Verizon's rumored new offerings. (credit: Verizonguy12345)

NASA has been tasked with landing humans on Mars by the 2030s. The nonprofit Mars One foundation claims it’s preparing to blast off hardware for human habitation of the Red Planet by 2024. And Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has made it his mission to turn Mars into humanity’s second home to save our species from possible extinction.

No political system exists to manage these new arrivals—and if humans indeed colonize Mars in the 21st century, we’re going to need one soon. But it’s hard to find good precedents for governing in a place where air may need to be a basic right of citizenry and an entire planet is up for grabs.

Musk’s vision for governance on Mars is steeped in the libertarian-leaning ideals of Silicon Valley. At a recent Recode event, he described a system of “direct democracy,” rather than a reliance on elected officials to represent the masses. Musk would let people vote directly on most (if not all) issues before the government. Laws would be subject to expiration dates and popular recall by 40% of the population, ensuring it’s “easier to remove a law than to create one.” Musk believes the colonization of another planet will give humanity an opportunity to reboot its mode of governance, much as the US Constitution did in 1788, making a sharp break with outdated institutions and ideas born in an earlier era.

Humans have learned a lot in the intervening centuries about how to manage competing polities. And researchers publishing in the journal Space Policy (paywall) on May 30 say we should use them. Three treaties in particular—agreements governing the high seas, Antarctica, and outer space— point the way to “successful sharing of international resources,” say the authors.

The researchers, from the nonprofit Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle, came to rather different conclusions than Musk about how to encourage harmony between rival states, sustain Martian exploration, and avoid follies ranging from physical violence to rampant environmental degradation.

Their full proposal (pdf) borrows from the Antarctic Treaty System and the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, as well as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (pdf) that decrees “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.” It hands local power to Martian inhabitants, coordinated by a weak central authority called the Mars Secretariat. No country can make a sovereign claim, but property rights to extract minerals and resources are permitted. Colonizing parties can occupy limited plots of Martian land, and claim exclusive economic rights within a 100 kilometer radius, but not prevent others from inhabiting or traversing the territory. Colonists remain under the legal jurisdiction of their host nation. Conflicts are resolved either by temporary Martian tribunals of representatives from other Mars colonies or diplomacy back on Earth.

The researchers say they drew two lessons from history in thinking through principles for a future Martian government. The first is that space-faring nations will probably resist, if not reject, attempts by a strong central authority to impinge on national sovereignty. The second is that any proposal to redistribute to all nations any riches from Mars will probably fail. The ill-fated Moon Agreement of 1979 seized on both ideas and never won support from a single space-faring country (although 11 nations that have never been to space signed on). The Antarctic and ocean treaties were explicitly crafted to avoid these kinds of clauses.

To address the Outer Space Treaty’s decree that space should benefit all humanity, the authors offer several possibilities: the creation of “planetary parks” preserving land for scientific and cultural purposes; a “Mars tax,” from the use of Mars resources, distributed to all countries; or a reinterpretation of the clause, to designate the creation of space colonies as an intrinsic benefit to the species. That, the authors say, should balance the need for property rights and private investment with shared benefits as humans settle our solar system.

The urgency is real. Martian colonists may be years away, but the legal structure for the private sector to invest in space exploration (and mine asteriods) must be in place to catalyze the investments that will get us there. With that in mind, Congress already passed a commercial space bill, the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, to enable these businesses. It was signed into law last November. It recognizes property claims of US citizens who mine celestial bodies, prevents others from interfering with their activities, and offers liability protection for highly risky spaceflights.

Space lawyer James Dunstan said the bill was designed to reassure entrepreneurs that the “US will recognize claims of property rights of US citizens who go out and mine asteroids…if you expend the resources and go do it, and bring that stuff back, we will agree—recognize it—as your property.” But the scope of the law is narrow. It was criticized by groups like TechFreedom, a libertarian think tank on technology policy, for lacking a way to resolve conflicts and holding the potential to ignite a new space race for territory grabs.

The authors of the Mars governance proposal say that plans by both SpaceX and Mars One may violate the Outer Space Treaty. If so, this gives policy makers about a decade to get things right. Musk said last week that Space X’s plan is to launch Mars missions beginning in 2018 and then every two years or so from there on out. A manned flight would follow during the 2020s. (And NASA is only a decade behind.)

By 2040, Musk expects to see a thriving Martian city and, three decades later, a red planet inhabited by at least 1 million people. He wants to join them and retire on the planet before he turns 100.

By that time, it may not matter what those of us on Earth think. The principle of a society’s right to self-determination, articulated by US president Woodrow Wilson in 1918 in calling for the League of Nations, posited that people are now “dominated and governed only by their own consent.” The right for people to break away from their mother country was affirmed, and entered the annals of international law; more than 80 former colonies have gained independence and joined the United Nations since 1945, as Michael Byers, a political science researcher at the University of British Columbia, noted in a piece for the Washington Post.

In that spirit, a Mars colony should be entitled to independence, and the government of its choosing, if the colonists demand it through a popular vote. “Human rights are universal,” writes Byers. “They apply to every human being, on this planet and elsewhere.”

(credit: Mark Walton)

Oculus has quietly dumped its unpopular checks for Oculus headsets, meaning HTC Vive owners can resume using the popular Revive hack without having to work around DRM. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

Another day, another rumor that Apple is going to ditch the headphone jack on the next iPhone in favor of sending out audio over Lightning. Or another phone beats Apple to the punch by ditching the headphone jack in favor of passing out audio over USB-C. What exciting times for phones! We’re so out of ideas that actively making them shittier and more user-hostile is the only innovation left.

Look, I know you’re going to tell me that the traditional TRS headphone jack is a billion years old and prone to failure and that life is about progress and whatever else you need to repeat deliriously into your bed of old HTC extUSB dongles and insane magnetic Palm adapters to sleep at night. But just face facts: ditching the headphone jack on phones makes them worse, in extremely obvious ways. Let’s count them!

(Also, here is a list of reasons you might actually prefer Lightning headphones, by my friend Vlad Savov, but let’s be clear that my list is the superior one.)

1. Digital audio means DRM audio

Oh look, I won this argument in one shot. For years the entertainment industry has decried what they call the "analog loophole" of headphone jacks, and now we’re making their dreams come true by closing it.

Restricting audio output to a purely digital connection means that music publishers and streaming companies can start to insist on digital copyright enforcement mechanisms. We moved our video systems to HDMI and got HDCP, remember? Copyright enforcement technology never stops piracy and always hurts the people who most rely on legal fair use, but you can bet the music industry is going to start cracking down on "unauthorized" playback and recording devices anyway. We deal with DRM when it comes to video because we generally don’t rewatch and take TV shows and movies with us, but you will rue the day Apple decided to make the iPhone another 1mm thinner the instant you get a "playback device not supported" message. Winter is coming.

2. Wireless headphones and speakers are fine, not great

I am surrounded by wireless speaker systems. (I work at The Verge, after all.) And while they mostly work fine, sometimes they crackle out and fail. It sucks to share a wireless speaker among multiple devices. Bluetooth headphones require me to charge yet another battery. You haven’t known pain until you’ve chosen to use Bluetooth audio in a car instead of an aux jack.

Bluetooth: next year it’ll work great.

3. Dongles are stupid, especially when they require other dongles

Shut up, you say. All of your complaints will be handled by this charming $29 dongle that converts digital audio to a standard headphone jack!

To which I will respond: here is a photo of Dieter Bohn and his beloved single-port MacBook, living his fullest #donglelife during our WWDC liveblog:

Everything is going to be great when you want to use your expensive headphones and charge your phone at the same time. You are going to love everything about that situation. You are going to hold your 1mm thinner phone and sincerely believe that the small reduction in thickness is definitely worth carrying multiple additional dongles.

Also, they’re called fucking dongles. Let’s not do this to ourselves. Have some dignity.

4. Ditching a deeply established standard will disproportionately impact accessibility

The traditional headphone jack is a standard for a reason — it works. It works so well that an entire ecosystem of other kinds of devices has built up around it, and millions of people have access to compatible devices at every conceivable price point. The headphone jack might be less good on some metrics than Lightning or USB-C audio, but it is spectacularly better than anything else in the world at being accessible, enabling, open, and democratizing. A change that will cost every iPhone user at least $29 extra for a dongle (or more for new headphones) is not a change designed to benefit everyone. And you don’t need to get rid of the headphone jack to make a phone waterproof; plenty of waterproof phones have shipped with headphone jacks already.

5. Making Android and iPhone headphones incompatible is so incredibly arrogant and stupid there’s not even explanatory text under this one

6. No one is asking for this

Raise your hand if the thing you wanted most from your next phone was either fewer ports or more dongles.

I didn’t think so. You wanted better battery life, didn’t you? Everyone just wants better battery life.

Vote with your dollars.

High-end headphones for iPhone's lightning port

A giant fluorescent pink slug that only lives on an extinct volcano in New South Wales is under severe threat of global warming.

The bizarre rosy-coloured slug can grow up to 20 centimetres long and lives at Mount Kaputar, 500 kilometres northwest of Sydney, where it has no predators.

But the creatures, which are native to Australia, are under threat as the the temperature on the mountain is boosted, eradicating the damp conditions that allow the creature to thrive.

A giant neon pink slug that lives on an extinct New South Wales volcano has been revealed in amazing pictures

In 2013, The New South Wales Scientific Committee lodged to have the creatures listed under the Threatened Species Conservation Act, The ABC reported. 

But, the committee is still campaigning to have the slug listed as the country's first endangered land snail.

It also hopes to have the ecosystem at the extinct volcano listed under the Endangered Ecological Community.

The neon slugs are thought to date back to Gondwana, the name given to two continents that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent which existed between 180 million years ago.

These two landmasses formed to create Australia.

The hot pink slugs spend the day buried under wet leaves and emerge at night to feed on tree moss.

Locals have long reported sightings of the bizarre pink slug, especially after heavy rainfall, yet taxonomists have only recently confirmed it is the same species as the red triangle slug, officially known as Triboniophorus graeffi. 

Scientists have also been fascinated by the carnivore snail. It also lives atop Mount Kaputar and preys on its vegetarian relatives. 

The hot pink slugs spend the day buried under wet leaves and emerge at night to feed on tree moss

The bizarre rosy-coloured slug can grow up to 20 centimetres long and lives at Mount Kaputar, 500 kilometres northwest of Sydney

Both are thought to have originated in eastern Australia when it was made up of damp rainforests.

Following a volcano eruption around 17 million years ago the area began to dry out and only small pockets of rainforest-style environments remained.

This restricted the areas where these invertebrates could live. 

There is a campaign to have the slug listed as the country's first endangered land snail

Following a volcano eruption around 17 million years ago the area began to dry out and only small pockets of rainforest-style environments remained

Taxonomists have only recently confirmed the giant pink slug is the same species as the red triangle slug (pictured), officially known as Triboniophorus graeffi