Kill the Messenger: What SOPA and PIPA Really Stand For...

The controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA for short) Has actually been rejected by President Barack Obama (yet another reason to like him).  The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) I'm not sure about, but the two are frequently mentioned in the same breath.  If these bills are passed in the United States, that's basically the end of youtube : SOPA explicity states that streaming of content will be penalized by 5 years in prison.  Also, any allegedly "infringing" site will be blocked from search engines (just what criterion are applied to consider a site "infringing" is kept quite vague).  Harvard constitutional law Professor Laurence H. Tribe went as far as to say that passing of SOPA and PIPA would violate the first amendment.

Look, I'm all for protecting of copyrights and all... but this "Intellectual Property" thing is a little subjective for it to have a law attached to it.  For example, if you were to use a sentence that sounded a lot like one I had used (say in this blog) I could claim that you infringed upon my intellectual property.  And I would be right, regardless of whether you knew what you were doing or not.

The thing is, everything you read, hear, learn, etc. changes the way you think in some manner.  Our personal intellect is the sum of everything we have experienced.  Our views on... well, everything are influenced by our experiences; we form opinions based on the arguments of others.  There's a term for this: an informed opinion.    How should I be aware that I'm using a sentence structure that's vaguely similar to that used by Robert Jordan (one of my favourite authors by the way)?  It's entirely possible that I am, but did I steal his writing style?  Certainly not consciously.

People like to bring up the "slippery slope" argument to avoid changing things.  Where do we draw the line?  It applies to this too.  If a site (like wikipedia or youtube) is unable to post the content of other's works (they still give credit to the original source, by the way) where does it end?  I just used the letter "d", is that the intellectual property of Webster's Dictionary?  What about the name "Webster's Dictionary"?  Am I infringing on their rights by putting that here on my blog?  What about something slightly less stupid?  How about the name of a character from a book.  Let's take the name Harry Potter.  What if someone somewhere names their main character for their new book "Harry".  Is that infringing on J.K. Rowling's works?  What if they use the last name "Potter" for another character?  Better lock 'em up.

To my readers in the USA (Yes, I am aware you exist!) if any of you happen to belong to Congress BLOCK THIS STUPID LEGISLATION!!!!  And if you're not in Congress, sign a petition or something.  The Super Obnoxious Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Paranoid Intellectual Protection Act (PIPA) must be stopped!

Maybe they'll lock me up for my super creative acronyms.

A friend of mine drew my attention to this one.

Guess where I got the info for this.  That's right, WIKI-fricking-PEDIA!!!!

You Can't Handle the Stupid: The Greatest Prank Ever Pulled

The 2012 "Prediction"

People have long been fascinated by the Mayan calendar. And for good reason, I suppose. It's extremely accurate, not requiring the 1 day adjustment (leap year) every 4 years that ours does. Because of this, people assume that the Maya had some kind of mystical power, or foresight (I've even heard of some theories involving extra-terrestrial influence). Because, how could people who lived that long ago be that clever? We've come a long way. They didn't even have computers! Well, 4000 years is absolutely nothing in evolutionary terms. People back then were just as smart as we are.

The Birth of a Ridiculously Complicated Timepiece [1]

The Maya were astronomers. They payed a lot of attention to cosmic events, and planned their own rituals accordingly. Of course, it was only a matter of time before they combined all these events into some sort of time measurement, which would predict events (such as eclipses) without the need to make complicated calculations. They also needed some manner to keep track of time over long periods (because, of course, their mighty culture had existed since the beginning of time, hadn't it?) Thus, their priests (who basically amounted to astrologers) came up with a calendar to chart the sky. They used a base 20 system for some reason (some astrological event no doubt, knowing them). The calendar consisted of several measurements of different lengths (or "cycles"), most of which conformed to the base 20. The cycles are the kin (day), the uinal (month), the tun (year), the katun, the baktun, and the Long Count. There are 20 kins in a month, 18 uinals in a tun, 20 tuns in a katun, 20 katuns in a baktun (almost 400 years if you're attempting to keep count), and 13 baktuns in a Long Count.  The baktuns were cycles associated with the levels of the Mayan heaven.

But of course, they needed to start the calendar somewhere. So instead of starting it, quite logically, on the day it was made, they decided to set the start date at some partially random point in the past (it corresponds to August 11, 3114 BCE). I say partially random because the date (August 11) isn't precisely random, being the day of Passover in Mesoamerica at that time. The year, however, is completely 100% arbitrary. In fact, it's about 200 years before the Maya even existed as a culture. It is believed that this was done to show the greatness of the King and his family, saying that they had led the people for all that time or some such egotistical thing. Now, it's completely coincidental that the Long Count which "started" August 11, 3114 BCE ends on December 21, 2012 CE. After that, the next Long Count begins, and the cycle starts anew.  So no, the calendar doesn't END on December 21, 2012 CE.  Jeeze.

The Catastrophe Myth [1]

But of course that couldn't be the end of it. There would have to be something mystical about the turnover of a Long Count, wouldn't there? Otherwise it would be boring. So, the Maya created the legend that each Long Count was preceded by a great catastrophe. The last one was a big, world-wide flood. How they could possibly know that (assuming it's true, which it isn't) is beyond me. So what happens on December 21? The Maya are strangely silent about that.

The last page of the Dresden Codex depicts
a sky caiman barfing water onto the land

The Best Pranksters Ever Didn't Even Realize the Great Trick They Pulled On Us

It's a shame really. If they were anything like me, knowing they had just created the means for illiciting mass panic in 3000 years (or so) would have given them a kick.

Remember that the Maya couldn't even foresee their own destruction at the hands of the Conquistadors. They really didn't see that coming, did they? Whoo boy. We don't need some ancient, doomed culture to predict our downfall, anyway. We're doing a fine job of destroying ourselves on our own, thank you very much.

[1]: Much of the specific information fittingly gleaned from a magazine called "The Maya" (from the editors of Archaeology)