Remote Control

Edwin Snowden did the country and the world a service by blowing the whistle on the 24/7 surveillance being conducted against us by the NSA and significant others. Now comes an anonymous WB doing the deed on the heretofore secret policy of using drones to "off" people considered enemies of the US. In depth and explosive, The Intercept, in The Drone Papers, takes the lid off of something that needs to be seen, just as the NSA's activities have been thanks to Edwin Snowden.

The Getaway :)

The Red Drum Getaway from Gump on Vimeo.

A very good friend of mine turned me onto this awesome mashup where Stanley Kubrick is the villain. See if you recognize all the asides to the grand master while Jimmy Stewart Does the Deed as hero as per Hitchcock's  Rear Window. :)

Thanks DD, I needed that. :)

The vastness of reality

Cassini's portrait of Mimas and Pandora, two moons of Saturn, shows how vast, beautiful and mysterious reality truly is. Click the pix to see other images just as astounding as this gem. :)

Have to post another. 

Intellectual Property Rights

BRT has talked often about the TPP with emphasis on intellectual property rights vis a vis copyright, the disaster first perpetrated on the US thanks to the late Sonny Bono (The Mickey Mouse Act) who extended the length of copyright from the Founders 14 years plus one allowed extension of 14 years (if the cr holder was still alive) to life plus 70, which means Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, written in 1905, could theoretically remain outside of public domain until 2025 as Einstein died in 1955. Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, debuted in 1928. Disney died in 1966, ergo, Steamboat would not enter the PD until 2036. Now, with the TPP, this intellectual rights nonsense goes worldwide, along with extensive expanded CR rights to hollywood and big pharma with us paroles and political representatives not having any say as to why the TPP is a fubar of the most onerous kind.

Perhaps the biggest overall defeat for users is the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years (QQ.G.6), despite a broad consensus that this makes no economic sense, and simply amounts to a transfer of wealth from users to large, rights-holding corporations. The extension will make life more difficult for libraries and archives, for journalists, and for ordinary users seeking to make use of works from long-dead authors that rightfully belong in the public domain.

Could it have been worse? In fact, yes it could have; we were spared a 120 year copyright term for corporate works, as earlier drafts foreshadowed. In the end corporate works are to be protected for 70 years after publication or performance, or if they are not published within 25 years after they were created, for 70 years after their creation. This could make a big difference in practice. It means that the film Casablanca, probably protected in the United States until 2038, would already be in the public domain in other TPP countries, even under a life plus 70 year copyright term.

It gets better.

One of the scariest parts of the TPP is that not only can you be made liable to fines and criminal penalties, but that any materials and implements used in the creation of infringing copies can also be destroyed (QQ.H.4(12)). The same applies to devices and products used for circumventing DRM or removing rights management information (QQ.H.4(17)). Because multi-use devices such as computers are used for a diverse range of purposes, this is once again a disproportionate penalty. This could lead to a family's home computer becoming seized simply because of its use in sharing files online, or for ripping Blu-Ray movies to a media center.

In some cases (QQ.H.7), the penalties for copyright infringement can even include jail time. Traditionally, this has because the infringer is operating a business of commercial piracy. But under the TPP, any act of willful copyright infringement on a commercial scale renders the infringer liable to criminal penalties, even if they were not carried out for financial gain, provided that they have a substantial prejudicial impact on the rightsholder. The copying of films that are still playing in movie theaters is also subject to separate criminal penalties, regardless of the scale of the infringement.

& better still.

ICANN, the global domain name authority, provoked a furore earlier this year over proposals that could limit the ability for owners of domain names to shield their personal information from copyright and trademark trolls, identity thieves, scammers and harassers.

The TPP has just ridden roughshod over that entire debate (at least for country-code top-level domains such as .us, .au and .jp), by cementing in place rules (QQ.C.12) that countries must provide “online public access to a reliable and accurate database of contact information concerning domain-name registrants.”

The same provision also requires countries to adopt an equivalent to ICANN's flawed Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), despite the fact that this controversial policy is overdue for a formal review by ICANN, which might result in the significant revision of this policy. Where would this leave the TPP countries, that are locked in to upholding a UDRP-like policy for their own domains for the indefinite future?

The TPP's prescription of rules for domain names completely disregards the fact that most country code domain registries have their own, open, community-driven processes for determining rules for managing domain name disputes. More than that, this top-down rulemaking on domain names is in direct contravention of the U.S. administration's own firmly-stated commitment to uphold the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. Obviously, Internet users cannot trust the administration that it means what it says when it gives lip-service to multi-stakeholder governance—and that has ramifications that go even even deeper than this terrible TPP deal.

Click here to get the complete Wikileaks TPP Intellectual Property Rights document while you still can. The TPP still has to be ratified, the question to ask is, can we stop it before it's too late.

Microlattice - the lightest metal ever

Lattices are very cool, especially when applied to the creation of the lightest metal ever, courtesy Boeing. Pretty wild without question. 

Boeing released a video where we see scientists exhibit its lightness by effortlessly blowing it away, and it floats to the floor like a feather. While being lightweight, its smart structure enables it to compress so it's excellent at absorbing energy. In the video we also see the Microlattice, which is claimed to be one of the strongest and lightest materials known to science, being squashed and twisted then simply bouncing back to shape.

Inspiration comes from studying the structure of bone, solid on the outside, mostly hollow on the inside as seen in this extreme closeup, courtesy wikipedia. 

Humvees "r" us

BRT has stated in the past that the US created ISIS because of an inept neocon foreign policy that started when "W" decided to invade Iraq back in 2003 even though several senior military commanders warned against this action in the strongest of terms. As proof of America's stupidity regarding why this fact is true, check out this video of the hardware ISIS uses, in part, to commit atrocities throughout the middle east as a direct result of destroying a nation without a viable fallback position, something the Brits instituted without question when they had an empire back in the day. (Hire the people you conquer).

For more info, click here for a rundown of just how incredibly able the US is in screwing the pooch in the most violent region on planet earth.

Aesop lives

Amazing film, amazing fable. Well worth checking out without question.

I don't know

The Secret :)

Honoré Daumier's piece titled “Meeting of thirty-five heads of expression" sums up the gossip mongering quality of man to a "T". From feigned disgust to salacious laughter, the never ending symphony of gossip or the keeping of secrets never ceases to amaze anyone who is part of the human race, particularly when seen through the eyes of an artist as skilled as Daumier.

What is it about a secret — by definition, something you don’t know — that makes it so irresistible? It’s a black hole. A blank. Something you can only speculate about. It’s none of your business, so of course you want to know all about it. It is forbidden, so you think its discovery will be enormously entertaining or shocking or both. Preferably both.

The funny thing is, there is a reverse situation: To paraphrase Voltaire — the secret to being a bore is to tell all. Don’t leave out a single detail, no matter how dull or irrelevant! I have fantasies of the CIA’s John Brennan listening in to my gabby old Aunt Kate (who was very thorough when telling all), and being cured — by aversion therapy — of ever wanting to listen in again. This could become a secret weapon in the war for privacy.

In the meantime, we will continue to wonder about our fellow human beings — those who do not tell all. Here are some intriguing comments that should make the process of wondering all the more enjoyable.

KEEPING SECRETS

Of course I can keep secrets. It’s the people I tell them to that can’t keep them. (Anthony Haden-Guest)

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other’s slave. (Baltasar Gracian)

A secret’s worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept. (Carlos Ruiz Zafón)

Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C. (Ambrose Bierce)

He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. (Sigmund Freud)

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn’t one. (Margaret Atwood)

Delicious, is it not?

Honoré Daumier - The painter writ large. :)

Betting on Mammon

BRT has talked about the REAL REASON why we remain in Afghanistan on several occasions, courtesy the excellent in-depth research the Russians did in the 1980s regarding the mineral wealth of this war ravaged country, something writ large in this map showing the end results of said research along with recent studies done by the US. Interesting to say the least.

When the United States decided to invade Afghanistan to grab Osama bin Laden—and failed, but stayed on like an unwanted guest—could it have known that the Afghans were sitting on some of the world’s greatest reserves of mineral wealth?

We’ve raised this topic before (see here)—where we noted the dubious 2010 claim, published by the New York Times, that “the vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was [recently] discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.” Other evidence, and logic, point to the fact that everyone but the Western public knew for a long time, and before the 2001 invasion, that Afghanistan was a treasure trove.

So we were interested to see a new piece from the Times that emphasizes those riches without stressing the crucial question: Was the original impetus for the invasion really Osama—or Mammon?

It's all about the resources, right? At least it's not for naught as seen by examples of truly stupid reasons for war as seen by this History Channel post of  six of the finest conducted by us rubes on planet earth.