It baffles and infuriates me that Hogwarts students don’t take Latin or Greek. Accio? Literally “I summon.” Lumos? Fucking “light.” Expelliarmus? Expel weapon!! Ooooh I wonder what Levicorpus does– you Dumb Ass Bastard. You ILLITERATE. It’s called Levicorpus, it lifts someone’s body, it LEVIES your goddamn CORPUS-
Hermione ghost wrote this
Counterpoint: Hogwarts actively discourages students from taking Latin or Greek because if they knew either one every single magic twelve year old would be trying to mash up twenty words and make their own Ultimate Spell instead of using the Good Standardized Spells Known Not To Explode Magic Schools
I have a feeling that last point is aimed at the ravenclaws…
On June 20, the EU’s legislative committee will vote on the new Copyright directive,
and decide whether it will include the controversial “Article 13”
(automated censorship of anything an algorithm identifies as a copyright
violation) and “Article 11” (no linking to news stories without paid
permission from the site).
These proposals will make starting new internet companies effectively
impossible – Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and the other US giants
will be able to negotiate favourable rates and build out the
infrastructure to comply with these proposals, but no one else will. The
EU’s regional tech success stories – say Seznam.cz,
a successful Czech search competitor to Google – don’t have
$60-100,000,000 lying around to build out their filters, and lack the
leverage to extract favorable linking licenses from news sites.
If Articles 11 and 13 pass, American companies will be in charge of
Europe’s conversations, deciding which photos and tweets and videos can
be seen by the public, and who may speak.
The MEP Julia Reda has written up the state of play
on the vote, and it’s very bad. Both left- and right-wing parties have
backed this proposal, including (incredibly) the French Front National,
whose Youtube channel was just deleted by a copyright filter of the sort they’re about to vote to universalise.
So far, the focus in the debate has been on the intended consequences of
the proposals: the idea that a certain amount of free expression and
competition must be sacrificed to enable rightsholders to force Google
and Facebook to share their profits.
But the unintended – and utterly foreseeable – consequences are even
more important. Article 11’s link tax allows news sites to decide who
gets to link to them, meaning that they can exclude their critics. With
election cycles dominated by hoaxes and fake news, the right of a news
publisher to decide who gets to criticise it is carte blanche to lie and
spin.
Article 13’s copyright filters are even more vulnerable to attack: the proposals contain no penalties for false claims of copyright ownership, but they do
mandate that the filters must accept copyright claims in bulk, allowing
rightsholders to upload millions of works at once in order to claim
their copyright and prevent anyone from posting them.
That opens the doors to all kinds of attacks. The obvious one is that
trolls might sow mischief by uploading millions of works they don’t hold
the copyright to, in order to prevent others from quoting them: the
works of Shakespeare, say, or everything ever posted to Wikipedia, or my
novels, or your family photos.
More insidious is the possibility of targeted strikes during crisis:
stock-market manipulators could use bots to claim copyright over news
about a company, suppressing its sharing on social media; political
actors could suppress key articles during referendums or elections;
corrupt governments could use arms-length trolls to falsely claim
ownership of footage of human rights abuses.
It’s asymmetric warfare: falsely claiming a copyright will be easy
(because the rightsholders who want this system will not tolerate
jumping through hoops to make their claims) and instant (because
rightsholders won’t tolerate delays when their new releases are being
shared online at their moment of peak popularity). Removing a false
claim of copyright will require that a human at an internet giant looks
at it, sleuths out the truth of the ownership of the work, and adjusts
the database – for millions of works at once. Bots will be able to
pollute the copyright databases much faster than humans could possibly
clear it.
I spoke with Wired UK’s KG Orphanides about this, and their excellent article
on the proposal is the best explanation I’ve seen of the uses of these
copyright filters to create unstoppable disinformation campaigns.
There’s pretty detailed information about the law from the above-mentioned Julia Reda here.
This site gives info on the 10 remaining ‘undecided’ MEPs, and contact information. (Oddly, it seems to be a different list from this other set of undecided MEPs on the committee.) I don’t get the impression any MEPs outside the Legal Affairs committee have any influence at this point in the legal process.
There’s a gadget on this page that will apparently identify your MEP and set up a call between your phone number and them.
I admit I’m not sure what I can say that would make the Conservative MEP ‘representing’ me prioritise things like artistic expression and access over the wealth of giant tech and media companies, but I can try.
These are from a book called Disorder in the Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place.
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning? WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’ ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you? WITNESS: My name is Susan! _______________________________ ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact? WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active? WITNESS: No, I just lie there. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth? WITNESS: July 18th. ATTORNEY: What year? WITNESS: Every year. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you? WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which. ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you? WITNESS: Forty-five years. _________________________________ ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? WITNESS: I forget.. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning? WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam? ____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he? WITNESS: He’s 20, much like your IQ. ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken? WITNESS: Are you shitting me? _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time? WITNESS: Getting laid ____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children , right? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: How many were boys? WITNESS: None. ATTORNEY: Were there any girls? WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney? ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated? WITNESS: By death.. ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated? WITNESS: Take a guess. ___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual? WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female? WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I’m going with male. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work. ______________________________________ ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people? WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight. _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to? WITNESS: Oral… _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body? WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time? WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________ And last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing? WITNESS: No.. ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor? WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
oh my god these are great
fuck this is like reading a jokes and not actual quotes
Seriously guys the most fatalities of the summer occur the week(end) of July 4. If you drink please don’t drive. And if you do drive, be safe on the roads!
i went ahead and pulled some updated codes for july 2018 since idk if the code above is still valid anymore!
[source, along with expiration dates for the codes; the earliest one expires 7/5/2018, the latest expires 12/6/2018, and you can enter these ones on the lyft app up to 14 days before, so do it now if you plan on drinking so you don’t have to worry about it later!]
also, if you’re planning on taking public transit to get to/from your destination, check ahead of time to make sure that the route you need is going to be available on july 4th!!!! some trains and bus routes may not be operating or may have a different operating schedule (my local public transit will have a completely different schedule than they usually do on wednesdays) so please make sure you have a way home this july 4th that doesn’t involve drinking and driving!!
Everyone has heard that they should drink 2 liters of water every day. But if you drink 3 times as much, your kidneys will not be able to process this much liquid and get it out of your system. The result can be internal organ and brain edema and respiratory arrest.
Coffee –
Half an ounce of caffeine is believed to be a lethal dose. It is approximately 113 coffee cups (of 250 ml). It is worth mentioning that in this case, a person would probably die not from the caffeine overdose but water intoxication: 113 cups are actually almost 30 liters of water. So if you don’t eat coffee beans or mouthfuls of instant coffee, you are safe.
Chocolate –
Chocolate contains a small amount of theobromine. This alkaloid is a powerful agent that stimulates the central nervous system. But if you ate 22 lb of chocolate in one sitting, it could lead first to nausea and diarrhea, then an epileptic fit, then internal bleeding, cardiac infarction, and finally death.
Alcohol –
For a healthy man, a deadly dose would be 1.25 liters of 40% alcohol (approximately 27 shots of 45 ml each). But it will happen only if the man finishes this amount within one hour and does not throw up.
Cigarettes – Taking into account that each standard cigarette contains approximately 0.8 mg of nicotine, 75 cigarettes can blow you to kingdom come.
Marijuana – Things are slightly different with marijuana. The fatal dose is 1,500 lb, smoked within 15 minutes or 48 lb eaten at one time. And you probably won’t enjoy it at all. Not even Snoop Dogg can do that.
Apple Seeds –
You won’t die from eating 18 apples. But if you take out the seeds from those 18 apples, smash them to pieces, chew them thoroughly, and swallow them, then there is a possibility that you will die because apple seeds contain cyanide.
Bananas –
Bananas contain potassium, an overdose of which can lead to death. But for this to happen, you would have to eat 400 bananas in one sitting.
Oranges –
To die from an orange overdose, you would need to eat 11,000 oranges in one sitting.
Salt –
The everyday norm of salt is approximately 0.1 oz. A lethal dose of salt is 9 oz in one sitting (approximately 48 teaspoons). If someone decides to choose this way to commit suicide, it will be a truly regretful choice because the death would be agonizing (from a lot of enemas) and long.
Sugar –
The fatal dose of sucrose is 5 oz per pound of your body weight. This means that a man would need to eat 55 lb of sugar in one go, which equals approximately 500 teaspoons
Toothpaste –
Theoretically, you would need to eat 24 tubes of toothpaste to get to the afterlife.
Appleseeds and bananas are more lethal than weed. Fuck anybody who ever says anything about weed ever again.
I would be impressed if someone died from eating that many oranges
Death By Catchphrase 