Anything that is trivially copyable by computers should be free to share over the internet.  By trivially copyable I mean small files, for example text files, mp3s, avi files, pdf files, etc.  Before you reject this point of view as nonsense, or worse criminal, please allow me to elaborate.

We are approaching a moment in history when the freedom to share ideas in the form of data by way computers is increasingly threatened by moneyed capitalism in the form of copyright hoarding and draconian intellectual property laws.  A time in the not too distant future can be foreseen when global corporations, with more power than modern nations, enforce copyright laws with exceeding methods of fascism and despotism.  Even today, world economies are crumbling because of the excessive employment of derivatives upon derivatives, to account for diminishing useful goods in the form of multiplying conceptual debts.

Data itself is only conceptual in nature, whether held in the mind of a person or in the RAM of a computer, and as such holds no direct connection to tangible goods.  Storage, however, in the form of hard drives and read-only discs, as well as bandwidth over the internet, is a limited and perishable good and as such represents a better token of currency than the data that it holds.  In historical times, civilization has gone from using currency in the form of metal tokens, which have some intrinsic value because their supply is limited, to the current use of paper currency which has no intrinsic value besides its market value; and, in the same time period, usury has reduced our currency to a representation of debts owed rather than assets owned.  The epitome of this system is the use of copyrights and other concepts, which are essentially only data, as currencies - currencies which hold no intrinsic value besides what we imagine and legally enforce.

Once upon a time, the only data that could be used as currency held a direct relation to tangible goods - data that was secret could be traded for food and clothing, etc.  But most of the data that we trade today is not secret at all, and its market value is enforced by fines that have no direct relation to the amount of money gained or lost by the involved parties.  For example, those accused of "piracy" by distributing mp3s in violation of copyright laws, do not need to make any money by their acts in order to be fined thousands of dollars for the "lost" revenue of copyright holders - but those lost revenues are only projected revenues, not real assets lost.  We as a global culture have become addicted to the practice of charging for each time a copyrighted concept is used.  But copyrights and other data are being bought up by more and more powerful corporations, which increasingly have more rights than human persons to do as they please and more money to spend defending themselves.

Simply put, human persons should be the only entities with inalienable rights, and those rights should not be available for buying or selling.  Rights are concepts, and as such the market in them has no connection with tangible goods which we all need to survive.  The survival of human beings should should have higher priority than the survival of corporations.  Nations are made of the people who they govern and derive their power from those people, whereas corporations threaten the power of nations by transferring power to ever smaller numbers of elite individuals, who naturally hold their own survival more dear than the survival of the masses.

As computers continue to advance in computing speed and storage space, simple data files will become ever more trivial to reproduce, and inevitably the laws that govern the ownership and value of copyrights will become ever more absurdly unrepresentative of real people's attitudes.  It is likely, however, that larger files and more complex computer programs - including artificial intelligence - will continue to scale against increasing storage space and bandwidth.  So storage space will continue to be limited and perishable.  It is even possible that the advancement of artificial intelligence, and related technologies, will suffer from the continued enforcement of laws prohibiting the free exchange of data over the internet.  However, we already have a technology that enables distributed sharing of storage space over the internet, known as peer to peer file sharing.  P2P is threatened by our copyright laws, but it offers a robust way for every person, real or artificial, to share the wealth of storage space connected to the internet.

There may come a day when history, being conceptual in nature, is threatened by nations or corporations which wish to erase the record of facts that conflicts with their policies.  There may come a day when all data regarding democratic voting is owned by private corporations which can manipulate it at their whim.  Artificial life forms may one day exist entirely in the form of data, who could be threatened with extinction if their programs were to be owned by exclusive organizations. But history, as well as all other data, deserves to be preserved; and the best way to preserve data is through a robust distributed network with redundant stores of information.  All the rights of thinking people, as well as the free flow of ideas between individuals over the internet, depends on the universal public ownership of our historical records, and our constitutions; and now that we have the technology to store vast amounts of information, this technology should also belong to all people.

Economies should not depend on the market value of freely available concepts, nor should people's lives be invaded for the enforcement of trivially breakable laws.  Our currencies should represent assets in the form of useful goods and services, rather than debts that can be multiplied out of thin air.  In the face of advancing technologies, our outdated laws will direct more people down the path of increasing servitude for benefit of an elite few, along with all the attendant human suffering and destruction of our environment.  But we have another path before us.  We have a potential alternative currency in the form of storage space and bandwidth rather than ephemeral data.  We have the option of expanding the rights and abilities of people rather than continuing to intrude upon their lives and trade away their rights.  We have the potential to distribute our thoughts and our culture freely between every nation and every location on the planet, rather than hoarding our mental faculties and enforcing servitude in exchange for them.

Right now the people of the world are are reaching a breaking point, when the human capacity for self-destruction may outstrip our capacity for mutual love and understanding.  We can turn away from that path and heal our wounds, or continue to kill each other.  The stage is set, the pieces are in their places, now we each must choose what our roles will be in the coming conflict.  Stand against tyranny, or continue to supply the system with willing subjects; or try to stay out of the way.

The skin color of the new President makes no difference.  What does make a difference is his Congressional record and his promises and his current choice of cabinet members.  Sadly, his voting record is virtually identical to McCain's; he has promised to protect Israel no matter what crimes they may commit; and his cabinet is staffed with ex-Israeli soldiers and corporate whoremongers who helped engineer the currently escalating new American Depression.

Despite all this, Michael Moore wrote in a recent message to his mailing list, "The disgraced outgoing president will slide out the side door and head to Crawford to sell the Hollywood set known as the Bush "ranch" before he settles down in an exclusive neighborhood in Dallas. I would encourage Mr. Bush to issue one final pardon before noon today -- his own. He had better issue a blanket pardon for all crimes that may have been committed since 2001 by himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the whole gang. Serious laws were broken, a war was concocted on a lie, and now, please, justice must be carried out."

And who do you propose will carry out this "justice," Mr. Moore?  You?  Obama?  It doesn't look like Cheney or Bush will face war crimes tribunals.  It doesn't look like Israel and Palestine are going to have a two-state solution.

So what is this "justice" Moore speaks of? The bald fact that a "black" man is President? Surprise! There is no "black" race any more than there is a "white" race or a "Jew" race; these are just concepts with no basis in biology. Our adherence to concepts of race, whichever racial identification happens to be disadvantaged or perceived to be disadvantaged, does not liberate anyone, it perpetuates a rigid caste system based on superficial concepts of heredity. But the disadvantaged do not share any specific heredity, they come from all races and creeds and nationalities. They are the profiled poor, deigned to serve their masters in debt slavery no matter what their ancestry or their natural abilities, because undeserving crooks have designed themselves to be the masters.

While Michael Moore was making movies in France and Cuba, I was moving back in with my parents because I couldn't keep a job. I always wanted to be a documentary filmmaker like him; but I perpetually lack the equipment to make big budget movies and the means to transport myself around the country to document what I would like to; not to mention the connections in the industry to bring a film to theaters. Like many Americans I sacrificed my youth to the alter of college in exchange for a mountain of debt, but I didn't understand until it was too late that it didn't matter how smart or educated I was; if I was one of the profiled poor, I would never get out of debt. As long as I am in debt I don't have any "rights" because I am owned by one business or another, who can profile me and blacklist me to every other business who then has a right to not employ me. As long as I am in debt I will become more and more in debt if I try to make any money.

I used to think it was okay for people like me to have to accumulate so much debt in order to get ahead in the world, because I was addicted to the concept that people like me had had too many advantages in the past. But accumulating debt did not get me ahead in the world, and people like me never had too many advantages. I thought "people like me" were white people, but I was wrong, "people like me" are poor people, and there is no such thing as racial allegiance when it comes to mercenery capitalism. I have more in common with my neighbors, than any perceived race of "white" people. So-called whites come from a multitude of ancestries; and all human beings are descended from Africans less than 200,000 years ago. People have always and will always provide advantages to people who they perceive to be part of their crowd; it isn't racist, but it does hurt when the underclass of people doesn't have the means to help their own families while the ruling class is one big happy bailout family.

What difference does the color of Obama's skin make?  Obama hasn't promised to end the war in Iraq, or end the Federal Reserve, or sanction Israel, or prosecute Bush for war crimes. He isn't just pretending to be a corporate shill, he is a corporate shill. And so "blacks" are now part of the big happy rich people family, but that doesn't help me or anybody like me.

I like to poke fun at my family and myself, but I don't truly mean anything hurtful. Although a 4-day Winter vacation to Chicago does seem a little dubious to me, and some of their End Times talk is kind of wacky, I love my parents and my sisters and their children and I hope they have fun and return home unharmed. Lori is also traveling in this frigid weather, so she deserves some positive vibrations too.

Come to think of it I can't even think of a single mean-spirited thing (directed to me) from my family in months. Sure they yell at each other, but lately we have all been acting a lot more positive at least in my presence, and I don't want to break the track record. The only thing that contradicts the positive feeling is the whole "my half"/"your half" of the house thing, which I think they could safely do without at this point.

Sure we are all under stress, but who isn't? There will always be good times and bad times. These are bad times for a lot of people. But I am happy to say that my family seems to be having good times. I am glad they want to go on a trip together. I think it would be smarter for them to go on a trip in warm weather, but whatever -- I am glad they are going on a trip and I hope they have a good time together.

That would be a miracle. If they all had a good time together and when the come back, decide to share their living rooms and dining rooms and kitchens, and give Becky a bedroom instead of a living room to sleep in. I hope it happens.

I ... have a problem. I get along too well with cats. I get along with cats better than I get along with people. And I am a sucker for their saccharine sycophantic antics. They control me like they have some kind of mind powers or something. They get me to clean up their poop, and feed them, and give them shelter, just by purring or playing with pieces of plastic. And they love me. They worship me. They follow me around the block. All I need to do is call "kitty kitty kitty" and they come to me and cuddle with me. That's more love than I get from any human companion at this point in my life.

They are like my family, only they don't hurt me, yell at me, or embarrass me. And so it pains me to leave any of them behind. And yet I must, for the time being, leave most of them behind.

I am not a very complicated person. I don't require much to make me happy. If I could live in a cave somewhere, with running water and fresh food, but keep all my cats, I would do it. I would probably breed a million of the hairball-hacking, urine-spraying, primitive little beasts if I was allowed. And I would smell like cat piss constantly, and I wouldn't have any dignity, but I would be happy.

But civilization just won't allow it. And so, as I move on in my life I leave behind an army of would-be feline followers. First there was Fancy, but she is no longer with us. Then there was Boo, who I wanted when he was a kitten but never really owned, and who now roams the streets of Alliance, but I would take him in if I could. And now it's Furball, Pooh, Azrael, and Sleepy, Azrael's son. I really regret leaving Azrael, but like I've pointed out numerous times he just isn't suited for the indoors, he needs to be neutered and maybe that wouldn't even stop him spraying everywhere.

(Granted, Sleepy isn't my cat and he has a home, but I love him and he loves me, and I miss him when I am away. He is next in line to be neutered, poor little cat, if he only knew what they were preparing to do to him .... I just hope he lives through the procedure. Seth said if Sleepy died "Aqua or Lavender would have to be my cat." WTF like the only reason Sleepy lives is for him to say "he is my cat." Well, Seth is only 7 and he would probably be sad and he just wasn't really imagining what it would be like. I would cry if something bad happened to Sleepy.)

But life goes on. There are millions of dying cats in Humane Societies and elsewhere around the world. And there are millions of suffering people in the world, like the people in Gaza being tortured and murdered by Israel in a 100 to 1 ratio to the number of Israelis suffering and dying in their land dispute. So, why does my heart go out to cats? I don't know, I just can't help it.

From my Facebook:

Ted has a new home with a fun roommate and no little dogs barking, and no dog shit on the floor, and nobody yelling at anybody, and doorknobs on all the doors.  And a fully functional bathroom with a working sink *and* a working shower!  And a great big bed that doesn't rest on milk crates!  Yay!

Unfortunately:

Ted got into a car accident today - day 2 and 51 miles into living in Akron. Not-so-yay :-(.

fortunately my engine was not damaged. my front right turn signal is fucked up, and so is the right headlight, but oddly the light itself is still working. I thought the hood was going to come flying off on the way home, because it is barely holding on. I also got into a slide on the way home and spun perpendicular to the road but fortunately recovered with no further problems. I need new tires on this fucking car!

oh yeah and fortunately nobody died but who knows, maybe the woman in the other car got whiplash or something. Her left fender was busted, but her car still drove and her left headlight was not broken. this shit fucking sucks!

All this on my way home from my first job interview-type-thing, after I got lost in Akron for about an hour, damn fucking roads with fucking pathetic road signs. I fucking hate cars and I fucking hate driving and I fucking hate pathetic Ohio road signs.

So I think it might be a few more days than I initially thought before I return to Alliance for my computer and my bike. Cold weather fucking sucks and Ohio fucking sucks too. :-(

Fortunately I moved in safely last night despite two slides along the way and Hammer and Fur Factory are alive and well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6RQEC00dsM



'Alliance the Jungle Part 1 - Abandoned Houses Everywhere'  is a video of abandoned houses in Alliance, Ohio recorded on October 1, 2008.  In the six block diameter location where this video was recorded, there are about 600 homes and about 170 of those homes are unused, abandoned, or condemned. 



The video also features some of the children of Alliance, traveling on bicycle, and it is accompanied by the song 'The Message' recorded by Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Duke Bootee and released by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in 1982.



This is my neighborhood.  About 25% of the homes here are unused.  This is the worst part of town; there are more condemned and abandoned houses throughout the city, but the highest concentration is here. 



I spent the month of September on reconnaissance, identifying which houses appeared to have life in them and which ones did not, paying close attention to the worst buildings.  Of course I did not record anything about the people themselves, although I did meet a few nice people along the way who were interested in what I was doing.



You may notice there are two stores in the video.  There are about five more empty, boarded up stores in the same vicinity.  Of course that is not even mentioning downtown, which is mostly boarded up businesses too.  Wikipedia mentions that the town is known as 'the town where Main Street is a dead-end,' and it's true, it ends at a railroad station that is barely used for public transportation.



Sometimes living here makes me feel like I am living in a refugee camp, or a concentration camp.



This video is intended to be the first of a series relating the empty and abandoned homes to the mortgage crisis of recent years and the unethical bailout of Wall Street by the corrupt two party dictatorship of the United States.



Maybe what we need is a huge public works project renewing the railroads in the US, to modernize our railroads like the ones in Japan and bring our cities closer together with public transportation.



It is my hope that the series will have a happy ending.  Already since the end of September, six condemned houses in this area have been torn down, including one you see in this video.



Screen capture of the last frame of the video:







Here is an up close picture of that graffiti on the store that says 'Say No to Industry':






And here is my working map of the neighborhood, up to date as of Friday.  (Note:  I did not record anything about the people living here, I just noted which houses were used and which were unused.)


..

See this awesome C-SPAN broadcast with Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, and Ron Paul:





All these "third parties" are agreeing to these core princples:


These guys are all very brave to go againt the two party dictatorship.  If more people would vote, if even seventy percent voted and all the people who support the four core priciples that these parties have agreed to, they would get more votes than either the Democrats or the Republicans!

Cynthia McKinney is my favorite one of them because she has been outspoken against the War on Terror and asking questions about 9/11 since she was a Senator that nobody else would ask and she got in trouble for it.  She is being nominated by the Green Party, which I think lends them a whole lot of credibility.

She is also adamant on the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004.  She has been going on about this fraud since the beginning and there is enough evidence of vote manipulation to make anyone wonder why it is not talked about in the MSM.

She has also spoken up about the anthrax that came from US labs and was suspiciously blamed on Al Qaeda in 2001, and about AIPAC and the Israeli spy rings in the US, which the MSM won't touch.  She isn't a "liberal," she is a radical and way more legit than Barak Obama.  Obama is a Jim Crow compared to her, he's been voting to fund the war like all the other good Democrats and he won't end the war.  Cynthia McKinney would end the war.

See the movie "American Blackout."  Go to the web site www.americanblackout.org and buy the DVD or torrent the movie:


Both of these torrents have a few seeds but they could use more.  Look at it like seeding the torrent is voting for McKinney! 

I don't know if she approves of the torrent, but if she is sincere about everything she says than she should't look at the torrent as lost DVD sales but more chances to get her word out!

At the web site you can also get flyers to advertise your own showings of the movie.

If you watch the film and you liked it consider doing what it says at the end:  "text BLACKOUT to 75444" and see what happens.  I haven't texted it, i don't have texting.

Aside:

Now if voting for a president was as easy as sharing a torrent, or if it WAS sharing a torrent you could vote for every candidate except for the ones you don't like and then the numbers sharing could be counted to see who is shared the most and who is shared the least and that would be a better way of accounting for people's choices.

Course one person could be a whole bunch of seeds or others would not be able to seed because they don't have computers.  So this system would only work if each and every voter had one unique computer or voting machine to seed from and the computers would have to each keep the totals individually and dump the data offline to protect it from being hacked.  I think a way could be figured out to make it happen ... but I am a dreamer!

Lori, Maggie, and I went to Phillipi, West Virginia for the four day weekend to visit Lori's son Tyler (my nephew) and Lori's friend Harry who is also Tyler's legal guardian/step father.

We left Alliance Friday at 5 PM and got to Phillipi at about 9 PM.  We left Phillipi Monday at about 3 PM and got home around 9 PM.  We stayed two whole days and two half days.

We returned Gus, Harry's former dog who Becky's family adopted for two months.  Gus now has new owners, who live down the street from Harry.  Saturday morning, I got some video of Gus going home with his new owners.

We went to the Barbour County Fair on Saturday night from around 6 to around 10 PM.  Tyler and I went on four rides together and Tyler played two games and won a little green bear.  First we rode on Zero Gravity which is one of those centrifugal force rides.  I got some video of us on that ride and then the camera quit.

Tyler got sick from Zero Gravity, but I was still eager to ride another and Tyler went along even though he didn't feel well, but that didn't turn out to be so wise after all.  Our second ride was Hurricane, which was a bunch of cars attached to a spinning center, by mechanical arms that shook the cars up and down.  I thought it looked like fun, but boy did I turn out to be wrong.  The ride smashed me into Tyler's ribs and left us both with headaches, neckaches, and stomach aches.

But we didn't learn our lesson from that ride.  After resting, we rode Casino Royale, which was a giant casino board that spun around and gyrated up and down.  I had a good time with that one, but Tyler was evidently not as happy with it as  me.

After that we could've stopped, and we should have, for our own well being, but I was too stupid to quit and Tyler went along again, good sport that he is.  We went on this rocket like thing the name of which I forget.  It was like a big boat swinging back and forth.  Between the awful stench of the ride operator smoking a cigarette right next to us and the constant up and down motion, my stomach just couldn't take it and I puked down the side of the ride!  After we got off I collapsed in a heap on the ground while Tyler and Harry waited for me and dozens of onlookers watched me.  Tyler wasn't feeling so well either, but he managed to wait about two hours and we were home before he finally puked too.

Happy ending!  We both felt better later and Lori and I bought pizza for everybody and it was good.

Sunday afternoon I went for a two hour stroll around Phillipi during which I climbed a steep hill and discovered a college!  I also saw some deer and got pretty close to three of them! 

Edit:  At the college I found a statue named 'Student' and another named 'Apollo' and also the town bell which I had often heard through the window in Tyler's room where he graciously allowed me to sleep.  Ah, so that's how far away it is!  And I found a nice perch from which to view the whole valley where Harry lives, where I sat for several minutes to take in the scenery while I wondered whether this valley qualifies as a 'hollow' (or 'holler' as the locals refer to some valleys).

Sunday night we ate spaghetti together which Lori made; and Harry, Maggie, and I briefly spotted some deer.  During that time, Lori also stitched elastic onto Harry's new pants which seemed an exceedingly kind thing to do for him.  Monday morning and afternoon we prepared to leave while we watched and/or slept through a That '70s Show marathon on TV.

I had a good time and I am glad I got away from Alliance with my sister and my niece, whom I hope enjoyed the trip as much as I did.  See you next time Tyler!

Krysti is 20 years old! Wow, has it really been that long!?!?

Here is a video I cooked up and gave her for her birthday. It contains some baby shots taken by my uncle, and some recent video I have of Krysti, but mostly some video I recorded of her when she was 2 years old, in 1990. Plus it is covered by some music she likes, but I am not sure I should advertise what the music is. Watch the video!

I love you Krysti!

I cried occasionally while I was making this video, because, like, wow, you've grown up and shit! I was only 15 when I shot that video and now I am 33! Geez, I am an old geezer now!

This is a new version of the video you haven't seen yet. I cut off the last 15 seconds that had no music, I boosted the first song which you could barely hear in the other versions, and I cleaned up a lot of the audio so the background noise is not so distracting.

Krystis 20th Birthday Video Present (Version 3)



And here are some screen captures from the video; you can see more old pics of Krysti in my photo albums!

The kittens all died.  I wanted to make a happy movie about the birth and young lives of cute kittens; instead I recorded a tragedy, and now I don't want to show it to anyone.  I don't even want to watch any of it.

Fur Factory's kittens were born on Sunday, June 29.  Beginning on Tuesday one kitten died per day except for Friday, July 4.  The last two kittens died Sunday, July 6, only one week old.

On Wednesday after the second kitten died I got them a bigger box and put a fan nearby, and I got Fur Factory some special cat food.  We bought KMR milk for the kittens and we started trying to feed them ourselves.  Faithe was a big help.  She helped me bottle-feed the kittens.

On Friday night I posted an ad on Craigslist.  "Urgent! Kittens in need of breast milk!"  Number One (Stripe) was barely hanging on at that point.  Then he died and I posted a new ad on Craiglist:  "Two kittens still alive and in need of mother's milk!"  I added a picture of each kitten.  I thought that was my only chance to save them.

I got a lot of responses.  On Saturday I took the two remaining kittens, who I named Candy Corn (Number Three) and Chocolate Factory (Number Six), to a woman's house in Louisville.  She had two mother cats who recently gave birth and she tried to get Candy Corn and Chocolate Factory to milk both of them.  They weren't trying.  They were apparently too weak.

Saturday we started tube-feeding both kittens, since they wouldn't take a bottle.  I fed them KMR all day and I got up in the night to feed them.  Fur Factory acted concerned whenever a kitten cried, and she would pick them up and move them back to their box.  But sometimes she would watch me feed them detachedly, as if they weren't her kittens at all.  

Early on Sunday morning Candy Corn died and I fed Chocoloate Factory but he wasn't looking so hot either.  Then a couple of hours later Chocolate Factory gave up too.  We had one last funeral for them that afternoon.  Fur Factory was playing in the nearby tree while we mourned her loss.

Fur Factory spent about five days searching the house and yard for her kittens.  For about a week she wouldn't leave my side.  She still spends most of her time with me, which is a change from before she had her kittens.  She used to be a whole lot more independent and flighty.

Fur Factory had six lovely kittens.  Three of them were polydactyl.  Two of them were calico.  Three of them were tortoiseshell.  One of them was black and white like her, but in a different pattern.  They all had the same silky black fur she has; when they lied against her they blended in with her fur.

I tried to do what I thought I could to help them.  Maybe we touched them too much.  Fur Factory started leaving them early on, whenever they went to sleep.  She would return to them whenever they cried for milk, but somehow she wasn't able to give them all the milk they needed.  

It's possible Fur Factory isn't truly polydactyl and has radial hypoplasia instead, which could help explain the trouble her kittens had milking her.  But Fur Factory really has "thumbs," not "patty feet," which you would expect with a cat who had r.h. Furthermore, none of her kittens had extra short legs or any other deformities.  The ones with extra toes just had extra toes and nothing else seemed wrong with them.  They were too small, but they seemed to be proportioned well.

Maybe she was just too young.  Fur Factory is probably a year old now and I am setting her birthday as July 6.  So, you know, maybe she just wasn't ready for motherhood.  I should get her fixed so that this tragedy can never happen again.  And I will, as soon as I have the money for it.

Someday I may go back and edit a video with Fur Factory's kittens, but I doubt it.  Someday I may be able to watch the kittens' birth video again without feeling slightly sick about it, but for the time being I am not going to watch it.  I will leave it up since someone who is not so attached to the situation may be able to appreciate the beauty of their birth without becoming too depressed that they all died less than a week later.

In lighter news, I recently discovered wild berries growing all over Alliance -- blackberries, black raspberries, and mulberries!  I go around for a few hours and bring home a bucket of berries every day!  J. T. goes with me sometimes and he is a big help.  I want to make a video of us picking blackberries.