July 27, 2012
Wayne White is an American artist, art director, cartoonist, and illustrator. He started his art career working as a cartoonist and illustrator for a number of publications including ‘The East Village Eye,’ ‘Raw,’ ‘The New York Times,’ and ‘The Village Voice.’ In 1986 he worked on ‘Pee Wee’s Playhouse’ where his work for his set and puppet designs won three Emmy awards; he also supplied a number of voices on the show.
Other television credits include production and set design for ‘Shining Time Station,’ ‘Riders in the Sky,’ ‘The Weird Al Show,’ and ‘Beakman’s World.’ He art directed two seminal music videos, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Big Time’ in 1986, and in 1996 he designed all the Georges Méliès inspired sets for the award-winning video for the Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Tonight, Tonight.’ Continue reading →
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July 27, 2012
‘Cyber Rights: Defending Free speech in the Digital Age’ is a 1998 non-fiction book about cyberlaw, written by free speech lawyer Mike Godwin. Godwin graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1990 and was the first staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Written with a first-person perspective, ‘Cyber Rights’ gives the reader a background in legal issues and history pertaining to free speech on the Internet.
It documents the author’s experiences in defending free speech online, and puts forth the thesis that ‘the remedy for the abuse of free speech is more speech.’ Godwin emphasizes that decisions made about the expression of ideas on the Internet have an impact on freedom of speech in other mediums of communication as well, as granted by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Continue reading →
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July 27, 2012
Counter-economics is a term originally used by libertarian activists Samuel Edward Konkin III and J. Neil Schulman, defined as ‘the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State.’ The term is short for ‘counter-establishment economics.’
Counter-economics was integrated by Schulman into Konkin’s doctrine of agorism (a philosophy that advocates the goal of the bringing about of a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges). The first book to portray counter-economics as a strategy for achieving a libertarian society was Schulman’s novel ‘Alongside Night’ (1979). Continue reading →
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July 27, 2012
Crypto-anarchism refers to the use of cryptographic software to evade prosecution and harassment while sending and receiving information over computer networks, thereby protecting privacy and political freedom. In a sense, the encrypted anonymous networks (the ‘cipherspace’) can be regarded as an independent lawless territory or as an autonomous zone. However, participants may in theory voluntarily create new laws using smart contracts (computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract, or that obviate the need for a contractual clause) or, if the user is pseudonymous, depend on online reputation.
The ‘crypto’ in crypto-anarchism should not be confused with the use of the prefix ‘crypto-‘ to indicate an ideology or system with an intentionally concealed or obfuscated ‘true nature.’ For example, some would use the term ‘crypto-fascist’ to describe an individual or organization that holds fascist views and subscribes to fascist doctrine but conceals their agenda so long as these doctrines remain socially unacceptable. However, Timothy C. May’s ‘Cyphernomicon’ (one of the philosophy’s founding documents, posted in 1994) indicates that the term ‘crypto-anarchist’ was partially intended as a pun on this usage, even though he did not intend to conceal his beliefs or agenda. Continue reading →
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July 26, 2012
The Hidden Wiki is a website that uses hidden services available through the Tor network. The use of Tor to provide anonymity allows the site to advertise links to a range of other sites, including ones offering illegal drugs and child pornography. The site provides a range of links in a wiki format to other hidden services and sites on the clearnet (sites that can be accessed in a standard browser).
These include links to child pornography sites, sites selling drugs and other contraband such as the Silk Road. Scot Terban, an independent security researcher, commented: ‘It’s kind of like any black market operation except this one was in cyberspace and pretty much completely anonymous. Because it was anonymous, people felt free to trade openly in illegal things, mess around by putting up ads for services like hired assassins, and in the end, became a haven for pedophiles and their content.’ Continue reading →
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July 26, 2012
Silk Road is an online marketplace that its operators run as a Tor hidden service (anonymous and encrypted). Visitors must use Tor software to access the marketplace. The majority of products that sellers list on Silk Road qualify as contraband in most jurisdictions. ‘NPR’ has referred to the site as the ‘Amazon.com of illegal drugs.’ Buyers and sellers conduct all transactions with bitcoins (an encrypted digital currency).
Although the bitcoin’s exchange rate may fluctuate greatly in short periods of time, most of the prices on Silk Road are bound to United States dollar to prevent too drastic inflation or deflation. Buyers can register on Silk Road for free, but sellers must purchase new accounts through auctions to mitigate the possibility of malicious individuals distributing tainted goods. Continue reading →
Posted in Drugs, Money, Technology |
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July 26, 2012
The Onion Router or Tor is a server that keeps users anonymous on the Internet. Tor client software directs internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers (making several ‘hops’) to conceal a user’s location or usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis.
Using Tor makes it more difficult to trace Internet activity, including visits to Web sites, online posts, and instant messages, IRC, and bittorrent and is intended to protect users’ personal freedom, privacy, and ability to conduct confidential business by keeping their internet activities from being monitored. The Tor client is free software and use of the Tor network is free of charge. Continue reading →
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July 26, 2012
Mithridatism [mith-ri-dey-tiz-uhm] is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts. The word derives from Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus (modern-day Turkey), who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity. Having been defeated by Roman general Pompey, legend has it that Mithridates tried to commit suicide using poison but failed because of his immunity and so had to resort to having a mercenary run him through with his sword.
There are only a few practical uses of mithridatism. It can be used by zoo handlers, researchers, and circus artists who deal closely with venomous animals. Mithridatization has been tried with success in Australia and Brazil and total immunity has been achieved even to multiple bites of extremely venomous cobras and pit vipers. Venomous snake handler Bill Haast used this method. Snake handlers from Burma tattoo themselves with snake venom for the same reason. Mithridatism is also used to treat peanut allergies. Continue reading →
Posted in Death, Drugs, Health |
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July 26, 2012
Physiological tolerance or drug tolerance is commonly encountered in pharmacology, when a subject’s reaction to a specific drug and concentration of the drug is progressively reduced, requiring an increase in concentration to achieve the desired effect. Drug tolerance can involve both psychological drug tolerance and physiological factors.
Tolerance rate depends on the particular drug, dosage and frequency of use, though it is typically reversible. Physiological tolerance also occurs when an organism builds up a resistance to the effects of a substance after repeated exposure. This can occur with environmental substances, such as salt or pesticides. A rapid drug tolerance is termed tachyphylaxis. Continue reading →
Posted in Drugs, Health |
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July 26, 2012
It Couldn’t Happen Here is a 1988 musical film starring the British pop duo Pet Shop Boys and based around their music. It was originally conceived as an hour-long video based around their album ‘Actually,’ but it turned into a surreal full-scale feature film directed by Jack Bond and co-starring Barbara Windsor, Joss Ackland, Neil Dickson and Gareth Hunt. The original idea of making a film emerged from the band’s immense reluctance to go on tour.
The band hoped that a film would satisfy the fans’ demand to see them in live action. Neil Tennant subsequently commented that making the film made him realize one thing, that he couldn’t act. When the film premiered in London’s West End, a crowd of fans were standing outside the cinema, waiting for the duo to arrive. However, as both Neil and Chris approached the crowd, they went completely unnoticed thanks to their anonymous appearance, and managed to walk past them. Continue reading →
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July 25, 2012
Joke thievery is the act of performing and taking credit for comic material written by another person without their consent. This is a form of plagiarism and sometimes can be copyright infringement. A common epithet for a joke thief is ‘hack,’ which is derived from the term, ‘hackneyed’ (over used and thus cheapened, or trite).
From the music hall and vaudeville beginnings of stand-up comedy, joke thievery was common as there were few chances that a performer from one area would meet one from another and a single twenty-minute set could sustain a comic for a decade. Most jokes at the time were one-liners and there was little in the way of proof of a joke’s origin, but the value of each joke was immeasurable to a comedian. Milton Berle and Bob Hope had a long-standing feud due to Hope’s accusation that Berle had stolen some of his jokes. Berle never refuted the claim, but instead embraced the title ‘The Thief of Bad Gag.’ Continue reading →
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July 25, 2012
The Frontier Thesis is an argument by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the origin of the distinctive egalitarian, democratic, aggressive, and innovative features of the American character has been the American frontier experience. He stressed the process—the moving frontier line—and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process.
In the thesis, the frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mind-sets and ending prior customs of the 19th century. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History,’ delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. Turner elaborated on many points in a series of essays published over the next 25 years, but never a wrote a book on the frontier.
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