Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)

This is important.

the real takeaway from both fyre festival and the cask of amontillado is that you can lure rich people anywhere by promising them exclusive access to an expensive luxury

Sasha Lane attends the ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between’ Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017 in New York City.

Rinko Kikuchi for Jalouse China (December 2013), by Jumbo Tsui.

It’s 2017 and democrats are so hard for the idea of a Clinton political dynasty that I could definitely word the concept of a monarchy in such a way as to get them to vote for it

Damiel Chazelle always looks like he just got back from tying up a woman and leaving her on railroad tracks in a 30s serial

La La Land Director Damien Chazelle Eyes Musical-Themed TV Project

The director of La La Land is about to dance his way onto the small screen. Oscar winner Damien Chazelle has signed on to direct The Eddy, a musical drama set in modern-day Paris, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

You’ll forget that Game of Thrones exists for like three months and then a legion of 35 year old HBO subscribers with faded Captain America shirts manifest spontaneously, all crying because King Baronthojofofo of House Cold Lions got killed, and then you remember that it’s been going on for 7 seasons and has enjoyed nothing but obscenely high ratings

to be honest, in terms of historical lessons, the most important thing we can take from the study of underground resistance within fascist states is to never let it get to that stage.

John Deere has turned itself into the poster-child for the DMCA, fighting farmers who say they want to fix their own tractors and access their data by saying that doing so violates the 1998 law’s prohibition on bypassing copyright locks.

Deere’s just reiterated that position to a US Copyright Office inquiry on the future of the law, joined by auto manufacturers (but not Tesla) and many other giant corporations, all of them arguing that since the gadgets you buy have software, and since that software is licensed, not sold, you don’t really own any of that stuff.  You are a licensee, and you have to use the gadget according to the license terms, which spell out where you have to buy your service, parts, consumables, apps, and so on.

As software eats the world, it’s devouring the idea of private property – “that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.”

The fact that the DMCA felonizes bypassing copyright locks, combined with the proliferation of copyrighted software in gadgets means that companies can turn their commercial preferences into private laws.  Just design your gadget so that using is in any way apart from the official, prescribed way requires breaking a copyright lock.  Now, anyone who violates your license terms is also committing a felony, punishable by five years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

For a first offense.

What’s more, security researchers who reveal defects in these gadgets face the same harsh punishment, and routinely self-censor, even when they find potentially life-threatening bugs in medical implants or cars.

Other automakers pointed out that owners who make unsanctioned modifications could alter their vehicles in bad ways.  They could tweak them to go faster.  Or change engine parameters to run afoul of emissions regulations.

They’re right.  That could happen.  But those activities are (1) already illegal, and (2) have nothing to do with copyright.  If you’re going too fast, a cop should stop you — copyright law shouldn’t.  If you’re dodging emissions regulations, you should pay EPA fines — not DMCA fines.  And the specter of someone doing something illegal shouldn’t justify shutting down all the reasonable and legal modifications people can make to the things they paid for.

GM went so far as to argue locking people out helps innovation.  That’s like saying locking up books will inspire kids to be innovative writers, because they won’t be tempted to copy passages from a Hemingway novel.  Meanwhile, outside of Bizarroland, actual technology experts — including the Electronic Frontier Foundation — have consistently labeled the DMCA an innovation killer.  They insist that, rather than stopping content pirates, language in the DMCA has been used to stifle competition and expand corporate control over the life (and afterlife) of products.

We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership [Kyle Wiens/Wired] 

W T F ?

hey so I don’t really use this site as much anymore, but I do tweet sometimes, so on the off chance that you followed me for my half-baked thoughts and bad jokes and not cause I share dope ass photosets other people made, go ahead and follow me here

Miami Vice (2006) dir. Michael Mann, cinematography by Dion Beebe

Cyberpunk: themes of postmodernism, the horrors of neoliberalism, the limits of consciousness. Steampunk: “what if I could wear an ugly hat”

hey I finally got around to doing that thing everybody was doing like a month ago, here's my favorite movies of every year since birth 1992: Candyman 1993: Army of Darkness 1994: Speed 1995: Heat 1996: Independence Day 1997: Jackie Brown 1998: The Thin Red Line 1999: The Matrix 2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2001: Ocean's Eleven 2002: Minority Report 2003: Goodbye, Dragon Inn 2004: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 2005: The New World 2006: Miami Vice 2007: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 2008: Synecdoche, New York 2009: Gamer 2010: The Tree of Life 2011: The Turin Horse 2012: Cosmopolis 2013: Fast and Furious 6 2014: John Wick 2015: Mad Max: Fury Road 2016: Jackie