After the attack on Charlie Hebdo

Actions to avoid:

— Censor your voice.
 — Encourage journalists and artists to quit for safety’s sake.
 — Hate Muslims. It’s not them, it’s crazy people who’ve hijacked the vehicle that was most convenient at the time.
 —  Avoid going outside and living. It’s what they think we deserve.

Things to do instead:

— Get angry, and use it to fight for your hard-won rights with your work, your art, your life. Many have died for them, and you can’t forsake those sacrifices.
 —  Support your community.
 — Love your neighbours. Divide and conquer is a war strategy; we cannot and should not divide.

"Time Warner has called. And they want us all back on the couch."

Let's go back to the way things were. Let's go back to when nobody complained, nobody could produce their own entertainment and nobody could appropriate your slogan, logo or message to reveal an intent different from the one your PR firm so painstakingly produced. Let's go back to a time before Rick-Rolling and a world in which Edward Khil was rediscovered in the magic of trololo.

Let's go back to suing kids and shutting down online enterprises, no matter where they're based, because they cause the MPAA harm -- the same MPAA whose leaders are systematically chosen for their high political connections. Let's go back to the Top 20 playlist defining our tastes.

Wasn't it better then?


"In the end, the real threat to PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another," Shirky says in the video above.

These laws place the burden of proof for demonstrating goodwill toward copyright holders onto us. Us. That's mashup makers. That's your kids, fooling around on their new computers and doing what they think is a creative sendup of their favourite cartoon. That's you embedding "Every cigarette smoked in 'Mad Men'" onto your blog.

The Gods Are Waiting to Delight in You. Or Something.

Co-opting the powerful poetry of Bukowski, Levi's releases this ad-cum-manifesto in the wake of global strikes and riots. It's apt to see it now, given what's happening in London, but it would have risen more readily to its Grand Youth Anthem! potential if the agency resisted the urge to toss in that kissing-in-the-swimming-pool potshot that all indie ads need to include under penalty of death.

You could have been braver, Levi's. Kids are dying out there, protecting one another, painting their faces, camping out all hours and wielding makeshift torches. This is the one instance in which they didn't need to be depicted as whimsical and romantic; you could have just focused on the strength, gritty unity and insane heedlessness that animates the conviction of youth.

All Eyes on Libya

Countries, like people, in positions of power have enormous and nuanced responsibilities. When you see recurring evil and do nothing about it, you are nourishing a young and virile hatred that will grow with a new generation. And it will dedicate itself to the destruction of your institution.

Image credit: Al Jazeera.

A Day for Egyptians + Other Liberty Seekers

I was there! they placed newspapers and towels on the floor so we wouldn't pray on the hot asphalt, I love Egyptian Christians and although I am Muslim I would die defending any one of them.

This picture of Christians protecting fellow Muslim protesters as they prostrated themselves to pray is worth bearing in mind while Mubarak talks his nonsense about not being able to leave lest the roiling mob destroy the country.

Egypt, our hopes and energy join you today. Get what you're fighting for and don't stop until. The time for in-between is over.

'The battle for the soul of Egypt isn't over and done with.'

They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.

- "Egypt Right Now," Sandmonkey's first-hand account of what's happened in his country over the last 9 days ... and 30 years.

When you read this, take into account that there's no room left to behave as if human equality is a subjective thing. There is no more space in an increasingly connected world to say that what a tyrant, a tyrannous government or a tyrannous enterprise does with its dependents is its own business.

Faster communications makes territory less important and distances insignificant. That means institutionalised repression and blows to free thinking, to the liberty that sparks innovation, becomes everybody's business. The world is now too small for this.

I'm going to say something cheesy now, but I think it has to be said this way. Technology is where it is today because of higher numbers of ever more ambitious hackers fighting odds, rigid corporate standards, suspected limitations and attempted castrations of the internet's liberty. They are dogged, they self-organise and recognise no authority but the merits of what works, cutting away what doesn't, and we have all advanced because of it.

In this world and tomorrow's, that hacker culture belongs to everyone: people with access to the tools to fight governments, self-organise and speak out against human injustices without having to go through prescribed channels.

The channels that matter now belong to us. Use them wisely, tirelessly and fearlessly. United, able and armed with knowledge, we can make civilisation a kinder, more efficient machine, worthy of its name and richer because of the dynamism that serves one god: freedom. The freedom to think, be educated, feel safe, ask hard questions and decide our destinies.

This is what Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and other countries, newly inflamed, are fighting for now. This is what we should be defending every day, even if we feel like it's not our fight.

It's always our fight.

Happy Bastille Day

Here is a story about liberation.

In 2006 I had a fairly cushy office job that I contemplated leaving in pursuit of a bohemian dream. This day three years ago, 14 July 2006, I stepped into the elevator to head home for the night and found myself facing a super-giddy guy.

We probably shared the elevator a handful of times before. He asked how my day was and I said it was fine. I asked how his fared and he replied with haste, almost as if he'd been waiting to say it: "I resigned today."

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Was that your choice or were there problems?"

He toyed with his answer a few moments before replying. "They made me some offers," he said slowly. "They wanted to make it hard for me to leave. But it was time to go." He raised his eyes to mine. "Really, I was already gone."

"Then congratulations," I said. He gave me a long look and asked if I was happy, addressing me as if we'd had a long rapport. That's one of the luxuries of knowing you'll never see somebody again.

My responses were brief; I felt pressed by the knowledge we were running out of time, but wanted to be truthful. He listened with peculiar interest.

We exited Oakland's Central Building together and walked down the same block. At a corner near BART we said good-bye. "I'll see you," he said. "Actually, I guess I won't." He half-coughed, half-laughed, and walked off without looking back.

I waved. A week later I filed for vacation time; a month after, I left for Paris. It took another year to leave for good.

Image details: Prise de la Bastille by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel.