I’d really like to think that most of the readers here to not only get – but find terribly interesting – the things Clay Shirky talks about here. No point in quoting it. Just read it.
Category: Society Page 47 of 69
And despite this good Texas GOP delegate’s wishes, I’d like to keep it that way, thanks.
And yes, I mean yours. You are probably aware of the recent Associated Press-instigated skirmish, and if not, well, here’s a mostly decent summary. The short version is that AP threatened small web sites with lawsuits for quoting the headlines and ledes of some of its stories. While the the AP is being fairly aggressive about it (pushing for a licensing fee to quote up to 25 words of any AP story) right now, I suspect they’ll find that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. But this story is just another reminder of where we’re heading. Nielsen Hayden gets to the quick of it:
Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.
Welcome to a world in which you won’t own any of your technology or your music or your books, because ensuring that someone makes their profit margins will justify depriving you of the even the most basic, commonsensical rights in your personal, hand-level household goods.
The people pushing for this stuff are not well-meaning, and they are not interested in making life better for artists, writers, or any other kind of individual creators. They are would-be aristocrats who fully intend to return us to a society of orders and classes, and they’re using so-called “intellectual property†law as a tool with which to do it. Whether or not you have ever personally taped a TV show or written a blog post, if you think you’re going to wind up on top in the sort of world these people are working to build, you are out of your mind.
If you think he (and I) are overreacting, look a little deeper into what’s going on with our information infrastructure.  The network is transforming to enable pervasive monitoring and technical control over content, the control over that network is consolidating into a group that appears to be more willing to adopt common policies, and the laws are being rewritten to criminalize any attempts to avoid the exercise of this emerging control. That chokehold by a few may not matter to you (or at all) when it’s the next Miley Cyrus single, but it certainly should when we’re talking about the details of the next corruption scandal or natural disaster response.
Next time you need something important, remember to avoid this place:
When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, [Virginia] the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.
That’s because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John’s and a Kmart, will be a “pro-life pharmacy” — meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.
I wonder if the “pharmacist” will query purchasers about their sexual practices beforehand, and refuse to sell Claritin to someone that had sex the night before, but not for the primary purpose of procreation. WWMPD?
One of the most interesting graphics you’ll see this year.
I’m a pretty reliable defender of DC’s Metro system. The people that bitch about it either 1) don’t use it, 2) have never used another metro system in the US, or 3) are from NYC. Which means that its critics have no standing, by definition. But that defense got a little harder this week – a couple of near-shutdowns of the Orange line in VA this week, and apparently the Red Line is a complete clusterf(@k at this very moment. And who’s the only person in VA really trying to do something about this? Outgoing Rep. Tom Davis(R). Strange days. C’mon, Jim.
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SciFi site io9 asks William Gibson questions no one else does, and gets interesting answers as a result (imagine that):
None of us ever live in dystopia. That’s an imaginary extreme. They just live in shitty cultures. And these societies [in my books] seem dystopian to middle class white people in North America. They don’t seem dystopian if you live in Rio or anywhere in Africa. Most people in Africa would happily immigrate to the Sprawl.
I don’t think a writer can hit the dystopic key without being misanthropic. I’m actually not misanthropic. I think people are capable of wonderful things. I’m quite fond of them and enjoy their company.
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Speaking of Wonderful Things, the Directory Of pointed us to this gem yesterday:
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The New York Times is running a series on the them of American Exceptionalism, and this article on the near-absolutist take on free speech is excellent. I want to write more about that, but I thought I’d throw up the link now, lest it get lost in the ever-growing pile of drafts around here.
There was a hit and run in Hartford, CT yesterday last week, where a 78 year old man was hit by a car crossing a double yellow line. Sad for the individual involved, but not normally noteworthy. Except there’s a video that illustrates something much worse than the accident itself. Nobody did a goddamn thing to help him. Watch, if you can:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_E3ldpFbjo[/youtube]
Jesus christ. And keep this in mind the next time someone needs help, but you think that someone else will step in.
I’d like to start out this Friday Note with a special go to hell shoutout to whichever sad soul on the planet it was that decided to use spoofed blacknell.net return addresses for what must have been an *enormous* batch of spam. Starting late Sunday night, I’ve been getting thousands upon thousands of bounce/spam filter messages, through which I have to sift to find my own mail. I’ve found most of it. I think. But anyway – die in a fire, please. And if anyone reading this is wondering why I ignored your email this week, this is probably why.
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Steve Thurston’s most excellent hyperlocal blog The BuckinghamHeraldTrib is going on hiatus for the summer. He’s been turning out a quality site for a while now, and I can’t imagine how much time that must have been taking. A big loss to the rest of us, but we all need breaks sometime. Thanks, Steve, and I look forward to seeing it pick back up in the fall. In the meantime, if any of you have ever been tempted to keep a blog focused on your own community, go over and check out what Steve’s done.
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Bruce Schneier, as usual, nails it. This time it’s about “The War on Photography“:
Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.
Yep.
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The 1979 published Disco Handbook is now free for all to partake in its wisdom. From the glossary:
Camp. An ever-changing measure of hipness. Something so bad it’s funny is camp, but something that tries to hard to be funny and fails, is not. Going to camp is not camp, but reliving your camp experiences can be. Camping, as an activity, isn’t camp at all.
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And while we’re talking about amusing, newish cooking blog Veggin‘ explains the vegans’ reaction to the news that Canadian KFC’s will soon be offering a vegan option on its menu.
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Finally, good luck to Gwadzilla and all the other DC locals heading out to race at Big Bear this weekend. Wish I could be there.
Interesting discussion starting off over at Vivian Paige’s place. Check it out.