politics

Randomness for 7/10

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1) ‘You are a coward’: Hate and misperceptions about substance abuse are broader than I thought

2) Gorgeous cars of the art deco era.

3) This pedal-powered roller coaster gets a massive NOPE.

4) Terrible manager stories.

5) How God Created Animals. <-- Funny 6) Investigative reporter goes undercover in N Korea to find out the truth about life there, writes book, sees book listed as a “memoir” because the reporter is a woman.

7) If you thought the movie WARCRAFT tanked, you missed the part where it changed the way blockbuster movies are made.

Randomness for 6/21

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1) An end to showering Apparently, the problem with smelly guys at cons is not that they don’t shower enough. It’s that they shower at all.

2) Drug or Tolkien elf? A quiz. I scored 23 out of 30, which is better than I expected.

3) 17 completed webcomics you can read from beginning to end.

4) AMC threatens to sue fansite over posted spoilers.

5) The defeat of the Confederacy should be a national holiday.

6) Funeral business dissolves the dead, pours them into town sewers.

7) The second-most-useful site on the internet.

Repeal The Second Amendment

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A few days ago, I tweeted this:

Followed by:

Note: repealing the second amendment doesn’t necessarily mean confiscating everyone’s guns. Other nations have guns in private hands without having an undeniable right to them. The only effect of the second amendment, as least as the most recent Supreme Court decision would have it, is to prevent us from regulating them. As the last few years have proven, regulation is desperately needed. If the second amendment is in the way of that, it needs to go.

I also tweeted out this:

Because I keep seeing people get caught up in counterproductive arguements. WHAT ABOUT THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST or BAN [SPECIFIC GUN] are easy to type on the internet, but it’s a bullshit way to conduct public pressure for legislative change. The Terrorist Watch List should be no one’s go-to policy choice, at least until the government is willing to be clear about how people get on it, and until they work out a system that will let people get their names taken off.

And arguing about this or that specific gun/type of gun is a mug’s game. People who oppose gun control love this argument, because it becomes all about semantics and petty details. What counts as an “assault” rifle? What about this or that type of gun? And then, every tiny error about terminology or technical specs becomes evidence that no one but the most avid gun fans can’t be trusted to speak knowledgeably about gun control.

Frankly, we already have the evidence we need to show that lots of guns lead to lots of tragic death–all we have to do is look at the rest of the world–but turning the CDC loose on the problem seems to be a necessary prerequisite to getting sensible legislation.

It’s time.

Randomness for 4/28

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1) An OKCupid profile for “A Normal Human.” #lol

2) New data supports Jane Jacobs’s ideas of what makes a city great.

3) Comedian reads fake book covers on subway, records reactions. Very funny, although the covers look fakey.

4) The Brilliant Career of John Cazale. If you’re only going to appear in five movies…

5) Toyota’s wooden concept car, as family heirloom.

6) Fun drawings of monsters added to photos of real world scenes.

7) 13 Short Guides That Will Make You a Color Expert.

Randomness for 12/3

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1) Skimp or Spend, an Illustrated Mens’ Style Buying Guide

2) Seven Things I Learned Reading ISIS’s Magazine.

3) She can write like a man, they said, by which they meant, She can write.

4) Piecaken

5) I dressed like Cookie (from EMPIRE) for a week to get over my Impostor Syndrome.

6) Purple Rain, remade in a language without a word for “purple”.

7) That history of the Mork and Mindy show you didn’t know you wanted.

Zombies Beat Orcs: Persistent Racism in Fandom

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I’m about to run out the door and do some writing, but first let me drop this link from Toby Buckell: Yes, Virginia, people of color do fucking read SF/F

First of all, why write a post asking “Where Are All The People of Color in Sci-Fi/Fantasy?” in this day and age? They’re out there, and easily found for anyone willing to make the extreme effort of searching with google.

But the post I’m linking addresses a particular comment, which is emblematic of a number of shitty zombie arguments that continue to be made. At this point in history, we ought to be addressing the institutional and subconscious aspects of racism. We ought to be long past this sort of white supremacy. But we’re not. These beliefs just won’t stay dead, no matter how many times they’re buried in evidence that refutes it.

And every time I think “I should get more involved with sf/f fandom” I read something like this and just go back to my writing.

Black Man Arrested for Selling His Art

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Update: I missed the date on this. It’s from last November. Thanks to Nick Mamatas for pointing that out. In March, a judge dismissed the charges. Still, that’s a lot of months lost to a prosecutor’s ambition.

Original Post: From San Diego, a local rapper by the name of Brandon Duncan faces life in prison for making and selling a CD of his music. Why?

Duncan is a member of a local gang that has been involved in a series of high-profile shootings, although Duncan himself has not been party to any of it. However, the shootings have raised the profile of the gang, and prosecutors allege that has helped Duncan sell copies of his album.

To be clear, he created a rap album. It has nothing to do with the shootings. He has nothing to do with the shootings, except for his gang affiliation. And yet, he’s in jail on $1 million bail until his December court date and he’s being charged along with 14 others.

Would they have charged him if he’d written a book? Seriously, would they have charged him if he’d written a book about gang life? I doubt it.

Duncan’s new album isn’t available but you can still buy a copy of his older work (as “Tiny Doo”) through iTunes or Amazon, if you like that sort of thing. Maybe that would help him afford bail.

Our judicial system is supposed to be adversarial so the truth can win out in a contest of equals. Sadly, we’ve spent decades changing the rules to benefit the state, and politically ambitious prosecuting attorneys know how well a tough-on-crime reputation plays with the voters. Frankly, I’d like to see government prosecutors receive a lifetime ban from holding another elective office, so they won’t feel the temptation to pad their resumes with the unjustly ruined lives of American citizens.

Randomness for 7/24

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1. The Hot Tub Hammock.

2) If The Moon Were Only One Pixel: a tediously accurate scale model of the solar system.

3) Some kitchen gadgets are all about the NOPE.

4) Like selfies? Like toast? Now you can get your own selfie toast.

5) Keyboard shortcuts for novelists.

6) Sure, whites are privileged, but not me personally!

7) The Artisinal Landlord Price Hike Sale.

Randomness for 7/13

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1) Why do people go bald? Video

2) A conversation between graffiti artists and removers.

3) Fearless girl rips out own tooth with a slingbow. ::faints::

4) The names of ten fireworks effects.

5) Assigned to write an essay about a “leader” a group of teens decide to stand out from the pack and contact gangster Whitey Bulger in prison. He wrote back.

6) Ten Paintings of Guy Fieri as a Renaissance Baby.

7) The Detective As Speech. “An early letter I received after publishing my first book, Indemnity Only, came from a woman who wanted to know why V. I. Warshawski was allowed to “talk back” to men without being punished. The writer wasn’t seeking help in learning to talk back herself; she was criticizing V. I. for behaving in a way that was neither right nor natural.” h/t James Nicoll

Massive Failures of Copyright and Capitalism

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One of the supposed benefits of the copyright system we have is that people with a monopoly over intellectual property will have a market incentive to keep that IP going. There’s money to be made selling copies, they’re the only ones with the right to make copies, so copies will be available.

Obviously, this doesn’t really work. We have numerous examples of IP that have fallen out of print, which can not be legally acquired without paying ruinous prices for used goods.

And if you though THE FUTURE would change all of that with digital distribution, nope. FOR EXAMPLE:

ONE:

TWO:

Hopefully, those images show up, but if they don’t, the links take you to the Amazon page for the film soundtrack pages for THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING/THE TWO TOWERS – THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, respectively. If you want to buy either one you have to pay (at the time I’m writing this) $250/$800 used, or $500/$1300 new.

Of course, if you want to buy The Complete Recordings of Howard Shores’s Return of the King soundtrack, that’s on iTunes.

Why is the third one available for digital download but the first two are not? Good question! You’d think they would be leaving money on the table. So I emailed Warner music about it. The message I sent was lost in the contact form, but it basically reiterated what I said above, along with a request that someone put digital copies on sale. The response:

Hello Harry,

Thank you for contacting us! We do not have current plans for this release, but thank you for your email and your input. We will forward your message to our suggestion box.

Okay. I’m in the suggestion box. For whatever that’s worth.

So, here is some art work–and not obscure art work, either, it’s the complete record of an Oscar- and Grammy-winning musical score–that can only be legally acquired at ridiculous prices.

It’s ridiculous.

Look, I’m in favor of copyright. I pay my bills with the money I earn because of copyright law. And when I see something I can’t afford, I don’t try to get hold of it another way. That’s how I choose to live.

But this is a ludicrous situation to be in.