselves but the old, stuffy men in control of these organizations, who (like the majority of politicians) are just now coming to terms with the generation of people (like myself and my slightly-older friends) who EXPECT everything to be wired - because everything has been wired for the vast majority of our lives.

Re: Being labeled “geek”. I’m not so sure this is true. Why, you’re asking? In school I was geeky, but those same traits later got me praise as a leader and independent thinker. The people who were praised in school for being “trendy” are today getting accolades for being “people persons”. The common factor is that we ALL remember childhood sucking. With Bill Gates one of the richest people in the world, with Steve Jobs being a symbol for all that is both “digital” and “sexy” and with video games bringing in cashflow that makes Hollywood jealous I don’t think anyone in their right MIND looks down on people for being a geek. I think we all just tend to remember when our stupid classmates did it.