It was an ambush. The only thing he did wrong was walk into it. Have to give him credit for being willing to take risks to save his country.

Deviant Ollam posted an interesting video, This is How a Constitutional Crisis Will Begin about changes happening in prisons and makes an interesting point that the trans community make a convenient target for triggering a constitutional crisis.

You target a small, basically insignificant and harmless group, then ignore any court rulings while the media and public remain silent and disinterested. Its a pathway to uncontested executive power that can then be extended to persecution of other groups.

Arguing for privacy from government feels alarmist, distant and theoretical as long as there is rule of law and a sound participative democracy. But what happens to constitutional guarantees and legal protections if the courts lose their power and independence? Suddenly privacy becomes a very real pragmatic concern. Not only could you be in a targeted group but you could be guilty by association.

The only software I have paid for in the last couple of years are games. The licensing is still crooked but they are ephemeral entertainment so its not like they control your life.

The problem with commercial software isn’t the price. It is the lock in. They have you by the balls whether you pirate or pay so I don’t pirate as it doesn’t address my main issue with closed source software which ismt price but control. I prefer to adapt, sometimes live with less features and use free and open source.

Its hard if you have to work with others which is the whole network effect BS, everyone is on Reddit and shitter so why aren’t you. If you can work independently though you can get a lot done and have more control.

There will always be the hoarders. You can’t collect everything on any sort of wage/salary and live. If you have a compulsion then piracy is a reasonably harmless past time. You aren’t depriving anyone of income for something no normal person could reasonable afford.

For regular content consumers it is simply free market economics working. Companies innovate and offer great products and value and they take people away from the black market. Then the companies get greedy, form loose deniable cartels and start fixing prices prices at higher levels and cutting quality and consumers go elsewhere. They want the profits from a free market but don’t want to play the game and compete on value and quality. Sucks for them. The government grants them a legal monopoly on monetizing their IP but it doesn’t give them a clue on how to build successful businesses.

Honestly I don’t think piracy is great. I would rather pay a fair price for easily discoverable content, own it forever on all mediums, and have the bulk of the money go to the creatives who made it so they can pay their bills and feed their families. I don’t watch a lot and the little I do should be affordable. I don’t feel compelled to collect it all.

But then I go to introduce one of my kids to all the age appropriate comics/graphic novels I bought on Comixology for an older sibling. But Comixology closed down and all the content moved into Kindle with a heap of all ages content, not all appropriate. And Amazon are too cheap to offer family sharing outside the US. So hundreds of dollars in Bezos pocket with no way to put it on a device for my kid. I could waste time breaking the DRM or pirate but I am leaning towards a return to dead trees.

Netflix is crap and getting worse, jumped ship ages ago. Disney is killing genre movies and tv with all their marvel/star wars IP. Both are driven by algorithms and greed and recycle IP instead of taking risks.