The Omnipotent China Red Army tells capitalism to “Beat It.” (via DEVOUR)
Let's see, you've got your Twitter for your short posts, your Facebook for your real friends, your blog for the long-ass rants, and your Tumblr for the oh jesus fuck just shoot me now.
The Omnipotent China Red Army tells capitalism to “Beat It.” (via DEVOUR)
Happy Friday, jerks. (via Ethan)
hmwt:
On another note, it really chaps my ass when average Joes defend greedy capitalists, even when they are just playing Devil’s advocate. Capitalism is named such as it is the art of capitalizing on your fellow man. Recognize patterns.
While I’m normally happy to play devil’s advocate, I’m really not doing it here. I think Google has done a fine job of taking net neutrality from near-dead-in-the-regulatory water to near-guaranteed for the wired interet—which will set the pattern for how the wireless internet develops.
The thing that’s hard for me to wrap my brain around is this: as Richard Gaywood cogently asks, “Reword Google’s announcement for 10 years ago and to say ‘broadband’ instead of ‘wireless’. Come back to today. Do we still have Skype?” Now, the logical rebuttal would be to say that we didn’t have net neutrality legislation for wired broadband ten years ago, and Skype came up just fine, without being squashed out of the running. So, what’s so wrong about the telecoms and the big businesses proposing to limit the FCC’s regulatory authority on wireless?
Well, my answer is this: in the past ten years, the telecoms and the huge corporations have learned some hard-won lessons about when and where they’ve left money on the table. Ten years ago, the Internet was barely in its infancy, and none of these companies had a handle on how best to build (or work) the system in ways that would best benefit them for the long haul. Today, they are far, far smarter, and they are very clearly angling for leverage on the platform that will be the most important of the coming generation.
They’re cutting bait on the old technology, by proposing net neutrality legislation for the system on which they’ve already staked most of the claim they’re likely to ever get. But that juicy wireless market…boy oh boy, is that ever ripe for cordoning off lucrative little “sub-internets” in which they can generate false scarcity, exclusivity deals, and “prioritized” bandwidth sold to the highest bidder (which, to my mind, basically boils down to modern-day payola). Of the very small list of positive reviews of the Google/Verizon proposal, every last one of them has pointed out that it is about 50% great! Fantastic, even! But that other 50%? Hu-hu-hoooo boy, that shit’s pretty sketchy, and barely anyone’s swallowing it.
Broadband internet access needs to be subject to network neutrality regulation, whether it be wireline or wireless. Implementing net neutrality for only one and not the other only serves to open a window for telecoms and big corporations to help each other maximize their own bottom lines, and for small companies and startups to be left out in the cold.
But I guess I just feel like…what? I guess I just feel like why bother standing anywhere if programmatically notifying the API of a web server about it doesn’t inevitably lead to one of the computers eventually rewarding my careful standing-reportage by conferring the prestige, gratitude, and—yes—basic fucking human decency and respect that can only be accorded by triggering a ruby script that alters a small graphic on my phone.
Candidly? It almost makes me question the value of bothering to report what I’m standing near at all. It really does.
I’ve noticed a lot of friends lately, checking in at the local supermarkets and shopping malls. And all I can think is “I don’t get FourSquare and Gowalla. And I’m fairly certain they don’t either.”
(via gruber)
Ted Olson on Fox News (via david and charlietodd)
Ted Olson, supporter of the recent California ruling to allow same sex marriages, also supports the right to completely destroy Fox News’ Chris Wallace in every way imaginable.I can’t believe we’re still debating this whole issue and that there are people in our country who are against gay marriage, but if someone has to keep explaining things I’m glad there are people like Ted Olson around.
This guy gets the “getaway of the day” award.
Slater demanded an apology from the passenger, the official said, but the passenger refused. The two argued before the passenger told Slater to “f— off”, the official said. The official said that Slater then got on the plane’s PA system and directed that same obscenity at all the passengers and added that he especially meant it for the man who refused to apologize.
Slater is alleged to have then activated the plane’s inflatable emergency slide, grabbed two beers from the galley, then slid down the chute, the official said.
(via gruber)