as sparks fly upward

vinurminn:

In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as thingamajig, which refer to…

roxanneritchi:

swanblood | unknownbinaries:

“I ordered some video-editing software from Hitfilm in the UK which also comes with some instructional videos. So a few days later I get a call from FedEx saying that the DVDs were being held at U.S. Customs until I filled out a Video Declaration Form, which she said was now standard practice. Now, I’d never heard of this before, so I called back to ensure that this was indeed FedEx and not someone phishing for information. Had them email me the form.

This is what the form said: “I/we declare the the films/videos contain no obscene or immoral matter, nor any matter advocating or urging treason or insurrection against the United States, nor any threat to take the life of or inflict bodily harm upon any person in the United States.”

Now, the first clause I can kinda see, though “immoral” is weird and there’s no standard definition of obscenity in the US, but let that go…what made my eyebrows go up my forehead and down the other side was clause two. So I called back the nice lady at FedEx — who was only following instructions given to her by Customs — and asked what this was all about.

Apparently — and this is only her understanding of the situation — this is a new thing being done by Customs and Homeland Security with FedEx, UPS, and other carriers to make sure that films and videos with ideas or stories that were at odds with the United States Government didn’t get into the country, as it was a form of terrorism (as further elaborated upon in the third and final clause.) She added that some DVDs showing Occupy events in London and elsewhere had gotten bounced because of the concern that these were being used to coordinate activities here (as if with the internet people actually need physical DVDs for that sort of thing but that’s neither here nor there).

Under this new stipulation, if V for Vendetta had, for instance, been produced in the UK (instead of just filmed there), importing it into the US would be considered subject matter “advocating or urging treason or insurrection.” And if you lied about it on the form, you could be held liable for this.

So there are now very literally guardians at the gate ensuring that the wrong sorts of ideas, movies or DVDs are not allowed into the country without investigation and/or prosecution. And most pernicious of all, they don’t actually define what they mean by advocating treason or insurrection, any more than they define what “immoral” means, it’s whatever they decide it means, so you could be breaking the law without knowing you’re doing it, until they decide you’re doing it.

Thoughts?”

Thoughts: this country’s laws and things the government stands for gets more disgusting every day. Those are my thoughts.

Also, this only has a few notes and it’s someone’s personal story, so, probably good to signal boost it because it won’t be going around everywhere…

~*~Home of the free, land of the brave.~*~ Wait, does this mean the USA’s going to start banning films about the American Revolution? JW.

tearoutmyinsides:

MegaUpload - Closed.
FileServe - Closing, does not sell premium.
FileJungle - Deleting files. Locked in the U.S..
UploadStation - Locked in the U.S..
FileSonic - the news is arbitrary (under FBI investigation).
VideoBB - Closed! Will disappear soon.
Uploaded -…

talldarkbishoujo:

esprit-follet:

dancingsamuraii:

cultphilosophy:

It can land you in prison for 10 years. Clicking the link opens up something that will force you to perform a DDoS attack on certain websites (for example, the MPAA website). The goal is to take all of…

fuckyeahasoiaf:

SANTA FE, NM—In the wake of last year’s highly successful publication of the fifth installment in his A Song Of Ice And Fire series, author George R.R. Martin assured fans Tuesday the final two books in the fantasy saga would be “complete turds.” “For starters, there’ll be no mention of the dragons at all, because I’m pretty much sick of writing about dragons at this point,” said Martin, who added he would also be introducing an entirely new storyline set on a completely different continent and featuring a cast of at least 50 new characters all vying for the same throne. “And I’m going to take even longer to write these last two, at least a decade each. Who knows if I’ll even be alive to finish them? Who cares? My son knows how to spell most of the characters’ names, so maybe I’ll let him wrap the whole thing up.” Martin said that while he didn’t want to give too much away, he was certainly going to kill off Tyrion and never resurrect him, because “that fucking dwarf” was annoying the shit out of him.