A blog about our world through the eyes of a eternal student. Global health. Interdisciplinary (ex)researcher. Feminist as fuck. Chronic pain. Diagnosed fibromyalgia. Fat martial artist. Obsessive crafter of fibers. No stealing of any of my pics, especially not to porn blogs. Cause that's just not cool dude.
I simply think that if a company decides to remove a show from their platform entirely, they should have to give the rights and the digital copy of that show back to the creators. The fact that the creators of Infinity Train, OKKO, and Mao Mao have no access to the work they put so much money and effort into is completely absurd.
When a creator sells the rights to their work to a streaming company, they do so with the understanding that the company is going to host their work on the streaming service. If that content is no longer hosted by the streaming service, the streaming company should not be able to retain the rights to that work. The rights should be returned to the creator, as should and physical or digital copies of the show that the streaming service had, so the creator can try to sell it to other streaming companies or host it themselves into heir own site. The fact that this isn’t the case is absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Something like this really happened a couple of years ago at the Mefou Primate Sanctuary in Cameroon, run by Ape Action Africa (AAA). A western lowland gorilla named Bobo befriended a bushbaby for a couple of hours before releasing it back into the forest.
(Source)
According to AAA’s Facebook post (where you can also find additional photos and video):
Our silverback gorilla Bobo made a surprising new friend this week – a wild bushbaby! Caregivers discovered him cradling the tiny primate during their morning checks, and were amazed to see him handling it with the utmost care – proving that gorillas really are the gentle giants of the forest. Bobo’s group-mates were desperately curious, particularly his favourite female Avishag, but he kept them all at a distance, making sure that no one disturbed his new friend. Bushbabies are usually nocturnal so it is very rare to see one, and even rarer to witness this kind of interaction. The little bushbaby was happy to play in Bobo’s arms, hopping off to explore the grass nearby, before returning to Bobo’s hand. When the game was over, Bobo walked purposefully off on two legs to deliver his friend safely back into the trees.
Incidentally, the western lowland gorilla (which has the best species name of all time: Gorilla gorilla gorilla) is the largest primate in Cameroon, and the bushbabies happen to be the smallest primates in Cameroon.
I still can't get over jinx purring. I never knew how happy he was or how much he loves me. he's been purring since I got home, every time I say hi to him. my husband says he's always purring like that, I just never heard it before
went down to the village river and it was so nice!! the river is pretty low rn because of the lack of rain but when it rains lots I want to go back and see it go fast and hear it
popped my hearing aid on when I woke up and just listened to my husband breathe next to me. he's here, I get to wake up next to my best friend every day. he's alive. he loves me.
then he started snoring very loudly and it was even worse with the amplified sound
im outside in my garden with my easel doing some painting and I was drawing on the easel and it makes a scratchy noise?! the pencil was scratching! it makes a very good sound indeed!!
TIME TO REVIVE THIS POST. I heard lambs the other day and they make really sweet noises. I also went for a walk around a local nature reserve yesterday and heard lots of birds. and I met a dog who said "boof" at me. im still absolutely bowled over by the sound of the sea. in my job I rip up a lot of cardboard boxes and I enjoy the noise.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a report Thursday by the U.N. and other agencies that highlights the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
The extent of the population’s hunger eclipsed even the near-famines in Afghanistan and Yemen of recent years, according to figures in the report. The report warned that the risk of famine is “increasing each day,” blaming the hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza.
“It doesn’t get any worse,’’ said Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N.’s World Food Program. “I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed.”
...
At the start of the war, Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into the territory. After U.S. pressure, it allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt. But U.N. agencies say only 10% of Gaza’s food needs has been entering for weeks.
(Dec. 21, 2023 | Source)
Weird peeve time. Calling lab grown gemstones “fake” is stupid because it’s the same shit just not formed naturally. An artificially grown diamond is the same shit as a natural diamond it is the exact same material bro it’s all fuckign carbon
There is so much bullshit in the diamonds industry to be mad about tbh. It also ties into the bullshit of the wedding industry as a whole but we don’t have the time to unpack all that
not even going to lie, the day i learned i could get like 15 lab grown rubies the size of dimes for $20 is the day i spent $20 on rubies, and i have never once said to myself “man, i wish this cost $1,600 and the lives of eight children to produce”
another very cool lab grown gem is Moissanite. It has a 9.25 on the mohs hardness scale where diamond is a 10. Moissanote also has a 2.69 refractive index in comparison to diamond’s 2.419 and here is the difference
and the best thing about moissanite? It is all lab grown and it costs only a fraction of what diamond costs. So fuck the diamond indsutry and buy lab grown gems which cost significantly less
Also it’s just cool to think of some mad scientist lookin person doing shit against the law of the universe and making pretty gems for you. Like cmon. This shouldnt be allowed probably. But humans really be like on gOD i want some shiny an just started MAKIN em
You're a reasonably informed person on the internet. You've experienced things like no longer being able to get files off an old storage device, media you've downloaded suddenly going poof, sites and forums with troves full of people's thoughts and ideas vanishing forever. You've heard of cybercrime. You've read articles about lost media. You have at least a basic understanding that digital data is vulnerable, is what I'm saying.
I'm guessing that you're also aware that history is, you know... important? And that it's an ongoing study, requiring ... data about how people live? And that it's not just about stanning celebrities that happen to be dead?
Congratulations, you are significantly better-informed than the British government!
So they're currently like "Oh hai can we destroy all these historical documents pls? To save money? Because we'll digitise them first so it's fine! That'll be easy, cheap and reliable -- right? These wills from the 1850s will totally be fine for another 170 years as a PNG or whatever, yeah? We didn't need to do an impact assesment about this because it's clearly win-win! We'd keep the physical wills of Famous People™ though because Famous People™ actually matter, unlike you plebs. We don't think there are any equalities implications about this, either! Also the only examples of Famous People™ we can think of are all white and rich, only one is a woman and she got famous because of the guy she married. Kisses!"
Yes, this is the same Government that's like "Oh no removing a statue of slave trader is erasing history :("
You have, however, until 23 February 2024 to politely inquire of them what the fuck they are smoking. And they will have to publish a summary of the responses they receive. And it will look kind of bad if the feedback is well-argued, informative and overwhelmingly negative and they go ahead and do it anyway. I currently edit documents including responses to consultations like (but significantly less insane) than this one. Responses do actually matter.
I would particularly encourage British people/people based in the UK to do this, but as far as I can see it doesn't say you have to be either. If you are, say, a historian or an archivist, or someone who specialises in digital data do say so and draw on your expertise in your answers.
This isn't a question of filling out a form. You have to manually compose an email answering the 12 questions in the consultation paper at the link above. I'll put my own answers under the fold.
Note -- I never know if I'm being too rude in these sorts of things. You probably shouldn't be ruder than I have been.
Please do not copy and paste any of this: that would defeat the purpose. This isn't a petition, they need to see a range of individual responses. But it may give you a jumping-off point.
Question 1: Should the current law providing for the inspection of wills be preserved?
Yes. Our ability to understand our shared past is a fundamental aspect of our heritage. It is not possible for any authority to know in advance what future insights they are supporting or impeding by their treatment of material evidence. Safeguarding the historical record for future generations should be considered an extremely important duty.
Question 2: Are there any reforms you would suggest to the current law enabling wills to be inspected?
No.
Question 3: Are there any reasons why the High Court should store original paper will documents on a permanent basis, as opposed to just retaining a digitised copy of that material?
Yes. I am amazed that the recent cyber attack on the British Library, which has effectively paralysed it completely, not been sufficient to answer this question for you. I also refer you to the fate of the Domesday Project. Digital storage is useful and can help more people access information; however, it is also inherently fragile. Malice, accident, or eventual inevitable obsolescence not merely might occur, but absolutely should be expected. It is ludicrously naive and reflects a truly unpardonable ignorance to assume that information preserved only in digital form is somehow inviolable and safe, or that a physical document once digitised, never need be digitised again..At absolute minimum, it should be understood as certain that at least some of any digital-only archive will eventually be permanently lost. It is not remotely implausible that all of it would be. Preserving the physical documents provides a crucial failsafe. It also allows any errors in reproduction -- also inevitable-- to be, eventually, seen and corrected. Note that maintaining, upgrading and replacing digital infrastructure is not free, easy or reliable. Over the long term, risks to the data concerned can only accumulate.
"Unlike the methods for preserving analog documents that have been honed over millennia, there is no deep precedence to look to regarding the management of digital records. As such, the processing, long-term storage, and distribution potential of archival digital data are highly unresolved issues. [..] the more digital data is migrated, translated, and re-compressed into new formats, the more room there is for information to be lost, be it at the microbit-level of preservation. Any failure to contend with the instability of digital storage mediums, hardware obsolescence, and software obsolescence thus meets a terminal end—the definitive loss of information. The common belief that digital data is safe so long as it is backed up according to the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies on 2 different formats with 1 copy saved off site) belies the fact that it is fundamentally unclear how long digital information can or will remain intact. What is certain is that its unique vulnerabilities do become more pertinent with age." -- James Boyda, On Loss in the 21st Century: Digital Decay and the Archive, Introduction.
Question 4: Do you agree that after a certain time original paper documents (from 1858 onwards) may be destroyed (other than for famous individuals)? Are there any alternatives, involving the public or private sector, you can suggest to their being destroyed?
Absolutely not. And I would have hoped we were past the "great man" theory of history. Firstly, you do not know which figures will still be considered "famous" in the future and which currently obscure individuals may deserve and eventually receive greater attention. I note that of the three figures you mention here as notable enough to have their wills preserved, all are white, the majority are male (the one woman having achieved fame through marriage) and all were wealthy at the time of their death. Any such approach will certainly cull evidence of the lives of women, people of colour and the poor from the historical record, and send a clear message about whose lives you consider worth remembering.
Secondly, the famous and successsful are only a small part of our history. Understanding the realities that shaped our past and continue to mould our present requires evidence of the lives of so-called "ordinary people"!
Did you even speak to any historians before coming up with this idea?
Entrusting the documents to the private sector would be similarly disastrous. What happens when a private company goes bust or decides that preserving this material is no longer profitable? What reasonable person, confronted with our crumbling privatised water infrastructure, would willingly consign any part of our heritage to a similar fate?
Question 5: Do you agree that there is equivalence between paper and digital copies of wills so that the ECA 2000 can be used?
No. And it raises serious questions about the skill and knowledge base within HMCTS and the government that the very basic concepts of data loss and the digital dark age appear to be unknown to you. I also refer you to the Domesday Project.
Question 6: Are there any other matters directly related to the retention of digital or paper wills that are not covered by the proposed exercise of the powers in the ECA 2000 that you consider are necessary?
Destroying the physical documents will always be an unforgivable dereliction of legal and moral duty.
Question 7: If the Government pursues preserving permanently only a digital copy of a will document, should it seek to reform the primary legislation by introducing a Bill or do so under the ECA 2000?
Destroying the physical documents will always be an unforgivable dereliction of legal and moral duty.
Question 8: If the Government moves to digital only copies of original will documents, what do you think the retention period for the original paper wills should be? Please give reasons and state what you believe the minimum retention period should be and whether you consider the Government’s suggestion of 25 years to be reasonable.
There is no good version of this plan. The physical documents should be preserved.
Question 9: Do you agree with the principle that wills of famous people should be preserved in the original paper form for historic interest?
This question betrays deep ignorance of what "historic interest" actually is. The study of history is not simply glorified celebrity gossip. If anything, the physical wills of currently famous people could be considered more expendable as it is likely that their contents are so widely diffused as to be relatively "safe", whereas the wills of so-called "ordinary people" will, especially in aggregate, provide insights that have not yet been explored.
Question 10: Do you have any initial suggestions on the criteria which should be adopted for identifying famous/historic figures whose original paper will document should be preserved permanently?
Abandon this entire lamentable plan. As previously discussed, you do not and cannot know who will be considered "famous" in the future, and fame is a profoundly flawed criterion of historical significance.
Question 11: Do you agree that the Probate Registries should only permanently retain wills and codicils from the documents submitted in support of a probate application? Please explain, if setting out the case for retention of any other documents.
No, all the documents should be preserved indefinitely.
Question 12: Do you agree that we have correctly identified the range and extent of the equalities impacts under each of these proposals set out in this consultation? Please give reasons and supply evidence of further equalities impacts as appropriate.
No. You appear to have neglected equalities impacts entirely. As discussed, in your drive to prioritise "famous people", your plan will certainly prioritise the white, wealthy and mostly the male, as your "Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and Princess Diana" examples amply indicate. This plan will create a two-tier system where evidence of the lives of the privileged is carefully preserved while information regarding people of colour, women, the working class and other disadvantaged groups is disproportionately abandoned to digital decay and eventual loss. Current and future historians from, or specialising in the history of minority groups will be especially impoverished by this.
Disabled people deserve to fall in love. Disabled people should be able to marry without repercussions, without losing anything. It's almost 2023 and why is this still a hot take.
Everyone being so mean to Jean here when maybe they both know how to cook but in different methods and Jean doesn’t want her Christmas dinner to burn her taste buds off (he IMMEDIATELY went for the cayenne). Also come on, coming in and lecturing someone who’s been slaving over food and trying to alter their recipe without permission? RUDE
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”
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