Reading

Current Mood: rejuvenated
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition

Entry tags:

Culture and Multiculturalism

In recent days, my numerous activities have been interspersed with a few cultural events worthy of mentioning. The first was a special nineteen-part concert, "Songs of Peace and Remembrance: 80 Years On" at the Melbourne Recital Centre from the Shenyang Conservatory of Music, which was nothing short of phenomenal; the erhu solo, "Soul of the Snowy Mountain" was especially captivating. As part of a national tour, the concert was built on the theme of Chinese resistance to the invasion from the Empire of Japan, and the end of the world anti-fascist war. At the reception before the concert, the former President of the Legislative Council, Bruce Atkinson, made the insightful point that the Second World War really started in 1931, with the invasion of Manchuria.

The second event was attending the Conquest Market Day at the ever-beautiful Coburg Town Hall, staffing the RPG Review Cooperative stall's fine collection of second-hand RPG systems from members. I am very thankful for the assistance provided by Andrew D., in delivering the goods, the stunning generosity of Rade V., in providing me a copy of the "Arkham Horror RPG: Hungering Abyss", and the ever delightful opportunity to spend time in the company of Liz B., and Karl B., and, of course, the many people who visited the staff, rummaged, reminisced and explored through our often curious stock. On a related note, this Wednesday I'll be starting up a new RPG story using the ElfQuest RPG and setting, from the comics (running since 1978!) by Wendy and Richard Pini.

The third event was the University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performance at Hamer Hall, of "Four Sea Interludes" by Benjamin Britten, Debussy's "La Mer", and finally, Modest Mussorgsky', "Pictures at an Exhibition", which was the main feature of the performance unsurprising as it correlates with a superb narrative, where the movements are quite independent but flow in sequence in a manner that seems perfectly natural. Following both romantic and impressionist styles, with British, French, and Russian thematic content, the performance was provided with a great sense of competence and creativity. The cultural diversity of the orchestra and the vast audience juxtaposed quite strikingly with a handful of boorish anti-immigration protesters who threatened an attendee just before the concert started.

On that note, significant discussion has been made of the "March for Australia" anti-immigration protests that were held over the weekend. Nominally, they argue that migration in a time of housing costs and unemployment is a problem. Factually, the protests are incorrect - net migration (the metric that really matters) is quite low compared to the 20-year average, but of course facts are quite irrelevant to the violent "white nationalists" who are organising these events. Given that more than 97% of Australians come from a migrant background (and needless to say, they don't like indigenous Australians either), it should be clear that we are enriched culturally and economically by our diverse migrant populations, and we have become more capable of a moral universalism as well. The overwhelming majority understands and embraces our diversity, but we must be aware that extremists are in our country, and they are organised, and therefore, we need to be organised against them.

Code deploy happening shortly

Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Entry tags:

cats

Limbo

I feel like we've been dwelling in limbo for the last two and a half weeks. We got back from our anniversary trip to Oahu and we almost immediately had an offer of a new home for Elmer. Kimberly has been taking care of almost all the logistics (with the support of a pet moving company who services Hawaii and regularly moves pets to Europe, so we know they should be able to get him to the East Coast.) And even that is mostly settled now other than a few details: an absorbent carpet for the bottom of Elmer's new dog-crate (with Amazon already having lost one! thanks, good timing, Amazon), some stickers and a document envelope for the outside of the crate (which we're waiting on from said pet movers), and of course Elmer's final vet appointment next Friday to get his certificate of health.

But we've been stuck between the decision to rehome Elmer (and it becoming a reality) and needing to wait because our adopter has a business trip this week I think and so couldn't take Elmer until the 8th. That's been somewhat agonizing, because it means we have to confront that decision every day, and at the same time we can't really move forward.

I haven't even felt the energy to get back to the house projects I'd just gotten started on, because it feels like all the energy is going toward the hurry-up-and-wait of Elmer's situation. (But I did get some primer down on some supports for the house in the back yard this morning, where the paint had gotten scraped away over the years and so these important pillars were open to our very corrosive elements. That was part of my normal Sunday working in the yard though.)

We got Elmer's itinerary on Thursday. We have to drop him off at 4.30 in the morning a week from tomorrow. That makes it all feel the more crazy. Meeting someone in the pitch dark, down by the airport, to hand off our beloved cat. And, I mean, hopefully they're there. The cargo company actually opens at 6am, but the pet movers say they've contacted them and someone will be there at 4.30. Hopefully, probably OK, but I hate having more stressors like that.

We had thought Elmer would have an overnight layover, but he's going straight from Kauai to Boston via Oahu. Unfortunately, with about 4 hours sitting around before his 8am flight to Oahu, then a similar wait on Oahu. It'll be about 22 hours door to door. That sounds like a long miserable time for Elmer, but the pet movers say they prefer not to overnight the pets if they don't have to, because it makes the trip longer and stresses them out more. So, we bow to their experience. Hopefully Elmer will just lounge around his crate not caring most of the time.

Elmer has been so much cuter and more cuddly in the last few weeks. He's hanging out more upstairs (which unfortunately means Megara gets locked in our bedroom), and is even cuddling against Kimberly as I write. We take this as a good sign, because he should get more attention as the only cat at his new home, and clearly he's been thriving on the more attention he's gotten since we made the decision to give him up.

And I feel increasingly confident about his new home. His new owner finished setting up most or all of his supplies a week or two ago. He's got a cat tree ready to go. He's not only been cutting up cardboard boxes to make his own scratch pads, but also 3-D printed a tool to make it easier to cut the boxes! He sounds like he'll be an attentive thoughtful cat owner.

But knowing we'll probably never see Elmer again after a clandestine handoff in the dark in eight days is still tough.

Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

Mississippi legal challenge: beginning 1 September, we will need to geoblock Mississippi IPs

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase

Entry tags:

darwin,
rocknerd

Darwin Festival 2025

Darwin is not exactly known for being the cultural centre of Australia, but it does its best during its Festival and Fringe Festival. It's a particularly good time to visit in the dry season, where every day is 30 degrees, blue skies and a cool morning breeze, especially as a break from Melbourne's wintery touch (which I also love). The past several days have been in the fine company of Lara and Adam at MrBlueSky, where I also had the delight of catching up with Gary, Mon, Jac, and Shu on different occasions, and every evening there was an opportunity to soak up some fine entertainment.

A personal highlight was "John Schumann & The Vagabond Crew" performing the songs of Redgum. It's not my usual style of music, but they are the most notable radical Australian folk band that has ever walked in the country, and the musicianship was utterly superb. I felt like a teenager getting John to sign my copy of "If You Don't Fight You Lose", but I justified it on the grounds that I have been listening to this album since my teenage years; this will be a Rocknerd review. Another event also worthy of special note was "Duck Pond", a fusion of acrobatics, ballet, and theatre and a fusion story of Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling. Understandably, I couldn't help but think of the RuneQuest scenario of the same name. Further, there is the excellent musicianship and storytelling of Fred Leone, whose self-taught upside-down southpaw guitar-playing is just a small testimony to his abilities.

Other events included a visit to the Northern Territory Art Gallery and Museum (MAGNT) which was hosting the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), the video artistry of Shundori", the impressive and moving Zhangke Jia film Caught by the Tides, and the impressive aerialist performance of "La Ronde". In contrast, I was less taken by Bangarra Dance Theatre's "Illume", mainly because it didn't provide what was said on the tin, or the Sydney alternative-improv "Party Dozen", although kudos to the young punk local support act "Tang" who had plenty of energy and style.

The time seemed to go quickly, and the view of the Darwin harbour from my co-owned apartment always gives the opportunity for reflection, consolidation of thoughts, and quiet strategic preparation for the future. It is, without a doubt, one of the finest places for a short visit, and I can certainly understand why some people feel the desire to move on a more permanent basis, although I am a long way from such considerations myself. I will, once again, take this opportunity to thank Lara and Adam for their absolutely superb hosting and care of this Southerner's visit and for showing me many highlights of their home town. Doubtless, I will return again soon.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: MrBlueSky
Current Music: Skinny Puppy, Rabies

Entry tags:

rats

Happy Birthday, Ratties!

A little less than a year ago, after receiving confirmation of a second parent when I'm travelling, I decided to reintroduce rats as "animales de companie" into my life after a hiatus of several years. Fortunately, The Happy Rattery (FB) had tracked their birthdays and, I am pleased to announce, brothers Mayday and Mayhem have celebrated their first birthday, which makes them about 30 in human years. As an example of nominative determinism, their assigned names proved to be prescient. Mayhem, the larger of the two and with an appropriate bandit mask, is gregarious and boisterous, whereas the smaller Mayday is a lot more circumspect and a little even nervous about the world. Typical of their behaviour, these little brothers have provided a great deal of joy to my life with their antics, especially their remarkable rat-engineering projects; I was very surprised when they tried to add a bag of pegs to their home construction.

Currently 3.7K kilometres away, I am very thankful to Kate R., for looking after the rats in my absence. Delightfully, she provided them a little bit of cupcake for their birthday, complete with a candle. Meanwhile, at the top-end, Lara D. has purchased some Banksy-rat decals for our apartment, MrBlueSky, which we installed this evening in honour of Mayday and Mayhem. Further, because it must be mentioned, a few days ago the Australian water rat, the Rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster) won the ABC award for Australia's under-rated animal as part of National Science Week (I give honourable mention to the marsupial mole). Common in Melbourne's waterway, I derive a great deal of delight watching rakali, especially as they swim at speed, their white-tipped tail hoisted like a flag.

My advocacy for rats can now be measured in decades, and I like to think this has had some effect on their reputation and welfare. There is an excellent essay from Aeon ("Rats are Us") which highly the juxtaposition between the rat and animal welfare laws (essentially non-existent in the United States, it can be harrowing reading) and the scientific evidence that I have raised many times over the decades; they are social animals with communication, they are capable of past memories and future prediction, they are dreamers, they have a highly developed sense of empathy (even for strangers), they love to play, they like to learn (even driving rat-sized cars). With their sentience ("sentus", to feel) certain, and their sapience ("to know") evident, what of their consciousness ("shared knowledge")? The rat is us.