Homeless Hotspots: the best, worst, smartest, dumbest part of SXSW | The Verge

It’s hard to believe The Verge published this piece ”out loud” where people could see it.

Taking homeless people and turning them into “mobile hotspots” is utterly dehumanizing and is not “raising awareness” about homelessness.

What it should raise awareness of is how much of an asshole you would have to be to actuallly use such a service.

If you want to help homeless people then perhaps the company running this crap could provide corporate profits to provide them with an actual “home” or society in general could actually deal with homelessness which is not a “hidden issue”.

Absent that, just give the money you would spend on a “wifi” connection to a homeless person and wait until you get home before you tweet about being at SXSW.

What’s next? How about we get homeless people to sell food, and every time somebody buys food from them they get a free sandwich. If they don’t sell any food though, no sandwich!

Fucking asshats.

Jon Mitchell from Read Write Web describes this nonsense best with this comment;  

“Homeless Hotspots are helpless pieces of privilege-extending human infrastructure.”

Philip Bloom: An open letter to Mr. Baker

No idea who Mr Baker is or what this is about but Mr Bloom blocked Article19 on Twitter (even though we don’t follow him) because we had the temerity to say he might want to edit his writing a little because it spoiled, somewhat, his reviews and insights into film making.

Haters are gonna hate, but oversensitive people are also going to over react to the slightest little thing. It’s a two way street.

philipbloom:

Dear Mr. Baker,

I have woken up to be informed of a hate filled tirade against me by you on twitter. I am not in the slightest bit surprised as you have done this on numerous occasions.

Twitter is a place to voice your opinions and if this is your voice then so be it, as rude, obnoxious and…

Once again the court is on the side of the almost two million workers in the creative industries whose livelihoods are put at risk because creative content is stolen on a daily basis. Once again a judge has made it extremely clear that the Digital Economy Act is a fair, focused, proportionate and efficient system for consumers and the creative industry. Rather than individuals being hauled into court, the DEA makes it possible to conduct a mass consumer education programme. BT and TalkTalk need to stop fighting and start obeying the law.

Equity, talking out of their ass about file sharing.

The Stage / News / Equity welcomes Court of Appeal Digital Economy Act ruling

Source: thestage.co.uk

I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my citations to the primary documents were insufficient, as Wikipedia requires its contributors to rely on secondary sources, or, as my critic informed me, “published books.” Another editor cheerfully tutored me in what this means: “Wikipedia is not ‘truth,’ Wikipedia is ‘verifiability’ of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that.”

Tempted to win simply through sheer tenacity, I edited the page again. My triumph was even more fleeting than before. Within seconds the page was changed back. The reason: “reverting possible vandalism.”

The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia

A scholar attempts to edit Wikipedia to reflect newly verified truths about the Haymarket riot & trial of 1886 … and fails.

(via ecantwell)

(via ecantwell)