Documentary About Freeing Happy Birthday From Copyfraud Comes Out The Day After Happy Birthday Officially Declared Public Domain - "You may recall that last fall, a judge ruled that Warner/Chappell did not hold the copyright on the song “Happy Birthday,” as the company had alleged for decades (and which it used to take in approximately $2 million in licenses per year). Of course, while many in the press immediately claimed the song was in the public domain, we noted that was not what the court actually said, and the song had actually become something of an orphan work, and theoretically, someone else could claim the copyright. Indeed, the heirs of Mildred and Patty Hill (who are often cited as the creators of the song) stepped up to claim the copyright. In December, all the parties agreed to settle the case with Warner agreeing to pay $14 million to go to some of the people who had falsely licensed the song. But, part of the settlement agreement was a stipulation that the song, finally, officially be declared in the public domain."
Meme - Eric Nelson @literaryeric: "These posts make me crazy. My father worked two jobs and my mother worked one to support 3 kids. We lived a life this woman would consider abuse now. Canned food, 1 TV, no microwave, no computers, no vacations, no air conditioning, beater cars, no dentist, no brand name anything."
AKA Verity Reynolds @danialexis: "I feel the need to explain something to the generation that does not remember, or never saw, a world where one person with a high school education could support a family of 5 comfortably. This was real. For millions of US families. It was *normal.* It was stolen from you."
Meme - "XY GAMING
*Geralt of Rivia with dead Po Teletubby, Barney and others*
Cookie Monster missing bottom half: "WHAT ARE you DOING!!!!!"
The Witcher: "KILLING MONSTERS.""
Meme - "*Busty woman with boy in blue looking at her breasts and boy in red looking ahead*
THE BOY IN THE RED GREW UP AND BECAME A SAILOR. THE BOY IN THE BLUE GREW UP TO BECOME A MARINE"
Meme - Rich @heywildrich: "There are two types of civilizations. *vending machine behind bars: 'The AR Highway and Transportation Department attendants are not responsible for lost coins or refunds. Please call the vending machine company for refunds'* *vending machine lit by streetlamp on empty road with view of Mt Fuji*"
Jimmy Wales on X - "That isn't how blockchain works. That suggestion - to force people to strongly identify and pay for the privilege of editing Wikipedia - is a bad idea independently. And ot would be easy and cheap to implement without blockchain."
Daniel Krawisz - end mass scams with proof-of-work on X - "People don't need to strongly identify. Peoples' names aren't attached to their txs in public. Rather, you can use the information in the blockchain to link together other events once all information about them comes together somewhere, as in a police investigation."
Jimmy Wales on X - "We already store data. In a database. It works well."
mark @mwilcox: "Why are you anti-capitalist?"
Jimmy Wales @jimmy_wales: "I am not anti-capitalist, are you on drugs?"
Phil Magness on X - "Engels: "Dear Marx. My girlfriend just died. I'm devastated."
Marx: "Dear Engels. Oh, sorry to hear that. Can you send me more money? It'll make you feel better about her death.""
"The news of Mary's death surprised no less than it dismayed me"
Meme - Moon Dragon @frozenaesthetic: "Miss Spain wore a medieval Spanish queen costume to Miss Universe"
Carla Barber Garcia, Miss Spain 2015
Meme - "War on Surveillance Camera: Bosnian Man used Bazooka on Police Camera
Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina - a new armed attack happened on a local police surveillance camera. In previous cases people used "light" weapons such as baseball bats, rocks, guns and similar, but this time it was a - rocket launcher"
Meme - Lightand L Hadsex: "My dick rubbin against the IUD strings feel like I'm playing a cello"
"That's not funny my uncle got killed by an IUD in Afghanistan"
"you know IUD is a form of birth control right?"
"ya duh he's in like 30 pieces he's definitely not having any fucking kids. I'm a fan of dark humor but that's pretty fucked up savannah."
PierreJouet on X - "My mum is at end of life with Alzheimer’s, 99% non-verbal, but Coldplay just came on the radio and she looked me in the eye and said “turn it off”."
Philippe Lemoine on X - "In my experience, left-wing people vastly overestimate how radical far-right parties are, while at the same time wildly underestimating how right-wing more moderate conservatives are. This is mostly due to preference falsification for which their own behavior is largely to blame."
arctotherium on X - "I really think far-right is a huge misnomer for those parties that get called that in Europe. Most of these parties are pretty much centrist-on-everything-but-Third-World-immigration."
Neuroskeptic 🇺🇦 on X - "A patient undergoing brain surgery wanted to make sure the tumor removal wouldn't affect their ability to play chess, so surgeons mapped chess-related spots"
Can the knight capture the queen? The role of supramarginal gyrus in chess rule-retrieval as evidenced by a novel combined awake brain mapping and fMRI protocol
There was also the violinist who played during brain surgery for similar reasons, and earlier cases
Wilfred Reilly on X - "The brain worms in the US upper middle class are real. As an investor, I'd peg "experts" as far worse than smart country lawyers or home managers on:
*Gender Woo
*COVID, then and now
*True risk of climate change
*Police risk to Blacks
*Trends in inter-racial crime
*What predicts crime
*How to stop crime
*Male/female differences
*Reality of IQ
*Effect of IQ on performance
*Heretability of traits (even as a "cult")
*"Systemic racism"
*"Cultural appropriation"
Anyhoo, it's late and this wasn't pre-saved - just on an on."
Trust the Experts!
Visegrád 24 on X - "An Islamist Imam says that a man who r*pes children on a daily basis,but also prays regularly, is better in the eyes of Allah than a man who doesn’t pray. Islamism needs to be rooted out of our societies, not financially and politically supported by our governments. 🇬🇧"
Meme - francis wolf @francisxwolf: "final boss of ableism discourse"
Valerie Souders: "I won't be serving alcohol at my wedding because there will be austic kids who would think vodka is water and I'm not dealing with that"
Meme - Tom Harwood @tomhfh: "Jessica Simor KC, who successfully persuaded the ECHR that the Swiss government violated women’s rights by not pushing harsher climate policy, explains how problematic it is to ask voters about these issues: "In Switzerland it's particularly problematic because they have referendums... The people decided they didn't want it." "This is something that comes up all the time... the conflict between this idea of democracy as just what the people choose, and democracy as entailing... rights which matter irrespective of what the majority decides.""
To save Democracy, the will of the people must be overriden, because Globalist Elites get to determine what Fundamental Human Rights are and push through an entire policy agenda!
Meme - Evil Leslie Knope @adb0wen: "Craziest thing about the ECHR judgement is that it directly seeks to override the Swiss people's vote. In June 2021, in a referendum the Swiss people voted against the measures that this group of activists are demanding by 51.59%. Quite literally now foreign Judges v Democracy."
The Time A Real Plane Hijacking Was Mistaken For A 'Candid Camera' Stunt - "A recent episode of the brilliant Radiolab podcast covered the contributions of Allen Funt and Candid Camera to television history. The prank show was essentially the first reality television show ever... What was once considered an invasion of privacy was transformed into a harmless, amusing prank. The reveal let the victim of that prank in on the joke. It seems intuitive now, but until Candid Camera did it, the “reveal” was a foreign concept... in 1969 when Allen Funt, his wife, and two of his young children took a flight from Newark to Miami. During the course of that flight, a hijacker grabbed a stewardess and put a knife around her neck, instructing the pilots to fly to Cuba. The pilots agreed... For a while, the passengers on the plane simply waited, frozen. That is, until one woman recognized Allen Funt... During the entire ordeal, however, Funt kept insisting that he wasn’t involved and that they were actually being hijacked. No one believed him. In fact, at one point, he saw a priest and tried to persuade him to convince everyone else that it wasn’t a stunt, that the hijacking was real. Even the priest wasn’t buying it.”You can’t get me, Allen Funt,” he said. “Oh no you don’t!” Later on, when the hijacker heard the commotion, he peeked out of the cockpit and into first class and everyone allegedly applauded, as though recognizing him for his role in the joke. Funt himself was so flustered with it all that he even attempted to hatch a plan to take care of the hijackers himself, but a flight attendant and his wife prevented him from doing so. The reveal, however, came when the plane actually landed in Havana instead of Florid. The plane was quickly surrounded by Cuban military officers. That’s when the people on the plane realized for the first time that it was actually a hijacking. The twist here, however, is that the passengers were so unhappy that, as they filed off the plane, they took their anger out on Funt, insulting him for tricking them... Funt and his family ended up being the well-fed guests of Fidel Castro for 11 hours. “The hero and heroine of the trip,” Allen Funt would later say, “were my 1-year-old son William and 2-year-old daughter Juliet. They spent the longest day in their lives with hardly a whimper.”"
Crémieux on X - "An eighth of Americans have used GLP-1s like Ozempic and Mounjaro. The obesity crisis will reverse in our lifetimes. People will look good again."
KFF Health Tracking Poll May 2024: The Public’s Use and Views of GLP-1 Drugs | KFF
Meme - Grant Hurst 🦬🇺🇦🇮🇱🇹🇼 @GrantGHurst: "The wait for Winds of Winter has lasted longer than Nazi Germany, and triple the time of the Confederacy."
westerosies @westerosies: "George R.R. Martin on speculation of the release date of ‘WINDS OF WINTER’ “When WINDS OF WINTER is done, the word will not trickle out, there WILL be a big announcement… where and when I cannot say.”"
Meme - Amani @Aurorraz_: "Arabic poetry can be absolutely gorgeous with the way poets express these beautifully complex emotions so easily and then there is this Abu Hasan al-Sari (972 CE)"
"She has an ass below a slender waist
That oppresses us both:
It tortures me when I think about
And tires her when she moves to stand up"
Meme - bob's burgers urbanist 🐿️ @yhdistyminen: "Christians have no satisfying answer to the related question "if God decided rape and murder were acceptable, would they then be acceptable?"—a philosophically relevant question, given that both of these are things he explicitly orders the Israelites to do in the Old Testament"
"AS AN ATHEIST HOW DO YOU JUSTIFY SAYING RAPE AND MURDER ARE ACTUALLY WRONG?
ME NO LIKEY
RAPE IS ICKY
BRUTE FACTS YO
ME HAVE EMPATHY"
Actress Discusses Female Vs. Male Nudity On Game Of Thrones - "she asked the creators about wearing a pubic wig (merkin) for the scene or growing out her natural hair. In all honesty, I had no idea what that area looked like on the show because I was too busy averting my eyes after seeing Tonks naked. But here’s what Tena had to say: “I was a bit upset about the fact that they showed my minge without hair because I think my character would have a massive bush,” she said. “I would have muff, like a muff coming down the thighs.”... Tena was more concerned with the fact that she and other women are constantly asked to remove clothing for a role but men are rarely asked to."
Clearly, there're no narrative or audience draw reasons why female characters would be nude more often than male ones
HBO Responds To Severed George W. Bush Head On Game of Thrones - “The last head on the left is George Bush. George Bush’s head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around.”
Meme - "George the Unfinished"
"Second of his name"
"Breaker of series and Lord of the procrastinators"
A tribute to one of Silicon Valley's most influential and forgotten researchers at Xerox Parc event - " His latest book, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, details his theory that 60s drugs and counter-culture were responsible for fostering significant computer innovations such as the PC revolution. However, many of the people mentioned in his book turned up at the event and said drugs had nothing to do with their work. They might have tried drugs later in life - but that was beside the point, they said. "It was psychedelic just being involved in the things we were doing in the labs," said Bill Duvall, a PARC veteran who took part in a panel following Mr. Markoff's presentation. Mr Markoff uncovered some interesting experimentation initiated by a maverick CEO of electronics company Ampex, who in the early 60s wanted his engineers to take LSD to improve their creativity. The board of directors said no, and then had to fire him after they discovered he'd snuck off anyway on a mountain hike with seven or eight engineers and given them LSD. There was also the story of the Stanford university campus Jesus cult, a group that split off into an LSD experimentation organization that turned on several hundred engineers over several years. engelbart_patent.gif A large part of the presentation was about Doug Engelbart and how he did not get the recognition he deserved for his early ideas on very significant concepts, such as timesharing in which many users can share one computer. Paradoxically, it was due to timesharing that the PC revolution took place, Mr Markoff argues, because everybody then wanted their own computer instead of a slice of a larger one."
Can't a robot tick a box? How a reCAPTCHA test really works - "as bots became more sophisticated, they started passing the tests, which then had to be made more difficult. Eventually, the text was stretched and distorted until many people weren’t able to decipher it. According to a study by the World Wide Web Consortium, these CAPTCHAs became too difficult to solve and caused users with cognitive disabilities to complain that the visual tests were denying them access. At a 2016 Google I/O conference, one of the speakers said the most difficult versions of a CAPTCHA test were presented to both humans and bots to test their proficiency in 2014. This challenge revealed that humans could only solve the test 33 per cent of the time, whereas bots overcame the system 99.8 per cent of the time.
Did you know that London is the world’s largest urban forest? - "London is so packed with foliage that it’s technically a forest. That’s according to a United Nations definition that states that a forest is anywhere that’s at least 20 percent trees. London’s a respectable 21 percent. To further pin that down, the UN states a forest has ‘land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 metres and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ’. Over 40 percent of public land in London is made up of green space on land of 14,164 hectares. However, this includes only public land, meaning the total will be even higher. While that doesn’t quite put the city in the same bracket as the Amazon, it leaves us competing with Sherwood and the New Forest – places that are considered to be pretty leafy. There are a massive 8.4 million trees across the capital, nearly one for each of us 8.6 million Londoners."
Small 'tear' in passport leaves UK yoga teacher in tears & barred from flying home via India - "she was denied boarding by IndiGo Airlines due to a 1-centimeter tear on her passport's photo page... “I don’t actually have any money left — I did not account for this extra expense,” lamented the Yoga teacher, who said her predicament was particularly painful as she was unemployed.""
What is garum? Rediscovering the long-lost fish sauce of ancient Greece and Rome - "Garum has been referred to as “ the ketchup of the ancient world .” But this comparison doesn’t go nearly far enough. A bottle of ketchup may sit on every diner table, but it’s hardly a sauce for all occasions. In the oldest known cookbook, Apicius’s De re coquinaria (The Art of Cooking), compiled in the fourth or fifth century , the Roman fish sauce appears in nearly every recipe. Salt was rarely used in ancient Greece and Rome, Julia Skinner writes in Our Fermented Lives (Storey Publishing, 2022), but fish sauce (a.k.a. liquamen in Latin or garon, as the Greeks called it) was indispensable. People added garum to dishes and sauces and served it as a condiment that went with almost anything... “The smell given off during its production was so bad that making garum in urban areas was sometimes outlawed.”... (Skinner details how to make “Ancient Roman Garum” in Our Fermented Lives and references the only historical recipe to mention a ratio of salt to fish, from the Geoponica, a 20-book Byzantine collection written in the 10th century.) As a testament to its importance, garum was “the only large-scale factory industry in the ancient world,” write Dalby and Grainger. “Archeological sites in southern Spain and around the Black Sea attest to the existence of a fish sauce industry as early as the eighth and seventh centuries BCE.” These factories were usually close to beaches or harbours, so the fish were fresh from the net when they were packed into crocks. The fermentation process wasn’t bacterial — as is the case in lactic acid fermented foods, such as yogurt, sauerkraut and kimchi — but enzymatic. “The enzymes in the gut of the fish react with the salt to produce a pungent brine”... "Rather than reaching for a pinch of salt in a recipe, we’ll sometimes kill two birds with one stone by using garum to bring both salinity and umami.”... (To give contemporary fish sauce an ancient Roman touch, Dalby and Grainger add sprigs of oregano or rue to Vietnamese nuoc mam.) Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, Grescoe considers fish sauce a necessity. “The real attraction of garum,” he writes, “is the way it imbues foods with intensity, vivacity, even wildness — the exact qualities so often lost by the time agriculture manages to get food to our tables.”"
The Lost Supper: How looking to the past can help future-proof food - "Silphion was once so precious it sat next to gold and silver in the Roman state treasury. The ancient Greeks and Romans prized the spice for its culinary and medicinal uses. With its fragrant resin and clusters of yellow flowers, the plant only grew in Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya). Until it didn’t. Today, silphion is considered “the Holy Grail of food history,” says Montreal-based author Taras Grescoe, who chronicles its disappearance and possible rediscovery in his latest book, The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavours of the Past (Greystone Books, 2023)... “What I love about it is, I love intensity of flavour. That’s what gets me out of bed. And a lot of the chefs that I admire the most love that too. And I think that’s adventure in the culinary realm — that’s true adventure. And knowing that the ancients had that sort of lust for intensity of flavour is really interesting because we’ve taken so much intensity out of our food,” says Grescoe... “Human appetite is completely capable of usurping species in the wild,” says Grescoe. Humanity is driving an unprecedented decline of biodiversity. Species are disappearing at rates hundreds of times higher than at any other point in the last 10 million years, he writes, citing United Nations data. Culinary species are especially vulnerable, with a rate of extinction roughly five times as high as the standard. This is cause for concern because, as Grescoe emphasizes in The Lost Supper, “diversity is resiliency.”
2,000-year-old curry offers insight into global spice trade - "Two thousand years after cooks ground spices there for a curry paste, the scent of nutmeg still lingers at an archaeological complex in southern Vietnam. Researchers found cooking tools buried two metres beneath the surface in Oc Eo, including a footed sandstone grinding slab similar to those used to make curry pastes today. On these tools, they identified microscopic plant remains. Evidence of Southeast Asia’s earliest known curry — the oldest found outside of India — according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.
Humanisation of pets leaves owners 'paying over the odds' to keep them alive - "The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said some pet owners are paying for expensive treatment that would previously have been “addressed through euthanasia” as they seek to keep their animals alive for as long as possible."