Want to see my head explode? Set yourself up as an authority, then dodge responsibility.

The Graphic Artist's Guild has pulled back from supporting SOPA. Now they want to know who's going to save them from piracy. Frankly, this enrages me. In 1986, 22-year-old me could tell that preventing digital duplication would be difficult to prevent - and that was just from looking at the copyright problems surrounding xerography. Since then, I haven't seen anything that counters that. The basic nature of the problem (preventing a computer from making an exact duplicate of a string of 1's and 0's) militates against there being a simple or widely useable solution. If a sideline observer like me can see the problem, why the hell have the people and organizations with actual economic interests been ignoring it? They've had over 20 years to work out solutions to the problem, and legislating protections for their old business models is the best they can do? Apparently it's OK if automation throws a bunch of factory workers out of their jobs, but being 'creative' entitles you to special legal protections, even if those protections cost the rest of us in terms of increased costs and decreased civil rights. You know what I say to that? Screw you, GAG, and you, Author's Guild, and the MPAA, and the RIAA. You should have been paying attention to the shifts in technology and society, instead of sleazing around legislative back doors with wads of cash.

To be clear: it's not the creative people I'm angry at, it's the groups that claim to be acting in their best interest. I don't believe they are - to me it seems as though they are acting to preserve their own status quo, rather than the livelihoods of the people they claim to be protecting. For my own part, I am down for doing anything I can to ensure that those who are actually creating new things get paid well enough that they can keep on doing it. I buy their stuff, I promote their work where and when I can, I am constantly thinking and fiddling with ideas and tools to make it easier for anyone to create, distribute, and GET PAID for the years of training and practice required to do the unique and amazing things they do. SOPA and PROTECT-IP and similar legislative ham-handedness do nothing towards those goals; they exist primarily to serve those who have the time, money, and lawyers to exploit the legal system for profit.

(Originally posted on Google+ 2011-12-28)

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From Evernote:

Molly Lewis Cocktail - Winter Version

1.25 oz whiskey

0.75 oz sweet red vermouth

1 tbsp demerara sugar

10 oz Scottish breakfsat tea

5 dash cherry bitters

Brew tea, add sugar, stir to dissolve.

Add whiskey, vermouth & bitters, stir to combine.

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From Evernote:

Molly Lewis Cocktail - Summer Version

1.25 oz whiskey

0.75 oz sweet red vermouth

1/2 tbsp simple syrup

5 dash cherry bitters

Combine over ice in old-fashioned glass, top off with seltzer.

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The Power Cosmic (Final Iteration)

• 1 oz. orgeat syrup
• 1-1/2 oz. absinthe
• 1/2 oz. light rum
• 1/4 oz. Cointreau
• 2 oz. seltzer
• Ice

Pour absinthe into tumbler (I used 300 ml beaker).

Add orgeat to shaker w/ice, shake to chill and pour into absinthe via stirring rod.

Add rum and Cointreau to shaker, shake to chill and add to tumbler.

Add seltzer and ice to tumbler & stir.

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Swordfish sushi bar #sashimi & #sake time.

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The Power Cosmic - Drink Recipe

Juice of 1/2 lime
1 oz. light simple syrup
1-1/2 oz. absinthe
1/2 oz. cachaça
1 oz. 7-Up

Pour absinthe into tumbler (I used 300 ml beaker).
Combine lime juice & syrup in shaker w/ice, shake to chill mixture and pour into absinthe via stirring rod. Add cachaça to shaker, shake to chill and add to tumbler. Add 7-Up to shaker, shake to chill, pour into tumbler. Add ice to tumbler & stir.

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The future soon…

I've seen enough bull being slung about Obama's proposed plans for NASA - I need to say a few things here. From the first time I saw the Orion/Ares plans, I thought they were a very poor choice. Nothing in it (barring the use of new materials & avionics in Orion) advanced the art of getting humans into space. It was a repurposing of existing hardware & designs that could keep current contractors employed, and couldn't be criticized for endangering astronauts. But the Ares 1 design wasn't safer - there are good reasons why no one uses solid rockets as the main stage for man-rated launch system. Chiefly, they just aren't safe. The Air Force studied the Ares 1 and chose not to adopt it for their own manned launch programs, because they found that the escape system couldn't get the capsule clear of the explosion should it fail. Ares 1/Orion is a big fat payload stuck on the end of a very long stick of controlled explosive, but none of the people promoting Constellation wanted to talk about that.

Second - go look at the post Elon Musk put up yesterday. Yes, his company is one of those private sector space developers Barack Obama mentioned. But he quotes the Augustine Commission, chiefly to the point that Constellation was never going to work. Even if you discounted all the development costs, launches would be more expensive than the shuttle, and carry smaller payloads. Constellation simply made no sense, either economically or in terms of advancing the state of the art of American space vehicles. I for one am glad to see it gone.

There's no guarantee that the Obama plan will be successful, but it certainly won't run off into a swamp & sink, which was exactly where Constellation was going to wind up, taking NASA with it. Ever since Congress got its claws into the shuttle program, NASA has been at the mercy of bureaucrats & bean-counters who don't give a rat's ass about engineering or the benefits of exploring & exploiting space. In my opinion, many space advocates have been exhibiting signs of Stockholm syndrome, willing to do or say almost anything to appease Washington to keep NASA and manned space flight alive. The Bush plan was just the latest episode - there was no way the Bush administration or a Republican-dominated Congress was going to fund the proposed programs at a useful level. It was just a sop to keep the aerospace industry and influential space advocates content and supportive of the administration. I understand why those people are throwing bricks at the Obama plan now, but I prefer painful but clear-minded planning to comfortable lies that will never produce real progress.

I know there are a lot of people out there who won't agree with this, but I felt it was finally time to oppose the stream of bull that's coming from the main stream media. It's time the folks reporting on this subject actually went and did some actual research, instead of just regurgitating the PR packets they're getting.

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