((SLIGHT KORRA SPOILERS))
No joke I was literally just thinking the exact same thing. I mean, obviously there’s something wrong about the guys she beat up — she calls them “the criminals” and the police seem to know what she’s talking about (she wouldn’t have gone after them if not, probably)… yet, that we know of, she hasn’t done anything that would warrant her arrest under… well, normal laws. Except for resisting arrest, ofc, but that was after the fact.
Pro-bending has been described as an event that “all of Republic comes to see” so I assume bending’s obviously popular, but what if there are stricter laws on it for recreational everyday use?
My theory that Republic is a military state has been leading most of my thoughts on the dynamic of the city so far… and that would make Bei Fong pretty high up in terms of governing the city. idk, maybe I’ve been reading too many conspiracy theories and Fullmetal Alchemist and The Hunger Games have made me suspicious and paranoid of any fictional governments, but I’m not ruling anything out ‘cause Bryke are masters at screwing us over real good.
When the web started, I used to get really grumpy with people because they put my poems up. They put my stories up. They put my stuff up on the web. I had this belief, which was completely erroneous, that if people put your stuff up on the web and you didn’t tell them to take it down, you would lose your copyright, which actually, is simply not true.
And I also got very grumpy because I felt like they were pirating my stuff, that it was bad. And then I started to notice that two things seemed much more significant. One of which was… places where I was being pirated, particularly Russia where people were translating my stuff into Russian and spreading around into the world, I was selling more and more books. People were discovering me through being pirated. Then they were going out and buying the real books, and when a new book would come out in Russia, it would sell more and more copies. I thought this was fascinating, and I tried a few experiments. Some of them are quite hard, you know, persuading my publisher for example to take one of my books and put it out for free. We took “American Gods,” a book that was still selling and selling very well, and for a month they put it up completely free on their website. You could read it and you could download it. What happened was sales of my books, through independent bookstores, because that’s all we were measuring it through, went up the following month three hundred percent
I started to realize that actually, you’re not losing books. You’re not losing sales by having stuff out there. When I give a big talk now on these kinds of subjects and people say, “Well, what about the sales that I’m losing through having stuff copied, through having stuff floating out there?” I started asking audiences to just raise their hands for one question. Which is, I’d say, “Okay, do you have a favorite author?” They’d say, “Yes.” and I’d say, “Good. What I want is for everybody who discovered their favorite author by being lent a book, put up your hands.” And then, “Anybody who discovered your favorite author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book raise your hands.” And it’s probably about five, ten percent of the people who actually discovered an author who’s their favorite author, who is the person who they buy everything of. They buy the hardbacks and they treasure the fact that they got this author. Very few of them bought the book. They were lent it. They were given it. They did not pay for it, and that’s how they found their favorite author. And I thought, “You know, that’s really all this is. It’s people lending books. And you can’t look on that as a loss of sale. It’s not a lost sale, nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free.”
What you’re actually doing is advertising. You’re reaching more people, you’re raising awareness. Understanding that gave me a whole new idea of the shape of copyright and of what the web was doing. Because the biggest thing the web is doing is allowing people to hear things. Allowing people to read things. Allowing people to see things that they would never have otherwise seen. And I think, basically, that’s an incredibly good thing.
" — Neil Gaiman on Copyright, Piracy, and the Commercial Value of the Web (X)(Source: roominthecastle, via meatandsarcasm)
Here’s the Ending Song by itself. Really quite beautiful. :)
(Source: atla-confession-box)
Sorry about my rage post earlier, here’s a more reasonable post about my feelings on SOPA amd PIPA…
Gabe Newell, the head of Valve, which I believe is one of the greatest video game companies in existence today, had this to say about the problems of pirating:
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates… . If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
Why do these large corporations seek shelter from the government when they have no on else to blame but themselves if piracy is a problem to them? These music and movie industries are in trouble because they’ve put themselves there. These people who think they can overcharge for movies and music, then get completely defensive and offended when others offer their services at a better rate and quality than they can provide.
Do they really think that they can stop pirates? I don’t believe even they’re stupid enough to believe so. The internet has millions of ways to share files outside Megaupload. All the government has done is mildly inconvenient pirates and captured seven people, in comparison to the millions of providers and the billions of downloaders that are out there. They did it for show, I believe, wanted to flex their big government muscles and act like they’re in power of the situation. They essentially cut off the head of a Hydra in an attempt to scare away the Hydra later.
I believe the motto of capitalism and especially the United States is: ‘Competition is the life-blood of the economy’, right? Well, Hollywood, you’ve met your largest competitor. It’s up to you now, do you adapt or do you die?Accurate. Piracy won’t go away. Most of us who do download, and those who share the files know lots of different ways to transfer them. The hydra is a good metaphor, because if you don’t know a hydra is a mythological beast with many many heads, and every time you cut off a head more grow back in it’s place. So they cut down Megaupload. Does the government really think they’ve even touched the tip of the iceberg?
(via meatandsarcasm)
(via jen-ii)
(nonserious answer)
OH GOD YESS
(tl;dr answer)
I don’t want to ship it if it means hating Suki (because I love Suki) but I can’t get around the fact that I really think Sokka and Toph would be good together. when they’re older, I mean, ‘cause right now… I feel like they’ve both got some growing up to do: as much as I love them I think they should take some time to mature on their own.
it’s pretty clear that Toph has a crush on Sokka, right? I’ve pretty much assumed that it’s canon based on that time she blushed and the scene where she nearly drowned… it’s kind of cute, really, but when she gets older I could see their relationship going one of two ways: either it’s just a childhood crush that she grows out of and they live to be best buds forever (cause they so would be — they so are — if it didn’t work out romantically), or they come together when they’re older and it’s just… perfect.
I think it says something that Sokka takes care of her (very, very subtly) when she needs it, but steps back in battle because he knows she can fight by herself. but there are instances when he holds her hand ‘cause she would otherwise have difficulty “seeing,” there are times when he lowers her head to prevent her from an attack in the air… it’s funny when he forgets that she’s blind, lolol Sokka, and Toph gets another crack at a blind joke, but he remembers it when it matters. and that scene with them dangling from the blimp, when boomerang and his sword are gone and she’s only hanging on by the tips of their fingers, and we see her cry… I feel like that was a moment. I think that they would’ve wanted to be taken out together because they’re a team in a very precise, quiet way. I think if they ever happened romantically it’d be something that could compliment them both really wonderfully.
worldends4me replied to your post: tell us about Kataang, Megan.
What does GQMF mean?
gentleman’s quarterly motherf*er
