The winner’s curse: "The winner of an auction tends to be one of those who form the highest estimate of an item’s value — and hence one of those most at risk of overpaying."
From time to time, in your ordinary exercise of the delights of the online world, you may find yourself accosted by clods. These oafish louts crave your time and attention, but in point of fact, life is short and you have better things to do.
For you, I have created this helpful numbered list of standard responses to online stupidity. When accosted, send the twit here to read the specific numbered response(s) relevant to them. Saves you time; alerts them they’re a jerk, and this is all the response they rate.
Use and enjoy.
I don’t care what you think.
I didn’t ask you.
No doubt you thought that was terribly clever.
You’ve attempted logic. Not all attempts succeed.
One should not have that many errors in that few characters.
Either your educators have failed you, or you have failed them.
I see you’ve invited me to an argument. I decline.
It appears an asshole has hacked your account and is posting in your name.
Funny, most people go out of their way not to be a public bigot.
Cosplaying as a tantrum-throwing child is no way to go through life.
I’m sorry that you are so obviously scared of the world.
My attention is a privilege, not a right. This is all you get.
Ever wondered what Los Santos, the setting of Grand Theft Auto V, would look like if you stripped out the game’s textures, replacing them with shades of black and grey?
Wonder no longer, because artist Kim Laughton has done just that. More images below the fold.
Last week there was a story on TorrentFreak about a copyright monopolist who had gone absolutely insane and sent so-called “takedown notices” to everybody and their brother, from EFF to TOR – basically anybody with a download page.
It’s a complete mystery why this isn’t a criminal behavior. The fact that it isn’t is why it continues and harms innovation, creativity, free speech, and the Internet.
The Swedish Pirate Party had a very clear policy on crimes like this: if you lied about holding an exclusive right to something, the same penalty that would have applied to an infringer of that exclusive right would instead apply to you. This is only fair, after all: you are infringing on the distribution of a creative work by dishonest means.
For repeat offenders, or organizations that committed this crime on a commercial basis or commercial gain, like that idiot record label in the TorrentFreak story – they would be declared criminal organizations and have all their assets seized. The individuals doing so for commercial gain would go to jail for a couple of years.
The thing is, this should not even be contentious. This is how we deal with this kind of criminal act in every – every – other aspect of society. If you lie as part of commercial operations and hurt somebody else’s rights or business, you are a criminal. If you do so repeatedly or for commercial gain, direct or indirect, you’re having your ill-gotten gains seized. This isn’t rocket science. This is standard bloody operating procedure.
The copyright industry goes ballistic at this proposal, of course, and try to portray themselves as rightsless victims – when the reality is that they have been victimizing everybody else after making the entire planet rightsless before their intellectual deforestation.
The irony is that at the same time as the copyright industry opposes such penalties vehemently, arguing that they can make “innocent mistakes” in sending out nastygrams, threats, and lawsuits to single mothers, they are also arguing that the situation with distribution monopolies is always crystal clear and unmistakable to everybody else who deserve nothing but the worst. They can’t have it both ways here.
It’s a matter of incentives, at the end of the day. If there’s no risk at all in lying and causing pain to other people, along with a very small reward, then sociopaths – like those in the copyright industry – will do so at an industrial scale, accompanied by the most Stalinesque of laughters. This is also the behavior we observe now. There must to be a risk associated with willfully lying and causing injury or damage. Today, there isn’t.
And because there isn’t, Google alone receives on the order of thirty million nastygrams per month. Most or all of them automated at the sender’s end. There’s no cost or risk in sending them, after all, and that has to change.
The U.S. DMCA – what a horrible mistake that was – does state that somebody sending a takedown notice does so under penalty of perjury. However, that only applies to the claim of representing the person believing to hold the copyright monopoly to the work; not to the claim of actually holding the exclusive right you claim to hold. A bare legislative minimum would be to extend the penalty of perjury to include the actual – not believed, but actual – holding of the copyright monopoly somebody claims to hold.
The very least you can ask is that committing a crime such as fraudulent exclusive rights carries a risk with it. It’s not rocket science.
About The Author
Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.
One of the biggest inspirations in the Lego space community has been Homeworld, the pair of fleet-building space RTS games from 1999 and 2003. With the gorgeous remastered editions released this past Wednesday, I don’t think there will be a better moment for a quick retrospective on how this incredible franchise has influenced builders over the past decade.
Danny Rice’s Porphyrion wasn’t the first Homeworld inspired build to be posted, but 9 years later it remains one of my all-time favorite MOCs. This masterpiece introduced a number of techniques that changed how SHIPs are built (particularly the use of paneling to create large angled hulls), and remains one of the best spaceships ever made out of Lego.
Many of Rob M’s builds are based around a combination of Homeworld and Japanese model-building, resulting in a glorious fusion of clean hard angles and bright splashes of color. This reimagining of a Taiidan gunship is one of my favorites from him.
Adrian Florea built this fantastically detailed recreation of a Vaygr bomber, using a wide variety of stickers and printed tiles to build what is perhaps one of the most faithful models ever made out of Lego.
These are only a small sampling of my favorites; be sure to check out the Homeworld Lego pool to see more examples.
Finally, a Lego Ideas project was just launched to have official sets produced from the Homeworld franchise, and I’d encourage everyone to support it – it’s a gorgeous game, and it’s directly responsible for pushing the frontier of space building.
Like everything great, Star Wars came within an ass-hair’s width of being total shit. You gotta remember that in the ’70s anyone with a doofy beard and a plaid shirt could shoot a movie just by telling people what to do and not giving them the chance to disagree. It was a magical time.
But through George Lucas’ devotion to an acid flashback he was apparently having for three straight weeks, when production wrapped, he found himself with a masterpiece of celluloid, right?
Nope! Turns out that the first cut of Star Wars was an incomprehensible mess, and it was up to George’s wife and editor, Marcia Lucas, to swoop in and save the day … again.
Actually, Marcia was Lucas’ “muse” through the entire production, if by “muse” you mean “person who had all the good ideas.” It was her idea to kill Obi-Wan (apparently George’s first draft had him just disappearing at one point) and demanded that Lucas keep the “For Luck” kiss scene that would snarl the series up in a knotty mess of incest once the third movie was released. But, most importantly, she’s totally responsible for the Battle of Yavin, also known as The Death Star Trench Run scene, also known as The Part at the End of the Movie Where the Good Guys Win.
Origami artist and chemistry teacher Adam Tram folds some incredibly beautiful objects with paper. From dinosaurs and skeletons to flowers and warriors, it seems nothing is off limits to his folding abilities. Tram is a member of the Vietnam Origami Group, and you can see many more of his pieces on Flickr.
An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Schneier has written another insightful piece about the how modern tech companies treat security. He points out that most organizations will tell you to secure your data while at the same time asking to be exempt from that security. Google and Facebook want your data to be safe — on their servers so they can analyze it. The government wants you to encrypt your communications — as long as they have the keys. Schneier says, "... we give lots of companies access to our data because it makes our lives easier. ... The reason the Internet is a worldwide mass-market phenomenon is that all the technological details are hidden from view. Someone else is taking care of it. We want strong security, but we also want companies to have access to our computers, smart devices, and data. We want someone else to manage our computers and smart phones, organize our e-mail and photos, and help us move data between our various devices. ... We want our data to be secure, but we want someone to be able to recover it all when we forget our password. We'll never solve these security problems as long as we're our own worst enemy.
As NASA's Dawn spacecraft approaches orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, researchers aren't sure what's causing the "bright spots" on its surface. The imaging orbiter snapped the above picture from 29,000 miles (46,000 km) away just last week, but u...
Among the artifacts at the British Museum in London is this ancient Babylonian customer service complaint that was inscribed on a clay tablet sometime around 1750 B.C. The complaint is regarding problems with two shipments of copper ore, as the museum notes in their description:
Clay tablet; letter from Nanni to Ea-nasir complaining that the wrong grade of copper ore has been delivered after a gulf voyage and about misdirection and delay of a further delivery; slightly damaged.
When you came, you said to me as follows : “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!”
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas.
How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.
Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.
Earlier this week photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh was walking along the coast of Nantucket when he noticed something odd about the waves crashing on shore. The high temperature was 19°F (-7.2°C) and while the waves weren’t completely frozen, they were thick with pieces of ice, much like the consistency of a Slurpee, or an slushy, or an ICEE, or whatever. It’s amazing to see how the ice changes the form and color of the waves, making them seem almost solid. You can see a few more shots over on Stay Wild Magazine. You can follow more of Nimerfroh’s photography on Instagram. (thnx, Amber!)
After a successful Kickstarter Campaign, the Dandelion Collective has been producing these gorgeous paper weights made from dried out dandelions and clear resin. Each weed is carefully hand selected, dried, and preserved into a perfectly polished sphere of cast polyester resin, with a small flat base so it doesn’t roll […]
Este precioso ejercicio de diseño minimalista es obra de Arnout Meijer, un diseñador de Amsterdam.
Se llama Get Ready for Launch e imita perfectamente la imagen de un cohete despegando. Tiene un tamaño de 60 cm. de altura y es ideal para ambientar el espacio vital de los más geeks.
Appearing as an oversized red barn, architecture and design studio dRMM‘s Sliding House has a much more complex facade than its doppleganger’s A-frame design. The project encompasses three separate buildings (house, garage, and guest annex), and was built with the intention for the owners to grow food, entertain, and enjoy the landscape from the structure. Each segment of the Suffolk, England property is connected by a 20 ton, motor-driven enclosure which slides up and down the buildings to create constantly changing coverage for the home, and exposes open-air living areas.
An escape from static architecture, the house gives its inhabitants endless options for living comfortably and freely during each season. There is even the option to extend the roofing system beyond its current length to cover a swimming pool if the owners want to add one down the line.
Last week there was a story on TorrentFreak about a copyright monopolist who had gone absolutely insane and sent so-called “takedown notices” to everybody and their brother, from EFF to TOR – basically anybody with a download page. 
As NASA's Dawn spacecraft approaches orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, researchers aren't sure what's causing the "bright spots" on its surface. The imaging orbiter snapped the above picture from 29,000 miles (46,000 km) away just last week, but u...
Super Opinionated.
After a successful Kickstarter Campaign, the Dandelion Collective has been producing these gorgeous paper weights made from dried out dandelions and clear resin. Each weed is carefully hand selected, dried, and preserved into a perfectly polished sphere of cast polyester resin, with a small flat base so it doesn’t roll […]
