On...

LN2 Ice Cream

davidgessel — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 07:37:11 GMT

Once, years ago, a girlfriend was visiting me at the semiconductor test equipment mfg company I was consulting to while I was stuck late finishing some experiments. She grew restless and hungry, not being geek enough to find the test gear in and of itself interesting. The kitchenette was stocked with only the usual bad coffee gear--ultra-pasteurized cream cups, sugar packets, and bad coffee. I asked if she wanted some ice cream and she thought I was teasing. I took one of the vacuum insulated coffee carafes from the kitchenette and filled it dramatically with LN2 from a roll-around 160 liter dewar in the lab (any time you crack the liquid feed on one of those things it's pretty dramatic with the hissing and the steam and the gurgling and the spattering, dancing beads of LN2). As an aside, vacuum insulated coffee carafes filled with LN2 will hold it for more than a day. I carried it boiling and fogging back to the kitchenette as she followed at a more than safe distance. I found a plastic bowl in the sink and filled it with the contents of about 100 of those little ultra-pasteurized coffee creamers and about 100 packets of sugar, brewed up a fresh pot of coffee and skimmed the first few seconds worth off--when it actually has some flavor--and added it to the bowl. She looked mighty dubious, but the glass liner had cooled enough that the carafe didn't seem dangerous any more so she moved in to watch. Then while I stirred the mixture with a plastic spoon (and, don't forget - while wearing the bright blue cryogenic safety gloves and full face shields) she poured in the LN2 which filled the bowl with dense fog that poured out, over the counter, and down around our ankles, spreading out across the floor, looking for all the world like a bad sci-fi movie. In about 30 seconds we had a bowl of half decent coffee ice cream to share. And, for just a little while, she thought being a geek was really cool... This past weekend, I got to recreate the experiment, but with two gorgeous and technically oriented women who were were entirely up for dangerous fun in the kitchen. The updated recipe Carolyn, Joanne, and I came up with is: 1.5 cups 0.5 & 0.5 0.75 cups fine sugar 1.0 cup hot coffee (chilling it would reduce LN2 usage) 2.0 TSP ultra-fine ground coffee (turkish grind) 24oz (roughly) LN2 added from vacuum insulated all-stainless cups. Mix ingredients for a while in the mixer, then slowly add the LN2. Don't add it too fast or it floats on the mixture and freezes the top solid. As it mixes in, the bowl will chill and soon the mixer will be straining against the ice cream, which is light and fluffy and has no detectable ice crystals.

kill dash nine

davidgessel — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:05:04 GMT

Bob Berger sent me this very funny song: http://graphics.stanford.edu/~monzy/KillDashNine.mp3 http://www.smallworks.com/archives/00000485.htm I guess I'll have to shut you down for good this time, Already tried a SIGQUIT, so now it's KILL DASH 9. You gotta learn when it's time for your thread to yield; It shoulda slept; instead you stepped and now your fate is sealed. I'll take your process off the run queue without even asking 'Cause my flow is like reentrant and preemptive multitasking. Your sad rhymes are spinnin' like you're in a deadlock, You're like a synchronous sock that don't know when to block; So I pull out my keyboard and I pull out my glock, And I dismount your girl and I mount /proc And I've got your fuckin pid and the bottom line Is that you best not front or else it's KILL DASH NINE.

Netfinity 5500 M20

davidgessel — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 19:38:50 GMT

I've been bringing up a surplus Netfinity 5500 M20 I got on ebay really cheap. The guy probably lost $100 on shipping, the machine is huge. It's entirely impractical for a home server, but who can resist that many blinky lights. I'm running FreeBSD 6.2. There have been some hiccups and I thought I'd put any solutions into some searchable text somewhere... like here... just in case anyone else is scrounging surplus big iron. The basic configuration is a quad xeon 500 machine with 2GB of ram and 6x36GB Ultra 160 drives in RAID 5 with a hot swap spare installed, so there's roughly 136GB of main (fast) storage, and in the IDE bays I wedged 2 500GB Hitachi drives on a Promise FastTrack 100 TX2 for /media. Useful note 1: The Netfinity doesn't like the Adaptec 1200A controller, it just doesn't recognize it in any slot. The FastTrack works fine and you can configure the array using the BIOS drivers, which I first flashed to current. Also, you need 24" IDE cables, which are hard to find. Don't get ATA-33 cables the first time.... The cables fit more easily if they are single device cables (2 connectors total, rather than 3 for a master and slave configuration). I had some network problems. The system is connected to a Gigafast EE2400SV switch (a great bargain! but not actually "giga," rather mega as in 10/100, not 10/100/1000). The switch has an address table that updates every 5 minutes... who knew? So if you move a device from one port to another it disappears until the address table updates. This is not a problem with the NIC. But anyway, out went the Linksys LNE100TX based NICs (2x) an in went a pair of 3Com 3C980C-TXM NICs, which are compatible with the hot swap PCI channels at least, even if they won't do much else for me. An oddity is that my display shows the words "REV" in the background, no matter what. I changed video cards from an old ATI Rage 8MB card (the built-in video only has 2MB) to a Nvidia TNT 16MB card, but the bizarre background text remains. Could be BIOS problem. We'll see if it's still there in xwindows later. For now, I'm reinstalling BSD 6.2 over FTP. I did a full install from CD and CVSUPed to RELENG_6_2 and did a buildworld and got a barf at IOCTL.C, tried the STABLE branch with no improvement. Since I had very little invested in configuration (make.conf, kernel.config, cvusup config only) it seemed more expedient to just start over.

Old and now largely irrelevant.

davidgessel — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:39:27 GMT

Some time ago John Allen Paulos wrote a review (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1919192&page=1) of an entertaining article examining the economics of prostitution (http://www.iies.su.se/seminars/papers/Edlund.pdf). The article sparked outrage amongst certain self-appointed social commentators, an outrage only supported by misreading Paulos' ABC article and not taking the time to read the original article. I thought that was a little unfair, and wrote the following: The original paper is rather wonderful and though the premises are simplified, and admittedly absurdly so (these are called "stylized facts" in the business), the conclusions stem logically (and mathematically correctly) from the assumptions. Those who consider themselves sympathetic to sex workers would likely be amused and in general agreement. One must apply the traditional admonition so commonly warranted by articles released without the benefit of an editor: RTFA. First, the Paulos (ABC) article summarizes the original paper accurately while fairly pointing out the (few) unacknowledged flaws in the original article: specifically citing sampling problems with prostitutes that have been busted and failing to consider abusive or problematic marriages which impose costs on the wife not considered by the article, which may be substantive enough to alter the conclusions, or require additional balancing considerations otherwise ignored. That Paulos is a review of Edlund and Korn makes a review of Paulos an absence of fully understanding the Edlund and Korn article a mere ad hominem attack. If one were to read the paper, one would find Paulos that gives an accurate and reasonable summary though by necessity does not delve into every detail the article presents. Neither Paulos nor Edlund and Korn make the mistake of assuming all prostitutes fall into the same socio-economic class, as suggested by the critics of Paulos' review, rather the paper considers the simple case where incomes for prostitution are homogeneous and where they are heterogeneous, and likewise makes the same assumptions for male incomes and for women's incomes, and finally adds to the model "housewives." The economic distributions they make for the incomes of prostitutes are derived from 13 cited studies (of 58 references) including mid-15th century France, 1934 Japan, 1947-72 Germany, 1973 Nevada, early 1980's Thailand, 1981 Munich, 1990-91 Los Angeles, 1993 Montreal, mid-1990's Indonesia, 1995 Barcelona, 1997 German, 1997 Brazil, and late 1990's Malaysia. The article describes the market structure as: "At the bottom we find street prostitution, followed by brothels, bars and clubs. Call girls and escort agencies occupy the middle to high slots, and kept women the top rungs." Paulos briefly mentions and Edlund and Korn go into some detail regarding the "ugly side." It would seem that one of the critics (Ray) might take issue with the characterization of section 4.4 of the paper, titled "Voluntary?" but the paper certainly address the issue. The conclusion of the authors is that there is no question of victimization: "[i]n times and places where forced labor has been used, prostitution was no exception." But the authors suggest that "Poor conditions or riskiness are by themselves not sufficient to establish bondage or slavery as the alternative could be worse." That is, the authors do not support the concept of "economic slavery" as such, acknowledging that "economic realities seem to play into how willingly women are thus victimized," but this is not slavery - it is a rational choice in confronting a difficult situation. Sex workers are not mindless victims. The workers written about in both the ABC article and the paper are in no way "recreational sex workers," as suggested by the critics, indeed that concept is only briefly acknowledged as being largely irrelevant to the economic theory they are deriving. They admit that such dismissal of "recreational sex workers" undermines the validity of the theory to the extant that some women might find economic value in the pleasure of the occupation of being a prostitute, rather it is a common but false assumption that women "abhor sex" (and also the equally problematic assumption that "women were suspected of being overly sexual and willing adulteresses.") One of the worst examples of how embarrassing it can be to not RTFA before expounding on a misinterpretation of it is the argument that the authors failed to do their homework on income levels. Aside from the summary of sources used as reference, to support the contention that prostitution as a profession commands _some_ premium over other employment available to women of similar qualifications, the article specifically cites in section 2.3 Pay, the following "For a probability sample of 1,024 female street prostitutes in LA interviewed in 1990 and 1991, the annual average total earnings were USD 23,845 for prostitutes, while working women averaged USD 20,197 and female service workers only USD 17,192." The article backs this assertion up with data from Montreal, Indonesia, and Malaysia. If one had residual doubt as to the validity of the assumption, one can review the 13 references cited in table 1. As to the argument that the article is remiss in positing that ex-prostitutes cannot marry, it is not. The entire point of the economic argument is predicated on the _assumption_ specifically spelled out as such by both the article and the ABC review that prostitutes cannot marry and married women are not prostitutes. The degree to which that assumption is valid is specially addressed in 4.5 Wife and prostitute? The authors state (and one of the critics (Ray) backs up) that "It is a fair guess that to the extent former prostitutes marry, on average they do so on worse terms than they would have had in the absence of their past." That is, having been a prostitute is a liability in the marriage market. You might find some men who love it, some who don't care, but on _average_ it is a liability. That one of the critics (Ray) argues that young women may fail to make the calculation they are trading marriage for high income is utterly irrelevant to the economic argument presented, as even a cursory read of the article would reveal. Critical dismissal of the competing commodities argument is also an embarrassing admission of a failure to RTFA. The article does get all Madonna-whore: "The prostitute serves men in a way that would be scandalous if done by a wife. The Madonna Whore dichotomy may have risen from the need to keep the two separate. Consistent with the premise of this paper, the wife was pigeon-holed at the high end of the social spectrum, and the harlot at respectable distance." The article goes into great detail about the comparative services of the prostitute and wife, how both have value and why, and what it means. The stylized fact is not about the mutually exclusive condition of men, rather the stylized fact is to create a mutually exclusive choice for women. It is merely essential to the premise that the woman choose to be a prostitute or a wife (though footnote 27 admits "The alternative formulation that women choose neither, but are sold into either marriage or prostitution, would also work.") As for ignoring homosexual prostitution, the article does not, nor does it ignore the critic's (Blue's) supposed counter example of "renting a stud." Male stud services are not economically relevant to the model being developed. Again, a quick RTFA will make the reasons clear: directly addressing homosexual prostitution the authors state: "Females outnumber males as sellers, but that is not the primary reason we do not discuss homosexual prostitution. The premise of this paper is that female heterosexual prostitution is conditioned by the following realities of reproduction: fecund women are scarce; a child has by default only one known parent the mother; and marriage gives a man parental rights to the children borne by his wife." Overall an excellent paper and a good review of it, done a disservice by reactive critique.

Jesus takes the Shortbus to Camp

davidgessel — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:56:19 GMT

Carolyn and I saw Shortbus a few days ago, and Jesus Camp not long before that; what a double feature... Two groups that seem to think they've found the keys to happiness, to nirvana, to social and spiritual fulfillment. One does so by a radical devotion to Christianity, the other by a devotion to a radical sexuality. Each is outside the mainstream, each amusing when viewed from the outside. But only one is scary: the radical fundamentalists in Jesus Camp see their life's work to change the world, willing or not, avowing activist if not violent proselytizing. The adherents of radical sexuality attempt to convert by example, by putting on a happy face, by showing the bliss they believe comes from their enlightenment. Jesus Camp feels a bit weak for being neutral. The model follows one familiar to all media portrayals of arguments between liberal and conservative: on the conservative side charismatic prize fighters on an Evangelical roll; on the liberal side wheezy, halting intellectuals monotoning a nasal appeal to reason. It is no surprise Becky Fisher sees it as an excellent recruiting tool. Children are sure to be impressed by and somewhat attracted to the enthusiasm and devotion expressed by the brainwashed kids in the movie. Nobody will be impressed or convinced by the neo-Unitarian liberal radio personality's emotionless commentary. Shortbus feels a little weak in the end for the uniformly happy endings everyone achieves in the final climactic windup. It comes off as a bit too glib and a bit too obvious. It is remarkable and valuable that the fornicators were not punished, for once, for the sin of enjoying sex. Even women were allowed to enjoy sex escape repentance, punishment, or damnation; something we learned in "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" the resident priests on the MPAA find an abhorrent offense to decency.

Civilian Deaths

davidgessel — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:59:07 GMT

There is some controversy over the methods used in the latest study published in the Lancet of civilian deaths, particularly among conservatives that are worried that 500,000 civilian deaths will be considered "bad." On the other hand, 50,000 civilian deaths would be a pathetically inefficient use of funds. The methods used in the Lancet study are standard epidemiological methods that are not questioned in less political events like famine, disease, and hurricanes. They are, in fact, the same basic methods used for estimating deaths from Katrina. The method is scientifically and statistically sound, a cross population sample extrapolated across the population sampled. The contrary numbers come from news reports and morgue reports. The 10X disparity suggests: 1) That deaths are under reported in Iraq--given that the news media is effectively confined to the green zone, this is neither surprising nor unexpected. 2) That most bodies do not come to the morgue. While this would be unlikely in western countries, it is consistent with the Islamic requirements that the body be buried as quickly as possible and that postmortem examinations are sacrilege. It is therefore not surprising or unexpected that 9 of 10 or more Muslim dead would not be taken to morgues. Given the sociological factors at work and the privations of an ongoing war, direct polling, as conducted by the study in the Lancet, is the only plausible way to get an accurate number. Fiscal conservatives (if not evangelical conservatives) should applaud the higher number. According to the UN, as quoted by Danzig, under secretary of the Navy, it costs $2,000 (1969 dollars, $11,035 in 2006 dollars according to the FRB of Minneapolis) to pacify a square kilometer with conventional weapons ($5.52 in 2006 dollars per square kilometer for biologic weapons--what a bargain!). Iraq is 437,072 square kilometers, with a pre-war population of 26,074,906 or 60 people per square km. According to the DOD, about 10% of the $226 billion to fund the war thus far went to munitions and weapons, according to the CBO, 41% of that went to munitions themselves: roughly $9,000,000,000 worth. That should be enough to pacify 815,586 square kilometers or kill 49 million people at Iraq's average population density. It would therefore have taken $18,000 worth of ammunition to kill each of 500,000 Iraqis, or $180,000 each if the number of dead is only 50,000. (The all-in cost is at least 20x higher than that per Iraqi killed, they should be honored we value their non-lives so highly!) Compare that to the Vietnam war where we had no smart weapons and we were not taking advantage of out sourcing: estimates are that we killed 900,000 NVA/VC, and 200,000 North Vietnamese civilians. The Vietnam war cost $132.7 billion, assuming a blended 1970 dollar basis, or $692 billion on 2006 dollars, of which $28 billion or so went to munitions assuming the same ratio of expenditures, or $25,000 per Vietnamese killed in 2006 dollars. Therefore, if the total Iraqi deaths are 500,000, our munitions have only become 38% more cost efficient since 1970, a plausible number. If the total Iraqi deaths is 50,000, then our munitions are only 14% as efficient as they were in 1970, which would be an utter fiasco, especially given the lack of ground cover and open terrain in Iraq. These statistics cause a bit of a conundrum for right wingers: either the war has caused horrific carnage or our army can't shoot straight anymore.

Yay.

davidgessel — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:24:33 GMT

Good relaunch. Good interface. Why is some legal content still prohibited? Isn't the puritan gone?

Four days in Toronto

davidgessel — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 23:48:19 GMT

The Toronto film festival isn't nearly as homey or sweet as the telluride festival. But it's very nicely run and active. Go Leafs. - The Magic Flute Kenneth Branagh's fanciful adaptation of the opera, in opera form. The music was beautiful and the singing amazing. The story was fun and funny and whimsically adapted as set in world war one style trenches. The cinematography looked beautiful at times, but it was projected in a Christie digital projector, which has unpleasantly visible pixels (screen door effect) and in this particular screening at least, very bad quantization and noise in the dark regions, which was bad enough to be distracting. Digital projectors are a disappointment in large venues compared to film. - 10 Canoes An offscreen aboriginal in the present narrates a story of ancient ancestors going on a hunt to collect geese and eggs from the swamp and telling a story of their ancient ancestors meant to teach how to live right. All past and past - past ancestors spoke in aboriginal, yet the story came across, as did lessons on aboriginal skills in building canoes, hunting, and surviving in swamps. With entirely believable characters, beautiful scenery, and very funny. - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (excellent) Sold out, some people waiting on line for last minute tickets for 9 hours managed to get in. We saw Borat himself heading out to the stage before coming home. Probably the most anticipated screening in the festival. The first try failed due to technical problems with the projector. The second try was more successful, and was absolutely hilarious. Probably the first time I've found a highly anticipated movie to exceed even the best expectations. While much of the schticks are replays of concepts already tested in the BBC and HBO series, these are almost all premium and tied together with a story about going across America. Truly some of the funniest moments on film. Children do not think bears are good ice cream vendors. - To Get to Heaven First You Have To Die (very good) Tajik movie about a young man's quest to reach manhood. With his nose as his cherry, he stalks every pretty woman he sees, some pleasant, some to far more complexity than he bargained for. Cute, slowly paced, but charming and engaging. - Lights in the Dusk A very slow Finish movie about a not very lovable looser's inability to overcome his inadequacies. His only assets are inextinguishable hope and the pity of his few friends, of which only the latter has much value. - Bamako A mock trial between the World Bank and the people of Africa with some very stirring and passionate speeches about the evils of neolibralism and the consequences of privatization and some loosely related story lines that are woven back and forth. Ultimately, unfortunately for the material, the speeches don't do the subject justice and the story line isn't cohesive enough to be compelling. -The Way I Spent the End of the World A funny, lively Romanian movie about the fall of Ceausecscu. Cute and very interesting. Very sparsely edited so that it was hard, at times, to follow the story, but it all held together in the end. The use of child actors in Eastern European films is interesting and compelling, unlike US movies which make them so saccharine snarky you want to either puke on them or kill them. These are kids one could believe as kids and actually enjoy spending time with. - Palimpsest A polish movie about a cop trying to find out who killed a good friend of his. The scenery is dark and complex, the story hard to follow but compelling and suspenseful. The lead is the narrative view, and he becomes more and more obviously compromised as a rational observer. Unfortunately the conclusion fails to deliver on the audience's work in trying to understand the plot and apparently disconnected events that build up to the conclusion. - Retrieval Another Polish movie, this about a young man's assumption of responsibility for a refugee Ukrainian woman and her child. His skills as a boxer are his entree into the world of petty thugs, and he ultimately does well, despite a sterling conscious that seems always about to prove his undoing. The conclusion seemed abrupt and left the story in a very unsatisfactory state, sadly given that the characters are well developed through the film and go through a believable transformation. Like Palimpsest, one can't help thinking that the movie was on the verge of being so much more than it came out as.

Four days in telluride

davidgessel — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 07:16:48 GMT

- Little Children Another biting and really uplifting comedy about child molestation. Seriously. The movie takes the position, if perhaps a bit unsubtly, that everyone is strange. People who seem the most normal are masturbating with panties over their heads and cruising for anonymous gay sex at truck stops. In this milieu of oddity and pretense and secrets, a child molesters direct acceptance of his psychosexual disturbance makes him genuine and, in a creepy way, likable. As in Happiness, Jane Adams is brilliant. - Fur Billed as an Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, it's more a vehicle for Nicole Kidman in the title role. She's captivating, as always. The movie shares some of the sexual tension of Secretary, but ventures off into more bizarre pastures. There's some effort to make the subjects of Arbus portraits come alive, but in an odd way it seems to share an aesthetic with HBO's ill-fated Carnivale (as well as a period). - Babble An amazingly international story, it weaves plots across the San Diego/Mexico boarder, Morocco, and Tokyo into a coherent whole. The interleaved stories are not temporally synchronized, which can be a bit confusing, but overall there is a good payoff for paying attention. The known stars (Pitt, Blanchett, etc) put in great performances, but the Moroccan kids (apparently non-actors) steal the show. - Charmed Lives A nice overview of the history of Kordas, made special by the Q&A with Michael Korda who's recollections were stronger than the film. - Severence A brilliant spoof of a slasher film that sustains the genre while making fun of it. The Shaun of the Dead of slasher films. Enjoyable, light hearted, entertaining. Good gore, good suspense and surprises, jokes and characters never went too far into intolerable. - The Italian A Russian film about orphans and child prostitutes who live in abject misery and yet, in a brutal way, care deeply for and support each other. The story follows one orphan's amazing journey to find his mother. The child was brilliant - just exceptional - with amazing facial expressions seemingly beyond his years. - Volver As part of a tribute to Penelope Cruz, who was on hand to get her medal, Volver was screened. Perhaps one of Almodovar's best, and the furthest he's departed from his sexy, funny roots; about multi-generational child abuse. Cruz is quite wonderful in the film, putting in an excellent performance that convinced me her medal was warranted. The movie is, as is Almodovar's tendency, filled with powerful, interesting, well conceived women, yet not above a good fart joke. - The Last King of Scotland (excellent) The story of Idi Amin's unlikely friendship with a somewhat adrift young Scottish physician and his decent into madness. Forest Whitaker is one of my favorite actors ever - always a pleasure to watch, usually demonstrating a calm cool that's just captivating. In this movie he is quite frightening. His performance is astonishing - Academy Award-Worthy. So far, I think the best movie I've seen here. - Passio An experimental film, a visual rhythm piece, meant to be accompanied by 21 live musicians. A bit of an endurance test without the live music. Though beautiful, and somewhat hyptnotic, it ran too long unaccompanied. - The U.S. vs. John Lennon A strong documentary that creates a vision of Lennon as a social activist coming to an awakening, fighting the good fight, and getting stomped by a heavy-handed Nixon government. Lots of great footage and excellent interviews, but a reliance on Geraldo Rivera somewhat taints the film. Any Geraldo is too much, but he acts as if he is sympathetic to Lennon's goals and tribulations, a position entirely at odds with his position in Fox news as a cheerleader for the right attacking Jon Stewart. G. Gordon Liddy, also absurd but genuinely so, is more apropos. - Catch a Fire (excellent) Philip Noyes really amazing and powerful story of Patrick Chamusso, a solid working class guy who keeps his nose clean and supports his family well, and the villiage soccer team, and his girlfriend and son. Until a poorly timed attack on the gas plant where he works brings the full evil of Apartheid down on him and his family and he rises to the challenge. Tim Robbins plays the Afrikaans police chief in a surprisingly human way and together they do an excellent job of showing a slice of the complexity of South Africa. - The Lives of Others (excellent) Another excellent film about dictators and repression, this time a story of a bureaucratic hero of the Stasi who risks life and career to help a playwright who's become at risk as his beautiful girlfriend caught the eye of a high-ranking Stasi official. The characters are well-formed and believable and the story complex, interesting, compelling and suspenseful. - Civic Life Seven short films about civic life, apparently created to showcase different towns. Some were surreal and funny, others fairly tedious. One or two at a time would be fun. 7 was more challenge than we were up to. - 12:08 East of Bucharest A sweet, funny character study revolving around a small town talk show's theme on the anniversary of the revolution that overthrew Ceausecscu. The host got a drunken professor and a quirky old man to tell their stories. Callers disputed them. Hilarity ensued. Very funny in the ironic, Eastern European way. - Ghosts of Cite Soleil An amazing documentary of two gang chiefs of the most dangerous place on Earth, the slums of Cite Soleil in Haiti, on the eve of the overthrow of Aristide. Unbelievably lucky documentary film makers happened to pick two men who ended up being important in the flow of events around Aristide's last months. The bravery of the film makers is almost unthinkable, surrounded by constant violence and gunfire with very little footage of feet running in terror. - Page Turner A story of revenge served cold. A talented pianist is crushed by the careless and callous act. She gets even. And then some. Wonderful acting and very compelling and subtle performances create real tension, sexual and otherwise. - Indigenes The story of the first French troops to reach Alsace, who happened to be North Africans. The were treated like second class citizens by colonial France, an injustice that continues to this day as the pensions of the brave men who served are still frozen. A good war movie, with a lot of character development, and successfully exploring the consequences of prejudice.

What the bleep.

davidgessel — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 06:41:12 GMT

The movie What the bleep do we know is a pseudo-scientific exploration of using quantum mechanics to justify a human potential-like pseudo-religious concept. I have an undergraduate degree in physics from MIT, and so I recognized a lot of the arguments as absurd immediately, but I reached the limits of my depth, particularly on the history of QM in this argument. Most, but not all of the concepts could be easily refuted from an undergraduate understanding such as mine, some seem to require more depth. But the practicing physists I reviewed my answers with seemed to think they had nothing useful to add to the discussion, in part I suspect out of the still-somewhat-in-vogue idea that the best way ton confront anti-scientific ideas is to ignore them, viz the debate over intelligent design (which I think, personally, the flying spaghetti monster setttled.) I never did answer his last message because I wasn't sure how to go about simply contradicting him--he's just wrong. Not like a difference of opinion wrong, but like fundamentally in error on the matter of whether consciousness is necessary to collapse the wavefunction to create reality. One must ask: did reality exist before humans? Is there no reality outside the range of detection of humans? At what point in the evolution of humans, did reality start to exist? What drove evolution before there was reality? Reductio ad absurdum, the discussion devolves to the somewhat infantile philosophical question of whether anyone can know whether the world actually exists outside themselves. Making the statement "no, not really" is just so uselessly open ended. Most people who want to start a pseudo-religion around metaphysics try not to make testable claims. The Boxers didn't really have much luck at it, but the Scientologists seem to be able to continue extracting money from people for Engram removal even though even John Travolta continues to buy planes he shouldn't need anymore. Anyway, the test for whether a quantum state needs human observation to collapse is an easy one. The un-collapsed state is the basis of quantum computers, the accidental, unobserved collapse is the primary limitation of quantum computers, that and the number of quantum particles in coherence. If (among a lot of other tests) the world was as coherent as FAWe's hypothesis requires, quantum computers simply wouldn't work or would work perfectly. They do neither - they do work, but only for a sort period of time. It seems he's mixed the Many Worlds Interpretation and the Consciousness Causes Collapse Interpretation with the Copenhagen Interpretation. Copenhagen does not require consciousness, quite the contrary - it says that the waveform does not correspond to reality, but is merely a probability calculus that has no meaning outside the experiment in question. A detailed counter argument is a bit of a challenge to formulate and probably irrelevant without being able to re-watch the film. My memory of the various arguments presented is fading, and the counter arguments here are predicated on a fairly deep understanding of QM and the arguments in the film, and so may be in error. I'll try to address Mr. FAW's arguments in-line directly, as much as I can, without getting either completely out of my own depth or drifting aimlessly across too much Quantum history. There are many interpretations of the fundamental nature of Quantum Mechanics and differentiation seems to come to head over the concept of "measurement." QM has been incredibly successful at predicting the physical properties of real materials and so it is considered useful, yet has not been proven complete. It stands on par with Relativity as the “micro” to Einstein's “macro” and between the two theories most of the universe's observed behavior to date seems explicable... or at least to fit fairly closely to derived equations that fit one or the other of those two theories. But not both. And that's a critical point which shows a fundamental flaw: either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity or both are either incomplete or wrong. (If history is a guide, the bet is both). It is therefore risky to argue a special insight into the structure of the universe, consciousness and the nature of god based on a theory with known issues. But at the root of this argument, I think, is the position of some special power granted the act of measurement by a conscious entity to cause a furcation in the state of the universe. The movie seems to favor a view that multiple universes exist simultaneously, that there are a near infinity of such universes each embodying the possible outcome of every measurement. This is a slippery term in itself, and without the introduction of consciousness as a necessary step, would seem to imply a multiplication of universes on the order of every particle in the universe to the power of every possible state to the power of the number of plank-time units since the start of the universe, a rather huge number. Positing a metaphysical property of consciousness dramatically reduces that value, but perhaps too dramatically: How did the state of the Universe evolve before the evolution of consciousness? QM suggests that there is a wave function for every entity, particles and aggregates thereof. The wave function of the Universe can be calculated: does it have a reality if there is no observer outside the universe to collapse it's wavefunction? Does a conscious entity self-collapse all entrained wavefunctions? Copenhagen (and the Extended Probability and Consistent Histories theories of QM) do not speak of collapsing the wavefunction. They say there is no physical relevance to the wavefunction. It's a mathematical definition that has no meaning beyond the calculus itself. If this makes it back to Mr. FAW, I'd be curious as to how he finds the Conscious Observer of Many Worlds consistent with EPR with a moving reference frame (which is generally felt to introduce a temporality inconsistency with many worlds, wherein the moment of universe selection is indeterminate between two relativistically consistent "nows"). But lastly, and I think most fundamentally, I have a pseudo-religious disagreement. I say pseudo religious because I'm not sure it's a testable disagreement, just as the existence of God is not disprovable if one accepts the tenant that He will offer no proof of His existence. I am not aware of any experiment that can disprove the Conscious Observer hypothesis, that is one can argue that experiments like the two slit experiment that show behavior associated with wave particle duality, which can be collapsed by "measurement" by tagging the particles by polarization and would seem to prove that the waveform can be collapsed mechanically, but the counter argument is that the collapse isn't known until a conscious observer interprets the results, and it is that interpretation that collapses the aggregate waveform of the particles being measured and the waveform of the measuring apparatus itself retroactively in time. This argument seems a bit tautological to me. And it is fundamentally predicated on a special, metaphysical status for consciousness itself. While I readily admit that I do not understand what Consciousness is exactly, nor can I recreate it in a test tube or with a computer, I do not believe it is "special." There is nothing about consciousness (of which I am aware) that defies the bounds of the normal rules of classical physics and chemistry let alone that suggests it merits a special place above Quantum Mechanics. While it is impossible to prove that reality isn't a dream, and my sense of awake not actually a dream from which I will awake into reality tonight when I think I go to sleep; nor can it be proven to me that I do not exist alone and all others merely figments of my imagination or creations of some meta-entitty sent to study my response. But why bother trying? So too it seems impossible to disprove the Conscious Observer (though a less metaphysical interpretation seems fatally challenged by EPR's moving frames). The film seems to make an additional suggestion that I suspect goes a step too far for most: that consciousness is so powerful that it can influence the path "reality" takes through the many worlds simultaneous extant. I am unaware of any scientific proof of this sort of connection, nor of any particular reason to believe it I can find other than an abiding belief in the special status of consciousness. There is a suggestion that Masaru Emoto's pretty photographs show some deep proof of the power of thought to influence the development of ice crystals. It does not appear that Mr. Emoto's work has been peer reviewed by any prestigious journals, nor have his experiments been repeated by other labs. Nor does it seem that he has managed to consistently repeat his own experiments. In the end, it would be unscientific to deny the possibility that consciousness has some special status in the workings of the universe, and it may will turn out to be true that the human brain is in some way connected to the underlying structure of the universe and even able to manipulate it, but I see no particular reason to embrace this belief, to choose it from an infinity of equally unprovable possibilities without some evidence that points directly to it--some evidence other than wishful thinking. I would apply Ockham's Razor: does not the simplest explanation argue against the unnecessary multiplication of entities to include a supra-natural power of the brain? What anomaly, what otherwise inexplicable phenomenon does this theory, and only this theory, satisfactorily resolve? ____________________________ I went off to see what the bleep. It was entertaining, though I found it unintentionally so... I hope not too much to the dismay of the more committed viewers around us. It's getting diametric reviews, which doesn't surprise me. I'm not terribly sympathetic to the spiritual connections to quantum physics here and there proposed, despite having occasionally (in the distant past) used the line "quantum physics tells us not just that we're everywhere simultaneously, but everywhen simultaneously..." to try to pick up women. My feeling about the movie was that it was trying too hard. Though I did not recognize any of the technically oriented speakers, their qualifications sounded impressive. Yet there was a fundamental misunderstanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory that seemed to be the foundation of the many beliefs: that a conscious observer collapses superposition. In English: Quantum does describe a "superposition" of states, for example that Shrodinger's Cat is neither alive nor dead (or both alive and dead) until someone checks to see if ate the poison, or that the protagonist could go to the movie alone and with a date simultaneously. More practically than supernatural cats, the principle underlays what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" wherein, for example two entangled photons, can measurably effect each other instantaneously (faster than the speed of light) over great distances via a mechanism which can not physically be related to electricity, magnetism, or the physical transfer of information, as if the "particle" were some metaphysical entity that was not literally constrained to the bounds of space and time. Spooky indeed. Entanglement and superposition are real, measurable, and practically underlay quantum computers (which actually work at demonstration level) and quantum cryptographic key distribution (which is a commercial product). They're real. They're not perfectly understood, and yet regularly exploited. That is this spooky action isn't theory, it's product. But there's one deep error in the movie (that was, in fairness, acknowledged early then apparently forgotten "it could be a person or it could be rock" someone said): the "observer" that collapses the superposition and converts the spookily entangled universe of interrelated probabilities into the tangible state with which we normally interact is not conscious, indeed has absolutely zero connection to human consciousness whatsoever. The "observer" is a term of convenience, it is technically a perturbation energy of a magnitude sufficient to test the state of the entangled system that the outcome would uniquely discriminate between possible states. It appears to have been a poor word choice that did not anticipate new age co option of quantum theory. >>>FAW : There is no way that any "object"collapses the quantum wave function. Also Satinover had it wrong in the film. In fact there is nothing in the theory itself to suggest collapse. It is one of the reason that the parallel universes model was invented in 1957 which provides a good way to understand quantum computers. (See work of David Deutsch). I would suggest rereading von Neumann or read HP Stapp who writes about this "problem" of collapse with considerable clarity. There is no consistent way to even put the collapse into quantum physics without doing injustice to experimental facts. Many have tried and the latest is called I believe decoherent histories. But the basic assumption is that sufficiently complex alternative possibility decohere for some mysterious reason that is called the "environmental" influence. That is also pure speculation and attempts to draw a line between where and when collapse occurs and does not occur. The term "observer" comes from thought experiments from the 1920's that were used to explore the counterintuitive nature of quantum physics and were not meant to imply a cosmic interrelation between human consciousness and the real state of the universe. >>>FAW : Straw dog set up: cosmic interrelation between human consciousness and the real state of the universe." Consciousness need not be human. If collapse occurs then accordingly nothing mechanical caused it. For me that suggests consciousness because the role of consciousness is ascertain what's happening with certainty. Hence those that follow the von Neumann, Stapp, Josephson, Goswami, Wigner, and earlier London+Bauer positions posit that since no machine seems to cause collapse, and mind does observe a "real" world, then it is consciousness that collapses the quantum wave function. That is if someone were to put a real cat into a box with some poison and wait it would definitely start to smell shortly after it ate the poison whether or not any human checked on it. Likewise quantum computers which rely on the entanglement of their bits to "solve" all possible conditions of a problem simultaneously will come to an incomplete solution of a stray source of perturbation energy happens to come into the system (radiation, cosmic ray, etc). The system has to be sufficiently isolated from ALL energy, not human consciousness, in order to work. >>>FAW : The reader assumes that the proposed cat and poison set up is not already entangled with many other systems and the stray bit did the dirty work. But even there was a stray bit, according to quantum physics the universe would split into two separate universes. In one the box would stink and in the other it would not. The probability would be 50% you (observer) were in one of those. It was just as likely that the stray bit didn't effect anything as it was that it did, so this proves nothing. In parallel universes both universes split apart and co-exist. In Copenhagen Interpretation the quantum wave function collapses and the cat is either dead or alive. In Copenhagen one universe exists and the other vanishes in puff of collapsed probability. In parallel universes both version of reality exist together with an observer who sees the cat one way or the other and therefore think collapse. In Copenhagen consciousness does the deed. In parallel universes consciousness is a byproduct of the interaction but it exists in an infinity of ever multiplying universes. Which is right? The answer is: I speculate here, they both are and they are saying the same thing. The movie What the bleep do we know is a pseudo-scientific exploration of using quantum mechanics to justify a human potential-like pseudo-religious concept. I have an undergraduate degree in physics from MIT, and so I recognized a lot of the arguments as absurd immediately, but I reached the limits of my depth, particularly on the history of QM in this argument. Most, but not all of the concepts could be easily refuted from an undergraduate understanding such as mine, some seem to require more depth. But the practicing physists I reviewed my answers with seemed to think they had nothing useful to add to the discussion, in part I suspect out of the still-somewhat-in-vogue idea that the best way ton confront anti-scientific ideas is to ignore them, viz the debate over intelligent design (which I think, personally, the flying spaghetti monster setttled.) I never did answer his last message because I wasn't sure how to go about simply contradicting him--he's just wrong. Not like a difference of opinion wrong, but like fundamentally in error on the matter of whether consciousness is necessary to collapse the wavefunction to create reality. One must ask: did reality exist before humans? Is there no reality outside the range of detection of humans? At what point in the evolution of humans, did reality start to exist? What drove evolution before there was reality? Reductio ad absurdum, the discussion devolves to the somewhat infantile philosophical question of whether anyone can know whether the world actually exists outside themselves. Making the statement "no, not really" is just so uselessly open ended. Most people who want to start a pseudo-religion around metaphysics try not to make testable claims. The Boxers didn't really have much luck at it, but the Scientologists seem to be able to continue extracting money from people for Engram removal even though even John Travolta continues to buy planes he shouldn't need anymore. Anyway, the test for whether a quantum state needs human observation to collapse is an easy one. The un-collapsed state is the basis of quantum computers, the accidental, unobserved collapse is the primary limitation of quantum computers, that and the number of quantum particles in coherence. If (among a lot of other tests) the world was as coherent as FAWe's hypothesis requires, quantum computers simply wouldn't work or would work perfectly. They do neither - they do work, but only for a sort period of time. It seems he's mixed the Many Worlds Interpretation and the Consciousness Causes Collapse Interpretation with the Copenhagen Interpretation. Copenhagen does not require consciousness, quite the contrary - it says that the waveform does not correspond to reality, but is merely a probability calculus that has no meaning outside the experiment in question. A detailed counter argument is a bit of a challenge to formulate and probably irrelevant without being able to re-watch the film. My memory of the various arguments presented is fading, and the counter arguments here are predicated on a fairly deep understanding of QM and the arguments in the film, and so may be in error. I'll try to address Mr. FAW's arguments in-line directly, as much as I can, without getting either completely out of my own depth or drifting aimlessly across too much Quantum history. There are many interpretations of the fundamental nature of Quantum Mechanics and differentiation seems to come to head over the concept of "measurement." QM has been incredibly successful at predicting the physical properties of real materials and so it is considered useful, yet has not been proven complete. It stands on par with Relativity as the “micro” to Einstein's “macro” and between the two theories most of the universe's observed behavior to date seems explicable... or at least to fit fairly closely to derived equations that fit one or the other of those two theories. But not both. And that's a critical point which shows a fundamental flaw: either Quantum Mechanics or Relativity or both are either incomplete or wrong. (If history is a guide, the bet is both). It is therefore risky to argue a special insight into the structure of the universe, consciousness and the nature of god based on a theory with known issues. But at the root of this argument, I think, is the position of some special power granted the act of measurement by a conscious entity to cause a furcation in the state of the universe. The movie seems to favor a view that multiple universes exist simultaneously, that there are a near infinity of such universes each embodying the possible outcome of every measurement. This is a slippery term in itself, and without the introduction of consciousness as a necessary step, would seem to imply a multiplication of universes on the order of every particle in the universe to the power of every possible state to the power of the number of plank-time units since the start of the universe, a rather huge number. Positing a metaphysical property of consciousness dramatically reduces that value, but perhaps too dramatically: How did the state of the Universe evolve before the evolution of consciousness? QM suggests that there is a wave function for every entity, particles and aggregates thereof. The wave function of the Universe can be calculated: does it have a reality if there is no observer outside the universe to collapse it's wavefunction? Does a conscious entity self-collapse all entrained wavefunctions? Copenhagen (and the Extended Probability and Consistent Histories theories of QM) do not speak of collapsing the wavefunction. They say there is no physical relevance to the wavefunction. It's a mathematical definition that has no meaning beyond the calculus itself. If this makes it back to Mr. FAW, I'd be curious as to how he finds the Conscious Observer of Many Worlds consistent with EPR with a moving reference frame (which is generally felt to introduce a temporality inconsistency with many worlds, wherein the moment of universe selection is indeterminate between two relativistically consistent "nows"). But lastly, and I think most fundamentally, I have a pseudo-religious disagreement. I say pseudo religious because I'm not sure it's a testable disagreement, just as the existence of God is not disprovable if one accepts the tenant that He will offer no proof of His existence. I am not aware of any experiment that can disprove the Conscious Observer hypothesis, that is one can argue that experiments like the two slit experiment that show behavior associated with wave particle duality, which can be collapsed by "measurement" by tagging the particles by polarization and would seem to prove that the waveform can be collapsed mechanically, but the counter argument is that the collapse isn't known until a conscious observer interprets the results, and it is that interpretation that collapses the aggregate waveform of the particles being measured and the waveform of the measuring apparatus itself retroactively in time. This argument seems a bit tautological to me. And it is fundamentally predicated on a special, metaphysical status for consciousness itself. While I readily admit that I do not understand what Consciousness is exactly, nor can I recreate it in a test tube or with a computer, I do not believe it is "special." There is nothing about consciousness (of which I am aware) that defies the bounds of the normal rules of classical physics and chemistry let alone that suggests it merits a special place above Quantum Mechanics. While it is impossible to prove that reality isn't a dream, and my sense of awake not actually a dream from which I will awake into reality tonight when I think I go to sleep; nor can it be proven to me that I do not exist alone and all others merely figments of my imagination or creations of some meta-entitty sent to study my response. But why bother trying? So too it seems impossible to disprove the Conscious Observer (though a less metaphysical interpretation seems fatally challenged by EPR's moving frames). The film seems to make an additional suggestion that I suspect goes a step too far for most: that consciousness is so powerful that it can influence the path "reality" takes through the many worlds simultaneous extant. I am unaware of any scientific proof of this sort of connection, nor of any particular reason to believe it I can find other than an abiding belief in the special status of consciousness. There is a suggestion that Masaru Emoto's pretty photographs show some deep proof of the power of thought to influence the development of ice crystals. It does not appear that Mr. Emoto's work has been peer reviewed by any prestigious journals, nor have his experiments been repeated by other labs. Nor does it seem that he has managed to consistently repeat his own experiments. In the end, it would be unscientific to deny the possibility that consciousness has some special status in the workings of the universe, and it may will turn out to be true that the human brain is in some way connected to the underlying structure of the universe and even able to manipulate it, but I see no particular reason to embrace this belief, to choose it from an infinity of equally unprovable possibilities without some evidence that points directly to it--some evidence other than wishful thinking. I would apply Ockham's Razor: does not the simplest explanation argue against the unnecessary multiplication of entities to include a supra-natural power of the brain? What anomaly, what otherwise inexplicable phenomenon does this theory, and only this theory, satisfactorily resolve? ____________________________ I went off to see what the bleep. It was entertaining, though I found it unintentionally so... I hope not too much to the dismay of the more committed viewers around us. It's getting diametric reviews, which doesn't surprise me. I'm not terribly sympathetic to the spiritual connections to quantum physics here and there proposed, despite having occasionally (in the distant past) used the line "quantum physics tells us not just that we're everywhere simultaneously, but everywhen simultaneously..." to try to pick up women. My feeling about the movie was that it was trying too hard. Though I did not recognize any of the technically oriented speakers, their qualifications sounded impressive. Yet there was a fundamental misunderstanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory that seemed to be the foundation of the many beliefs: that a conscious observer collapses superposition. In English: Quantum does describe a "superposition" of states, for example that Shrodinger's Cat is neither alive nor dead (or both alive and dead) until someone checks to see if ate the poison, or that the protagonist could go to the movie alone and with a date simultaneously. More practically than supernatural cats, the principle underlays what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" wherein, for example two entangled photons, can measurably effect each other instantaneously (faster than the speed of light) over great distances via a mechanism which can not physically be related to electricity, magnetism, or the physical transfer of information, as if the "particle" were some metaphysical entity that was not literally constrained to the bounds of space and time. Spooky indeed. Entanglement and superposition are real, measurable, and practically underlay quantum computers (which actually work at demonstration level) and quantum cryptographic key distribution (which is a commercial product). They're real. They're not perfectly understood, and yet regularly exploited. That is this spooky action isn't theory, it's product. But there's one deep error in the movie (that was, in fairness, acknowledged early then apparently forgotten "it could be a person or it could be rock" someone said): the "observer" that collapses the superposition and converts the spookily entangled universe of interrelated probabilities into the tangible state with which we normally interact is not conscious, indeed has absolutely zero connection to human consciousness whatsoever. The "observer" is a term of convenience, it is technically a perturbation energy of a magnitude sufficient to test the state of the entangled system that the outcome would uniquely discriminate between possible states. It appears to have been a poor word choice that did not anticipate new age co option of quantum theory. >>>FAW : There is no way that any "object"collapses the quantum wave function. Also Satinover had it wrong in the film. In fact there is nothing in the theory itself to suggest collapse. It is one of the reason that the parallel universes model was invented in 1957 which provides a good way to understand quantum computers. (See work of David Deutsch). I would suggest rereading von Neumann or read HP Stapp who writes about this "problem" of collapse with considerable clarity. There is no consistent way to even put the collapse into quantum physics without doing injustice to experimental facts. Many have tried and the latest is called I believe decoherent histories. But the basic assumption is that sufficiently complex alternative possibility decohere for some mysterious reason that is called the "environmental" influence. That is also pure speculation and attempts to draw a line between where and when collapse occurs and does not occur. The term "observer" comes from thought experiments from the 1920's that were used to explore the counterintuitive nature of quantum physics and were not meant to imply a cosmic interrelation between human consciousness and the real state of the universe. >>>FAW : Straw dog set up: cosmic interrelation between human consciousness and the real state of the universe." Consciousness need not be human. If collapse occurs then accordingly nothing mechanical caused it. For me that suggests consciousness because the role of consciousness is ascertain what's happening with certainty. Hence those that follow the von Neumann, Stapp, Josephson, Goswami, Wigner, and earlier London+Bauer positions posit that since no machine seems to cause collapse, and mind does observe a "real" world, then it is consciousness that collapses the quantum wave function. That is if someone were to put a real cat into a box with some poison and wait it would definitely start to smell shortly after it ate the poison whether or not any human checked on it. Likewise quantum computers which rely on the entanglement of their bits to "solve" all possible conditions of a problem simultaneously will come to an incomplete solution of a stray source of perturbation energy happens to come into the system (radiation, cosmic ray, etc). The system has to be sufficiently isolated from ALL energy, not human consciousness, in order to work. >>>FAW : The reader assumes that the proposed cat and poison set up is not already entangled with many other systems and the stray bit did the dirty work. But even there was a stray bit, according to quantum physics the universe would split into two separate universes. In one the box would stink and in the other it would not. The probability would be 50% you (observer) were in one of those. It was just as likely that the stray bit didn't effect anything as it was that it did, so this proves nothing. In parallel universes both universes split apart and co-exist. In Copenhagen Interpretation the quantum wave function collapses and the cat is either dead or alive. In Copenhagen one universe exists and the other vanishes in puff of collapsed probability. In parallel universes both version of reality exist together with an observer who sees the cat one way or the other and therefore think collapse. In Copenhagen consciousness does the deed. In parallel universes consciousness is a byproduct of the interaction but it exists in an infinity of ever multiplying universes. Which is right? The answer is: I speculate here, they both are and they are saying the same thing.

repeat

davidgessel — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 05:50:24 GMT

I'm slowly moving off for reasons I've beaten to death. As I extract my content, I reread this and enjoyed it in narcissistic, masturbatory way. Since it got buried by pedantic anti-tribe rants, I thought... Breathing freely is communist and unamerican. I'm reminded once again by the appearance of other horribly stupid bills that the beneficiaries of temporary monopolies on the sale of products incorporating innovations have perverted the language and culture to their own benefit and that our representatives have been hornswoggled and carom-shotted into going along with their arrant piracy of the commons. viz: www.eff.org/deeplinks/ar...06.php#004106 It is understandable that financial interests would of course take advantage of the fiscal returns afforded self-serving legislation. If I thought it'd ultimately yield a net return, I'd pay my legislators to make it illegal for people to breathe any air they didn't buy from me. And if the public were impertinent enough that they continued to inhale other than my proprietary wind, I'd sure love to send the Marshals crashing through their doors at their own expense and lock them up. But thus far I have been unsuccessful in extending the abstraction of ownership of an idea to the far more concrete and defensible ownership of the air. At least the air is a thing, that if I were granted a monopoly on, it would be extrinsic to the people who therefore owed me money. Maybe I should just petition for ownership of the meta concept, patenting the use of patents as a method of creating a monopoly on something otherwise intrinsically unsuited to supply constraint as a method of doing business. Copyright and patents are an agreement between the people of the United States and innovators to encourage the open sharing of innovation in exchange for a temporary monopoly on that innovation. The only constitutionally valid goal is the maximization of innovation. Any extension of the granted monopoly beyond the purpose of encouraging innovation is unconstitutional misappropriation of the commons for private gain.

Freedom is not free.

davidgessel — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:57:39 GMT

Becoming tiresomely repetitive: 1) There's no legal reason to prohibit pornography that I'm aware of. The argument centers around 2257 compliance and the "clear" definition of "sexual conduct," Wade pointing at 2256's similar (but different, though likely serviceable) definition. Yet in the same TOU pornography is prohibited. What is it? What is pornography? What am I not allowed to type, show, speak? Give me a bright line so I will always know when I am in compliance and can speak without fear of censure or repercussion. Vague laws and community police are anathema to democracy, which is why similar "community policing" efforts have worked so well for Stalin, East Germany, et al. It is far more effective to have a vague rule which much of the community is likely to be in violation of (probably most, given the particularly vague definition). Then everyone is in fear of pissing off anyone at Tribe.net, or anyone in the community that they might report something innocuous on the coasts but pornographic in the flyover states. Should we choose to remain socially invested in Tribe, the risk is that we could lose that investment at any time if we do not chill our own speech to the least common denominator. Of course there is an implicit assumption that without the TOU making explicit threats regarding content, we were all safe to do whatever. Obviously that's not true and Tribe could have chosen to terminate anyone for any reason. There's no legal contract between tribe and it's users obligating tribe to provide anything or stand for anything. At a certain level this is all fuss and bother about a pretend set of rights that never existed in the first place. Oh, and a bunch of fundamentalists would never act to impose their moral superiority on Tribe - that's as absurd as imagining they'd go about running for school boards so they could force the kids to embrace superstition over science. I gather from a lot of posts that there's supposed to be a nudge nudge wink wink say no more - keep quiet and do what you were doing in the new private forums, and unless someone sneaks in, you'll be fine and we won't look. The problem with that plan is that if users invest their time and effort while skating off the thin ice and into open water. Anyone with a "private" investment in TOU-shirking content would be advised to be chilled in public lest they invite some irked opponent to investigate. It's not just the Moral Minority we have to fear, but anyone, for any reason. 2) IANAL either. But I count quite a few as friends; I hope that doesn't count against me. 2257 is a political issue not a legal one, though the two are obviously entangled. At issue is the representation by some that Tribe was at the end of a gun and had no choice in the matter. It is that characterization that irks me. There is obviously some risk that the DOJ would randomly choose tribe for their next raid. But so could SPA or the MPAA subpoena records. There are far more plausible threats than Tribe becoming the first marginal test case while there are clear and reasonable targets and none have yet been tried. If Max Hardcore isn't a target (yet) then Tribe's claim to victim of the political climate seems hypochondriacal. If the choice to clean up tribe was made as an effort to broaden it's appeal and thereby improve valuation, as seems clearly the case, then it is more honest to be clear about that and dismiss the apologists who claim Tribe had no choice. The board would absolutely have had to approve a change as significant as this, and the progress and community response will come up right after the report on ad revenue. Furthermore I can understand the logic of the board in pushing tribe to clean up; I disagree with it on a tactical basis as I think that the consequence will be that Tribe becomes mini-friendster, undifferentiated in any significant way from a user perspective, and because Tribe lacks dominance and membership is frictionless, tribe will very likely see an ongoing attrition as a consequence. Tribe was differentiated by it's content, a huge amount of it certainly out of the mainstream and appealing to a fringe. But tribe owned that market, and it's an affluent, intelligent, technically competent market compared to the mainstream. Obviously your investors are looking at ways to maximize EBITDA, which is driven by ad revenue (and apparently, soon, subscriptions). The choice is to trade a small devoted community for a big, weakly attached one. Whether that was a wise choice or not is yet to be seen. 3) Which segues into reiteration: obviously tribe can be whatever it wants to be, but the fiduciary responsibility of the board is to the advertisers. We users are merely product sold to the customers. We should expect no significant input in the matter. But we do have one vote: with our feet. I empathize with Tribe's employees, really I do. There's no real cost for me to protest censorship by leaving tribe, but the employees do not have that choice. As someone else said in one of these threads--we've all worked for companies with who's policies we disagree: most of us did not quit and we have no basis for criticism, at least of those who quietly accept the decision and go about their jobs as best they can. But if we, Tribe's product, allow ourselves to continue to be sold under the regime of censorship we are tacitly approving it, and at no real cost to ourselves. The message we send is that we place no real value whatsoever on our right to free expression - our right enumerated in supreme court decisions to speak amongst ourselves in a manner not always suitable for children, that we would willingly and passively give that right up merely for convenience. If we establish that as precedent, then no future forum will risk supporting uncensored speech.

Tribe: People or porn? Or was it people who tolerated porn?

davidgessel — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 05:31:36 GMT

[O]f course. [I'm also on tribe for the people, not the porn.] The porn on tribe is lame and slow. But the people who join tribe are the type who feel comfortable expressing themselves sexually, and now they can't. [That transition means that, ultimately,] the people change, mean's tribe changes. They just have the most wrong owners possible for their original demographic. Obviously they didn't (and nobody can imagine they would) buy Tribe for the people. They think they're buying a crag's list competitor for the classifieds. As for Tribe's 2257 efforts: it's just so laughably transparent that they are blowing smoke it hurts. I mean seriously. I am party to these sorts of [faux] announcements [to keep the downstream assets in line] all the time: 2257 is a trivial reason, though probably not absolutely irrelevant to the decision to [push tribe into the] mainstream, it has nothing to do with the real financial motivations. The big dollars come from broadening the appeal to the mainstream. The tiny, irrelevant dollars come from avoiding this sort of litigation more likely targeted to one-man porn operations (like Max Hardcore). But tribe wants to play victim because some percentage of the people who would otherwise leave won't, and that increases, [even if ever so] slightly the value of tribe at zero cost. If they wanted to avoid 2257 they'd just say: "Dear Tribe Content Creators, Tribe provides server space for your content. You should be aware of changes in the enforcement of 2257 that might make you liable for prosecution if you are displaying sexual material...blah blah blah." Comcast isn't doing 2257 policing. Rackspace isn't doing 2257 policing. Angelfire isn't. It's a trivial position change NOT to be in editorial control. Then it's the users - the profile or tribe owner that faces the charges (IF such charges were ever actually forthcoming, then again, they didn't bother to 2257 max hardcore when they raided him [in October, 2005]). If they were _actually_ worried about litigation, they'd police copyright. But they don't even mention that. The RIAA and MPAA each have infinitely more money for litigation than the beleaguered DOJ. But what really pisses me off is not the 2257 compliance. I could chalk that up to moronic legal advice and dipshit management. Many companies have shot themselves in the foot making meaningless efforts [at pointless legal compliance] in the past. What really pisses me off is banning pornography in the TOU. There Tribe exposes their duplicity by saying both "the covered content is clear" as they (painfully and embarrassingly wrongly) believe "sexual activity" to be (and as BB most hilariously claimed), but [even] taking that as a given, there has been no more extensively debated term than "pornography" (not even "Sexual Relations" which was the actual term in the Clinton Trial, and which was the subject of weeks of discussion and yet still has not been defined). So they, on one side, say "sexual activity" is clear (implying the 2257 term) and on the other hand ban "pornography." So they say "it will be defined by the community." But the problem is, anything sexual is pornography to someone. [Some pinched face, blue haired friend of George Bush's wife] flags you and you're in violation of the TOU, subject to termination and possible legal action. Would you take the risk or does understanding that risk chill you? Obscenity is defined by local standards, and you could have a reasonable defense against prosecution by directing your content only to friends who have signed up to get it and who's local standards are reasonably known by you, even if geographically dispersed. But the legal definition doesn't matter anymore because Tribe has made a new rule making "Pornography" illegal, whatever that is. This takes it a huge and unnecessary step beyond the legal requirement regarding obscenity. - Erotica: Sexual content that appeals to me, and is entirely legal. - Pornography: Sexual content that appeals to you, and is entirely legal, but a violation of Tribe's TOU. - Obscenity: Sexual content that has no redeeming value and is illegal. Max Hardcore's Butt Fucked Teenage Whores Getting Golden Showers was seized as possible obscenity. The original charges didn't stick, but they're trying again. (or whatever the title was actually called, it doesn't do anything for me personally so it's porn, not erotica.) Tribe's TOU already prohibits illegal content. They didn't need to prohibit pornography. I could give you a list of things that have been charged as being obscene, some found that way, some not (Piss Christ, not), but I can't even begin to give you a legal guideline for differentiating between erotica and pornography. Nobody can. Here's the best summary I've found in looking this up for argument's sake: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/etc/definition.html In much of the US, R-rated movies, MTV's content, prime time TV, even any nominally frank text on sexuality is "pornography." If anyone flags content they find as pornographic, the poster is in violation of the TOU because "Pornography" is banned. That's an extraordinary, unprecedented level of censorship that NO other on-line entity, not even Friendster, takes. The only place I've run into bans on "porn" is in the most restrictive of companies that have made rules without thinking through them, and most companies do not actually ban "pornography" taking what is actually a much easier and more legally defensible route of banning "offensive speech or conduct." I liked tribe, but I don't like being censored, and I don't like the idea that even this little discourse could be considered pornographic and if I want to be sure I don't find myself on the receiving end of a TOU violation, I'd have to edit it into G-rated language and into G-rated thoughts. That's too much uncertainty and it's too chilling. I'd rather take my thoughts elsewhere. As for whether Tribe has sought legal advice - certainly they have. But the key advice is to manage Knight-Ridder's sale bid, and maximizing the perceived asset value, which is why arguments as to whether this was a necessary step for tribe from a legal perspective or whether Tribe could find an alternative solution that would have preserved the essential nature of tribe are irrelevant. The entire goal was to change the essential nature of tribe to make it consistent with other Knight Ridder/Washington Post properties. Ever read the op-ed pages of those papers? People very rarely talk about how to avoid razor bumps while shaving pubes or bondage techniques or even safe sex. These topics make a vocal subsection of America uncomfortable and media entities don't maximize circulation by making people uncomfortable. Tribe as we knew it is dead. Do we bury it or prop up the corpse and continue talking to it and offering it drinks as it rots in a disturbing and pathetic demonstration of cognitive dissonance?

Random postings on Tribe Lite

davidgessel — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 05:48:38 GMT

A colllection of irregular thoughts on the transition to a sanitized tribe safe for the offensensitive regular people. These are excerpted from threads, mostly on TribeIdeas, and are therefore all to some degree out of context. In a shameless effort at promoting my thoughts beyond their natural readership, I'm reposting them. I'm also collecting all this crap in one place so I can copy it off before I go. 12/10 I agree with Flint entirely. I've sanitized my profile in accordance with Tribe and will sign off soon. It's the only vote I have on the matter - with my feet. And I'm taking it for two reasons. 1) Tribe's value to me was to connect me with like-minded adults in a forum where adult topics could freely and comfortably be discussed. This is clearly no longer the case. Tribe is no longer tolerant of content people find "offensive," a definition even broader and more nebulous than "obscenity." There is no content worth debating that is unlikely to offend at least half the population. Tribe's core population is marginal in the general population, and the majority are likely offended by our very existence, let alone any thoughts we might choose to share. 2) Tribe and it's venture backing is caving in to political pressure by fundamentalist Christians. The concern of a business is ultimately fiscal, of course. Tribe certainly calculates some attrition in their member base as a consequence of their action, but estimates it is less than the long-term total cost of not taking the action (unless they've truly been hijacked by the right and is actually doing this for ideological reasons). The only hope Tribe members have for wresting Tribe from the grip of the extreme right is to demonstrate that they vastly underestimated the downside of caving. While Tribe itself might not survive the financial consequences, the lesson will not be lost on future ventures in the same space. If Tribe is rewarded for making this choice, future efforts will not take the risk of permitting free speech because there will be no value in doing so to offset the risk of prosecution. Tribe seems to be emphasizing making tribe a "safe, respectful" environment as justification for censoring content found offensive to the community. This canard is immediately exposed by their unambiguous threats regarding "mature" material. True respect runs both ways. Tribe was entirely respectful in the way they allowed community moderation of the tribes people voluntarily elected to join. Tribe members have always had the choice to yield to their offensensitivity and go elsewhere. Respect then stood for the judgement and maturity of Tribe's members. Now it has been redefined to mean caving to the least common denominator. The justification is self-serving and specious. This is not about respect, it's about money, and particularly the threat of fiscal liability in the face of 2257. Tribe writes that "But we can't afford to be in noncompliance [with 2257]. We are a fledgling startup trying to make a go of it. If you want a company to take this law head on, it would need to be somebody with deep legal pockets." This too is a false argument. It is only by a skittish interpretation of current DOJ positions and tremulous anticipation that they might possibly be a target that they come to the conclusion that there is some measurable legal risk in their position. Further, they fail to consider the strength of community response, that small pocketed plaintiffs have always won against even less clearly unconstitutional challenges to free speech. In effect Tribe evaluates an equation: on one side is the probability that a Christian Fundamentalist controlled DOJ that takes offense at nipples on statutes might make Tribe a target of their holy wrath times the likely cost of defending themselves against such an unconstitutional attempt to enforce uniform moral codes, and on the other side is the predictable loss of Tribe's valuation due to losing members and content as a consequence of taking the steps necessary to minimize the risk of persecution. One can only conclude that tribe sets a very low value on it's free-speech loving members or believes that the vast majority of it's membership is passive and unwilling to take a stand on principle. I hope we'll prove Tribe wrong. I believe the value of tribe lies not in the programmer hours and a server farm running the back end, a commodity that can be bought and sold without the users, but rather in the user community itself, the value of exposing it to advertisers, and in the content that those users have created which draws ever more users to Tribe. Though Tribe hopes to capitalize on this value, it is not theirs. It is ours. And we can take it away from them. And we should when they no longer serve our needs. Tribe was a place where intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded people felt comfortable being themselves, and those of us that felt that way rewarded tribe by giving to them content and attention. I, for one, no longer feel this is the case and if tribe will no longer give me what I'm buying with my attention, I'm not giving it to them any more. I hope everyone follows Flint's advice. I hope that Tribe has a plausible valuation based on their current community and content. I hope that Tribe's valuation changes substantially as a consequence of their choice to censor so that we can demonstrate the value of free speech in dollars so that future ventures will come to different conclusions. And to any VC's out there, the social network space is more crowded and undifferentiated in the bland end of the spectrum. There's plenty of room to create value by building a social network that embraces and supports the alternative community, now that the space has been vacated. 12/10 What is pornography? Do you know it when you see it? Who's seeing it? ""Pornography" (or "porn") usually refers to representations designed to arouse and give sexual pleasure to those who read, see, hear, or handle them." "Eroticism is what turns me on. Pornography is what turns you on." - Al Goldstein. Given the vast array of fetishes, obviously anything, graphic, written, or otherwise could be construed as pornographic within standard legal tests. While I'm sure Tribe's management thinks (as they said to Violet Blue) that this is a simple, easily comprehensible definition, such a stand merely illustrates a monochromatic viewpoint that is completely out of step with reality. Pornography is entirely legal, but as of now not allowed on Tribe. Tribe is taking a step that is far more conservative than any plausible legal requirement, and entirely inconsistent with their historical user base and community which was largely differentiated from blander social networks by it's tolerance and openness. No more. 12/11 Tribe is a business; this is a financial decision. Venture funding calculates value on a deal like this by considering various attributes, among them market share, market segmentation, the advertising demographic of that market. Tribe would rank highly in these measures, and thereby be considered valuable. Against these measures bidders on the deal would consider potential liabilities. On a deal like Tribe these liabilities would include among the usual things the regulatory environment and the risk of the asset landing in hot water. Mayfield Venture, Knight Ridder, and the Washington Post Company are the lead investors. Mayfield et al will be looking at exit valuation and are likely prepping tribe for another investment round or for a sale as one or more of the lead investors cashes out. Tribe's board has come to the conclusion that they can censor Tribe without adversely affecting it's valuation while minimizing the risk of costly future litigation and thereby increase their exit multiple. Perhaps this will prove to be a good strategy if Tribe's apologists win the day and there is minimal loss of ad revenue. If so, there will be no venture funding for organizations that support sexually open alternative expression. On the other hand if this action results in Tribe cratering and exiting as an asset sale, then the difference between the pre-censorship and post-censorship valuation is the measure of the value of supporting a vibrant, alternative on-line community and future investors can compare that value to the potential cost of defending against fundamentalist zealots in government. Tribe has a choice in this matter, obviously. Those who think Tribe should stand up for civil rights do, as the apologists suggest, miss the point of a business, which is to maximize shareholder return. It is convenient if that goal aligns with the morals of the founders; when it does not, morals are irrelevant. But we can understand the premise of that choice and thereby sway it, hopefully influencing Tribe or whatever will come along to replace it. 12/12 Absolutely deciding on content equals censorship. Private entities almost always censor content to some degree. Tribe is proposing that it do so, and do so beyond the requirements of the law by banning pornography anywhere on tribe's servers. Pornography is a super set of obscenity and "sexual activity" and includes any content that is arousing to you (what is arousing to me is not pornography, it is erotica). As for asking tribe equity owners to risk everything - that's the whole business of equity. They, by the very premise of having taken an unsecured position in a venture are risking everything they've invested. The BOD decides what balance of risk/return they will target and investors go along for the ride. Tribe management has taken a turn for the risk averse. The 2257 reaction is regrettable if comprehensible, but the TOU amendment banning pornography is likely driven by both the stated intent to broaden Tribe's appeal (like American beer, to the least common denominator) and to minimize the risk of an obscenity charge in some hicktown. That 2257 applies to tribe is often taken as a given, but there is no prosecution history to base this assumption on, only Gonzales statement that he intends to. Yet the recent raid of Max Hardcore was driven by obscenity, not 2257, so tribe is making a choice based on a very low probability event. If Max Hardcore's underage golden shower videos aren't enough to warrant a full 2257 raid, how many years will it be before the administration can throw enough prosecutorial power at the "war on pornography" to work down the list to some dinky collection of freaks and malcontents like Tribe? Could it happen? Of course. Would it happen? Not likely. There are a lot more extreme places to start. On the balance of minimizing risk, they must have known there would be some reduction in potential reward. Obviously Tribe has predicted that the risk/reward for the disneyfied Tribe Lite vs. Tribe Original has a higher valuation. We can, if we try, prove them wrong. There is a good reason for doing so--if we don't then all future ventures in this space will take the lesson that supporting a progressive, open-minded, somewhat off center community isn't worth the risk. If Tribe craters as a consequence of this, then future ventures will know the value of supporting free speech, and may more accurately weigh that reward against the risk that some fundamentalist Armageddonist will turn the Jesus cannon on them in an attempt to optimize their place in the post-rapture pecking order. 12/13 Try Guba (www.guba.com) as an interface to the newsgroups. It's pron oriented, but you can navigate around pretty easily if you're unfamiliar with the newsgroup structure and content. Google groups is a good way to see the text content. But what we really need is a private tribe (not a "private" Tribe on Tribe) but a version of Tribe that is private. It does seem that Tribe's investors are using this transition to change the nature of tribe and try to recast it as a clean craig's list or Friendster plus discussion. Hopefully the move will blow up in their faces and the investors will see the folly in trying to force mainstream conformance on a community that's only united in their nonconformance. It's most distressing to see the posts of the apologists who've drunk the koolade and argue that this is "necessary" or worse "good" for us. It might very well be financially wonderful for tribe. And they do the right thing by having marketing flacks appeal for sympathy by any route responsive to minimize the hemorrhage. For some people I'm sure Tribe Lite will be a wonderful thing. But it doesn't have any value to me personally. I also think there is an opportunity here to make a stand for free expression that some of the apologists are missing. If this transition is painless for tribe, it says that even amongst non-conformist rabble rousers, we attach no measurable value to uncensored speech. But if Tribe tanks - if their valuation falls substantially, then we've demonstrated in dollars what free speech is worth to us and future investors will have a very different metric to use when considering the risk of supporting what the current administration considers a grey area in free expression. Ironically, Gonzalas spent part of his 2257 rant speech praising Ed Meese, the last anti-porn commission. The best part of the Meese report was that it found, unequivocally, a negative correlation between the availability of pornography and violence against women and other forms of exploitation, the exact opposite of what they set out to find and presumably the exact opposite of what Gonzolas would want.... ... Unless... this administration's systematic moral alliance with other fundamentalist governments on issues of women's rights (or the repression thereof) is indicative of a desire to further repress women in this country, and they've actually taken the Meese report's conclusion to heart and are hoping to increase the repression and abuse of women by means of a highly repressive social environment. Historically and globally it is well correlated... 12/14 In theory they should be able to [make more money appealing to the mainstream]. But the problem they might not be fully evaluating is that they are coming late to that party. Right now it wouldn't make sense to start yet another mainstream social network, especially as the existing ones haven't proven their viability. What might make sense is to start aggregating the enthusiast social networks into a "vertical nets" kind of entity - though that model certainly got a bad name in the crash. Tribe is/was an enthusiast network specializing in the burning man centric, sex positive, kinky people. Certainly there is more than that, but the core of tribe is alt, not mainstream. Presumably they believe that Tribe has momentum and can become a player in the mainstream social network space on the strength of it's alt heritage without the baggage/risk of carrying it on. (Though it should be noted that 2257 risk is trivial for tribe, not zero, but trivial. Fear is a far more powerful tool than litigation. Litigation is expensive and slow, even for the government. Some have said "how can tribe go up against an opponent with infinite resources?" but the truth is the government has very limited resources, far less now than ever. There are literally a handful of agents involved in the pron crackdown. Tribe, even at it's worst, is a long shot in the litigation compared to primary producers, and even the larger secondary producers. There's some noise about tribe being small enough to attack and large enough to work as a FUD target, but though it may be a nominally logical argument, it is predicated on speculation on top of speculation.) So the goal is clearly to expand Tribe's market without killing the momentum. The assumption is enough of the content and momentum will stay with tribe to bring in the mainstreamers without offending them. If it works, they win; and those of us who enjoyed tribe because it was alternative lose. If they lose that bet we both lose in the short run, but in the long run those of us in the alt community are more likely to win because tribe will have proven the worth of our attention and the cost of alienating it. I hope they crater. No offense to the hard work they've put in, but it is far better than living in a world where adults are terrified to publicly share any thought that isn't g-rated. As for licensing their platform - it's an interesting idea, and if they could bring in enough money and perhaps work a licensing agreement that says those that buy it can not compete in tribe's new core market of the undifferentiated mainstream, then it's plausible. But I suspect it would be seen as defocusing by their investors and not part of their core mission. A far better idea is to use the GPL slashcode and add an image server to it and build a new tribe that works like slashdot. The ironic thing is that Tribe is likely to end up with their only asset being their code and a random collection of formerly embattled born again Christians who are happy to be rid of the freaks who used to torment them in their tribes. And that code is, if anything, far less robust and powerful than the open source alternatives, and those born agains are a poor market for the softcore porn that is Tribe's current advertising base.

Tribe "G"

davidgessel — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 07:46:01 GMT

Thanks for the friendly and polite conclusion. First, the new TOU also specifically prohibits pornography. Even if you find "sexual activity" well defined (and congratulations to you for doing so), I would expect (though I could be surprised) that given you admit that obscenity is hard to define, that you would also agree with most legal analysis that "pornography" is hard to define. As reported by "Wade" the pornography prohibition is much broader than a prohibition on visual depictions of "sexual activity" as it would also include drawings, writing, etc. Any inclusion of such materials on any page hosted by Tribe is a violation of the TOU. Are you confident that lingerie shots and neck kissing aren't "pornographic" in Kansas? If I'm capable of comprehending your gist correctly, it would seem that you're trying to say that 2257 compliance is inescapable because it's an ironclad law that, unlike the CDA, will stand up in court. Further that the definition of "sexual activity" is precise and clear and there is no risk of misconstruing an image showing sexual activity for one that is not, and that, further, the TOU's prohibition of "pornography" does not merit mention. Therefore Tribe is taking steps that are both clear and essential. I respectfully, and perhaps ignorantly, disagree. And as far as I've been able to find, there is no legal definition of sexual activity. But deviant sexual activity is generally construed as including the various Paraphilias. Can you avoid images of them all? Your example of President Clinton's case turned on the phrase "Sexual Relations," not "sexual activity." If that's what you mean, then the definition has several key features; some criteria that may be applied are: * the body parts involved * physical signs of sexual arousal * subjective feeling Which to my apparently stupid mind seems more than a little vague. I cannot find a legal definition of "sexual activity" and one is not provided in 2257. The term "sexual relations" has been discussed more thoroughly thanks to the impeachment case you mention, and yet the definition is still seems vague to me. While I do understand the difference between the obscenity ambiguity you cite in reference to the CDA and the term "sexual relations," and even though I disagree on the precision of that term (Violet Blue has some useful comments on the precision of the term as well), that is not the core of my conclusion that 2257 is unlikely to pass constitutional muster and that, if it is ever tested in court, it will fall as quickly as the CDA did. My analysis is based on Justice John Paul Steven's majority opinion in ACLU vs. Reno, No. 96-511, which reads in part: "[R]egardless of the strength of the government's interest" in protecting children, "[t]he level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox." Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 74-75 (1983). And "Chief Judge Sloviter doubted the strength of the Government's interest in regulating "the vast range of online material covered or potentially covered by the CDA," but acknowledged that the interest was "compelling" with respect to some of that material. 929 F. Supp., at 853. She concluded, nonetheless, that the statute "sweeps more broadly than necessary and thereby chills the expression of adults" " Further, the terms contested as vague in the CDA were not "obscenity" but "patently offensive" and "indecent." My ignorant analysis of the CDA ruling is that the court's discomfort with the law hinged not on the vagueness of definitions but on the premise that it is not acceptable for the government to chasten the speech of adults, even granted compelling interests in doing so to "protect" minors. Your argument about the premise of tax evasion charges, particularly as a tool in RICO cases, is well taken and valid, however tax laws are generally not used as a circumvention of constitutional rights (forfeiture laws are). Therefore, I would disagree with what I think is your conclusion that 2257 is a stronger law than the CDA and more likely to stand muster, or perhaps be more difficult to defend against or perhaps be more expensive to litigate. I would further disagree that the term "sexual activity" is precise. Lastly I believe Tribe's decision to ban "pornographic" materials, which would of course include all "obscene materials" (already illegal) as well as all material depicting "sexual activity," as well as almost all sexual materials in some jurisdictions is excessive and unwarranted even on 2257 grounds. As to the history of 2257 somehow being pertinent to it's current application, I do not find it so. (FYI, It was originally introduced in 1990, not 1995.) The DOJ's new interpretation of the law and their stated intent to enforce it against "secondary producers" has changed with a "clarification" proposed on June 25, 2004. Before that, according to Sundance vs. Reno (which was 1995), it did not apply to "secondary producers." The application to secondary producers adds nothing to the purpose of 2257, among many other good arguments against it, some elucidated by the FSC. I agree that it's clear that it's the administration's goal to shut down porn, and they're using a tool that is likely to be found unconstitutional to achieve it. I disagree that Tribe is a likely target compared to large scale adult content specific sites. I accept that Tribe is a commercial enterprise and that they are beholding to their investors, not to the predilections of their users. I assume that Tribe has made a rational fiscal choice balancing the risk of prosecution and the likely cost of that prosecution with the probable loss of users and the likely diminution in the perceived value of Tribe to those customers as a consequence of culled content. If their analysis is correct, then we are unwilling to stand up for our rights and no company should ever do so on our behalf. If it turns out their analysis is incorrect and the cost in terms of lost product (that is users who are sold to their customers, the advertisers) exceeds the risk modulated cost of litigation, then they will either choose to take the risk, or they may fail and future ventures will make different choices. [Update. I forgot to make one further correction to B's attempt at clarification: Max Hardcore's 2001 raid was on obscenity charges and was finally settled in 2004. No charges have been filed in the October raid, but given that the DOJ seized only 5 titles that meet their stated definition of "obscenity," and only the 2257 documentation for those specific titles, it would seem that the raid is primarily an obscenity prosecution and not a 2257 prosecution. And Alabama voted Bush 63%, making it a red state.] B wrote: > Dave, the 2257 regs bear no relation to CDA. > 2257 is all about record keeping - it makes no > moral judgements on the materials the records > are required for. Reduced to its simplest level, > 2257 asks "are the persons in the images > engaged in 'sexual activity'?" The term > 'sexual activity' is clearly and unambiguously > defined in terms even Bill Clinton couldn't > wriggle out of. Essentially, nudity is not > sexual activity - even an erect penis or a > beaver shot - but anytime any other body part > contacts a sexual body part (genitals or > breasts) it is 'sexual activity'. If an image > indeed contains secual activity, the law > requires that primary and secondary producers be > able to prove that all persons involved in the > sexual activity were 18 or older at the time. > Herein lays the problem for services such as > Tribe, Yahoo, etc, as they are obliged to keep > records of the necessary proofs, and have them > available for inspection upon request by the > government. > > In contrast, the CDA required that a value > judgement be made as to whether the images were > obscene, a notoriously difficult case to win in > court. 2257 and CDA are as similar as chalk and > cheese. The current FSC challenge to 2257 is, if > anything, focusing more on the due process > constitutional issues rather than free speech. > The law in effect makes a presumption that > people in images of sexual activity are below > the age of majority, and it is the > responsibility of the producer to prove > otherwise. This is a "guilty until you > prove yourself innocent" situation, and > arguably unconstitutional. Additionally, the > record keeping requirements are the most onerous > part of the legislation. The legal challenge > argues that the way the legislation is framed > places 'undue burdon' on producers, and is thus > unfair legislation which should be set aside. > > 2257 takes the same route to putting people out > of business as the government does in > prosecuting criminals for tax evasion - the > government doesn't care how a criminal made the > money, but they'll jail them for not paying tax > on it. Equally, 2257 makes no judgement > whatsoever on whether images are obscene or not > - what it requires is an insane amount of record > keeping to prove the people involved were of > majority. > > Incidentally, 2257 is *not* a new law - it was > actually passed in 1995 after Traci Lords > famously did porn at 15. The government has > never enforced it. What has changed is that > there was a review of the legislation last year, > and some 'enhancements and clarifications' were > made to the law, with an intent of enforcement. > It was at this point that the Free Speech > Coalition made its legal challenge. They have a > temporary injunction against enforcement in > place, but it only applies to FSC members. The > government is free to make enforcement calls on > all other 'producers'. > > As for the legislation being focused on > businesses that make money from porn, its not a > stretch to say that Tribe generates advertising > revenue because of its members, and that its > membership has a large focus on adult materials, > hence it obtains income as a result of adult > content. > > Finally, you're not going to see the government > agressively going after big businesses like > Yahoo, or the big porn companies. Why? Because > they wil fight, and make a lot of noise. It is > the publicly stated policy of this > administration to wipe out as much porn as > possible...and guess what? More than 70% of porn > is made by "mom & pop" operations and > small enterprises, that can't afford to mount > legal defences. It is absolutely censorship by > the back door - the policy is to put the > producer out of business for administrative > reasons, thus entirely bypassing the whole > contentious obscenity and free speech debates. > > Yes, the FBI is putting companies out of > business, or forcing them to remove content from > websites, with obscenity charges, but they've > been doing that for years, and they consistently > target small businesses. There have recently > been some higher profile attacks on more widely > known figures as Max Hardcore, but you can > expect these to reduce if the legal challenge to > 2257 fails, as enforcement of 2257 is much, much > easier, and cases extremely easy for the > government to win. With 2257, all the government > has to show is that the producer did not have > the necessary records, and Bingo! a $10,000 fine > *per incident!!* and possible federal jail time. > > Please - be properly informed before you start > spouting about censorship. You just look stupid > otherwise. > > Dave wrote: > > The TOU prohibits pornography, not just > > obscenity. Pornography elicits arousal > > [generally differentiated from " > > eroticism" by the class and education of > > the person being aroused]. Almost anything > > elicits arousal in someone. It's in violation > > of the TOU. > > > > As for your prediction that others will follow > > suit, it's only true if there's no financial > > penalty for doing so. If Tribe craters because > > they banned arousing material, then Yahoo et. > > al. will allocate the resources to defeat 2257 > > in court, which should be easy on precident. > > Remember the CDA? We've done it before. > > > > in response to: Tribe's new policy is necessary > > > > > > There's been a lot of criticism of Tribe for > > their new policy on photo's, but to be fair to > > Tribe they have no choice. The FBI has recently > > become very aggressive in pursuing obscenity > > cases, and those of us connected with the adult > > industry are waiting for the government to > start > > enforcing 18 U.S.C. Section 2257. The 2257 > > regulations are a particular headache. Though > > they don't in any way prevent a site from > > posting explicit images of a sexual nature, > they > > do impose an impossible situation on services > > like Tribe, as they mandate that the service > > provider (Tribe) holds records proving that > > everyone involved in an image of sexual > activity > > were 18 or over at the time the images were > > recorded. This would mean if, for example, I > > wanted to post a pic of myself holding my > boner, > > I'd have to provide Tribe with a copy of a > > government issued form of ID (driving license > or > > passport) and sign a model release. If I wanted > > to post a pic of me in an orgy, they'd need the > > same from everyone in the pic that was involved > > in sexual activity. Should Tribe fail to do > > this, they face fines of $10,000 per incident > > (just think how many pics are hosted by Tribe) > > and the company executives could face jail time > > in the Federal pen. Hence it is no surprise > they > > are changing their policy. Frankly I'm > surprised > > it has taken them so long, and what they are > > doing is simple common sense. You can expect > > other communities such as Yahoo, MSN and Google > > groups to follow suit, and you're increasingly > > going to see photo hosting sites refusing to > > carry explicit materials unless you can provide > > the necessary documentation. More info on 2257, > > and current legal challenges, can be found here > > http://www.freespeechcoalition. > > com/FSC_2257_Comments.htm > > > > In regard to what is and isn't obscene, there > > are a couple of major factors that come into > > play. The first is context, the second is > > community standards. If the photo is of you at > > Burning Man, hanging out naked, then it would > be > > hard to press a charge of obscenity against > such > > a pic. However, if it is a photo of an erect > > penis, for no other reason than to show it off, > > a case for obscenity may be easier to make. > > Community standards come into play because by > > law obscenity is defined as what is acceptable > > within the community within which the obscenity > > charge is being made. "Well, we're in > > liberal SF, so no problem", I hear you > say. > > Unfortunately with the internet it isn't that > > simple. If someone in Buttfuck, AL decides they > > are offended by a pair of tits on Tribe they > can > > have charges pressed in their local community... > > and we all know how liberal those blue states > > are, right? What many adult websites will do > now > > is refuse access to people whose IP address > > originates in less tolerant locales. > Fortunately > > you have the First Amendment, so obscenity > > charges are difficult to win for the government > > - in fact they almost always lose - but you > have > > to bear in mind you're defending a case against > > an opponent with limitless funds. There aren't > > that many businesses with the funds to defend > > such cases. > > > > So, the simple issue here is that Tribe has no > > choice other than to change its policy. If they > > don't, its entirely possible we'd end up with > no > > Tribe in existence to bitch about. > > >

motherfuckers

davidgessel — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 22:27:46 GMT

Is that obscene? I'm reminded of the plantive cry "think of the children" from the Simpsons as an excuse for any abuse of rights. So too 2257 effectively circumvents a long line of Supreme Court precedents holding that government is not permitted to reduce the adult population to reading and viewing only what is appropriate for children. Congratulations. I'm sure Jesus will thank Tribe and give the directors a special place in heaven along with the other guardians of our collective morals. Does the second amendment is start to make sense? The founders of this country were not stupid. Time to revisit H.