It costs a holiday and a nice dinner to make the SCOTUS say “um, ackchually, the constitution doesn’t say anything about access to the internet”.
As an aside that’s one of the major things I’ve never understood about how SCOTUS developes rulings, ie: how they use ‘original intent’ to figure out current issues.
They would sentence you to death while demanding that you pay for your own execution.
Libertarian police
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
Original Credit: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department>>>>>
Thank you for this. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard on my lunch break ever
This made me audibly sigh. They won’t put it like this but this genuinely the future some people want.
Spectrum will hijack your DNS if they catch you filtering and make you talk to their “security team” it’s a bit of a joke but they do it.
But you know, use a vpn or proxy to avoid this bullshit and enjoy your internet.
Spectrum had a policy like this at one point. They’d shut you off after a couple of instances of p2p that were reported. Afterwards, they directed you into a captive portal with some plausible deniability where you had to say “I don’t know what happened, but it won’t happen again”.
Nowadays they just send you an email but don’t restrict access.
Either way the Internet isn’t too safe, protect yourself with at least a VPN.
ah all good…nothing is lost. everytime ppl hate murican corpos more, the world becomes a better place.
apple making it hard to install warez, google forcing playstore,gsf and manifest3 on ppl
everything american is always shit. period. because entire culture is built on being a shit person. dont blame tump or sony or microsoft…it is the american people that just suck all the time.
Do not conflate the people with the corporations.
And let’s not ignore the fact that many nations were happy to buy and profit until the USA government turned into a bargain sale for billionaires.
as an American this is an absolute truth nuke.
everytime ppl hate murican corpos more
FYI, SONY is a Japanese multinational corporation.
You’re not wrong but culturally and historically, Sony Music is American.
Blackrock owns the most shares too 🤡
I’m also an American, and this is 100% accurate. My countrymen are assholes, and the only thing they’ve ever cared about are problems that directly affect them.
Huh, I’m American and I’m surrounded by people who are incredibly kind and nurturing and will bend over backwards to help others. Sounds like you live in a shit part of the country if you only have assholes near you.
You live in a country filled with people who voted Trump into power. You’re surrounded by assholes, and if you don’t think so then you’re either an asshole with them, or a blissful idiot. I’ll leave it to you to decide which.
I live in literally one of the most blue states there is. I know of 1 person who voted for Trump. And if a cup that is only 30% full is considered “overflowing” where you live I would love to move there and open up a bar. I’m sure I’d make a killing.
Turns out the ‘shining beacon on a hill’ and the ‘thousand points of light’ they used to talk about were all crosses burning.
As an American, I approve this message. It’s accurate.
Cut us all off, so corporate can use internet, what they meant to use it for. Corporate Porn.
That’s dystopian, good luck finding a job besides servicing without internet.
You stole a bottle of sprite from the store?
No running water for you.
Get a vpn provider. Set the location as the Netherlands. Set up a docker container with deluge and openvpn, and set it up to use your vpn provider.
Voila. You only need run your torrent traffic through the vpn, and it’ll be on its own kill switch.
Maybe Sony should have some things cutoff for that root kit, hmmm?
I’m so glad the internet hasn’t forgiven them for that.
I’m a bit sad that not everyone remembers when they made up a movie critic so they would have good quotes to put on ads for Sony Pictures movies.
I also haven’t forgiven them for trying to sue people for simply watching the Geohot video, or removing alternative OS functionality from the PS3, or for trying to reinvent MMC/SD memory cards in a different shape and charge more for for them. Hell, I still haven’t forgiven them for SonicStage.
I won’t buy anything from Sony for any reason. I don’t care what it is. I made damn sure my most recent camera purchase wasn’t a Sony, no matter what the reviews said. That’s because they pissed me off 20 years ago and haven’t demonstrated any improvement in behavior since. Nerds have long memories.
Fuck I still hate them for the minidisc
You can just download a house now:
Cut off internet for people who pirate… Those people are now unable to stream anything… Sacrifice thousands in potential revenue over an infringement that maybe cost them a few dollars, if that… Deter no one because everyone thinks they won’t get caught.
Good move. Smart guys.
People wouldn’t pirate your shit if it was easily and cheaply available
And won’t disappear the moment someone decides they won’t pay “licenses” for it to be on the service you paid for it.
And, thinking specifically about Sony, doesn’t include rootkits or similar invasive security nightmares.
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So you’re saying you have a choice in ISPs? Sounds pretty cool.
My area has around 3 or 4 competing ISPs. (Canada)
I think they can also catch you seeding it.
All this with a VPN?
I’m not aware of any way they can catch you with a VPN.
420,696,969% tariffs on VPNs who let you connect outside the US.
No, those people weren’t using it.
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Is this true? You actually have to seed in order to download?
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hm, if you set your seed ratio to 0, maybe not though
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I’ve never tried it either. It would be kind of an asshole thing to do. Torrenting only works because everyone contributes their fair share.
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“You wouldn’t SteAL a gUilLotINe!”
