As it did recently with Chris Farley, The Second City released some clips of Amy Poehler in her pre-fame years, back when she was just an improv student with a ’90s wardrobe. The video showcases a never-before-seen pilot about subversive hackers working out of an RV. Written by Tom Gianas and Adam McKay, RVTV stars Poehler, Matt Dwyer, and improv legend Del Close as computer whizzes who spend their days hacking into the NRA supercomputer, masturbating to Janet Reno, and threatening to “digitize” their viewers in order to interrupt Dan Rather.
RVTV was apparently shot for a week in Toronto in 1995 (it shows), and it’s nearly impossible to tell how much of this is intentionally funny (it doesn’t help that the full pilot is cut down to a three-minute Poehler reel). However, it does feature an early glimpse of the freestyle rap skills Poehler would later show ...
This story is a few months old, but it serves as a reminder of how the entire horrible thing was created and perpetuated. This was never about anything other than harassing and attacking people.
"A set of IRC logs released Saturday appear to show that a handful of 4chan users were ultimately behind #GamerGate, the supposedly grass-roots movement aimed at exposing ethical lapses in gaming journalism. The logs show a small group of users orchestrating a ‘hashtag campaign’ to perpetuate misogynistic attacks by wrapping them in a debate about ethics in gaming journalism."
Remember, if you’re on the same side as Adam Baldwin, you’re on the wrong side.
How can you tell what's real, in a world where huge industries, governments and religions are all trying to force-feed you manufactured realities? Philip K. Dick sums up the challenges of detecting reality in a world that resembles Disneyland, in this great 1978 quote.
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.
bizwriter writes University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47 percent of total U.S. jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033. That now includes occupations once thought safe from automation, AI, and robotics. Such positions as journalists, lawyers, doctors, marketers, and financial analysts are already being invaded by our robot overlords. From the article: "Some experts say not to worry because technology has always created new jobs while eliminating old ones ones, displacing but not replacing workers. But lately, as technology has become more sophisticated, the drumbeat of worry has intensified. 'What’s different now?' asked Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at market research firm Outsell. 'The pace of technology advancements plus the big data phenomenon lead to a whole new level of machines to perform higher level cognitive tasks.' Translated: the old formula of creating more demanding jobs that need advanced training may no longer hold true. The number of people needed to oversee the machines, and to create them, is limited. Where do the many whose occupations have become obsolete go?"
During Monday's Cybersecurity for a New America conference in DC, Yahoo's Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos stood up and had an intense verbal showdown with NSA director Mike Rogers about the NSA's plan to ban working crypto, in which the nation's top spook fumfuhed and fumbled to explain how this idea isn't totally insane.
Alex Stamos (AS): “Thank you, Admiral. My name is Alex Stamos, I’m the CISO for Yahoo!. … So it sounds like you agree with Director Comey that we should be building defects into the encryption in our products so that the US government can decrypt…
Mike Rogers (MR): That would be your characterization. [laughing]
AS: No, I think Bruce Schneier and Ed Felton and all of the best public cryptographers in the world would agree that you can’t really build backdoors in crypto. That it’s like drilling a hole in the windshield.
MR: I’ve got a lot of world-class cryptographers at the National Security Agency.
AS: I’ve talked to some of those folks and some of them agree too, but…
MR: Oh, we agree that we don’t accept each other's premise. [laughing]
AS: We’ll agree to disagree on that. So, if we’re going to build defects/backdoors or golden master keys for the US government, do you believe we should do so — we have about 1.3 billion users around the world — should we do for the Chinese government, the Russian government, the Saudi Arabian government, the Israeli government, the French government? Which of those countries should we give backdoors to?
MR: So, I’m not gonna… I mean, the way you framed the question isn’t designed to elicit a response.
AS: Well, do you believe we should build backdoors for other countries?
MR: My position is — hey look, I think that we’re lying that this isn’t technically feasible. Now, it needs to be done within a framework. I’m the first to acknowledge that. You don’t want the FBI and you don’t want the NSA unilaterally deciding, so, what are we going to access and what are we not going to access? That shouldn’t be for us. I just believe that this is achievable. We’ll have to work our way through it. And I’m the first to acknowledge there are international implications. I think we can work our way through this.
AS: So you do believe then, that we should build those for other countries if they pass laws?
MR: I think we can work our way through this.
AS: I’m sure the Chinese and Russians are going to have the same opinion.
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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 […]
The London is Changing project collects the personal stories of professional people who are leaving the city because it has been remade as a playground for the global rich.
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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 […]
