My review of Harmonicraft, the new album from Miami sludge-pop quartet Torche, is up now on Thumped — as is my recent take on Night of the Living by Limerick’s We Come In Pieces.
]]>
My review of Harmonicraft, the new album from Miami sludge-pop quartet Torche, is up now on Thumped — as is my recent take on Night of the Living by Limerick’s We Come In Pieces.
]]>
Can’t think of a better way to mark the renewal of my Flickr Pro account by posting this pic from the few I snapped at the Ruins Alone gig at the Twisted Pepper last September. If you ever get the chance to see Tatsuya Yoshida do his thing, do yourself a favour and don’t miss it.
]]>
Just like the ungainly bird they’re named after, Pelican might not look like much, but they’ll bite the arse off you. My review of their new EP Ataraxia/Taraxis is up now on Thumped.
]]>
My review of the new EP from Galway hardcore band Only Fumes & Corpses is up now on Thumped. (In short? I liked it a lot.)
]]>The highlights: Hitting the four stone mark in my weight loss efforts (I’ve dropped more than 57 lbs so far) / Getting stuck into Netflix for lots of TV shows (and the odd movie) I missed before / Trying to cook a proper meal for Bee once a week (I’m a bit behind on this, if I’m honest) / Getting my writing chops back / Meeting the hardcore legend Mick Foley, if only for a few seconds (he appreciated my Cornette Face shirt):
Achievements unlocked: 50 lbs closer to my weight goal (with a framed certificate to boot!)
In review: Where did the time go?
The most common question I get from designers after pointing out what is wrong with their work is, “Can I save this?”
You are not Jesus and comps aren’t for saving. If something isn’t working, start over. Otherwise the goal you’re working towards is saving your work, not solving the problem.
Also, comps do not have feelings. You are not abandoning them. (You have no idea how much therapy that sentence took. Seriously.)
This urge comes from not wanting to feel like the time they’ve spent on that comp is wasted. The only possible way you can waste time is by being dishonest with yourself about its value. If you just spent an hour on a comp thinking it was working, then that was time spent honestly trying to solve a problem. The minute you realise the comp isn’t working and you start trying to “save it”, you’re no longer working towards good design. You’re working towards ego salvage. You gonna bill for that? That’s what I mean by dishonest time.
Substitute ‘drafts’ for ‘comps’ and X for ‘design’ and you’ve got a spot-on pep-talk for people in any creative discipline (especially writers).
]]>
I’ve got a review up on Thumped of the new Dead Neanderthals album. Thanks to Pete for accepting my pitch! Here’s to more writing in 2012.
]]>Leaving aside the notion of holding a public consultation after the proposals in question were already made law through the back door, we see that Minister Sherlock has made a gesture of sorts to his critics, calling on “those people who were exercised by the statutory instrument” to “engage in the very nature of copyright [and] engage on the issues within the consultation paper”.
]]>If everybody calls off the dogs, as it were — if everybody engages constructively on it — then I think we can reach compromises around the challenges between ISPs, the content holders, the copyright holders.
That’s some rich talk from Sherlock, especially considering the position of his party and Dáil colleague Emmet Stagg, as related by No SOPA Ireland’s Ian Bergin. Talk about refusing to engage constructively:
I am just back from visiting with Emmet Stagg [who is the TD] for Kildare North. I am very worried when politicians like Deputy Stagg refer to the slew of emails from myself and others on #SOPAIreland as “vandalism” and that the majority of people who are “kicking up about it are probably pirates themselves”.
He also said for e-mails like that of #SOPAIreland, they more or less “delete them”
As I pointed out to him, it is disturbing when a member of one of the Government parties feels that a tool of the “knowledge economy” and “smart economy” is used by people who are the ones fuelling the economy right now to contact their TDs, and their chosen method of communication, which is something TDs encourage and should encourage, is invalidated upon arrival without merit.
That’s the situation we’re dealing with, people. How can we have any kind of constructive dialogue when the suits at Leinster House are determined to do things their own way, everyone and everything else be damned?
Back to Minister Sherlock, who’s clearly hung up on the language being used to describe the issues at stake:
The very people who are lobbying against the SI called it ‘SOPA’… It was not SOPA. And already on Twitter people are using the #SOPAIreland hashtag, which is a complete nonsense. It has nothing to do with SOPA.
He’s correct about that. But only in the strictest, most literal sense. He knows damn well what people mean when they talk about ‘Ireland’s SOPA’, but he’d rather play language games than actually engage with the issue. Here we have a politician, of all people, criticising his opponents for using rhetoric? Imagine!
Of course the SI isn’t SOPA. But it is equivalent in that its abuse — and by golly, it will be abused — will result in the same chilling effects that SOPA would have had, if the US Congress had not seen the modicum of sense to shelve it. That’s why people are genuinely concerned. And that’s what Minister Sherlock has not given any reassurance about.
Meanwhile, the response from the Stop SOPA Ireland campaign is one of exasperation and desperation, not only at the fact that the Government ignored a petition more than 80,000 signatures strong, but also at knowing that this legislation could have been written in a fairer way:
It is a bad decision because there was an alternative wording of a Statutory Instrument proposed by Catherine Murphy TD and Stephen Donnelly TD which the minister accepted met all his own policy requirements arising from the AG’s advice, made explicit the rights affirmed by the ECJ caselaw and allowed two years for primary legislation to be drafted. But despite all this, he wilfully stuck to his own flawed legislation. This is not intelligent or modern governance.
Indeed.
]]>In the wake of the SOPA/PIPA furore, up bubbles ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which, as Forbes reports, contains provisions “just as pernicious as anything we saw in SOPA” and has already been signed or ratified by most of the developed world.
What are the consequences? Well, aside from enforcing food and drug patents that are crippling to the developing world, which is bad enough, the agreement also “bypasses the sovereign laws of participating nations, forcing ISPs across the globe to adopt [its] draconian measures.” Oy vey.
If you thought SOPA would break the internet, ACTA is much worse. And it could become law across the global economy without so much as a murmur of opposition.
That’s just super.
Meanwhile, and closer to home, people are kicking up a fuss about a sneaky little piece of legislation that’s been dubbed ‘Ireland’s SOPA’.
TJ McIntyre’s IT Law in Ireland blog has a concise overview of the Government’s plans to legislate for Irish courts to block access to websites accused of copyright infringement (and possibly other things) at their own discretion.
]]> Two significant points: The law is being brought in by a statutory instrument, which means it doesn’t require passing scrutiny in the Dáil or Seanad, nor the approval of the citizenry. And the most recently available text was/is so vague as to be possibly in contravention of the European Convention of Human Rights. That’s lovely, isn’t it?Where is all this coming from? Why, it’s the music industry — specifically the major labels who blame ‘illegal downloading’ for their ‘lost earnings’ (read: poor performance) over the last decade and who, rather than adapt their outdated business model to catch up with the rest of us in the 21st century, have decided that the Irish taxpayer should make up the shortfall and that the Government should generally do its bidding.
For more background on Ireland’s SOPA, Mark Little (@marklittlenews) of Storyful points to the Charleton judgement in the case of EMI v UPC in October 2010, which found in favour of UPC Ireland against the major labels who accused it of facilitating piracy by not blocking websites they want blocked (but only because current Irish law prevented doing the opposite).
The whole judgement is worth reading for a groan or few (there’s some weird confusion between The Pirate Bay and LimeWire, for instance) but be sure to see the last line of paragraph 13 (via @markhamnolan) for “the real reason the record industry is on its knees”. (A million quid to record an album? Where was the studio? A penthouse in the Burj Dubai?)
Little also links to a critique of said judgement by Conor O’Neill which highlights some pretty ridiculous claims regarding the numbers involved (none of which have been independently verified, of course) and raises serious questions about the level of knowledge and understanding of the digital realm among Ireland’s judges and legislators.
The big problem here, if it needs to be pointed out, is that the music industry lobby has too strong an influence over our elected representatives — who might be smart about a lot of things, but clearly haven’t a clue about this, and need to ask someone for advice, right? (And you thought you lived in a democracy? Ha!)
Back in the real world, O’Neill calls for a lobby group “that is there to fight for the interests and rights of internet users and technology businesses that operate on the internet”. It’s a point reiterated by Adrian Weckler (@adrianweckler):
The only single thing that can affect govt’s decision on ‘Irish SOPA’ law is a response from business community.
That may sadly be the case, but we internet users in Ireland can still make an effort.
Please consider signing the petition at StopSopaIreland.com (more information on the petition here; more than 7,000 signatures have already been added) and contacting your TDs, especially Minister of State Sean Sherlock (@seansherlocktd) and Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton (here’s a useful form letter, and some important points to highlight).
Even if it’s a futile exercise, at least we can say we did something from our limited position.
And to those reading from outside of Ireland: you too can make their voices heard, especially as such legislation would surely have a detrimental effect on our participation in the global digital industry — and your business in turn.
]]>Yesterday, this site went dark as part of a worldwide protest at the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act which, if passed by the United States Congress, would give the US government and the entertainment industry extraordinary powers to control what is supposed to be a neutral space, effectively censoring the internet for everyone in the world. That’s right: everyone in the world.
To put it simply, this is bad legislation being pushed hard by corporate interests for their own benefit alone, and written so broadly that it sets us all down a path we don’t want to be travelling by.
]]> I care about art, about creativity, about innovation — and about all these things being in the hands of artists, creators and innovators, not mishandled or stifled by corporations whose first responsibility is to make profit for shareholders.Moreover, as someone who is not American, living in a country that is not the United States, the prospect and the precedent of another country passing laws that will have far-reaching consequences for me and the rest of the world — regardless of the laws governing my country and others’ countries — gives me the chills.
(Especially when they’re backronyms. I mean, really? When lawmakers are starting from the sexy buzzword then working backwards, you know things are messed up.)
If you haven’t yet heard about these proposed laws and their impact, or think that they don’t apply to you, then you’ve got some reading to do. You could do worse than start here. See also:
A SOPA/PIPA Blackout Explainer / Wired’s Threat Level blog lays it all out in point-by-point form.
Stop Sopa or the web really will go dark / Dan Gillmor (of We the Media fame) makes the case in The Guardian for net neutrality and electronic freedom (be sure also to check The Guardian’s SOPA page).
Why SOPA and PIPA Must Die / Waxy.org’s Andy Baio on his personal reasons for opposing the web censorship bills. Also: Matt Haughey outlines how they could be used to silence important web resources such as MetaFilter with a chilling story.
A previous version of this entry was published on Tue 17 Jan 2012.
]]>