Hmmmm
A thousand words and all that.
Damn That Cory Doctorow And His Effect Upon My Sleeping Patterns
Earlier this evening I sat down to read a wee bit of Cory Doctorow’s new novel Little Brother. Little Brother is a novel for young adults that involves a bunch of young hacker kids going toe to toe with the department of homeland security(DHS) in the US, you’ll forgive me for not linking to their website I hope.
The basic plot of the book is that these kids in San Francisco are skipping school to play a game that involves online and offline play, an ‘Alternate Reality Game’, when a terrorist attack destroys the Bay Bridge. The kids get scooped up in the dragnet of the DHS and whisked off to an interrogation centre cum jail and held, interrogated and abused for a week. Upon release they are told not to talk to anyone under threat of being disappeared. One of their number however is not released and knowledge of him is denied by the DHS. The kids decide to fight back with all the talents that they as hacker kids posses.
I started reading it earlier this evening, well as it goes yesterday evening and have just finished it. Thanks Mr Doctorow for keeping me up so late when I have an early start tomorrow/later. I couldn’t stop reading it as the story unfolded and the horror of living in a technological police state manifested itself and the wonder at the inventiveness of the kids in their use of technology to fight back increased with every page.
The book deals sensitively and realistically with issues that have been faced by teenagers and young adults throughout history and places them in a thoroughly engrossing and terrifying science fiction dystopia that is far closer to the real world than many people would like to admit. Bullying, teen sex, parental arguments and relationship confusion are all covered by this book in a way that is frank and honest and at no point condescending. Cory obviously remembers what is like to be a teenager and writes well for that audience which is why I think it is also perfect for those of us who waved our teenage years goodbye some years ago. He treats young adults as adults; the novel can be fully enjoyed by us old fogies because of that.
All of the technology in this book is real and pretty much all of it is available today, well some of the products are dreamed up by Doctorow but the tech behind them is available. The book also has plenty of little howto’s written into the plot that point you in the right direction when it comes to encrypting your web browsing and generally protecting yourself and your privacy from state intrusion.
This book is a must read for everyone and should be required reading for everyone under 25, if you read it you’ll find out why.
The book is available electronically under the Creative Commons Public License and is free to distribute on a not for profit basis. It is also available for purchase in print as well as audio. The audio book is also licensed in a way that allows you to sample small parts of the audio and remix them.
cory_doctorow_-_little_brother
Rest In Peace Utah Phillips
U. Utah Phillips the American anarchist folk singer has died at the age of 73.
Utah was a union organizer within the radical syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World. He was famous for his folk singing and storytelling rather than his political activities however.He left behind a wealth of material that acts as a verbal and musical link with American workplace organizing stretching back over a hundred years. He would often introduce songs that were written long before his birth with a short story that offered an historical perspective to the lyrics.
He was also an avid fan of the american rail roads and himself used to travel around the states in his younger days by ‘riding the rails’ in the american hobo tradition.
His songs were an inspiration to me and many others over the years and I personally found him amazingly inspiring.
Rest in peace Utah and thanks for the music and the stories, you will be missed by many.
Anarchist Communism
Being as my previous entry was commented upon by Roy Jones of the BNP I feel it necessary to c+p a wee description of Anarchist-Communism for the wee man as he obviously has little grasp of the plethora of political ideas in this world.
From Libcom, edited by the Anarchist Federation (UK)
A short introduction to anarchist-communism.
Anarchist communism is a form of anarchism that advocates the abolition of the State and capitalism in favour of a horizontal network of voluntary associations through which everyone will be free to satisfy his or her needs.
Anarchist communism is also known as anarcho-communism, communist anarchism, or, sometimes, libertarian communism. However, while all anarchist communists are libertarian communists, some libertarian communists, such as council communists, are not anarchists. What distinguishes anarchist communism from other variants of libertarian communism is the formers opposition to all forms of political power, hierarchy and domination.
Anarchist communism stresses egalitarianism and the abolition of social hierarchy and class distinctions that arise from unequal wealth distribution, the abolition of capitalism and money, and the collective production and distribution of wealth by means of voluntary associations. In anarchist communism, the state and property no longer exist. Each individual and group is free to contribute to production and to satisfy their needs based on their own choice. Systems of production and distribution are managed by their participants.
The abolition of wage labour is central to anarchist communism. With distribution of wealth being based on self-determined needs, people will be free to engage in whatever activities they find most fulfilling and will no longer have to engage in work for which they have neither the temperament nor the aptitude. Anarchist communists argue that there is no valid way of measuring the value of any one person’s economic contributions because all wealth is a collective product of current and preceding generations. Anarchist communists argue that any economic system based on wage labour and private property will require a coercive state apparatus to enforce property rights and to maintain the unequal economic relationships that will inevitably arise.
Well known anarchist communists include Peter, or Piotr, Kropotkin (Russia), Errico Malatesta (Italy) and Nestor Makhno (Ukraine). Kropotkin (pictured above) is often seen as the most important theorist of anarchist communism, outlining his economic ideas in books The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. Kropotkin felt co-operation to be more beneficial than competition, arguing in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution that this was illustrated in nature. Anarchist communist ideas were very influential in the introduction of anarchism to Japan through the efforts of Kôtoku Shûsui in the early 1900s who corresponded with Kropotkin and translated his works. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (who were both deported from USA in 1919) became important proponents of ‘Communist anarchism’ and became especially critical of Bolshevism after they discovered its devastating reality first-hand in Russia, and after the Red Army’s crushing of the Kronstadt uprising. They in turn had been influenced by German-born émigrée to the USA, Johann Most, who had earlier helped bring anarchist communist thought to Britain though his contact with Frank Kitz in London around 1880 (see Anarchist Communism in Britain for a full historical account).
Many platformists refer to themselves as anarchist communists, although other anarchist communists are uncomfortable with some areas of the Organisational Platform document, such as the issue of ‘collective responsibility’ as supported by Mahkno but opposed by Malatesta. In general anarchist communists of all kinds are critical of some aspects of anarcho-syndicalism which considers workplace self-management by workers as fundamental to the aims (as well as the means) of achieving social revolution and still maintains economic relations based on reward of effort and exchange.
Modern day anarchist communists are represented in several organisations within the International of Anarchist Federations, including the Anarchist Federation (Britain). Platformist anarchist communists include the Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland) and the North-Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (USA). Many nascent Eastern European, Russian and Caucasian anarchist groups identify with anarchist communism and there is a strong anarchist communist current amongst contemporary Latin American and Caribbean anarchist organisations.
Edited by the Anarchist Federation.
More Bullshit And Drivel From The BNP
Whilst I unfortunately missed the proceedings of last Saturday on Buchanan Street I was quite amused by the latest post on the BNP-Scotlands blog (i’m not going to link to them just google bnp-scotland)
Now since they reared their ugly heads this time round I have been keeping an eye on the wee bawbags and have come to know the faces of the top bods fairly well. This is how I can state that of the four that turned up on Saturday at most two of them were from Glasgow.
The blog mentions that the organizer from Mid-Scotland and Fife was present, this is true his name is John McGuire and his mobile number is 07913 219640 and his e-mail is midscotlandandfifebnp@yahoo.co.uk
John ‘I like to move it, move it’ McGuire
The short dodgy looking guy with the white hair is Charlie Baillie the Glasgow organizer who’s mobile phone number is 07960 714931 and e-mail him at baillieelect@yahoo.co.uk
Charlie ‘rasta man vibration’ Baillie
I, to be honest, haven’t got a scooby doo who the fat bloke with the terrible taste in jumpers is so there is every possibility that he is from Glasgow.
The unknown pie man.
However this brings us around to matey boy in the bobblehat. You see I know this guys face quite well. His name is John Robertson, the organizer for the BNP Highlands and Islands as well as their Security Officer (the BNP are the only political party that I have heard of who need a ’security officer’)
John ‘tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies’ Robertson
Now either thay are telling the truth and he actually does live in Glasgow which would make it a wee bit odd that he is organizer for the H+I and is apparently running for the EU in 09 for somewhere up there. Either that or they are telling fibbs, which is naughty and so unlike them.
The fact that these scum claim to have any popular support whatsoever is absurd. If they had support they would not have to rely on calling the cops preemptively in order to get themselves out of the shit they wanted to start. The fact is most people have parents or grandparents who fought in a war against filth like the BNP. Charlie and his mob believe that they have the democratic right to freedom of speech, do they chuff! They lost any right they had when they began propagating their divisive hatred.
Actually no what am I saying? Of course they have the right to free speech, just as I have the right to engage in a little historical reenactment when they are about. Cable street re-enactment society any body?
Benefit “Fraud”
The government and the media love to scapegoat people. Single mothers, miners, new age travelers, migrants, refugees and benefit claimants have all been accused of being a burden to the country. The last year or so has seen another round of adverts from the DHSS/DSS/DWP/whatever encouraging people to grass on ‘benefit cheats’ and for those doing a bit of work on the side to watch their backs.
Personally I think they’ve got a bloody cheek targeting the poorest people in society when the super rich are getting a whole lot richer by doing sweet FA to deserve it. According to the DWP benefit fraud cost the government £700 million last year. Good! That’s £700 million they won’t be spending on bastard wars and fucking us all over. They don’t blink an eye at spending billions every year on nuclear weapons and the armed forces, on tax breaks for the wealthy and paying themselves obscene amounts of money yet someone delivering curries of an evening whilst signing on is a scourge of society. Like I said, a bloody cheek.
If you know anyone who has informed on their neighbours for working on the side or blagging the sick tell them they are a grass and we all know how to deal with a grass.
The state also uses the excuse of cracking down on the poor as a reason for the introduction of ID cards and a national database. The London School of Economics estimates that implementing the cards will cost £19 billion.
£19 billion to tackle a ‘crime’ that cost £700 million, not very good with the math are they?
Moving On
Having been using Google’s Blogger since the end of last year I have decided to move my randomness and general bile across to wordpress. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first one being that google are rapidly approaching the status of IT Anti-Christ, a title that has long been held by Microsoft and Mr Gates. The pervasiveness of google and its attempt to completely take over the interwebs reminds me somewhat of MS and it’s attempts to destroy any innovation that stands in the way of its profits. Google do seem a lot nicer than MS but that just makes me trust them even less.
The second reason is that wordpress software is licensed under the GPL which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 
Heh
Whilst perusing the various racist far right sites and blogs I came across this wonderful video of last years Red, White and Blue festival. The RWB festival for those who don’t know is a mock festival of traditional ‘britishness’ held by the BNP who have a very limited understanding of the history of these islands. The wonderful thing about this video is the complete lack of people. Shows how many ‘regular british’ people subscribe to their nonsense.
SMS Text Messages Cost £374.49/Meg!
At 5p per text most people don’t think twice about sending a quick text message to a friend or even firing back and forth rapid messages in a text conversation. However when you add up the cost per byte of information, as a scientist at the University of Leicester has done, you see quite how much of a scam text messaging is.
According to Dr Nigel Bannister the cost of an SMS message can be broken down like this.
The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that’s 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that’s £374.49 per MB
Now comparing that to the cost of downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope which costs £8.85 to get the data down from the telescope itself and costs about £85 for the whole process of getting it from telescope to end user we can see how much of a scam the mobile networks have got going.
How the hell they can justify this beggars belief, well aside from the fact that they are capitalist shit bags 
Anyway since this post has a link to the Hubble telescope I’ve got an excuse to post a picture of the Ultra Deep Field.
A far better use of bandwidth than PRTY 2NITE @ SHZZAS or whatever
May Reshuffle
This Saturday will be a good one with the May Reshuffle community activists gathering at the Pearce Institute in Govan. Between twelve and eight there will be workshops and talks on a variety of subjects and there should be something for everyone.
There will be workshops on car culture and public transport in Glasgow, climate change and grass roots health initiatives. There will also be two really interesting looking talks. The first on the struggle against gentrification in New York City from an activist from Movement for Justice in El Barrio who have successfully defended there community in central NYC from developers looking to destroy it.
The second talk from Stevphen Shukatis, research fellow at the University of London entitled Combining Critical Practice, Research and Theory as Popular Struggle. Catchy title eh?
As well as the workshops there will be books and a reference library provided by the radical Independent Bookfair, food from the brothmix collective, SunnyGovan FM, free software from the Electron Club, Madlab for kids from Glasgow university, Galgael traditional crafts, massage from monkey Machine and Bees!!
See you there.
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