If you have a webpage hosted somewhere on feedle.net, please call me ASAP. Dreamhost (one of the companies I use for hosting) has had a database compromise, and they have reset all user logins to new passwords.
Note this does not effect the listserver.
You want to stop the RIAA and MPAA? It’s really this simple.
Stop buying RIAA-produced music. Stop buying movie tickets to MPAA-produced movies. Stop supporting the content industry in general, who produces vapid mind-rotting “culture” and abuses artists and technical people alike.
10% of us doing this would do more to hurt the industry than if every website opposing SOPA/PIPA went dark for a month.
When you think about it, it’s almost comical, because we’re not even aware we won.
“But wait,” I hear you cry, “how can you say we won when Christmas is everywhere.. starting from Halloween until .. well, Christmas Day!”
That’s exactly the point. Christmas has become a one-day holiday for the vast majority of Americans. It’s become the day we travel “over the hills and through the woods” to Grandmas, eat ourselves silly (like we don’t eat ourselves silly the other 364 days of the year), and give thoughtfully mass-produced gifts to one another completely devoid of any deeper meaning other than.. “here.”
If you think about it, all the traditions everybody celebrates on Christmas Day are not Christian. The gifts. The tree. The fire in the fireplace (Yule Log: they didn’t even bother to change the name on that one). The celebration of the birth of the Sun God.
Sorry, that one just leaked out.
But that’s the greater point. In all this talk of the Religious “Right” about a War on Christmas, nobody ever mentions the fact that very few people in the United States celebrate Christmas.. um.. “properly.” I drive around my appropriately festive upper-middle-class neighborhood and I already see my Christian neighbors dismantling the lights outside. It’s not even New Year’s Day yet and one neighbor had already put the tree at the curb for collection by the garbageman.
Don’t They Know It’s Christmas?
Maybe because I grew up in a staunchly proud quasi-German family that held on to the few traditions they felt mattered, but Christmas decorations went up on Christmas Eve (maybe a couple of days before in some cases) and came down on the Twelfth Day of Christmas.
You remember Twelfth Night, right? Surely, you’ve heard.. if not actually sung.. that “Five.. GOOOOOLDEN… RIIIIIINGS!!!!” song. The Twelve Days of Christmas? The Christmas Holiday starts on December 25th (or, in fine Abrahimic tradition, the evening of the day before) and runs for the Twelve Days of Christmas. Each day has some significance in the more orthodox Christian sects, including the Feast of King Wenceslas, ending at Epiphany (the day the “three wisemen came to the manger”) on January 5.
Of course, the entire “Twelfth Night” thing harkens back to Pagan Europe’s traditions of the Lord of Misrule and the traditions of Samhain and Saturnalia.
But the greater point is that Christianity adopted many of the traditions of the pre-Christian peoples of western Europe and adapted them into a wonderful story of their Christ, rich with symbolism, some of which was adopted of course. But some of it was meant to teach Christians what it means to be.. Christian.
And here comes the Religious “Right”, who wants department stores to use the words “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays”, and gets offended when some non-Christian politely asks that we tone down the Jesus stuff, because we’re Not All Christian After All. Meanwhile, the very things they are arguing for serve to only reduce the meaning of Christmas to a secular holiday we celebrate on (or about) the Winter Solstice. None of these Jesus Junkies are out there telling people to go out there and celebrate the Divine Liturgy on the Saturday after Christmas Day, or to invite a (poor) stranger into one’s home for the Feast of King Wenceslas.. the latter being doubly ironic because these same people sing the carol attached to that day without actually listening to the words.
All of that has been lost in all the clearance sales, sports games, Doctor Who specials, and leftovers.
So, congratulations, my fellow Heathens. We won the War on Christmas.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something that I’m sure is likely to be an unpopular opinion amongst people I know.
We have nobody to blame but ourselves for SOPA/PIPA.
For years I’ve watched as the Internet has been a hotbed of blatant copyright infringement. I’m not innocent myself in this, and I acknowledge my role in creating this monster. But at the end of the day, we’re the ones that have given the media industry the tools they need to argue for the blunt force instrument coming from the SOPA and PIPA Acts worming their way through Congress.
Because by in large, those of us who spend our days building the infrastructure of the Internet.. and those of us who act as gatekeepers and moderators on forums.. have played a very tedious game of lip-service to the content industry’s complaints: and we must admit that while some of them are patently (pun intended) ridiculous, there are valid concerns hidden in the industry’s hubris. Some of us (and some way more than others) have made the “I don’t drop the Bomb, I just make it” argument like that really absolves us of any ethical responsibility when the tools we build are used for criminal copyright violations.
We all know what a joke it is to whine “But Usenet.. and Napster.. and BitTorrent.. and RapidShare.. and (insert technology of the week).. all have valid legitimate uses other than copyright infringement!” because no sooner are those words out of our mouths we open up Transmission and grab the latest Doctor Who episode. We have never made any compelling story about what legitimate uses these services have outside the seedy underground of the Internet.. because, well, they don’t have any outside a few fringe groups precisely because most of the use (by bits per second) is violative. How many of you can honestly say that you’ve used BitTorrent to download more open-source software and public domain media vs. “unauthorized copyrighted content?” If the number of peers and seeds of Linux Mint vs. a recent Doctor Who episode is any indication, it’s laughable to even consider this argument.
So, we honestly didn’t expect the content industry to eventually strike back, and strike back hard with all the might that their billions of dollars can bear?
We picked this fight. We had the power in our hands to use the Internet to better ourselves, to create a new society based upon open sharing of knowledge and communication. Instead we used it to download Britney Spears and The Biggest Loser. We created an Information Superhighway, and all we did was use it as a high-speed getaway van.
When the last unfiltered packet is passed along the backbone, we will only have ourselves to blame in the end.
I have a new PGP/GPG key. It should be on all the good servers as 0x89e4f4d9. It’s also ASCII-armored under the cut.
Today, I got this interesting postcard in the mail.
Here in the wild-and-wooly Territory of Clackamas County, we have a levy on property taxes that pays for the Sheriff’s Department. Since I live in the incorporated City of Oregon City, and in an apartment, we can debate how much I really need to care about this issue, at least in the abstract.
But what I find interesting is that the Sheriff’s Department just spent a good chunk of change to tell me they .. um .. need more chunks of change.
Let’s do the math on this one. Clackamas County has (according to the US Census’ 2007 estimate) around 140,000 households. Based upon how this was addressed (“Postal Customer”), it’s pretty safe to assume that this postcard went to every household in Clackamas County, or at least a vast majority of them. (EDIT: it also appeared in my Post Office Box in Milwaukie as well, which tells me that my 140,000-piece estimate is actually a low-ball figure). Let’s assume that the cost of producing the postcards, printing them, and mailing out 140,000 of them ran the Good Sheriff 50¢ per postcard. 140,000x.50=$70,000.
Perhaps a mere drop in the bucket compared to the $10 million the postcard claims will be raised by this levy in the 2013 tax year.
But it does raise the question of where else the Sheriff’s Department is using taxpayer resources in a fashion that might be deemed “questionable,” or at least for purposes other than legitimate law enforcement. $70,000 would pay a significant amount of a rookie deputy’s salary.
Thanks, Sheriff. You just ensured my vote will be “no.” Find a better way of financing your Posse.
Just a quick note on something I just observed. Google is getting better and better at the sort of UI tweaks that I’ve come to expect from Apple. Maybe Google did this months ago and it was just so subtle that I just now noticed it, but if you look at the “mode change” box in the upper right hand corner of Google Maps, it acts as a lens showing you exactly what’s there: see my example, where you can see the corner of the Oregon Convention Center and MLK Blvd. in the box.
Really cool, guys.
I really want to be wrong with where I’m going with this entry. However, I fear that I am more correct than even I realize.
Let me start by saying I in principal agree with most of the points that seem to be proffered by many of those protesting in our nation’s cities. I’m heartened to see many of the younger generation finally starting to “get it”: that corporations have too much power, and that the cornerstone of our Republic has been so compromised that change is needed.
That change needed to happen before September 11, 2001. It just can’t happen now.
This war you are fighting was lost a century ago when corporations were declared “persons” not by an act of Congress, nor by Presidential decree, but by a series of court decisions and even more centuries of legal precedent. Our entire society has been based upon this bit of legal wrangling. It’s not just as simple as declaring it “not to be true.” Corporations exist for a reason, and many corporations use their legal “personhood” to do much public good.
Case in point. Occupy Portland began their march today in the shadow of MercyCorps “corporate headquarters”, on the site of the old Skidmore Fountain Market. As I look at the live feed of the video, I wonder how many people.. many of whom are literally LEANING on this very building, are aware of how much “corporate personhood” allows MercyCorps to do what they do. I don’t even understand many of the legal implications, let alone understand what I do know well enough to explain them to someone else.
Do you really want this corporation to cease to exist?
The American Red Cross provides much in humanitarian aid to not only those affected by large-scale natural disasters, but small personal ones as well. The blood services they provide alone have saved countless lives. I have my disagreements with how the Red Cross is often run, but that does not stop me from acknowledging the greater good they do to society as a whole.
Do you really want this corporation to cease to exist?
For good or bad, much public infrastructure depends on the legal infrastructure of the corporation. There isn’t a communications technology invented in the past 200 years that could have existed WITHOUT the corporation. The Pony Express (the United States Postal Service is, in actuality, a corporation owned by the US Government), the telegraph and the railroads that it was built along side of, the telephone (and the telegraph network it supplanted), cellular telephones (which by their very nature requires a very tightly integrated network that would be financially impossible to build by a private individual on the scale required for blanket coverage [Side note that ties this together: Did you know that Sprint was, at one point, part of the Southern Pacific Railroad?]), and the Internet (which requires some of the same infrastructure as much of the above). All of these very “democratizing” forms of communication REQUIRE a corporation to make happen.
Do you really think the government (who is likely the only entity who could effectively manage and control all these resources effectively) would do any better?
Banks exist for a reason. We can argue that reason until we’re blue in the face, but the reality is we could no more switch off the Federal Reserve System tomorrow if we wanted to. Even if we decided, as a nation, that the short term economic destruction was worth it.. it just couldn’t happen. Small-scale reforms? Maybe. But even then, any significant changes to our financial system would likely have huge repercussions that nobody would understand. Nobody. Anybody who says otherwise is either lying, mentally deranged, or just simply an idiot.
We can all shift our money to Credit Unions. There are implications to that. Also, as auxiliary members of the Federal Reserve System, you aren’t really changing much. The money you deposit into a credit union will often find it’s way right back into Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, or any one of the Big Banks We All Hate. As an example, did you know that if your credit union is a member of the CU Service Center network, when you deposit at a CU Service Center the transaction is actually “cleared” via accounts held at Citibank? (CLUE: Why do you think VCOM machines at Seven-11 are both Citibank ATMs and CU Service Center locations?)
There’s no wonder that conspiracy theories abound in this environment. Everybody has blood on their hands.
Everybody.
Which is why nothing will change. Here’s a fact that many of you who are protesting don’t understand. That 99% vs. 1% dichotomy you keep parroting? It isn’t that simple. Most of us in that 99% depend on that 1% for our paychecks. Most of us in that 99% depend on that 1% to keep our money, our streets, and our homes safe through insurance and bank accounts. Most of us in that 99% depend on that 1% for what little heath care one can get without the aforementioned job and/or insurance.
At the end of the day, most of that 99% lives in relative comfort. Most of us live in peace. Some of us are old, frail, and/or sick and would quite literally die if society were to collapse tomorrow. A few of us fear for the Republic if things continue the way they are.
But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, if tomorrow the corporation ceased to exist, I’d be dead within a week.
Is that what you really want?
Apple’s announcements yesterday? Color me unimpressed.
And another thing. All the analysts that are calling the Kindle Fire “not an iPad killer” are totally missing the point. If the Kindle Fire does 80% of what an iPad can do and costs 40% of the price, it is an iPad killer.
Just like Android hasn’t been an iPhone killer.
Ouch.
OK all. I’m going to spam a few specific people who had expressed interest, but I also wanted to post this publicly as well.
Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire in Kings Valley, Oregon is September 10-11, 2011, and I need your help!
Last year, I inherited a rough job: I became the Guildmaster Pro Tempore of the Artyfactors’ Guild. We’re the guild that is responsible for the Faire getting built. We also do a bunch of other neat things, including operating the Water Dragon Maze, and this year a few little surprises which will be announced later..
All in all, it’s a wonderfully fun job. We have a good time playing with power tools for pre-faire/post-faire. We get to chase kids around the maze during Faire. We get to camp out at Faire site, and trust me: there’s no better experience than being at a Faire site after we kick the patrons out.
I NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS. I’m working on filling out my daily schedule for all the tasks that need to be performed, and I’m running very short on manpower I can depend upon. I know there’s a lot of wonderful people in my friendship circle who’ve never been to a Renaissance Faire, but might be interested in going. What better way to come to a Renaissance Faire than as a volunteer? You’ll get the total behind-the-scenes experience. You’ll be living, at least for 48 hours, in an Elizabethan English village with colorful people. You’ll be able to know that you had a hand in creating an experience for the general public: by your very presence!
There are a few rules. We will need to get you a reasonably period costume, if you don’t have one already. That we can arrange. We’ll also need to get you to Kings Valley, Oregon. That we can also likely arrange with carpooling, if you live in or around the Portland Metro (or can get there) to Corvallis. If you have a sleeping bag, we can arrange a tent for you to share with others (the Artyfactors have a guild hall behind the scenes).
There will be food. There will be fellowship. I can also guarantee a lifetime of memories. Volunteering for Shrewsbury has been one of the highlights of my life, and one that I can’t wait to share with you. If you have physical limitations, we still have jobs that need to be done. If you think you can’t, believe me .. you can.
Call me ASAP at 503-451-0714, and we’ll get your adventure started.
