#annals of technology

[zentendo]

Beyond the Pixels: Super Mario RPG's Enduring Legacy and Cultural Impact

In the vast landscape of gaming history, certain titles transcend the confines of their release era and become timeless classics. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is one such game, not merely a pixelated adventure but a cultural phenomenon that left an indelible mark on the world of gaming. This feature delves into the post-release journey of Super Mario RPG, exploring its enduring…

[thepastisalreadywritten]

It was the first official account of Elizabeth I’s reign, one of the most valuable sources on early modern Britain, commissioned by her successor, King James I.

But, for 400 years, no one has been able to read passages on hundreds of pages of this manuscript because they had been so heavily revised and self-censored by their 17th-century author, apparently to avoid punishment for offending his patron.

Now state-of-the-art imaging technology has enabled the British Library to read hidden pages of William Camden’s Annals for the first time, “a significant finding in early modern historical scholarship.”

Those pages had been either over-written or concealed beneath pieces of paper stuck down so tightly that attempting to lift them would have ripped the pages and destroyed evidence.

Enhanced imaging technology, involving transmitted light, has revealed those texts, offering new insights into the queen and the political machinations of her court, to the excitement of scholars.

It casts new light on significant historical episodes such as Elizabeth’s excommunication by Pope Pius V and her nomination of James as her successor.

Julian Harrison, the British Library’s lead curator of medieval historical and literary manuscripts, told the Guardian that seeing unknown passages emerge for the first time was “heart-stopping.” He said:

“It’s really one of those moments where ‘now you can’t see anything, now you can,’ the absolute reversal of ‘now you see it, now you don’t.’

The imaging is revolutionary. We’ve never done anything quite like this before. It’s just incredible.”

Written in Latin, the Annals were based on first-hand evidence such as witness reports and official parliamentary records collected by Camden, who died in 1623.

Harrison said:

“We have 10 volumes of the handwritten manuscripts … [of which] literally several hundred pages … [have] passages which had been covered up.”

He added:

“Modern historians have commonly relied on Camden’s Annals as an impartial and supposedly accurate record.

This new research reveals that key sections were revised … It implies that Camden’s Annals were deliberately rewritten to present a version of Elizabeth’s reign that was more favourable to her successor.”

He noted, for example, its claim that Elizabeth I had named James VI of Scotland as her successor on her deathbed:

“Elizabeth never married and she died childless in 1603, to be succeeded on the English throne by Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland.

Analysis of the manuscript drafts shows that the deathbed scene was a fabricated addition that Camden did not intend originally to put into his history.

He presumably included it to appease James so that his succession looked more predetermined than it had actually been.

Elizabeth was too ill to speak in her final hours and no other historical evidence points to this deathbed scene being true.”

In 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth.

Harrison said Camden originally said the pope was motivated to do so by “spiritual warfare,” only to replace it in the published version with the statement that Pius was creating “secret plots” against Elizabeth:

“By removing the previously inflammatory wording, Camden made the official record more neutral in tone.”

Historians will now want to pore over this material.

“There’s still more to be discovered,” Harrison said. “What’s going to be interesting is how modern interpretations of Elizabeth I, such an important historical figure, are potentially going to be changed.”

The researcher Helena Rutkowska has been working on the Annals as part of a collaborative doctoral award in a partnership between the University of Oxford, where she is a DPhil student, the British Library, and the Open University.

She spoke of the excitement of seeing original texts for the first time:

“It was incredible … We’ve been able to clearly see new information that no one has seen for 400 years.”

—

Camden's Annals has long been regarded as one of the most important, contemporary accounts of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603).

The work was originally requested by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley KG PC (13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598), and was then completed by command of King James I of England and VI of Scotland (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625).

William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623), an antiquarian scholar and Clarenceux King of Arms, is credited with authorship of the work, but he was probably writing in collaboration with others, including Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet (22 January 1570/71 – 6 May 1631), founder of the famous Cotton library.

The first three books, covering the period to 1587, were published in Latin in 1615, with the remainder of the work published after Camden had died, in 1625.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[centrally-unplanned]

Annals of US city governance, we are finally embracing the radical notion of trash bins:

The new rule is part of the city’s broader plan to move trash into containers, a simple yet revolutionary change in New Yorkers’ trash habits. To do so could easily cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. City officials must buy new specialized trash trucks and stationary containers, while also increasing the frequency of residential trash collection in large swaths of the city.

"Specialized trash trucks and stationary containers" how will we develop this frontier technology??

Other cities like Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Singapore have already embraced trash containerization.

Genius sentence, the way its structured to imply only the best of the best in modern cities have piloted this crazy idea. Soon NYC will be on the elite list of cities not dumping bags of trash openly on the streets! If you find yourself asking "wait why has this not happened yet", well:

City officials found that it was possible to use trash containers on 89 percent of the city’s residential streets, but it would require removing 150,000 parking spots 

So, yup.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Billboard project

* * * *

One for the history books!

September 12, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

After delivering one of the best debate performances in American political history, Kamala Harris is receiving begrudging and stinting praise from many in the media and commentary class. But 67 million people saw Kamala Harris demonstrate she is made of presidential timber. They witnessed a masterful performance that revealed a penetrating intellect tempered by decency and humanity. On the substance and execution, she should have earned the support of all voters and unqualified praise from the media and political commentators.

Trump's performance was vile and disqualifying. It was worse than Joe Biden’s widely panned debate by far. While Joe Biden turned in a horrible debate performance as measured by the artificial rules of made-for-tv spectacles, Donald Trump made dozens of statements that were objectively depraved, racist, antidemocratic, delusional, and deceitful.

Trump transcended the debate format and devolved into fascist demagoguery that should have resulted in universal condemnation by all voters, the media, and political commentators. If Joe Biden was driven from the presidential race because of his poor debate performance, Trump should be banished from politics, expelled from his party, and relegated to a place of dishonor in the annals of American history.

Talking about the debate is difficult because of the urge to focus on Kamala Harris’s brilliantly executed strategy of baiting Trump into ranting about his insecurities and the horror of Trump's worst-in-the-history-of-the-nation performance on substance.

I get it. Harris’s ninja debating moves and Trump's racist deer-in-the-headlights stare made for riveting television. But we focus on those aspects of the debate to the detriment of the substance of Kamala Harris’s message. She spent a substantial portion of the debate discussing her policies and her plan to help heal the divisions that beset America.

It is disappointing to see so many stories and commentators describe the debate as “fierce” or “contentious.” I heard one commentator on MSNBC bemoan the fact that neither candidate seemed interested in bridging the divide in America. That is false. Kamala Harris promised to be a president for all Americans and to focus on the needs of the people, not the needs and wants of the president. She said, in part,

And I think the American people want better than that. Want better than this. Want someone who understands as I do, I travel our country, we see in each other a friend. We see in each other a neighbor. We don't want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other. I meet with people all the time who tell me "Can we please just have discourse about how we're going to invest in the aspirations and the ambitions and the dreams of the American people?" [¶¶] I've only had one client. The people. And I'll tell you, as a prosecutor I never asked a victim or a witness are you a Republican or a Democrat. The only thing I ever asked them, are you okay? And that's the kind of president we need right now. Someone who cares about you and is not putting themselves first. I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on what we can do over the next 10 and 20 years to build back up our country by investing right now in you the American people.

Kamala Harris repeatedly offered her policy vision for America, including tax breaks for business startups; subsidizing downpayments for first-time home purchases; incentivizing the construction of starter homes; granting tax credits for families with newborns; investing in American chip technology, quantum computing, and AI; supporting worker’s rights; reducing reliance on fossil fuels; granting tax cuts for the middle class; requiring the ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes; and protecting the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. She also promised to protect reproductive liberty, LGBTQ equality, and voting rights of all Americans.

The media has hounded Kamala Harris for weeks about the alleged absence of policies in her campaign. On Tuesday, she talked about dozens of specific policies—and the media is not saying a word about those policies after the debate.

Not. A. Word.

It’s almost as if the media didn’t really care about Kamala Harris’s policies but were only interested in a talking point they could use to criticize her. Hypocrites!

So, before talking about how well Kamala Harris executed her strategy of baiting Trump and how abhorrent Trump's performance and positions were, let’s give Kamala Harris her due on the substance: She gave a presidential-level discourse on policies that will affect the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. The fact that Trump and the moderators ignored those policies does not diminish the respect she showed for the American people by clearly setting forth her policies if elected as president.

Among the many insipid criticisms of Kamala Harris was that she used facial expressions to convey her disapproval, amusement, and disbelief over Trump's utterances. This was an effective use of her non-speaking time and allowed her to diminish Trump without saying a word.

Dahlia Lithwick demolishes the critics who faulted Kamala’s facial expressions—a criticism that would only be leveled against a woman. See Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, Harris–Trump debate: Kamala Harris’ face on Tuesday was the stuff of legend. (slate.com). Lithwick writes,

It must be beyond maddening for a political actor to be summoned into a “debate” that is not really a debate, pitted against some frothing amalgam of WWE reenactor and Tasmanian devil, warned that your microphone will be muted while he is speaking, cautioned that he will be allowed to talk over you and the moderators, then be criticized for … blinking? [¶¶] Harris’ face roamed free and far on Tuesday, and it was thoroughly warranted and frequently enjoyable. I think of her mobile, legible face as a satisfying call-and-response to Trump’s lifelong preference for female adulation and Botox. Women have faces. Their faces have expressions. If that was upsetting to you during Tuesday’s debate, you might be dismayed to learn that deep beneath our expressive faces lie thoughts, dreams, frustrations, and other markers of human agency. If a woman smiling freaks you out, imagine what happens when a woman votes.

While talking about Kamala Harris’s facial expressions may seem superficial, it is not. One of Harris’s most significant accomplishments was her ability to show herself to be a likable, relatable human being. She did so by using the medium of television to her advantage. Were the expressive facial reactions real or practiced? It doesn’t matter; they were successful. People liked Kamala Harris. For a candidate who has been on the national scene since 2018, the percentage of voters who still say they don’t “know�� her is shocking. But she went some distance in the debate to introduce herself to those voters in a positive way.

Among Harris’s many pointed and powerful answers on Tuesday, none were better than her response to Trump's gloating over the demise of Roe v. Wade. Harris said,

In over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care. In one state it provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest. Which—understand what that means. A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral. And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. You want to talk about, this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that. Understand in his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion—a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.

There is more room to praise Kamala Harris’s performance in the debate, but we must turn to Trump's horrific statements during the debate. So, let’s get Trump’s “debate performance” out of the way: It was the worst debate performance (in terms of style) in the history of political debates. See The Guardian, Republicans dismayed by Trump’s ‘bad’ and ‘unprepared’ debate performance. Brit Hume of Fox News said, “Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night. We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.” Coming from a Fox commentator, that is as bad as it gets for Trump.

There were many disgraceful, disqualifying statements during the debate by Trump: Refusing to say that he hoped Ukraine would defeat the Russian invasion; refusing to acknowledge that he lost in 2020; refusing to express any regret for his actions on January 6; claiming that “every Democrat” wanted to “get rid of” Roe v. Wade.; and repeatedly saying that execution of babies after a full-term delivery was permissible under existing law.

To state the obvious, if Kamala Harris had uttered a single statement that was one-tenth as egregious as any of the above, the major media would be calling for her withdrawal from the race.

But Trump's worst statement was the race-baiting claim that Haitian immigrants are capturing domestic pets in Springfield, Ohio and eating them. That trope was originally directed at immigrants from other countries but has been repurposed by Trump to slander Haitian immigrants who are legally in the US.

The claim is false and started as triple-hearsay thrice-removed:

On Sept. 6, a post surfaced on X that shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The retweeted post talked about the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” seeing a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, claiming without evidence that Haitians lived at the house.

So, a “screenshot” of a retweet (three levels removed from personal knowledge) talked about a “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” (three more levels removed from personal knowledge). In short, the claim is the worst sort of internet rumor—intentionally unverifiable. Repeating such a rumor is beneath a candidate for the presidency.

But the crassness of repeating the rumor is the least of the offense. Trump did not repeat a rumor—he asserted the rumor as “fact” for the purpose of stirring racial hatred against Haitian immigrants. The false rumor has been circulating for weeks among right-wing websites that attack Haitian immigrants as the cause of an increase in crime in Springfield. See WaPo, Anatomy of a racist smear: How false claims of pet-eating immigrants caught on.

Trump then leveraged the cat-eating Haitian claim to smear all immigrants as law-breaking, violent, less-than-human invaders whom he would deport en masse from the US. The entire episode was an appeal to the most racist, xenophobic backwaters of American society. It was shameful and divisive. It may lead to violence against immigrants—just as past statements by Trump have led to violence against immigrants in Texas. See NBC (8/5/2019), Trump's anti-immigrant 'invasion' rhetoric was echoed by the El Paso shooter for a reason.

No modern presidential candidate has appealed to racial animus during a presidential debate. Trump's attack on the Haitian community should have been the end of his candidacy. As should his statements about Ukraine, the 2020 election, January 6, and abortion—and that list excludes his dozens of other falsehoods.

In short, the debate should move the needle in favor of Kamala Harris. Whether it will do so is a different question—one that will be determined, in part, by whether the media maintains the same intense focus on Trump's  debate performance that it maintained on Biden’s debate performance in July. On the substance, Trump's debate performance was objectively worse, by far. Let’s hope the media doesn’t get distracted by the less consequential matters.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Why Sound Design is so Important in Games

Sound design is a key point in games, though it is often neglected in college games where we do a lot of work without speakers on. Having some good audio in a game really helps elevate the experience beyond just being a solely visual medium, as much as audio changed silent movies. The games with the best sound design are often those with realistic sound systems, or ones that elicit the desired emotional response. Good sound design can make you terrified to turn a corner; it can make you cry in the game's saddest moments; it can turn a level from a selection of rendered polygons to a truly real-seeming experience. Obviously our game's sound design isn't that deep, but it doesn't add nothing to the game either.

The first game I am looking at is Thief: The Dark Project. This game came out in 1998, but I would say it still holds up today with a few patches to make it run on modern systems. The game has a unique stealth system that lets you hide in shadows, but the main thing we're looking at is the sound. Different surfaces are different levels of loudness when walked on - carpet is perfect for sneaking, but metal catwalks are loud and clank under your feet. This isn't just set dressing either, because enemies are more likely to hear you if you're clanking about on steel grating. Then there is the ambient sound, where you can hear nearby guards muttering or whistling (in a great bit of game design, this helps you keep track of them when they're out of sight), torches crackle, and strange ambient screeches echo down hallways. The ambient soundtracks in each level are interesting, and use a lot of electronic synthesiser noises, which gives them an 80s John Carpenter vibe. They help make the environments foreboding, but also help tell the story in a way that 90s graphics simply could not. For example, as you enter the deepest annals of an ultra-religious Hammerite compound, the ambient whirr of machinery gets replaced by solemn choir and hymns. Caves can have dripping water and the occasional crumbling rock, while more twisted forest environments have the endless chirring of insects and chuckling from unseen nymphs and satyrs. The actual sound technology is also really good for the time, because it supports sound cards, even though they aren't used too much anymore. With them enabled, you can listen against a door and gauge how big a room is based on the echo of the guard's voices inside. Even for today that is fairly advanced, and as far as I know, not present in many other games.

The next game I am looking at is Hunt: Showdown. It is a 2018 horror shooter taking place at the end of the 19th century, where you play as a bounty hunter trying to kill various cryptids and monsters. The game uses the Cry Engine, so it already looks good on a visual front, but the audio is also phenomenal. Most of the quality comes from its directional sound system, which is so specific you can tell where players are through buildings, which is useful for lining up shots when you don't have a good visual read on their whereabouts. Every gun also has a unique sound and echo, which allows an educated player to guess what weapon has been fired, from what direction, and even from what distance. The way that the game calculates sound waves travelling is a very unique and realistic system; a gunshot ringing out over an open field will be louder and clearer than a gunshot fired in the middle of the thick backwoods. I assume this is a built-in feature for CryEngine V because I know of no other games with this level of realism when it comes to sound - I can only assume it calculates for windspeed and other factors and then runs the sound effect through various in-engine filters.

Finally, I will look at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. One of the lesser-mentioned qualities of this game is its environmental sound design, which help the various holds of Skyrim seem like realistic places. The wind whistles about your ears, giving you a good sense of your player's altitude and the temperature around you. In the mornings and evenings, you can hear crickets chirring and birds chirping. The rushing of rivers sounds different depending on the course - swelling into a roar of white noise in the rapids, but dissipating to a trickle when the river becomes a lazy stream. Then there are more ethereal sounds, like the creaking of the aurora borealis on winter nights. Towns have their own soundscapes also, with the creaking wood of huts and the crackle of flaming torches. The ambient music by Jeremy Soule (the same guy behind the LOTR soundtrack) also adds a lot to the game's atmosphere, with majestic orchestras making even a simple walk through the valleys a much more emotive and captivating experience. However, you can play with the sound turned off and just listen to the layered soundscapes.

From my research, I can see that the main theme that makes a soundscape good is attention to detail. Not just having one sword hit sound, for example, but several, altered depending what material you strike, and echoing with a different resonance depending on where you are. I would say that with Wallpaper of the Mind, we have achieved this as best we can in four weeks, with the different footstep surfaces. The sounds I myself provided were more stock quality, but it doesn't matter, because how sound is used mechanically is just as important. I will make a blog post on this soon.

[jilyawards]

The Jily Fandom Rec List 2024 is a compilation of Jily stories our readers want to keep an eye on for this year's awards.

JULY

Genius (completed, 4.3k) by @petalsthefish. Rated M.

After Lily breaks her iPhone, she finds herself at the Genius Bar on Valentines Day, and an old flame is there to help her in all things technology and romance.

That Summer (WIP, 13.3k as of 31 July 2024) by @thecasualauthor. Rated T.

In which James and Lily spend the summer in a house by the sea. (and fall in love in the process)

to dream the impossible dream (completed, <1k) by @emeralddoeadeer. Rated T.

From Tumblr prompt asks: “I called you at 2am because I need you.”

Only Nineteen (completed, 2.2k) by @petalsthefish. Rated M.

Lily and James discuss what to do about Lily’s unplanned pregnancy during a forced holiday up north after a mission went wrong. My prompt for the May jilychallenge was “Skinny Dipping” and I decided to make it skinny dipping but with angst because I needed a good cry

The Bath of a Lifetime (completed, <1k) by @chierafied. Rated M.

James wanted a stiff drink, a hot bath and to lounge on the couch by the fireplace. The drink seemed unlikely. The couch was a possibility. But he’d definitely be getting that bath.

star light, star bright (completed, 9k) by @gigglesandfreckles-hp. Rated G.

It's seventh year, somehow, that clinches the case, claiming the grand prize in the annals of Lily Evans's misfortunes. Because, as it turns out, harbouring feelings for James Potter while also navigating the precarious terrain of friendship with him is a fate crueller than death. [or: James keeps accidentally touching Lily and she's about to lose her mind]

December's Valentine (WIP, 16.2k as of 31 July 2024) by @stonecoldhedwig. Rated E.

Sometimes, a one-night-stand with a guy off Tinder is just that: a one-night-stand. No lasting feelings, no strings attached. It's the kind of thing that's easy to get your head around when you're trying to get your heart around the end of a relationship. Sometimes, it's not that simple. Sometimes, you're a journalist, and you get assigned to write a piece on an up-and-coming restaurateur, who just might be that one-night-stand from Tinder that you can't stop thinking about. And sometimes, to make matters worse, the two of you get snowed in... **** Or: Lily shags James, and thinks she'll never see him again. Right? Wrong.

The Smallest Men Who Ever Lived. (completed, 7.3k) by ninazenikcult. Not rated.

The time has come for Lily to leave Cokeworth, and with it, two of the smallest men who ever lived; her father and Severus Snape. But leaving the town where she has been trapped for years and exchanging it for an idyllic new life with James proves more difficult than first thought.

My Life's Blood (completed, 18.2k) by @ohmygodshesinsane. Rated E.

James Potter, Duke of Peverell, lingers on the outer edges of the Prince Regent Regulus's court, steadfastly plotting his overthrow. When the Prince Regent's new bride, the lovely Lily of Innsbruck, arrives, a formal introduction leads to James's realisation that the folk tales are true -- and that if he fails to contrive a way to stay at the princess-to-be's side, their lives will be forfeit.

Check out the previous months' recs too: January, February, March || April || May || June

[whiskeylover75]

In 1960, Marilyn Monroe was at the peak of her fame, and she graced the set of The Misfits, a film that would mark the end of an era for the iconic actress. Directed by John Huston and written by Arthur Miller, The Misfits was Monroe’s final film before her tragic passing in 1962. The film starred Monroe alongside Clark Gable, making it a significant moment in Hollywood history. It was during this time that Monroe, with her ethereal beauty and captivating presence, was immortalized in numerous photographs, including the stunning image shared by @stars.sublimed.

The photograph, now colorized by @sofiametaxas, presents Marilyn in a serene moment, with a soft light effect that brings out her delicate features. The revived colors capture the essence of Monroe’s timeless beauty, adding depth to the vintage photograph. Marilyn, known for her mesmerizing beauty and vulnerability, was often photographed in moments that reflected her complex persona, and this image encapsulates the grace and elegance that made her a beloved icon worldwide.

Monroe’s career was marked by both her undeniable talent and the public's fascination with her personal life. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, she rose from a troubled childhood to become one of the most iconic figures in film history. Her blend of vulnerability, sensuality, and comedic talent made her a standout star during the 1950s and 1960s, securing her place in the annals of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

The colorized photos of Monroe, like the one shared here, allow new generations to experience her beauty and the cinematic magic of her era in a vivid, modern way. This blending of history and technology serves as a reminder of Monroe’s lasting legacy in pop culture, cementing her status as one of the most celebrated stars of all time. Marilyn’s impact on fashion, film, and beauty remains evident, and images like these continue to captivate the hearts of fans old and new.

[u10como]

Prince Isaac was nervous.

He fully supported the peace treaty with the Elven kingdom and knew it was needed, but he wasn't thrilled about being used as his father's bargaining chip. The war was now reaching its 800th year, which meant even the elves went through several generations since it started any nobody really remembered the true reason - elves blamed humans, humans blamed elves - the usual. But nobody can wage a war forever - if not for economic reasons then for the sheer fact it starts to seem meaningless after several decades of largely no progress in either of the side's favor.

King Langdon III, Isaac's father, decided to make his name in the annals of his kingdom as the great peacemaker. He could drive the final blow to the elven kingdom if he decided so - after all, during the rules of Kings Horatio I, Langdon II and especially Tiberius V, Isaac's grandfather and Langdon III's father, the humans made several great breakthroughs in technology, which allowed them to take the upper hand over the elves - firearms exceeding the range of elven bows, steam powered siege engines impervious to any weapon crafted by elven smiths, even flying machines, soaring far above the reach of best elven archers. But King Langdon III felt his people were growing tired of the contstant state of war and suspected the elves might feel the same. Actually, he knew if he was in the place of Auberon IV, the king of elves, he would beg for a peace treaty long ago - but he also knew the elves were too proud, perhaps even foolhardy to accept one-sided defeat. Thus, king Langdon III offered a mutual peace treaty between the kingdoms, which, to prince Isaac's annoyance, pivoted around royal wedding between human prince and elven princess.

Prince Isaac however felt like he isn't prepared to get married, even less so for complete stranger He knew elven women were considered very beautiful, but none of the elven women he ever saw before was up to his tastes. Not only were they usually much taller than him, but prince Isaac had sort of peculiar taste when it came to women. He never admitted that, because he felt ashamed of it but he was really attracted to women missing limbs. But from what he knew, elves were always perfect. He remembered hearing a tale of Elven warrior who survived being banished to deep woods centuries ago and lived with human lumberjack, but nobody ever saw living, breathing elf with missing limbs ever since - even in the face of total annihilation, the elves kep their bigoted views and their permanently injured soldiers were still sacrificed to keep up the aura of their race's flawless perfection. No - he was destined to marry not for love, but for politics. What does it matter if she was a woman of race which appeared physically perfect in everyone else's eyes: To him, that argument was hollow. Yet, being a gentleman, he still felt the need to introduce himself - she was their honored guest and, if everything goes according to plan, they were going to spend the rest of their lives with one another, so getting to know her can't hurt.

Knocking at the elven princess' chamber door, he heard her answer in weak, timid, yet melodic voice: "C... come in!" As he opened the door, prince Isaac was thoroughly surprised by the appearance of his future wife: She was beautiful, yet not in the expectable elven manner: She was slightly shorter than him, with beautifully rounded hips completely unlike any elf he ever saw before. She had jet black hair and shy expression of a trapped doe, trying to avoid eye contact with him. "Greetings, i'm prince Isaac, your... ahem... future husband? pleased to meet you..." he approached her with outstretched hand." "Oh... Hello, my Lord... i'm Delia... she replied, turning her eyes to him. As she saw his hand, a panic appeared briefly in her eyes before she timidly rose her right foot and took Isaac's hand in it. At thet moment Isaac noticed - Delia had no arms - her outfit should have made that detail apparent, but Isaac never expected elven princess to lack any appendage, let alone both arms at her shoulders. Gently squeezing her foot, he kissed her ankle to Delia's surprise. "I'm sorry, my Lord i am... This..." she said... "My father thought he will get rid of the family shame i am and be free to marry off my beautiful sisters to the counts of elven colonies across the sea, but if you send me back i'm sure you can negotiate an exchange for one of them..." "No!" said Isaac perhaps too sharply, startling Delila. "How could i do that? You're our honored guest, and if your family doesn't treat you well it's even more so our duty to keep you safe with us!" "But my father treats me well! He loves me! He kept me alive in secret despite the fact i was born... damaged - is there a greater sign of love?" "Delia... you are not damaged. To me, you are more beautiful than any woman i ever saw - human or elven. I would never return you back - even less so now that i know how you were treated - Yes, you might consider it a kindness on your father's part and i've no doubt he genuinely thought so too, but even so, sending you back to this life would be cruel. Here, you can be free - go wherever you want, meet whoever you wish, not hidden out of sight because of some preposterous superiority complex your father refuses to let go of." "You... you want to marry me, then, my Lord?" "Please, drop the lord, Delia, i'm Isaac." "So you want to marry me... Isaac?" "I always imagined i would marry for love, not for political machinations. But that's something you and i can work on together, but only if you want to marry me, Delia?." "I would love to, Isaac!"

[britsyankswheels24]

🇺🇲 Explore the intriguing history of the Ford Edsel—a car that captivated the automotive world with its bold design and innovative features! Introduced in 1956, the Edsel was envisioned as a revolutionary addition to the American automobile market.

🎩 Edsel was a division and brand of automobiles that was produced by the Ford Motor Company. Named after Edsel Ford, the son of company founder Henry Ford, the Edsel was intended to fill the gap between Ford and Mercury, offering consumers a new level of luxury and sophistication. With its distinctive styling and advanced engineering, the Edsel was poised to make a splash in the competitive automotive landscape.

🚘 Despite high expectations and extensive marketing campaigns, the Ford Edsel faced numerous challenges upon its release. Its unconventional design, characterized by a unique grille and distinctive "horse collar" front bumper, divided opinion among consumers and critics alike.

⚙️ Under the hood, the Edsel boasted a range of powerful engines and innovative technologies, including the "Teletouch" automatic transmission and "E-475" V8 engine. However, production delays and quality control issues tarnished its reputation in the eyes of consumers, leading to disappointing sales figures.

💔 The launch of the Ford Edsel on "E-Day" in September 1957 remains one of the most highly anticipated events in automotive history. Despite the initial hype, the Edsel failed to resonate with buyers, leading to its discontinuation in 1960 after just three model years.

🌟 Although the Ford Edsel may not have achieved commercial success, it remains a fascinating chapter in the annals of automotive history, showcasing the risks and challenges inherent in innovation and design.

[timetrek24]

🇰🇷 Transport yourself back in time with the Samsung SPH-WP10 watch phone! Released in 1999, this groundbreaking device marked Samsung's foray into the realm of wearable tech, combining the functionalities of a mobile phone with the convenience of a wristwatch.

⌚️ The SPH-WP10 was ahead of its time, boasting impressive features such as a built-in antenna, phone dialer, and LCD screen. Despite its compact size, it packed a punch, allowing users to make calls and send text messages on the go.

⚙️ Equipped with innovative technology, the SPH-WP10 supported basic phone functions and offered a sleek design with a digital display. Its futuristic appeal was enhanced by features like a built-in speakerphone and vibrating alerts.

💾 Despite its limited memory and basic functionalities compared to modern smartphones, the SPH-WP10 paved the way for future advancements in wearable technology, showcasing Samsung's commitment to innovation and user convenience.

🌟 The SPH-WP10 may have been a relic of the past, but its impact on the evolution of mobile communication is undeniable, earning its place in the annals of tech history.

[vintageairplanehub]

Are Old Planes Safe to Fly?— A Look into the Reliability of Vintage Aircraft Models

Have you ever seen a vintage airplane model  fly and wondered, "Are old planes safe to fly?" The sight of these classic aviation models gracefully soaring through the sky can evoke a mix of nostalgia and admiration. Yet, it also raises questions about the safety of flying aircraft that have been around for decades.

The vintage airplane models lies in their historical importance and timeless design. These aircraft models represent an era when aviation was still in its infancy, and each flight was a pioneering adventure. However, the reality of flying these older planes in today's world requires careful consideration.

One key factor in determining the safety of old planes is the rigorous maintenance they undergo. Unlike modern aircraft, which are designed with advanced technology and materials, vintage airplane models rely heavily on regular inspections and meticulous upkeep. Owners and operators of these planes are often passionate about their aircraft, dedicating countless hours to ensuring that every component is in top condition. This attention to detail is critical because the safety of an old airplane models hinges on the reliability of its parts, many of which may no longer be in production and need to be custom-made or sourced from specialized suppliers.

Moreover, the regulatory environment for old planes are strict. Aviation authorities, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), impose strict guidelines on the operation of vintage aircraft models. These regulations ensure that only planes that meet specific safety standards are allowed to take to the skies. This means that an old airplane model must pass the same rigorous checks as a modern aircraft before it can be deemed airworthy. The pilots flying these planes are also subject to special certifications, ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to handle these unique aircraft models safely.

However, flying a vintage airplane model is not without its challenges. These aircraft were built in a different era, using materials and techniques that may not match the durability and performance of today's standards. For example, older engines may not be as fuel-efficient or powerful as modern ones, which could impact the plane's overall performance. Additionally, the aerodynamics of some old planes may not be as refined, making them more challenging to handle, especially in adverse weather conditions.

Despite these challenges, many aviation enthusiasts argue that old planes can be just as safe as their modern counterparts when properly maintained and operated. The key lies in understanding the limitations of these aircraft models and respecting the knowledge that has been passed down through generations of pilots and engineers. Flying a vintage airplane is not about getting from point A to point B—it's about preserving a piece of aviation history and experiencing the joy of flight in the early days of aviation.

In fact, some vintage airplane models have become iconic in their own right, celebrated for their unique design and historical significance. Aircraft models like the Douglas DC-3, the Boeing Stearman, and the Piper Cub are beloved by pilots and aviation enthusiasts. These planes have earned their place in the annals of aviation history, and their continued operation is a testament to the dedication of those who keep them flying.

So, are old planes safe to fly? The answer is that with the right care, expertise, and respect for the aircraft's heritage, they can be. Vintage airplanes represent more than just a mode of transportation—they are living pieces of history, connecting us to the golden age of aviation. For those who appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of these aircraft models, the joy of seeing them take flight is worth the extra effort to ensure their safety. Whether you're an aviation enthusiast or just someone who admires the grace of these old planes, there's something truly special about watching a piece of history roaming the skies in todays world.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[beyondcrimescenetapes]

Title: The First Forensic Case in China: The Farmer’s Sickle and the Flies

In the annals of forensic science, one of the earliest and most ingenious cases of using insects to solve a crime comes from medieval China. This story, recorded in a historical text from the Song Dynasty, showcases the remarkable use of forensic entomology to uncover the truth.

The Crime Scene

The case unfolded in a rural village where a farmer was found murdered, his body slashed repeatedly with what appeared to be a sickle, a common tool used for harvesting rice. The local magistrate, faced with the challenge of identifying the murderer, devised a clever plan to use the natural behavior of insects to solve the crime.

The Investigation

The magistrate gathered all the villagers who owned sickles and instructed them to place their tools on the ground in a designated area. He then stepped back and waited. Within minutes, blowflies, attracted by the scent of blood, began to swarm around one particular sickle. The flies, with their keen sense of smell, were drawn to invisible traces of blood and tissue that remained on the blade, even after the murderer had attempted to clean it.

The Confession

The owner of the sickle, realizing that the flies had exposed his crime, broke down and confessed. The magistrate, using the natural behavior of the blowflies, had successfully identified the murderer without relying on human testimony or physical evidence alone. This case marked the first documented use of forensic entomology in history.

The Legacy of Song Ci

A scholar named Song Ci documented this groundbreaking case in a book that laid the foundation for modern forensic science. His meticulous observations and detailed instructions on how to conduct autopsies and investigate crimes have been revered for centuries. Song Ci emphasized the importance of personal examination, accurate documentation, and the use of natural evidence to avoid miscarriages of justice.

The Importance of Forensic Entomology

This case highlights the significance of forensic entomology, the study of insects and their role in criminal investigations. Blowflies, in particular, are known for their ability to detect the scent of decomposing bodies within minutes of death. By studying the life cycle and behavior of these insects, forensic entomologists can estimate the postmortem interval (PMI), or the time since death, which is crucial in solving crimes.

Conclusion

The story of the farmer’s sickle and the flies is a testament to the ingenuity of early Chinese investigators and the enduring principles of forensic science. It serves as a reminder that even in the absence of modern technology, careful observation and the use of natural evidence can lead to justice. This historical case remains a cornerstone of forensic science, inspiring generations of investigators to seek truth through meticulous examination and scientific rigor.

[leveragehunters]

Fanfiction.net

I'm putting this in its own post, but it might not make sense without reading this post and my reblogs of it: https://www.tumblr.com/leveragehunters/718895225455738880/no-fanfictionnet-is-not-safe

The different IP addresses for fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com and and www.fanfiction.net and www.fanfiction.com are the same. That is, the two former are 104.18.19.242 and appear to belong to Cloudflare. The latter two are both 209.141.39.137, which belong to Frantech Solutions (that IP is also listed as fictionratings.com's IP address, which also resolves to the green site, both for www. fictionratings.com and fictionratings.com).

THIS MAY BE VERY BAD, regardless of whether this is something the owners have done or it's something fraudulent.

This is an article about Frantech and they are considered a high fraud risk by scamanalytics: https://scamalytics.com/ip/isp/frantech-solutions.

See also: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252461105/Researchers-uncover-US-based-malware-distribution-centre

A discussion about them as potential frauds: https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/173213/frantech-solutions-beware.

A New Yorker article on the neo-nazi website Daily Stormer, hosted at the time by Frantech, and Francisco Dias, the founder of Frantech and two affiliated companies, BuyVM and Buyshared, revealing the company has zero issues hosting genocidal hate speech (with the same sort of rhetoric that's been coming out of Musk's mouth): https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-neo-nazis-of-the-daily-stormer-wander-the-digital-wilderness

They also hosted kiwi farms: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/14/1567328/-Francisco-Dias-Harboring-a-Dangerous-Guest.

Also: https://en.everybodywiki.com/FranTech_Solutions, which states (with citations):

FranTech Solutions is a Canadian hosting provider that owns and operates BuyVM.net. Historically, the website has provided services to to far-right and neo-Nazi websites, including The Daily Stormer.

It goes on to describe some pretty bad things, including the above.

The Frantech homepage advises that they're not currently offering services and advises people to check out BuyVM.

Again, I don't know what this means. Maybe the owners are moving the domains somewhere cheaper, but if so the choice they've made is deeply concerning. Maybe they misconfigured their servers. Maybe something dodgy is going on and someone's using Frantech to do it.

One thing is very clear: something is up. DON'T PANIC but the sensible action is to archive/save your fics. Archiving www.fanfiction.net addresses in the Wayback Machine is currently not working, as it can't reach the site, so use other tools available to you.

[gwaedhannen]

Preamble: the state of Beleriand after the First Battle

Ah fuck guess I'm writing this now. Bullet-point style because all the best AUs use it (yes I'm talking about @thelordofgifs's The Fairest Stars) and definitely not because I'm lazy.

Quick synopsis of the First Battle in Y.T. 1497:

Morgoth upon his return sends two orc-hosts through the northern passes, the west-host down Sirion and Narog and the east down Celon and Gelion.

The east-host is beaten by Thingol and the Laiquendi, but the Laiquendi take heavy losses, and their king Denethor and his kin are all slain on Amon Ereb before Thingol can reinforce them.

The dwarves of Mount Dolmed deal with the surviving orcs.

The west-host cuts Thingol off from Círdan, and the Falathrim are driven back to Eglarest and Brithombar and besieged.

The aftermath:

Thingol pulls his people into Neldoreth and Region, and Melian raises the Girdle. Doriath is founded.

The surviving Laiquendi either scatter into Ossiriand or join with Thingol's people.

Orcs have the run of West Beleriand.

Eglarest and Brithombar are besieged until Fëanáro's host arrives and the siege is called off to go deal with them (and they're destroyed by Tyelkormo's forces).

...But in this universe, Fëanáro and the rest of the Noldor are still on the Helcaraxë for another 25 solar years.

Now we're getting into conjecture:

In canon, Eglarest and Brithombar are besieged and destroyed a year after the Nírnaeth, thanks to Morgoth's siege engineers. This is despite the elves of Nargothrond helping to rebuild the cities during the Long Peace, and the Falathrim's reinforcement by survivors of the battle and the fall of Hithlum. Only a few survivors escape with Círdan to Balar and the mouths of Sirion. Three fleeing ships also sail far further south and found Edhellond near where Dol Amroth will eventually be. The rest of the Havens' inhabitants are killed or captured.

It's still Y.T. 1497. Morgoth hasn't had centuries to innovate his siege technology, but Círdan's cities also haven't been rebuilt with Noldor walls.

The Grey Annals says Fëanáro's host arrives some seven solar years after Melian raises the Girdle.

(Yes if we go by the usual "1 tree year = 9.582 solar years" then it could've been upwards of 25 solar years since the Darkening in 1495 before the landing at Losgar.)

(I hate Tolkien's timelines sometimes.)

Círdan holds out for over a decade. The orcs can't completely starve them thanks to the ocean, but repeated assaults on the walls wear down the defenders, and there's only so much fish and seaweed.

Meanwhile, the Northern Sindar of Mithrim and Nevrast are constantly harassed by the rest of Morgoth's west-host. Círdan sends ships north to evacuate those he can, but he only has so many ships and men.

The orcs have them cut off from Doriath, but they're not living this far away from Menegroth because they like Thingol's rule. They theoretically acknowledge him as king but realistically mostly ignore him.

(Any claims that Thingol hates them due to closeness to Angband and rumors they sometimes serve as Morgoth's spies are unfounded exaggerations.)

And while normally he'd ignore them in turn, they're still his people in some form or another.

Thingol sends what sorties he can to harry the west-host, but Doriath's forces are still exhausted from the First Battle and much of the kingdom's resources are tied up in getting the many refugees settled.

It also doesn't help that Melian warns him that should he die, her grief will not allow her to stay on the continent and maintain the Girdle.

One of his chief vassals is dead, and the other is besieged. His lands are being ravaged. But he can't leave his borders, because he isn't willing to risk himself (and therefore the Girdle) falling and exposing the main part of his people to attack.

So he throws himself into making sure his people are as happy as can be and entrusts the war to his captains.

So that's the state of things for the next 15 solar years. Orcs gradually hunt down the remaining wandering Sindar who don't find shelter in Doriath or some hidden refuge. Mithrim and Nevrast slowly depopulate from the Falathrim's evacuation missions, orcs, and what few refugees can sneak by Morgoth's forces to Doriath. Thingol holds lavish banquets and listens to Beleg and Mablung's reports while everyone else sleeps off the wine. He doesn't permit himself time to cry.

Midway through Y.T. 1498, Brithombar falls.

(to be continued eventually)