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See more of my shots from this summer’s Mike Watt gig on Flickr.
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In the wake of the SOPA/PIPA furore, up bubbles ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which, as Forbes reports, contains provisions “just as pernicious as anything we saw in SOPA” and has already been signed or ratified by most of the developed world.
What are the consequences? Well, aside from enforcing food and drug patents that are crippling to the developing world, which is bad enough, the agreement also “bypasses the sovereign laws of participating nations, forcing ISPs across the globe to adopt [its] draconian measures.” Oy vey.
If you thought SOPA would break the internet, ACTA is much worse. And it could become law across the global economy without so much as a murmur of opposition.
That’s just super.
Meanwhile, and closer to home, people are kicking up a fuss about a sneaky little piece of legislation that’s been dubbed ‘Ireland’s SOPA’.
TJ McIntyre’s IT Law in Ireland blog has a concise overview of the Government’s plans to legislate for Irish courts to block access to websites accused of copyright infringement (and possibly other things) at their own discretion.
]]> Two significant points: The law is being brought in by a statutory instrument, which means it doesn’t require passing scrutiny in the Dáil or Seanad, nor the approval of the citizenry. And the most recently available text was/is so vague as to be possibly in contravention of the European Convention of Human Rights. That’s lovely, isn’t it?Where is all this coming from? Why, it’s the music industry — specifically the major labels who blame ‘illegal downloading’ for their ‘lost earnings’ (read: poor performance) over the last decade and who, rather than adapt their outdated business model to catch up with the rest of us in the 21st century, have decided that the Irish taxpayer should make up the shortfall and that the Government should generally do its bidding.
For more background on Ireland’s SOPA, Mark Little (@marklittlenews) of Storyful points to the Charleton judgement in the case of EMI v UPC in October 2010, which found in favour of UPC Ireland against the major labels who accused it of facilitating piracy by not blocking websites they want blocked (but only because current Irish law prevented doing the opposite).
The whole judgement is worth reading for a groan or few (there’s some weird confusion between The Pirate Bay and LimeWire, for instance) but be sure to see the last line of paragraph 13 (via @markhamnolan) for “the real reason the record industry is on its knees”. (A million quid to record an album? Where was the studio? A penthouse in the Burj Dubai?)
Little also links to a critique of said judgement by Conor O’Neill which highlights some pretty ridiculous claims regarding the numbers involved (none of which have been independently verified, of course) and raises serious questions about the level of knowledge and understanding of the digital realm among Ireland’s judges and legislators.
The big problem here, if it needs to be pointed out, is that the music industry lobby has too strong an influence over our elected representatives — who might be smart about a lot of things, but clearly haven’t a clue about this, and need to ask someone for advice, right? (And you thought you lived in a democracy? Ha!)
Back in the real world, O’Neill calls for a lobby group “that is there to fight for the interests and rights of internet users and technology businesses that operate on the internet”. It’s a point reiterated by Adrian Weckler (@adrianweckler):
The only single thing that can affect govt’s decision on ‘Irish SOPA’ law is a response from business community.
That may sadly be the case, but we internet users in Ireland can still make an effort.
Please consider signing the petition at StopSopaIreland.com (more information on the petition here; more than 7,000 signatures have already been added) and contacting your TDs, especially Minister of State Sean Sherlock (@seansherlocktd) and Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton (here’s a useful form letter, and some important points to highlight).
Even if it’s a futile exercise, at least we can say we did something from our limited position.
And to those reading from outside of Ireland: you too can make their voices heard, especially as such legislation would surely have a detrimental effect on our participation in the global digital industry — and your business in turn.
]]>Yesterday, this site went dark as part of a worldwide protest at the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act which, if passed by the United States Congress, would give the US government and the entertainment industry extraordinary powers to control what is supposed to be a neutral space, effectively censoring the internet for everyone in the world. That’s right: everyone in the world.
To put it simply, this is bad legislation being pushed hard by corporate interests for their own benefit alone, and written so broadly that it sets us all down a path we don’t want to be travelling by.
]]> I care about art, about creativity, about innovation — and about all these things being in the hands of artists, creators and innovators, not mishandled or stifled by corporations whose first responsibility is to make profit for shareholders.Moreover, as someone who is not American, living in a country that is not the United States, the prospect and the precedent of another country passing laws that will have far-reaching consequences for me and the rest of the world — regardless of the laws governing my country and others’ countries — gives me the chills.
(Especially when they’re backronyms. I mean, really? When lawmakers are starting from the sexy buzzword then working backwards, you know things are messed up.)
If you haven’t yet heard about these proposed laws and their impact, or think that they don’t apply to you, then you’ve got some reading to do. You could do worse than start here. See also:
A SOPA/PIPA Blackout Explainer / Wired’s Threat Level blog lays it all out in point-by-point form.
Stop Sopa or the web really will go dark / Dan Gillmor (of We the Media fame) makes the case in The Guardian for net neutrality and electronic freedom (be sure also to check The Guardian’s SOPA page).
Why SOPA and PIPA Must Die / Waxy.org’s Andy Baio on his personal reasons for opposing the web censorship bills. Also: Matt Haughey outlines how they could be used to silence important web resources such as MetaFilter with a chilling story.
A previous version of this entry was published on Tue 17 Jan 2012.
]]>First, Family Guy writer Patrick Meighan’s account of his arrest at Occupy LA on 30 November, outlining the tactics employed by police to break up the peaceful protest. Though he backtracks a little at the end, refusing to fully condemn those responsible (a cop-out, and a shame), his story is powerful stuff:
]]> Then the cops turned to the protesters themselves:As we sat there, encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park. They forcibly removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park. They then did the same with the communal property of the Occupy LA movement… Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as “30 tons of garbage” that was “abandoned” by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.
Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protester’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protester’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protester’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protester, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor. It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us.
Meighan himself was violently restrained despite following police instructions, and was ultimately left with nerve damage in his right thumb and palm.
And that was before the seven hours he and other protesters spent on the floor of a parking garage before being booked and jailed for the day. It was hours before the cops would even accept bail for what was and is a misdemeanour offense (the charge of sitting in the park when ordered not to by police).
Meanwhile, writes Meighan, former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince gets away with felony fraud on an international scale with millions of dollars in his pocket and not even so much as a slap on the wrist.
Second, there’s TechDirt’s report of Homeland Security’s false seizure and censure of domains belonging to a number of popular music blogs in November 2010:
As the details came out, it became clear that ICE and the Justice Department were in way over their heads. ICE’s “investigation” was done by a technically inept recent college grad, who didn’t even seem to understand the basics of the technology. But it didn’t stop him from going to a judge and asking for a site to be completely censored with no due process.
Despite having little evidence to act beyond the accusations of an RIAA pencil-pusher,
…the government simply seized the domain, put up a big scary warning graphic on the site, suggesting its operators were criminals, and then refused to comment at all about the case. Defenders of the seizures insisted that this was all perfectly legal and nothing to be worried about. They promised us that the government had every right to do this and plenty of additional evidence to back up its claims. They promised us that the government would allow for plenty of due process within a reasonable amount of time. They also insisted that, after hearing nothing happening in the case for many months, it meant that no attempt to object to the seizure had occurred. Turns out… none of that was true.
The Kafkaesque tale that follows is even more infuriating.
And then there’s this, a piece at The Verge from a couple of weeks ago about a web news service’s YouTube video being pulled for its report on the UMG/MegaUpload spat (because it contained excerpts of Universal musical artists singing the praises of the file-sharing service, and Universal claimed copyright infringement):
Tom [Merritt of Tech News Today] tells us he wasn’t informed of the video’s removal until a fan told him on Twitter, and that the episode was promptly restored when he complained using YouTube’s automated dispute process — but Universal followed up with an official DMCA takedown request on Tuesday morning, and the show is currently down. Tom’s filed YouTube’s corresponding DMCA counter-dispute and the video will go back up in 10 days unless Universal decides to go full-on crazy and actually file a lawsuit, but at this point the damage has been done. As Tom says, “In 10 days a daily news show is worthless, so Universal was able to censor this episode of Tech News Today.”
What do these three things have in common? On the face of it, they’re not related in any way. But each is symptomatic of what’s clearly appearing to be an elitist institutional culture in America that seeks to withhold the rights of American citizens. No, it’s worse: it seeks to vilify them.
It’s no conspiracy theory. These are the same elites so eager to get bullshit legislation like PROTECT IP and SOPA passed. And their footsoldiers are the bully lawyers who threaten suits that cannot be fought in court without vast amounts of money, and the bully cops and feds who don’t so much protect the laws of the land as they do blindly follow orders from their superiors, whether legal or not. What’s democratic about any of that?
These are just some things I’ve been thinking about. I hope you’re thinking about them too.
]]>The highlights: Michael D winning the presidency, even though I voted for Norris / Seeing The Silence of the Lambs for the first time (and loving it) / The Dark Crystal at this year’s Horrorthon / Wearing sunglasses on the first day of November / James Gleick talking about The Information at the Science Gallery / CHIKARA’s High Noon iPPV rekindling my love of wrestling / Digging Bill Orcutt’s mindbending acoustic blues / Reginald D Hunter at Vicar Street (very different from the panel shows) / Finally dinging three stone (and dropping a trouser size).
]]> The lowlights: Trespass at the Horrorthon (truly, truly woeful) / Hard drive failure at the worst possible time; luckily I had a full backup, but the whole thing led to two days of insane stress, and getting overdrawn on my current account for the first time ever (I won’t be doing that again) / Being ambivalent about 1Q84: I was hooked by the story, but some of the details — especially the bad sex — left a lot to be desired.I suppose the good outweighed the bad, overall. Just don’t talk to me about the budget.
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See more of my shots from this summer’s Mike Watt gig on Flickr.
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The highlights: David O’Doherty at Vicar Street / Ruins Alone at The Twisted Pepper / Dava Sobel at the Science Gallery / Dinner at the new Nando’s in town / Packing for Mars / Losing another few pounds to hit the 2 1/2 stone mark / Hearing ‘There’s a Ghost in My House’ on the radio / Getting deep into the new Murakami / Receiving an @reply from the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion.
The lowlights: Being sick for a week and missing Mike Watt + The Missingmen. Sure, I saw them over the summer, but still. Sad face.
]]>About that second referendum… I’m broadly in favour of the Oireachtas being allowed to conduct its own inquiries into matters of public interest, but this bit about ‘findings which affect a person’s good name’ has me concerned.
]]> Yes, it’s categorically stated that parliamentary findings will have no criminal sanctions in and of themselves, which is fine and dandy. But in the potential case of a private citizen being defamed by implication in such an inquiry, it’s not very clear to me how they could seek redress.Is it even possible for an individual to be defamed by the Oireachtas? Would the Dáil or Seanad be immune from prosecution? There’s roundabout talk of ‘principles of fair procedures’, but that’s not specific enough for me.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
]]>Anyway, here’s what I saved to my ‘Blogfodder’ folder in the latter half of 2007:
How to Visit New York, by Anil Dash / Another NYC link I missed before we went. In a way I’m glad I did, because I completely disagree about Katz’s: best turkey sandwich I’ve ever had, hands down.
33 Names of Things You Never Knew Had Names
Summer Japanese Sweets to Cool You Down / How do they make them so pretty?
Cheat-Sheets.org / A coder’s best friend: “All cheat sheets, round-ups, quick reference cards, quick reference guides and quick reference sheets in one page.”
]]> Wired Geekipedia / “Wikipedia doesn’t distinguish ‘need to know’ from ‘didja know?’ —- and it’s lousy for browsing. That’s why we created Wired Geekipedia. Godwin’s law, Guitar Hero, Gates Foundation —- you may know their definitions, but we tell you what they really mean.”Gems from the archive of the New York Times
Inscribed in the Living Tile: Type in the Toronto subway
How to Do Philosophy / Good advice here.
List of unusual articles on Wikipedia
How to Cook: A Guide For Gentlemen / Thanks, Mat.
Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex / I’ve Instapaper’d this one for a proper offline read.
The Guardian Guide to Baking / This is making me hungry.
The ring cycle / “Jon Ronson had little interest in professional wrestling, other than a mild concern about his son’s obsession with musclemen hurling chairs at each other’s heads. But all that changed when one of its star names, Chris Benoit, killed himself and his family.” It’s always hard to read stories about pro wrestling in the mainstream press, but this isn’t about that.
]]>Crappy Sound Forever! / David Byrne on how recording technology changed the way music was/is written and performed.
Freedom is slavery / Links and commentary on free will and determinism. I wrote an essay about free will in one of my end-of-year philosophy exams years ago; I think I concluded it by contradicting everything I’d asserted before the last paragraph.
English Sentences Without Overt Grammatical Subjects / Or, the grammar of swearing (via Kottke).
The stuff of dreams / Ferrofluids, dilatants and other freaky sciency things.
Powers of 10 / “Two leading structural engineers pick their favorite feats of man-made wonder.” They wouldn’t all be my pick, but nice all the same.
]]> The ecstasy of influence / An essay by Jonathan Lethem on plagiarism in the arts.The Morning News Guide to Urban Etiquette: New York City / Yet another urban behaviour guide! Most of this is common sense, but maybe not so common if it needs to be explained to people.
Japanese Cardboard Box Design / I love the little characters they have for everthing, like the orange juice guy, the staple-free box dude and the smiling aubergine. See also: Speedy! Animal Characters As Japanese Shipping Logos.
TV Solidarity / A story of dissidence in communist Poland.
The AV Club interviews Baron Von Raschke
Densho / “Densho’s mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished.”
Freaks and Geeks: High School Hell (1999-2000) / Judd Apatow and Paul Feig comment on the cult favourite that launched more careers than it’s given credit for. Still need to get the box set.
How an Obscure Collection of Japanese Action Figures Changed the Way We Play
50 memorable pages from the Guardian archive / A special to mark their 50,000 edition in mid 2007.
A 150-mile walk through the Big Apple / Via RandomWalks; one of the walkers has since walked across America.
]]>4/7 — I find a hole torn in the back of favorite plaid shirt. Annoyed. Proper, durable (non-fashiony) plaid shirts are hard to come by round these parts.
Later in the day, the beginnings of a bad week of hayfever-induced sinusitis. Ugh.
13/7 — Markham sent me an invite to Google+ a couple of days ago. First impressions? It’s like Facebook, but more Twittery in its de-emphasising of symmetrical relationships. But at the same time, it’s kind of boring without my friends there. I don’t feel the same way about Twitter, funnily enough.
16/7 — Made up a batch of my tomato, carrot and onion soup. The secret ingredient is habanero sauce. Yum.
17/7 — Watching Sunday morning wrestling. Zack Ryder has a QR code on the front of his shorts. Genius! Although I’m not sure that’s what they really meant by the Internet of Things.
]]> 18/7 — More wrestling: I set my alarm for 5am so I can watch Money in the Bank before work. I’m a mark for CM Punk, so the end result is satisfying. I like where they’re going with this angle (it even made me watch a John Cena match) but I can’t escape the feeling that it’ll end up nowhere. I may have some more thoughts on this.21/7 — Watched news footage of the last space shuttle landing. I was almost a year old when the first shuttle went up; I’m 31 witnessing the last come down. Lots of memories in between.
30/7 — Roast for dinner. I even ate carrots. If you know me well, you’ll understand how big that is for me.
31/7 — An impromptu visit to Farmleigh to check out the farmers’ market. What a lovely place to spend an afternoon.
2/8 — WeightWatchers meeting tonight, and I’m 3lbs down on last week. I’ve lost more than a stone-and-a-half in three months, which is pretty good going. Treating it like a game has made it interesting for me, and good results keep my motivation high. At the same time, I’m trying new foods and varying my diet so I don’t slip back into snacking on carbs all the time. Moderation in all things is the key.
5/8 — To Galway for the day, ostensibly to attend my friend Dáire’s art opening (go see — and buy — his stuff if you’re there) but also to enjoy a nice day out in a different city for a change.
Dinner at Oscar’s Bistro with Bee and it’s a big step for me, as I’ve never eaten fish before. I ease into it with fish croquettes (which are mostly potato really so it’s kind of cheating) but there’s no backing out when the main course of battered codling and chips arrives.
I brave a bite — and you know what? It’s nice. Doesn’t taste at all like I expected. Can’t say I’m crazy about it, mind you, but I’d definitely have it again. To be honest I’m more relieved that I made the leap of faith to try it. It’s important to me.
8/8 — It’s been a year since I started keeping these weeknotes. I’m still not sure what value they have, if any, but it’s keeping me engaged with the blog after years of neglect, and I suppose it’s always good to have an aide-mémoire. Says the guy who can’t remember anything without writing it down.
9/8 — My new bicycle arrived today. It’s a Raleigh Oakland hybrid, just for cycling around the neighbourhood, and hopefully to and from work (provided the route I’ve planned doesn’t have too much traffic).
13/8 — An afternoon with Bee at the Science Gallery to watch stuff explode — lots of fun! The gift shop has much to recommend it, too; Bee’s very taken with the Arduino boards. I think I see a new project on the horizon.
Good food today as well: brown bread ice cream at Murphys on Wicklow St; and teriyaki chicken stir-fry for dinner, inspired by a recipe in one of the cheap cookbooks we picked up at Hodges Figgis, and hacked a little to suit our tastes. Big thumbs up from me. Tomorrow it’s chicken burgers on the bun with spiced and steamed baby potatoes.
Later on, we start watching Millennium from the beginning. I’m sure I saw most of the first series back when it was originally broadcast, in 1996 or so, but I can’t remember any of it, which is weird because I still recall random X-Files episodes from the same period. It’s doubly weird because this show is really fucked up, the kind of thing that should really have left a lasting impression. Anyway, Lance Henriksen is the best. I wish he was in more stuff.
14/8 — New shoes for walking in. Less than €40 so they’re almost guilt-free. My feet thank me.
15/8 — SummerSlam didn’t leave much of an impression, probably because there were only six matches. The one exception was the main event, but not necessarily for the right reasons. In hindsight it was messed-up booking — in the moment, I was willing to accept anything other than John Cena winning — so the angle from here on in needs to be very good for it to be worth a damn.
16/8 — Saw Captain America this afternoon. Really enjoyed it, has me pumped for The Avengers now. Dare I say it’s even better than X-Men: First Class?
WeightWatchers meeting in the evening. I’m just 4lbs away from the 2st mark. I’m feeling good!
18/8 — Walked half way to work this morning: 5km in about an hour, which isn’t too shabby, especially after a sleepless night (think it was something I ate). I could do with more of this.
In the evening, computer problems. The desktop on my MacBook won’t rebuild properly, and the system’s getting slower and slower. When I attempt a backup it fails, reporting an input/output error. Frustrating! But I refuse to panic, and decide to sleep on it.
19/8 — First step to recovery: booting from the OS install disc and running Disk Utility to verify and repair the drive. Success! But the desktop is still wonky when I reboot. So I return to Google and discover how to delete the DS_Store file. Success! But now I find I’m still getting an error when I try backing up. However, the logs point directly to an errant system log file as the cause of the problem. Time to fire up Onyx and wipe out all those ancient logs and system caches. Success! She’s not quite good as new, but I’ll take her.
20/8 — There’s a lost dog at the Blanchardstown Centre bus stops: a Jack Russell, lovely little fella, doesn’t seem too anxious but he’s obviously looking for someone to look after him. He has a collar, but no visible tags. The stupidity of some people! I can’t take him home, we don’t have the space; I try ringing the DSPCA, but their ‘emergency’ line is closed on weekends, and I’m redirected to a mobile number that no one answers. Bloody typical. When I get home I ring the local Garda station, and they say they’ll do what they can, though it’s probably not much. I’m sad. I hope the little fella’s OK.
21/8 — First proper ride on my new bike, just on the roads around our house and to the shops, 5km in all. Other than needing the seat a little higher and being a bit wobbly with the hand signals, it’s a nice ride. Not very comfortable cycling in traffic yet; more practice will ease those worries.
In the afternoon, we finish watching Gone With The Wind after spreading it over a few days. You know, it’s not the film you’d think it is. Much like Casablanca, I’ve no idea why it’s portrayed as some kind of Mills & Boon romance slush when it’s really anything but. How many other movies am I missing out on because the popular view is completely inaccurate?
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