Breaking Waves (06-30-09)

My deviantART gallery has been updated with ~10 more fractals.

The Beithall page at Ezrian Wiki has been updated. Mainly with flag stuff.

More on the RIAA vs. Suburban Mom Lawsuit

Rat
Yes, the nearly 2M fine is outrageous, but if that alone hasn’t had you frothing at the mouth, here’s something that probably will push you over that edge.

First off, I’m going to start by addressing the “notice” fine that she got in the mail. Media Sentry, the “company” that was investigating for the RIAA to track down file sharers was NEVER LICENSED TO DO INVESTIGATIVE WORK IN ANY STATE IN THIS COUNTRY. What’s worse is that they did it across state lines. That’s criminal behaviour. There was no accountability, no checks or precautions. No peer review. Nothing but their word. (Considering they engaged in illegal behaviour, that already puts their word into doubt.)

They just looked at a user, wrote down whatever IP address they were using, what tracks they saw in a share folder. Then the RIAA files a motion in court to discover who these John Does are… meanwhile, the John Does can’t be contacted to defend themselves until -after- personal information had been released on them. Conveniently, the RIAA had already had their day in court without opposition before they sent the notices out demanding a settlement from the people that were ASSUMED to be file sharing. This amount, according to the letters, is to be paid under the threat that they will be taken to court and could stand to lose much more.

You know what that’s called? Extortion. Pay us now… cause it would be a shame if you lost everything you had whether or not you were actually the right person to be accused of filesharing. (Remember the dead grandmother or the person who never owned a computer or had any internet connections?)

Now for what really needs to be looked at, the penalty or so-called ‘damages’.

Let’s assume each of the 24 songs in question in Jammie’s case is available on iTunes with a price of 99 cents. Let’s also assume that statutory damages were actually limited to the revenue lost by the company (which they obviously aren’t)… And finally that the 24 songs were each 5MB and the cable modem had an upload speed of 256kbps. (Given that this happened in 2004, 256k or 384k upspeed is most likely)

For the 24 songs in question to incur $80,000 in damages each… they would have had to be downloaded a total of 1,939,394 times, for 9,696,970 MB (9.6GB) of downloads. This would, at 256kbps, take 3,507 days (about 9 and a half years). Kazaa had only existed for about three years at the point of infringement. Also… that ignores the remaining 1,678 songs.

Going the other direction, if all 1,702 songs were saturating the upload speed of the modem for the history of Kazaa (call it 3 years even to make things easier) you’d have been able to upload 1,009,152MB, or about 201,830 songs, divided evenly over all 1,702 songs… that’s about 118 times each. At 99 cents each, that’s $2,803.68 in statutory damages.

$2,803.68 total, not each song, and only that much given that her connection was *absolutely saturated for the entire three years.*

Another way to put $80,000 per song in perspective, look at the RIAA’s 2001 marketing stats ( http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html ) (the latest year I could find figures for new releases). On average each new CD title brought in about $500,000 in revenue. If you figure conservatively 8 songs per CD, that works out to $62,500 per song. (The difference between an ep/single and an album, or an album with longer tracks, etc… 8 seems like a fair number.)

In other words, the jury awarded more averaged damages per song than if she’d prevented all copies of the song from ever being sold.

You angry now?

I’ve been a lurker on here for a very, very long time and felt the need to say something now. I’m exceptionally pleased that you have decided to speak out against this, Moby… but I don’t see how any reasonable person shouldn’t. It crossed a line so far, so low that I cannot fathom what the jury was thinking… that they couldn’t even be of our own society.

I was disheartened when Mute Records was acquired by EMI. This made Mute, and its releases, funding sources for the RIAA. I have much respect for Daniel Miller and what he did with Mute (Mute was one of the two labels I would blindly purchase releases from. WaxTrax was the other. It was how I discovered Moby… I saw a copy of the Move EP and bought it on account of it being a Mute release.)… It put me at ends with my desire to explore new music on account of a label’s reputation. If it wasn’t for the extreme abuses being perpetuated by the RIAA when it comes to how they view filesharing… I wouldn’t be so selective and shy as I am now about buying RIAA affiliated acts.

Filesharing is killing music? No. The RIAA is.

The above was left as a post on Moby’s blog.

RIAA Sponsored Terrorism

A mother from Minnesota was recently sued by the RIAA for downloading 24 songs. The amount she’ll have to pay is the equivalent to $80,000 dollars per song. How is that even a remotely fair ruling? Those songs on iTunes would nowadays probably cost what, a dollar?

Their punishment is to make her pay tens of thousands of a percent of the actual value of the stuff that she “stole.” That’s like giving the death penalty to a litterbug. Utterly fucking ridiculous. The RIAA are just bullies, plain and simple. They’re trying to terrorize us into capitulating to a business model that’s only outdated because of their failure to embrace new technologies effectively. Fuck ‘em, I’m never going to actually pay for music again.

And I’d bet $80,000 dollars for every song I’ve downloaded (a lot more than 24!) that someone in the courtroom on the day she was convicted was also a filesharer, and probably more prolific than the Minnesota woman, to boot.

New Gimmick

I’ve been thinking lately about my blogging philosophy, the direction I want to go with this thing, and what it is that a good blog consists of. I’m not sure that the whole “only post extensive rebuttals and and full-length editorials” thing is working out for me. By trying to limit myself to full-length posts I miss out on opportunities to make smaller, more reflective posts.

I’ve been pleased with the way I’ve been handling the Ezrian Thoughts series, and I’m considering doing a series like that but with a more philosophical, political, scientific and maybe personal bent. Something short that I can do consistently. It’d be good for me; I need the chance to rant, reflect and blow off steam. It would be good for the blog, too, as it would actually be receiving consistent updates.

This new gimmick, or series, or column or whatever you want to call it needs a name, then. The first one I considered was Deep Thoughts, as a play off of my username, Abyssal. It sounds a bit pretentious, though, and since I can’t guarantee that any one post in the series would be even vaguely deep, I have reservations about using that name. I’ve also considered just removing the space- “Deepthoughts,” to me, seems like it has the “abyssal” flavor I was going for without sounding like it was claiming to contain “thoughts that are deep.” I’ve also been considering the unrelated title Mariana Musings.

I leaning towards Mariana Musings, although I think it sounds a bit feminine for my taste. Then again, I don’t give a rats ass about that kind of thing, so, whatever. If I’m going to take the “ocean-themed” running article series idea, I might as well run with it. Here’s what I’ve been thinking:

Mariana Musings- Thoughts on politics, philosophy, science, spirituality, etc.

Tidepool Reflections- Personal notes.

Working waves- Notices of updates for my Deviantart, Delicious links, Wikipedia articles.

Ezrianic Currents- Thoughts on Ezrian-related matters.

Plus maybe some misc series that don’t unnecessarily fall in with the ocean theme, like my coining neologisms and stuff. Thoughts and feedback would be appreciated.

Ezrian Thoughts 06-15-09

Second Reply to David

My spat with David continues!

David
First off, I made no attack on you, but on your misrepresentations.

You said I was deliberately ignorant. That’s an insult.

David
“You are an idiot” would be an attack on you.

Indeed.

David
Secondly, 7-8 years is not a very long time to study the faith, considering we have 2000 years of writings besides the Bible.

If the Bible really was the inerrant word of God it would be able to stand on its own two feet without the work of centuries worth of obfuscation and rationalizing. Not to mention that those writings are irrelevant to the Christian faith; if the Bible is the Word of God, as it claimed, then it’s the only work truly relevant for deciding what a Christian should believe and why they should believe it.

David
Third, you’ve taken 5 or 6 passages, very short passages at that, and decided that you would turn away from Christianity.

Don’t misrepresent me, those passages are not the whole sum of why I left Christianity, they’re just a, uh, “representative sample.”

David
All of what you quoted is less than 2 pages of the Bible.

Point? The Bible either is or is not the inerrant Word of God. Either it gets 100%, or it fails. Don’t blame me, it set the standard for itself. It talked the talk but couldn’t walk the walk.

David
I guess you don’t read Stephen King or watch any modern movies, do you?

…?

David
Also, if you look at the greater picture, Deuteronomy is Moses last will and testament. He tells his people how to live, expounding on the 10 commandments. The Jews and all peoples of the region were nomadic and had very harsh rules. Moses was the speaker/writer in Deuteronomy.

I know the rules were harsh. They were illogical, superstitious, tyrannical and immoral as well. The only difference between us on this point is that I have the moral fortitude to stand against this crap.

David
Secondly, if you study what other peoples of the time were doing, how they would subdue enemies, you would see that in many ways, what the Jews were told to do was humane.

Slaughtering entire villages without even sparing women or animals? Humane my fucking ass. And your relativist bullshit is a sack of crap. “Well they weren’t as evil as the other bronze age barbarians…” is not a viable argument. Either God is wholly good, as the bible says, or He isn’t. This is another absolute scale that the Bible set for itself.

David
The point in Revelation is that if you turn away from God, you condemn yourself. God loves us all equally. But if you turn away, you deprive yourself of God’s love.

That’s neither sensible, nor biblical.

David
In Exodus, God did many milder things to convince Pharoah to let the Israelites out of slavery (you’re not a proponent of slavery, are you?), which he ignored, so God resorted to other means.

Actually, I seem to remember God poisoning their water supply, taking away their food, and sending disease and parasites to torment the populace. “Mild” is not the first word that comes to mind.

And don’t pretend that the Bible was abolitionist, we both know that God both tolerated and encouraged slavery (and even the physical abuse of slaves). He referred to himself as Lord (master) and his worshippers as servants (slaves).

David
In Chronicles, when you enter into a covenant to seek the Lord, it is permanent. You make a solemn vow. If you turn away from that vow, there are consequences.

Like that guy who hunted down his wife and butchered her after she divorced him. “Ah luved ‘er but thinn she up’n left me for som scumbag! She broke her promise t’me and there be consequences for such’n one as that!”

David
God does not condemn you, you condemn yourself.

Actually, I seem to remember some passage in the Bible where God sends his angels to forcibly throw people into everlasting torment… Oh yeah, it’s Matthew 13:42-42! Looks like I won’t get the chance to do a bellyflop into Hell after all. Drat!

David
God loves everyone equally-even you.

Yay, I’m not a subhuman!

David
Whether or not you accept that love is your free will, your decision.

“Love me or else!” is not an offer, it’s a coercive ultimatum.

David
Good luck!

For what?

Ezrian Thoughts 06-12-09

My first Death Threat as a Blogger

Today, I reached a major blogging milestone; I received my first death threat. The following comment was posted to my feedback page a couple of hours ago:

tIM
TIMMCVEIGH2@AOL.COM
IP: 205.188.116.11
I have a friend who works for Microsoft and can identify the locations of pigs who are too cowardly to identify themselves.

Wow, is this scum bag gonna be surprised when the yellow Ryder truck pulls up aside his (her?) building.!

Watch the news.

Apparently he’s planning to blow up my house but doesn’t even know if I’m a guy or a girl. You need to know your target better, moron! And he didn’t even say why he’s gonna kill me. Usually when you intend on intimidating someone into compliance with your will, you actually make sure to express what you actually want from them.

Sounds like tIM’s just some impotent 13 year year Star Wars fan roleplaying as a right-wing internet tough guy. His bad grammar belies mere stupidity as opposed to the stark raving lunacy of someone who represents a credible threat, but maybe, just maybe, one day when I have a larger readership and have published more controversial opinions, I’ll get menacing threats. Until then, while this one’s really not that cool as far as death threats go, I’m kinda proud of it.

Ezrian Thoughts 06-10-09

Dino Atavisms

I saw a program last night on the Science Channel about Jack Horner’s research into “recreating” a dinosaur by artificially reactivating dormant genes. That’s how the research is portrayed anyway. What scientists are actually doing is artificially inducing atavisms of arbitrary levels of plesiomorphy in an extant Cenozoic dinosaur that are culturally associated with the more basal Mesozoic forms. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less.

Not nearly as sensational sounding, huh? Of course, it’s still pretty friggin’ awesome, but I feel a need to nitpick since popular culture still doesn’t seem to have absorbed the fact that birds are dinosaurs.

Ezrian Thought 6-5-09

Rush Earned his Title

Note: This post was originally a comment here.

You’re wrong to say the media crowned Rush king of the Republicans. The media couldn’t just say “Limbaugh is the king Republican” and then have Michael Steele yield to him. Boss Hog had to have gained power on his own earlier for that to happen. And Limbaugh has been a person of influence on the American right for ages.

Not to mention that Steele was essentially a figurehead anyway, with the Republicans picking a black man to try to remains current after Obama’s election. Of course their malice towards Hispanics in the wake of the Sotomayor nomination has completely under-cut their “racial equality” facade. Steele was like the token Black kid in an overly PC 80s cartoon: powerless, pointless, and present only for appearance’s sake.

Reply from a Sociopathic Abortion Lover

Eleanor Cumberland, PhD, MD
For those people endowed with sufficient intellectual capacity to understand the scientific fact that a new and unique human life is created at conception AND CARE, it is difficult to comprehend the pro-death side’s lack of understanding and/or compassion unless we examine it from a psychological standpoint.

Every time a cell divides in your body new human life is formed and every time you take a shit the turd will end up scraping some small quantity of livings cells from the interior of your GI tract. When your elimination is complete the cells will end up being being flushed down the crapper and die. So no, the abstraction of “human life” doesn’t mean shit to me, no pun intended.

Oh, and stop calling us “pro-death” or we’ll call you on it and start addressing your side as the “pro-forcing-children-to-bear-short-brutal-lives-because-they-inherited-a-deadly-recessive-gene-from-their-father-who-is-also-their-grandfather-because-he-raped-and-impregnated-his-own-daughter-who-couldn’t-avoid-the-pregnancy-because-the-pro-life-lobby-got-a-law-passed-in-her-state-requiring-her-to-have-her-parents’-permission-to-be-prescribed-the-morning-after-pill.” And our name for you is more accurate.

Eleanor Cumberland, PhD, MD
Once we do that, we can then begin to understand the problem that exists to an overwhelming degree on the pro-death side and in isolated incidents on the pro-life side. Numerous studies have shown a marked increase over the past few years of antisocial/dissocial personality disorder in the general population.

In fact there are so many that she can’t be bothered to cite a single one!

Eleanor Cumberland, PhD, MD
Previously known under the labels of psychopath or sociopath, these conditions typically manifest their presence by a lack of conscience in conjunction with a weak ability to defer gratification, symptoms overtly revealed in those capable of killing innocent humans for personal reasons.

Boohoo! Does the destruction of innocent human cheek swab cells for DNA testing also fill you with mourning?

Eleanor Cumberland, PhD, MD
On the pro-death side, this happens at the alarming rate of 3,000+ per day just in the U.S., while on the pro-life side it happens very infrequently, but still, it does occur.

Yeah, every woman who gets an abortion is doing so to unshackle herself from responsibilities that would hinder her life of unrestrained hedonism! Except you know, the rape victims, sexual abuse victims, women physically endangered by pregnancy and women whose children would be born with terrifying deformities.

Eleanor Cumberland, PhD, MD
Both sides suffer from similar psychological disorders, but there does seem to be a large discrepancy in the occurrence rate.

Yes, on one side the prevalence of psychological disorders is nearly 100%.

Of course, people on both sides of the issue who suffer from the disorders will naturally want to deny their affliction adamantly, but unfortunately in this case, the louder the denial, the greater the evidence.

“The louder the denial, the greater the evidence”? What the fuck does that even mean? Is it some kind of conspiracy theory? Like “Of course they’re denying. they’re guilty!”?

Reply to David

Well, I think you need to follow your own advice. Know Christianity before you bash it. Know their language. Because you don’t. Probably on purpose.

I was a devout Christian 7-8 for years and I’m pretty familiar with the Bible. Converting to atheism was painful and disorienting. Thanks for the personal attack though.

You’re assumption that Christianity is not a compassionate religion might be based on a misguided understanding of compassion. Compassion is embodied by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This in no way means to let people get away with evil. King David slept with Bathsheba, fathered Solomon, killed Bathsheba’s husband. Heavy duty sinner, huh? Samuel went to David and told him a parable, giving him a scenario. David flew off the handle and asked who was this guy and he needed to die for his sin. Samuel answered that that man was David, to which David withered, admitted his sin, and repented of it. The Lord promised David that his family would suffer, but prosper after a period of suffering. So it is compassionate to point out that something is wrong. It is not compassionate to shout condemnation at the person, nor is it compassionate to allow someone to wallow in sin.

My assumption that Christianity is not a compassionate religion might more likely be based on some of the following:

“Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him.” (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

“And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes [i.e. sinners] are fully ripe.” And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. (Revelation 14:18-20)

“If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives.” (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

“And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.” (Exodus 12:29-30 NLT)

“They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.” (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

No “founder of the religion” (=God) said whoever wouldn’t worship him was condemned or made to grovel. God gave us free choice to worship him or not. If you don’t you’re turning away from him and you’ll get your reward.

You gotta be kidding me. You started by saying that God wouldn’t condemn me for not worshipping Him, but ended by saying that if I turn away from Him I’ll “get my reward.” Is doublethink really so easy? And for the scripture I was referring to:

Those who reject Jesus will not be saved. (Acts 4:12)

Everyone will end up groveling. (Philippians 2:10)

Eternal torment as the fate of the unsaved. (Revelation 14:11)

Misguided

Note: I recently left this as comment at a liberal blog criticizing pro-lifers for having unchristian moral priorities. This version is slightly edited from the original comment.

I agree with you about Tiller’s death, but you’re attempt to reason with conservative Christians is fundamentally misguided. For one, you sound like a fish out of water when you talk religion; if you’re going to convince someone, you need to be fluent in their language. You don’t sound fluent in Christianity and a skilled right-winger will easily find a biblical rationalization for whatever their position is.

Secondly, right wingers don’t care about the compassionate parts of the Bible. It’s a lot easier and more conducive to personal pride to just endlessly harp about the evils of gay people. And luckily for them, the Bible provides a lot of cruel alternative passages for the right to peruse instead of that hippy bullshit Jesus would lapse into on an off day.

Lastly, your apparent assumption that Christianity is at heart a compassionate, good religion that has been hijacked by hoards of self-righteous sociopaths is dead off. For every beautiful psalm in the Bible, there’s an incitement to raid villages and slaughter every man woman and child therein. For every wise revelation, a superstitious ritual. For every sermon on the mount, a shrill screed about the end of the world.

We’re talking here about a religion whose founder openly said that whoever wouldn’t worship him as God would be condemned to unending torture and that he would ensure that whoever was condemned like that would be made to grovel first.