It would appear that when a subject is sufficiently peripheral to policymakers, slow incumbent industries can get whatever repressive and counterproductive policy they want, even in the face of overwhelming public opinion to the opposite for about 40 years.
In 1968, at the height of the hippie movement when everybody and their brother were doing joints, everybody and their brother were equally convinced cannabis would be legal in just a few years. How could it not be?
Twenty years later, in 1990, the war on certain species of plants was harsher than ever before.
Around 1995, at the dawn of file-sharing with ZModem over BBS networks and early dialup, and even more so with the advent of Napster a few years later, everybody and their brother were convinced copyright monopoly laws needed to be updated to reflect reality – like you unceremoniously adjust a map to the observed factual terrain. It was deemed to be a couple of years out, five years tops.
Here we are, twenty years later, and utterly insane corporate power grabs in the name of TPP, TTIP, and TISA are being cooked, while policitians remain dangerously clueless on the matter. Meanwhile, respect for the copyright monopoly as a law is considerably lower than the respect for speed limits.
The pattern here is that while the delusion and the disconnect remains active, punishments become increasingly harsher as policymakers desperately try to align the terrain with the map in their delusional heads, kind of how a military force with a bad mapmaker need to use an ever-increasing amount of explosives to fix the terrain instead of the map.
This goes on until the system comes down, until the hypocrisy ends, until people just stop pretending.
Slow cracks in the facade start appearing before the 40 years are up and you hit some sort of tipping point: in 1992, Bill Clinton famously said that he had smoked cannabis, but defended himself saying he “didn’t inhale”, as if that somehow made it politically acceptable in the eyes of the vested interests.
In 2007, a full fifteen years later, Barack Obama said “of course I inhaled, that was the point”, and didn’t try to excuse himself in the slightest. That was forty years after 1968. (Well, 39.)
The pattern here is that the people with crazy delusions of entitlement, such as the copyright industry, simply take forty years to die, so those ideas get naturally erased from the group and the population at large. This is not a new pattern; it is present as early as the Christian/Jewish/Muslim sacred texts, when Moses led a bunch of people from Egypt to the Levant, which according to said texts took 40 years.
Now, it doesn’t take 40 years to walk from Egypt to the Levant. It takes two months to walk westward from the Levant across all of Europe, and Egypt is one-tenth that distance. The only way to make it take 40 years is to walk around in the desert at random, making 40 years of time pass.
We’ve frequently said that the current idiocy will solve itself once the people of the net generation come into the string-pulling positions of power, but that’s still some time out, and we gotta hold the barricades against dark-black dystopia until then. If we’re extrapolating 40 years from Napster, that puts us about 2040. People with the most political power are usually 50-60 years old, which means they will have been born in 1980-1990: the net arrived when they were in their late childhood to early teens. The people born in this time understand the net, and they have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for the parasitic copyright industry swimming in its despicable and damaging delusions of entitlement.
But should we really have to wait another 25 years for the blatantly and painfully obvious to become apparent to policymakers? Can’t we use, you know, this Internet thing to make ideas move just a little faster today?
As a complete side note, another plant was banned earlier in history with the roughly same pattern and the same arguments. The plant was coffee.
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.
Celibacy is a behavior that almost certainly isn’t genetic in the first place. It’s more of a choice, strongly shaped by culture.
Traits that are deleterious to reproduction can get transmitted easily if they’re recessive.
You can get pregnant even if you don’t enjoy sex, and even if you are firmly committed to never having sex. Has he never heard of rape?
But really, the biggest problem here is that he’s echoing a pernicious fallacy that’s used to demonize all kinds of behavior. Haven’t you ever heard a wingnut complain that homosexuality is unnatural and can’t possibly have a genetic basis, because gays can’t reproduce? It’s the same argument. And it’s wrong.
While some great things happen on the platform, Kickstarters aren’t widely covered here on TF. There are an awful lot of them and most in our niche rarely grow into anything noteworthy.
Today, however, we’re going to make an exception because if this particular project takes off, it’s going to blow up – probably in the most spectacular way.
“What if you had an unlimited access to the LARGEST ONLINE MOVIE LIBRARY EVER? A community based library, where you could watch any movie online. A library where you could swap films with contributors all over the world and discover an infinite number of stories. This is the revolutionary idea behind MovieSwap,” the Kickstarter begins.
MovieSwap, should it get off the ground, will be a subscription service, presumably a little like Netflix. However, instead of teaming up with studios and distributors to offer content, MovieSwap intends to take the idea of swapping a physical DVD with friends to its logical, Internet-powered conclusion.
Noting that more than 25 billion DVDs have been sold in the past 15 years, MovieSwap wants to take this dying format and breathe new life into it.
“Because people already PAID for them, we invented a fair way to give [DVDs] a brilliant second life,” the promo material reads. But how? Well, this is where it gets interesting.
MovieSwap says it will collect millions of genuine DVDs from all over the world and register them with the service on behalf of their owners. The team claims to already have 200,000 in its warehouse.
Once in their possession, MovieSwap will digitize/rip the DVDs and place them in the cloud for members to play on any device, anywhere. But that’s not all.
“Then, just like you can legally lend, swap, or offer a DVD to a friend, MovieSwap works in the same way, but on a much larger scale thanks to its remote playback technology,” the team says.
“Additionally, users can get the full DVD experience including bonuses, deleted scenes, director’s commentaries, and other unique features not available when streaming videos online.”
According to the MovieSwap team, the service will be available on PC, Mac, Android tablets and even on a Firestick-style HDMI Android dongle. Interestingly the PC version will utilize VLC Media Player to read DVDs “over the Internet”, with VLC’s president Jean-Baptiste Kempf already on record as financially backing the project.
Hats off to the MovieSwap team for having the guts to put together something as innovative as this. It’s not only a brilliant use for a dying format but also an excellent way to make use of already-paid-for content that people have lying around their homes. There’s no doubt that the public will absolutely love this service.
Trouble is, Hollywood will hate MovieSwap in similar measures and at the first opportunity will begin torching it to the ground.
Somehow, however, MovieSwap insist they’re on solid ground. They have an intellectual property graduate on board and they believe that their business model is entirely legal.
“MovieSwap is also strongly advised and based its approach on a fully legal basis, combining two legal concepts known as ‘first sale doctrine’ and ‘fair use’,” they state.
At the moment MovieSwap has a 35,000 euro funding goal and at the time of writing they’re only 5,000 euros short. While that might be enough to get them off the ground, it won’t be enough to fight an even moderately bitter fight with Hollywood, even if they were to spend all of it on lawyers.
This seems like a classic case of brilliant minds running wild in order to create a service that everyone will love, but also one that’s a prime candidate for a messy legal battle that enriches only the lawyers. This is definitely one to watch, in every sense of the word.
Large-scale LEGO car builders never cease to amaze with their dedication to realism. Greg_998 specializes in Porsche racecars, and his Le Mans Porsche 962 is breathtaking. Not simply a plastic shell, the well-sculpted bodywork hides a host of details below, such as a fully detailed engine compartment and a fittingly spartan interior.
Not content with just the 1980s’ 962, Greg has built a several generations of Porsche racing.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of services, has warned that if the FBI wins its case and can force Apple to produce custom software to help break into locked phones, there’s nothing in principle that would stop it from seeking similar orders for custom firmware to remotely spy on users through their phones’ cameras and microphones.
Security services around the world have already bought and used commercial products to do just that, but those products were produced by third parties who leveraged defects in devices’ programs to install spyware. If the All Writs Act can compel the production of custom, signed software, then law enforcement could ask courts to order anycustom functionality – covert camera operation, location spying, plundering of storage at a distance.
What’s more, if they can order Apple to do this, why not other companies with software-based devices? Nest could be ordered to turn off a customer’s thermostat, or crank it to 110’. Chrysler could be ordered to update its Jeeps to reinstate the bug that lets Internet-based attackers drive cars off the road. HP could get orders to update its printers to send copies of all your documents to law enforcement. When you have field-updatable smart devices literally up your wazoo, the sky(net)’s the limit.
My favorite part is how it's written BELOW the picture.
I almost want this baker to be color blind, just so s/he has *some* excuse.
Fortunately the baker of this wedding cake followed instructions literally:
See? She *did* write it!
Thanks to Robert B., Tenae Z. & Kate L. for falling victim to one the classic blunders. Just remember, guys: never go against a Simpleton when CAKE is on the line! HAHA HA HAHAH AHAH HA... [thud]
Oops.
*****
Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK,Canada.
Aryeh Cohen-Wade had a scathing indictment of the GOP’s complicity in creating Trump and the current clown car of fail in their primary.
The whole thing is brilliant, but this: “They all know they can make a lot of $$$ by fooling frightened elderly white people–the raison d'être of Fox News.“
This is the crux of it. The GOP treats its base like marks in a long con, and Trump is the ultimate conman. He’s beaten them at their own game. He is the match that lit the trash pile they’ve been pouring gasoline on for 40 years.
The controversial “Yelp for People” app, Peeple, has launched today for iOS users (their site touts a nauseatingly sanguine “Character is Destiny” tagline). For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, here is the app in the creator’s words:
“Peeple is a positivity app for positive people that allows you to leave or receive recommendations in the following 3 Categories: Professional, Personal, and Dating.”
OK, that seems harmless at first glance. It’s like that Community episode about the rating app “MeowMeowBeenz.” That went over really well, right? Here are a few potentially problematic situations Ella Dawson discussed when the app was first announced:
“There are a bunch of possible alarming scenarios in which this technology can be abused. What if you’re not publicly “out” as anything other than straight, and your ex writes a positive review outing your sexual or gender identity to your co-workers? What if you’ve changed your name to avoid an ex who still has your number, and they use the app to find your new identity and stalk you? What if you expose the harassment of one of your superiors at work and they use this app to get revenge by sullying your reputation?”
The creators claim they’ve taken such feedback under consideration, in an interview with Entrepeneur.com:
“The first change is that it’s 100 percent opt-in. You have to actually sign up to our platform to be on it and no one can actually add you to the platform. You also have full control over what goes live on your profile.
[…]
You can now also deactivate your profile. Deactivating will remove any activity that you’ve ever done, as well as any activity that’s ever been written about you.”
That doesn’t seem so bad. The app is completely opt-in, and you have complete control over what gets posted on your profile. So people who really want to use this, can – and if you don’t, simply don’t opt in! If someone sends you negative or inaccurate feedback, just hide it from your profile.
Nope.
Let’s talk first about Peeple’s “opt-in only” policy. This part is accurate, in so much as you won’t have a profile unless you sign up. However, anyone who has your phone number can write a review about you and then use the app send you a request to sign up:
“If the person you are searching for is not in the app you can still write a recommendation for them. Afterwards you will get the option to invite them to join Peeple. Their recommendations never go live without their permission.”
Your stalker whose phone number you blocked? They can send you a text now. Abusive ex? Can spam you with notifications now. From what I can see, there’s no way to opt out of this. You may be able to block Peeple’s text messaging number, but if they use more than one, this doesn’t do much good. (UPDATE: The text messages are sent using the reviewer’s phone number, meaning if you have their number blocked, you won’t get the text or see the review)
Maybe you don’t have to worry about that – lucky you! After all, you can hide any feedback you want from your profile. Not so fast. In an interview with the Calgary Herald, co-founder Julia Cordray describes an upcoming paid feature (the horrifically titled “truth license”) that would allow paid subscribers to see any review they want:
But a planned future paid subscription Cordray called the “truth license” — not available for Monday’s launch — will let users see all reviews, even hidden ones.
“If a mom wants to look up a coach for her kids, she can see all the amazing things on that person’s profile, but maybe there’s some areas of improvement for that person,” explained Cordray.
“So when the mom upgrades to the truth license, she’ll be able to see all the recommendations on the back-end that the coach never published on their profile.”
Funny that they wouldn’t mention this splendid upcoming feature on their website’s FAQs:
“Peeple is a free-to-download app and does not currently offer in-app purchases.”
Overall, Peeple has listened & made some small steps toward making their app harder to use as a tool of harassment. But unfortunately, it isn’t nearly enough. Even if you find the app’s uses palatable right now (I don’t), the talk of “truth licenses” gives users no confidence that Peeple won’t make future updates that drastically change how their community operates.
Right now, your best option is to not opt-in at all. I would also go one step further, and say that you shouldn’t even download the app out of morbid curiosity. Opting in or downloading the app gives the creators undeserved acceptance – especially in the eyes of their investors. The creators aren’t really listening, and I don’t expect that to change. After all, few people listen when there’s a profit to be made – even when the profit is happening on the backs of the marginalized.
by Claire Lower on Skillet, shared by Andy Orin to Lifehacker
One of the most attractive things a person can do is make something that is usually thought of as “store-bought.” Even though whipped cream is one of the easiest things you can make in the kitchen, I still encounter people who are amazed at the freshly whipped stuff. Whipped cream is great, but if you really want to blow someone’s mind, make something a little fancier, like fresh butter, crème fraîche, or compound butter.
An interesting discussion of the physics of space battles brings up a lot of good points — those science-fantasy movies with spaceships flitting about ignore a lot of basic physics. Star Wars was basically WWI biplanes whirling around at speeds under 60kph, which is kind of ridiculous. But fun.
This article points out that that’s not how things would play out if ever there were a real space battle. The ships would have to obey physics and orbital mechanics, and there would be a priority on speed and acceleration and rapid maneuvers; also, explosions are kind of useless in a vacuum. So he talks about using big gyroscopes to whip mostly spherical ships around, and they’d be zooming about in complex spirals to take advantage of gravity wells.
But then he talks about crews.
I’m assuming that we’d have some intrepid members of the United Earth Space Force crewing these combat vessels. Or, at least, crewing some of them – robotic drone fighters would be a tremendous boon to space soldiers, but the communication lag between planets and vessels in orbit would make the split-second judgments of humans necessary at times.
Nah, I don’t believe it. In space battles, you’re talking about tremendous velocities, where maneuvers would slam the pilots with huge g forces. Even our atmosphere-bound fighter aircraft have problems with the limitations of the human body. How can you equip your Star Destroyer with massive gyroscopes that can flip it end over end in seconds, and not realize that using it would snap necks and turn your crew into bloody slime splattered over their cockpits?
I also don’t buy the stuff about needing the “split-second judgments of humans”. Human brains are slow. It takes us milliseconds to seconds to just absorb simple sensory output — we’re operating with a built-in lag that we don’t notice because your consciousness can’t notice that something already happened until your consciousness notices. So if the outcome of your battle depends on things only happening fast enough for human brains to process them, you’ll be dead when the ruthless cybernetic death machine swivels 10 times faster than a gooey animal body can handle, and decides to fire in microseconds, long before you perceive the new situation.
If our technology ever gets to the point where space battles can become a reality, it will also have reached a point where humans are no longer able to compete on the battle field.
“The Trump phenomenon threatens the con the G.O.P. establishment has been playing on its own base. I’m talking about the bait and switch in which white voters are induced to hate big government by dog whistles about Those People, but actual policies are all about rewarding the donor class.
What Donald Trump has done is tell the base that it doesn’t have to accept the whole package. He promises to make America white again — surely everyone knows that’s the real slogan, right? — while simultaneously promising to protect Social Security and Medicare, and hinting at (though not actually proposing) higher taxes on the rich. Outraged establishment Republicans splutter that he’s not a real conservative, but neither, it turns out, are many of their own voters.”
Michael Shermer, famed skeptic and alleged creep, is apparently supporting Donald Trump during this year’s Presidential Election. When recently interviewed on KRCW, an NPR affiliate, he had this to say:
“Things I like about Donald Trump? First of all, this idea of deal-making. And not providing, say, a 14-point plan on every single thing he’s gonna do. Well, as he points out, and this is true, like the boxer who has a plan for every round of the 12-round match, and then gets punched in the nose in the first ten seconds and that’s the end of his strategy.”
Shermer is basically quoting convicted rapist Mike Tyson here:
“People were asking me [before a fight], ‘What’s going to happen?,’ ” Tyson said. “They were talking about his style. ‘He’s going to give you a lot of lateral movement. He’s going to move, he’s going to dance. He’s going to do this, do that.’ I said, “Everybody has a plan until they get hit. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.’ “
It would almost be hilarious that a supposed intellectual thinker can’t handle a 14-point plan to some of our country’s most complex problems. Of course, it isn’t hilarious, because Donald Trump is a terrifying blight upon humanity that thinks Muslims should be banned from the United States (EDIT: his supporters also think LGBT people should be banned from the U.S., but Trump has not yet commented on this proposal).
Here’s how ridiculous Shermer’s “reasoning” sounds when you apply to other contexts: “I’m being accused of murder, so I sought legal advice from one of the best lawyers in the world. He had a really complex 14-point strategy to help me clear my name, but it was just too much. Instead, I’m hiring my racist uncle – he really tells it like it is!” I’m curious what Shermer thinks about Trump’s positions on climate change & gun control, given that Shermer has somehow managed to make sense on those topics in the past. Oh who am I kidding – it doesn’t matter! What matters is that Trump has no plan – and that’s a good thing.
He also called Trump’s braggadocio and speaking style, “kind of charming and amusing” and said it’s good that Trump is “not very religious.” Great! Trump’s Islamophobia will fit right in with organized atheism’s. Maybe Trump can speak at the next Reason Rally.
All of this is literally only surprising if you haven’t been paying attention to what a shitshow organized skepticism is. It makes perfect sense that someone with Shermer’s reputation would support the carrot-colored man-baby who thinks it’s okay to call Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig” and can’t handle the concept that women have to use the restroom. R.I.P., what’s left of organized skepticism!
Update: Apparently Michael Shermer totes doesn’t support Trump! He just says a lot of positive things about him – because reasons!
This jade green goblet looks red when lit from behind.
The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind—a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s. The mystery wasn’t solved until 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt. The exact mixture of the precious metals suggests the Romans knew what they were doing—“an amazing feat,” says one of the researchers, archaeologist Ian Freestone of University College London.
Someone else’s comment: “Donald Trump is a Ferengi whose lobes are abnormally small. That’s why Trump came to Earth, it was the only way he could be successful. He wears risers to avoid suspicion, and a toupee (of course) to conceal his head’s uncanny resemblance to asscheeks.”
The armrest of the aisle seat might seem like it can’t be raised, but appearances can be deceiving. Many aisle seats have a hidden button or lever that will let you raise the armrest.
It would appear that when a subject is sufficiently peripheral to policymakers, slow incumbent industries can get whatever repressive and counterproductive policy they want, even in the face of overwhelming public opinion to the opposite for about 40 years.
While some great things happen on the platform, Kickstarters aren’t widely covered here on TF. There are an awful lot of them and most in our niche rarely grow into anything noteworthy.
