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Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction for 2014 Is Viral and All Wrong

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Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction for 2014 Is Viral and All Wrong

The TLC Posse Are on a Road Trip Through the Rust Belt

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New Year’s celebrations and hangovers aside, the 1st of January is kind of a big deal all over the world. In Mexico—as we recently reported—it marks the beginning of the Zapatista Rebellion in the highlands of Chiapas. In Afghanistan it’s a buttload of people’s birthdays because they’re not really the best at keeping records. And here in North America, it’s the day that NAFTA came into existence.

Okay fine, maybe nobody’s setting off huge firework displays at their annual Free Trade BBQ Bender, but the historic North American Free Trade Agreement that eliminated economic and trade barriers between the US, Canada, and Mexico certainly changed the socio-political landscape of each country, and to a lesser extent, the world. Whether it was for better or worse is still being debated.

Nevertheless, while this may not be a cause to celebrate for a lot of people, for photographic trio the TLC Posse it’s the impetus for their latest project: a road trip through The Rust Belt.

The TLC Posse is a trio of talented photographers made up of Brett Gundlock, Mauricio Palos, and Dominic Bracco. Their goal is to document their travel through the postindustrial region straddling the Northeastern and the East North Central States and Provinces, formerly known as the Steel Belt, but due to a three-decade decline in industry, is now aptly dubbed The Rust Belt.

Brett sent us the above selection from the TLC Posse’s body of work and we chatted about his crew’s epic and possibly dangerous road trip.

VICE: How did the TLC Posse start?
Brett: I met Mauricio Palos on my first trip to Mexico last spring. He was living in Mexico City and we had a mutual friend. Palos let me stay at his place, which at that time was a huge help. I didn’t know much about Mexico and knew even less Spanish. He toured me around, took me to his mother’s house, his cousin's wedding, and through too many other off-the-record stories.

I also met Dominic Bracco II on that trip, he lives in Mexico City as well and I was familiar with his work on the border. We all started hanging out, talking about work, the world—life. We were all in similar places with our work and sharing ideas was, and still is, really good for all of us.

We started talking about doing some sort of group project together. At first we were thinking about starting a Mariachi cover band and doing some sort of crazy road trip. Half jokingly, but the intention was there. After some more thought we decided to start the TLC Posse project and document the 19th year of the NAFTA treaty. TLC stands for Tratado de Libre Comercio [Free Trade Agreement] in Spanish.

We went to Juarez, Mexico together later that year to hang out and develop the idea a bit more. That's when Palos and I made “Legal Aliens” after I was arrested by the US Border Patrol.

We've been rocking since then.

Yeah, I read about that border arrest in a recent interview with you, it’s a good story. Tell me about this road trip.
We are going to be looking for progress. Forwards or backwards. We’re travelling through the Rust Belt of America which is the area surrounding the Great Lakes. This area was once know as the Manufacturing Belt and the Steel Belt. It was once the heart of America; today cities like Detroit, Buffalo and Flint are barely beating.

How’d you guys come up with this idea?
We're all working on long term documentary projects looking at the current state of Mexico, looking past the daily headlines to find the truth about the country's problems. We are all really interested in influencing and influences. The fact that I am Canadian, Bracco is American, and Palos is Mexican transferred perfectly to the NAFTA idea. We wanted to create a document that would comment on what we see as the priorities of our society. The next step is to create a book, an actual physical document, which is important to us as documentarians.

What are you most excited about?
This might sound lame, but working. So much pre-work goes into these types of projects, when you are actually on the ground walking around, getting into crazy situations, it can seem surreal. We are really good friends, so it'll be good to hang out and catch up. When the three of us are actually in the same room, it's a really inspiring time. We feed a lot off of each other.

What are you dreading?
My Visa bill. Like the majority of my personal work, this is self-funded. Some of the areas we'll be going to will be a little dicey. We've been hearing a lot about Flint, Michigan, which has recently been named the most dangerous city in America. I have a feeling it's similar to Detroit, where I have spent a lot of time, so I'm not too stressed.

Who do you think will get into the most trouble on the trip?
Well, I hope it won't be me, but it likely will. [Laughs]

Give me your best and worst case scenarios at the end of the trip.
I hope that we create a body of work that we are happy with and advances our ideas as artists. I don't like to plan too far in advance, for me this style of work is about interpretation. Learning as I go and translating that into photography, somehow.

And your worst case scenario?
Worst case would be getting robbed, for sure. Getting my mom's car stolen would also suck pretty bad. I think we'll all have to start working construction in order to buy new camera gear. Palos and Bracco have soft hands; I don't think they could handle a full day of physical labour.

The TLC Posse are having a fundraising raffle tonight with some pretty sweet prizes. If you'd like to support these dudes on their harrowing journey across Northeastern America, then feel free to buy a raffle ticket here

A New Year Brings New Unrest in the Central African Republic

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Video and photos by Robert King

On New Year's Eve, Central African Republic President Michel Djotodia addressed the nation.

He praised his former Seleka supporters for carrying out the successful coup in March of last year that ousted President François Bozizé and his political party, KNK. “This sacrifice that we gave is for the people of Central Africa," Djotodia said. He also accused Bozizé and his followers of staging an armed rebellion this past December in an attempt to prevent Djotodia's transitional government from succeeding. “I have no doubt these groups are supported by the dethroned president and some of his compatriots. They are responsible.”

After taking shots at his rival, Djotodia spoke directly to the people of CAR, including the more than 1 million displaced by the fighting who have sought shelter near the airport in the capital city of Bangui—the French military presence there offers some protection from the violence—and in the country's schools, churches, and mosques.

“I strongly encourage all those who fled their homes to return back home and find a normal life,” Djotodia said. He then called on people to resume working in order to avoid an economic collapse. (Two days later, the parliament building remained unoccupied, and much of the country's public sector was still shut down.)

The internally displaced persons camp near Bangui's airport now has more than 100,000 people living in it. The same day Djotodia gave his address, about 1,000 of them protested on the airport's runway, shutting down CAR's sole lifeline to the outside world. The protesters demanded that Djotodia step down and that international aid organizations increase the amount of help they're providing the country. There were reports that the French military used tear gas to clear the runway. 

On January 2, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Bangui to address French troops and show support for two soldiers who were killed last month. “You have just lost two of your comrades," he said. "I am sure it was a huge moment of sorrow... and at the beginning of this new year my first thoughts are for them. I pay homage to their courage and bravery, and show solidarity to their families and their comrades.”

Today, the only functioning institution in the country appears to be Bangui's Hotel Ledger Plaza, a five-star establishment where many ex-Seleka generals and other well-connected government officials have taken refuge from the violence.

Cry-Baby of the Week

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It's time, once again, to despair at some idiots who don't know how to handle the world:

Cry-Baby #1: The French Government

Screencap via Google Maps

The incident: Drinkers in a French bar cleared up their empty glasses once they'd finished drinking.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: The owners of the bar were charged $12,000 for "undeclared labor."

In early December a woman was drinking at the Mamm-Kounifl concert-café in Locmiquélic, France. Once she'd finished her drink, she put her empty glass on a tray and returned it to the bar. This, according to the Independent, is a "polite tradition" at the café.

But once the customer put the tray of glasses down, agents from URSSAF (a French social security agency) pounced, seizing both café owner Markya Le Floch and her husband. "They told me I had been caught using undeclared labor," she told local newspaper Le Télégramme.

Markya and her husband were placed in police custody and given a fine of €7,900 (about $11,000), which they refused to pay, and in the time since the fine that has increased to €9,000 ($12,000).

Speaking to the Independent, Markya said, “We were shocked by this and we’re certainly not going to pay the fine. This was all a mistake. What happened was completely surreal, but we’ve received a lot of support from our customers, and they also think that this situation is completely ridiculous."

The case will be go to trial at a later date.

Cry-Baby #2: Krysta James

The incident: An engaged couple disagreed over the color scheme for their wedding.

The appropriate response: Talking it out, reaching some kind of compromise.

The actual response: The bride-to-be stabbed her future husband.

On Christmas day, 34-year-old Krysta James (pictured above) was at home in Columbia, South Carolina, chatting with her fiancé about their upcoming nuptials.

According to police, Krysta and her beau had an argument over what color scheme they should use, and during the dispute the man tried to leave the house—except Krysta followed him outside and stabbed him.

He was taken to the hospital, and is expected to be OK. The police took Krysta into custody and charged her with domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature. She is currently out on a $10,000 bond.

Presumably the wedding is off.

Which of these fools is the bigger cry-baby? Let us know in this poll right here:

Previously: Cry-Baby of the Year 2013

Winner: The family who threatened to sue their neighbors unless they removed a wheelchair ramp from their home!!!

@JLCT

South Sudan Peace Talks Result In a Show of Force

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Today, after two weeks of fighting in South Sudan that is believed to have killed more than 1,000 people, representatives from both the government and rebel forces met in Ethiopia to discuss the possibility of peace. 

But back in South Sudan, the fighting continued.

Both sides hope to gain territory to strengthen their position at the bargaining table. Rebels captured the city of Bor days ago; now the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) is trying to win it back. Bor is 125 slow, painful miles from the capital city of Juba—a trip made far quicker by helicopter. And so VICE flew to the front lines with the SPLA.

This Week in Racism: An Interracial Couple Started the New Year Off with Some Racism

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Welcome to another edition of This Week in Racism. I’ll be ranking news stories on a scale of 1 to RACIST, with “1” being the least racist and “RACIST” being the most racist.

-It's a new year, which means that we are one step closer to the racial utopia envisioned on popular science fiction series, Star Trek! I know, it's very exciting! The future is going to be so cool. In addition to racial harmony and space travel, I hear that in just a few centuries, Olive Garden's "Neverending Pasta Bowl" will be a year-round menu item.

Back in the present, shit still fucking sucks. It seems that not a month goes by without an "anonymous person left a racial slur on my receipt, parking ticket, high school yearbook, etc." story popping up.

This week saw yet another accusation of note-based racism, this time from an interracial couple in Georgia who said their valet wrote the phrase, "Jungle Fever" on their ticket.

Sam and Candea Aarons had dinner at Spondivits Restaurant in East Point, Georgia—which happens to be next to a Waffle House, so it must be classy—only to find the offending valet ticket after getting home. Sam is a Seargent Major in the United States Army, and was shocked to be the target of the message. He told WSB-TV that he was "very pleased with the service," up until he got a heaping helping of prejudice. His wife, Candea, said, "I was unaware. I was unprepared and I was unaware racism is alive and well."

The valet was fired from APS Valet and the company released a statement saying, "APS does not tolerate racism of any kind whatsoever." The valet's name is unknown, but WSB-TV said that he was black. It's worth pointing out that interracial couples don't exclusively face harassment from white people. Seeing a black person and a white person together just as often upsets other black people, who sometimes see the arrangement as unseemly. Anecdotally, as the product of an interracial couple, I can say that I didn't get along with black people in school. I got teased a lot about my parents' relationship, but that could just be because my car had a bumper sticker on it that read, "I HAVE A WHITE DAD" in all-caps, and I was the only black kid who had a Sega Genesis. Don't hate the player, hate the game, y'all.

As with the Red Lobster waitress who turned out to be a giant liar, the jury is out on this story until more substantive proof of this incident's legitimacy is revealed. But, assuming this is true, trying to shame two people for being in love is pretty damned RACIST

-A teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, was suspended indefinitely for responding in the worst possible way to his black student saying he wanted to grow up to be president. Gil Voigt told his pupil that, "we do not need another black president." USA Today says that one in six students in Fairfield City School District are black, so maybe this wasn't the best place for Voigt to make his feelings known.

President Obama has never been more unpopular than right now, with his Obamacare blunders, the NSA spying revelations, and newfound interest in taking selfies at state funerals. Obama isn't my favorite president either. He's not as competent as FDR, nor is he as comically foolish and loveable as George W. Bush. I mean, sure, Iraq was a huge mistake, the financial system collapsed under his watch, and he tried to privatize Social Security, but he seems so huggable, like the Grimace or something. I wouldn't give the Grimace the keys to the American nuclear arsenal, but I sure as hell would have a beer with him.

Obama's got issues, but being black isn't on the list... unless you're some kinda bigoted asshole with no common sense. Voigt hasn't responded to requests for comment, but I'm sure he'll eventually come out and say he was just "using freedom of speech" to criticize Obama's policies. Barack Obama not being a great president isn't cause to disqualify all black people from seeking the job, especially not little kids who still think they can achieve anything if they try hard enough. RACIST


Photo via Flickr User zigazou76

-I stumbled across a headline on the UK-based Express website, "Black lollipop man accused of racism for calling colleague 'King Kong,'" and was immediately perplexed. They make black lollipops, and men sell them on the street? And why do they think they can get away with being racist? Well, apparently a "lollipop man" in England is a crossing guard, because their signs resemble lollipops. I ain't had no lollipop that says "Yield" on it. Nice try, England.

Jon Seymour, referred to as an "awarding-winning crossing guard" by the crack editorial team at the Express, has worked at Carlton Primary School in North London for 20 years. His "awarding-winning" service wasn't enough to grant him a pass when he called another black staff member "King Kong" during an argument. Seymour was suspended with pay pending an investigation into the incident. He was quoted as telling the Express, "How can a black man be racist to another black man? It doesn't make sense." You know what else doesn't make sense? Getting an award for being a crossing guard. Next, you're going to tell me they give awards to Salon.com writers. 4

The Most Racist Tweets of the Week:

 

Taji's Mahal: The Gonz Goes to Soho

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To ring in the New Year, I hit up Soho's snow-covered streets with Mark Gonzales. Whether he's on a bike or a skateboard, the Gonz shreds like no other. This week, I was privileged to shoot a video of him skating and to ask him some questions about his life. 

VICE: What's it like riding around New York City in the winter?
Mark Gonzales: It's fun. Sometimes I like it better than the humid, hot shit. It sucks when your skateboard or bike wheels sink into the ugly, black pothole-fixer junk. Slipping on the ice ain't good either.

What are your favorite places to skate?
Anywhere. In winter the park is out of the question. Well, I've never really attempted to skate in the park during winter, but I would guess it's out of the question. 

Where are your favorite places to hang out?
It depends on what I am up too, and that varies from day to day.

What skateboards have you been riding lately?
Mostly Bulldogs and Zip Zaggers. 

@RedAlurk

Sydney Leathers, the Misfit Mistress

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Sydney Leathers visiting Dr. Neal Handel for her labiaplasty. Photo courtesy of AKM-GSI.

Since Sydney Leathers got outed as Anthony Weiner’s sexting partner last summer, she's been following the playbook for women who've acquired fame via sexual intercourse. She hired D-list celebrity manager Gina Rodriguez, went on Howard Stern, got her breasts and nose done, became the spokeswoman for sugar daddy website Arrangement Finders, and starred in a Vivid Celeb porno called Sydney Leathers: Weiner and Me.

But last month, Sydney did something unexpectedly—after she filmed Weiner and Me, she visited plastic surgeon Dr. Neal Handel, had a labiaplasty, and then attempted to auction her excess labia to the highest bidder. Unfortunately for her, Sydney wasn’t able to auction her lady bits—it’s illegal to sell “body waste”—but the debacle exposed the bizarreness of her life.

Except when she performs at strip clubs, hosts nightclub events, and talks dirty on daytime talk shows (all of which counts as her “job”), Sydney barely leaves her apartment in rural Indiana. A self-proclaimed “misfit mistress,” she lives in the same apartment complex as her dad and prefers to stay at home—where she plays with her two cats, reads histories and books about politics, and talks to people online—than interact with other human beings.

“I’m one of those people who would rather sleep with ex-boyfriends than venture out,” she told me. “ I don’t sleep around a lot. I barely ever even drink. I paint a lot, and I read a lot.”

Considering that portrait of Sydney as a nerdy recluse more interested in reading than boning dudes, why did she have a shit-ton of plastic surgery and try to sell discarded parts of her labia to pervy men? To learn more about her strange world, I skyped this week with Sydney to talk about her lady parts and her past.

VICE: Why did you want a labiaplasty?
Sydney Leathers: I’m one of those people who, if I can perfect any little thing, will want to perfect it. Just since August, I’ve had my nose done, my boobs done, lypo, and then this—there’s always something I feel like I could tweak.

Did this happen because you saw your labia in the porn video?
Actually, no. It wasn’t like I saw the video and thought, Oh, my vagina is ugly. This is a really weird fact that I didn’t know until I saw the doctor: I had some asymmetry going on in my labia. When Dr. Handel did the surgery, he only had to trim one side of my labia. It was really odd. One side was perfect, and the other side wasn’t. It always bothered me, but I didn’t know the asymmetry was why.

Why did you want to auction off your excess labia?
I’m not gonna lie—if we were going to do it, and we were going to make a lot of money off of it, I wouldn’t be mad. I have no problem admitting I’m a capitalist.

Do you regret having the surgery now that you can’t sell it?
I’m still happy I did it, because it looks better. I’m so self-critical—the littlest things will drive me fucking insane. That’s why it was easy for me to deal with negative comments about my weight or my boobs before I got my boobs done. It’s easier to deal with that if you’re already thinking those things about yourself. The only thing that has ever surprised me is when people say, “I hope you die of AIDS. You deserve it.”

Now that your pussy looks hotter, are you going to do more porn?
I’m thinking about it. It was fun the first time, and I’m not getting laid right now. If the only time I can get laid is on camera, then maybe I should do more porn.

Have you always been a loner?
I’m the type that has a really tight-knit circle of friends, and other than that I don’t venture out. Not to sound pompous, but I was popular in high school but I hated it because I lived in a really small town and everything was overanalyzed and judged. Typical teenage drinking would be blown out of proportion [until it gets around] that you’re a crackhead. It wasn’t very fun for me to be social in a conservative small town.

So did you turn to the internet as a way to communicate to people?
Definitely. That’s when I started exploring my interest in politics and wanting to meet people who are passionate about what I’m passionate about. I was running little political Facebook groups and silly stuff like that—that was my daily life before the Weiner thing.

Do you feel better now that, thanks to your post-Weiner work, you’re mostly isolated from people and only communicate through the internet?
Yeah. If you’re in a little bubble, you’re safe.

Does it annoy you that men look at you for your body instead of your mind?
That’s something I’m used to, unfortunately. In a big city, I’m a four, but in a small town, I’m the pretty girl, so I’m used to being one of the people who is singled out that way. Now I’m trying to make it my own thing—I like to say Ann Coulter is my spirit animal.

Why the hell would you want to be like Ann Coulter?
It’s fun to push people’s buttons. I get off on that now. In the beginning, I was like, I want everyone to like me! Then I realized I can’t make anyone like me. If they think I’m a whore, they think I’m a whore. There’s not a lot I can do about people’s perceptions of me. I feel like fucking with people is the way for me to go right now.

You’ve accepted this role, and you’re going to go with it?
I didn’t have any other choice. At first, Gina didn’t know what to do with me. I was like, “I’m not doing a sex tape.” I was definitely against it. But the more I thought about it, people were already going to think about me as the girl who sexted Weiner. There was a level of seriousness that was gone anyways.

What did you want to do before the scandal?
I initially went to college for broadcast journalism. Then I started to take my interest in law more seriously. I was working at a law firm, I took classes to get my paralegal certificate. The Weiner thing has derailed what I thought I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer or in law firms assisting lawyers forever, but that’s definitely not going to work out.

Are you happier now?
Yeah, I am. I always say, I’ve gotten opportunities I would never have gotten before. None of that would have ever presented itself to me. I didn’t think I could handle this. That’s why I didn’t want anything to do with it at the beginning. I think that’s the best part of this. I’m actually able to take it in stride. I don’t have a big head. I’m very humble, and I don’t take myself too seriously. That’s made me happier too, because of that self-critical aspect of myself. I have room to do whatever I want at this point. What can I do that will shock and offend now?

@mitchsunderland


Jane Henderson

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All clothing vintage

PHOTOS BY PETRA COLLINS

 

 

 

 

 

How a Pro Gamer Actually Made Money from Hackers DDoSing His Server

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How a Pro Gamer Actually Made Money from Hackers DDoSing His Server

Comics: Cannibal Sativa

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“Cannibal Sativa” was originally commissioned for THE MARIJUANA CHRONICLES, an anthology published by Akashic Books. To see more of Dean's work, check out his website

I'm a Waitress, Not a Sex Worker

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Maids at the cafe via NY Maid Cafe's Facebook Page.

Japanese culture can often lend to bizarre experiences like wine spas or eating dolphins while playing with dolphins at water parks. It's no surprise that cosplay restaurants, themed dining establishments where waiters wear costumes, have been met with great success. Maid cafes are an offshoot of cosplay restaurants, where Japanese women dress up as servants and call male patrons “master” to provide an intimate experience. Tokyo created the first maid cafe in 2001, which has become the most popular representation of the category, with a clientele of hardcore gamers and anime nerds. 

Over the past decade, cosplay restaurants have expanded into a wider variety of themes like chubby cafes and butler cafes. But when New York City’s very first cosplay cafe, Maid Cafe NY, opened this past summer, it was met with a rash of uncomfortable impressions from the media. Despite the cafe's seemingly innocent intentions, it perpetuates the stereotypes surrounding the fetishization of Asian women. 

I wanted to find out what it’s like to have to deal with calling strangers “master” in the middle of drawing pictures of puppies and kittens with ketchup on egg omelettes, so I decided to visit the Chinatown establishment to spend time with one of the maids. Jamie Capdevilla-Santiago, a “maid” waitress at Maid Cafe NY, thinks that it is time for everyone to calm the fuck down about the treatment of her co-workers. She believes that even though some of her customers are convinced that she is a prostitute, the cafe is simply undergoing a cultural adjustment in the Big Apple.

Jaime Capdevilla-Santiago, above, at Maid Cafe NY.

VICE: How is this place different than a regular cafe?
Jaime: We give customers the illusion that they're royalty in their own castle and we are their maids.

So what exactly does a maid do here?
First, we say “Okaerinasaimase, goshujinsama!” when customers walk through the door, which means “Welcome home, master.We have to remember to give them treatment according to the theme. This includes taking pictures with them if they ask while posing and making hearts with our hands. We even shape the food into heart shapes, or draw dogs or cats with sauce onto the food that we serve. I personally change my walk to be bouncier and cuter. 

How do you think that your clientele receives the concept?
About 80 percent of our customers are already into Japanese culture, so they know what a maid cafe is and look for it. The other 20 percent think that it's not socially correct and wonder why girls put up with doing this on a daily basis. I know that a lot of people liken it to a strip club or something sexual, but it's not that at all. It's all about the cuteness. 

Cuteness?
If an adult woman is cute, then people usually say, “Oh, she's a whore,” or “She's just being immature. Different sides of the world have different opinions of the idea. In Japan, it's more desirable for a person—especially for a woman—to be considered cute.

How are the customers?
In the beginning, everyone was weirded out, including the people who were already into Japanese culture. Since our greetings are in Japanese, we'd shout at customers every time they opened the door to come in. They'd get startled. People used to hear that, turn around, and leave. 

Have you had any inappropriate interactions with customers?
Once, I was handing out flyers outside of the store with one of the other maids, and a guy got close to the other girl—completely violating her personal space—and said, “How much would it cost for you to go home with me?” It's bad when people think you're a prostitute, and do inappropriate things like trying to lift your skirt up.

Do you feel like some of your customers think that you are sex workers?
We write the customer's name on the receipts, so when we ask them for their name, some of them tell us to include our phone numbers or our price range. We usually explain that we're not prostitutes and that's not how it works. 

Do you get the maid treatment from your co-workers when you come in on your days off?
Oh no. They just deliver my food and say, “Here, that's it.” They don't even say hi. They're just like, “What do you want?”

Weediquette: T. Kid Goes to Denver

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It’s hard to miss the one weird guy who walks around terminal five at JFK striking up conversations with unsuspecting travelers. As I ordered a medium-awful chesseburger in the food court, I heard him ruin a family's layover behind me. “Crazy night to be traveling. You just getting in?” he asked them. “Oh, I’ve been to Detroit before. It seems nice.” When he crept up next to me to pick up his order, I could feel his eyes on me. As I blocked him from my vision, I felt the last lump of a cheeba chew dissolve into my bloodstream. I had been nibbling on it during the entire train ride to JFK and realized I had a lot left by the time I reached security—I gulped the cheeba chew down, smoked a cigarette, and forgot about it until this guy finally broke the ice. “Woah, cool pants bro,” he said. (I always second-guess myself before traveling in my evergreen camouflage sweatpants, but comfort always outweighs style at the airport.) He asked me where I was headed, and I told him Denver. “Business or pleasure?” he asked. “Well, technically, business,” I told him. At that point, he asked me, “Now, why would you be flying to Denver on New Year’s Eve? You won’t get there till well after midnight.” I was getting more and more stoned by the second, so I could only stay silent and wait for him to put the pieces together. My burger came out. I grabbed it off the counter and looked back at the guy. “Denver is gonna be pretty cool tomorrow, huh?” he said. I gave him an awkward smile and scuttled away to my gate, so I could eat before I slept through the holiday.

In case you haven't already realize, I hate New Year’s Day—at least I hate every component of its celebration. I always find some way to escape the typical festivities, and this year I had the perfect excuse—I wanted to be one of the first people to buy legal weed in America. In order to do so, I had to arrive at sunrise on January 1 at a dispensary in Denver called 3D Discreet and sign my name on a clipboard sitting by the front steps. This was the place chosen for the first legal sale of cannabis in America. While surrounded by flashing lights, boom mics, and gigantic cameras, a veteran suffering from PTSD ceremonially made the first purchase. I believe this is called a “press junk fest.”

I rolled into the press area with David Bienenstock, who was reporting on the historic weed events for VICE. He had promised me that he’d cry at some point that morning, so I was watching him more closely than the other weed pioneers proclaiming victory in front of us. He admitted that he hated junk fests, but that this one was special. Right when it looked like he was about to crack, I was suddenly struck with altitude sickness. I darted outside, where the crowd had grown in number but not in noise level. It was starting to snow and every member of the expanding New Year's Day mob was smiling and waiting patiently. I ran to the chain-link fence at the side of the building ready to barf when a wolf-sized dog charged at me from the other side of the fence. He scared the nausea right out of me and left me wondering why a canine monster was being caged at the back of a dispensary. I ran to my car and ate the one banana I had on hand. (I always buy at least one banana if there is a basket of them available at a point of purchase, which is often.)

By the time I came back around, the junk fest had turned its focus onto the line of customers snaking into the dispensary. Amazingly, they were actually following the sign-up sheet that was sitting on the steps earlier in the day. After waiting for the people in front of me to make their purchases, I became the 51st person to buy legal weed in America—and from what I saw, I was probably the first non-white guy to buy legal weed in America, and I was definitely the first brown guy to buy legal weed in the states. When I got to the front of the line, I entered a smaller room where enthusiastic dudes behind glass counters were showing people the product. (Typically, this room is reserved for one person at a time, but the first few days of recreational legalization have dispensaries looking more like stores than pharmacies.) I smelled around a little before settling on an eighth of Bubba Kush, an eighth of C4, and a couple of truffles.

As I walked out, I coincidentally heard a 50-something white woman read out the same strains to her husband, telling him what she had picked up. When she told him the purchase came out to $170, he muttered, “Shit.” By local standards, weed has actually become expensive, equaling about what you’d pay for an eighth in any northeastern city—that has been thanks to a 25 percent tax on recreational weed. I got a quarter (my legal limit from one store as an out-of-state consumer), and it cost me a $100. Maybe that’s why my friends in Colorado were not leaping up at sunrise to engage in this historic ceremony. Although a lot of locals are lining up at dispensaries all over town for recreational weed, the real heads have been buying weed with their medical cards for a few years. Although January 1 was a legal landmark for the nation, most of blazing Denver viewed it as another sunny New Year's Day.

I brought my legally purchased goods back to the Chamberlains’ pad. (The Chamberlains are my friends who are weed growers in Denver; I've been staying at their place.) My half-ounce looked paltry in comparison to the Chamberlains' mason jars full of their home-grown weed. The older Chamberlain gave me a grand tour of his office, a 500-plant grow operation complete with a high-tech extraction lab and a massive kitchen that pumps out activated treats under the label Beyond Mars—I also got to see a couple of smaller operations that were just picking up steam. Everyone has been talking about expanding, anticipating the massive demand that’s going to come from tourism. Colorado recently legalized weed, and people are already flocking to Denver. Imagine how many college stoners will inundate this city come summertime.

But for now, quiet enthusiasm is in the air. Smoking in public is still illegal, and the law forbids public places like bars and coffee shops from allowing smoking, so the only visible differences are long lines at some dispensaries. 

Today was my last full day in town and the younger Chamberlain drove me to one last dispensary called Citi-Med. It was like a crowded deli with two counters: one called REC for recreational sales and one called MED for medical sales. The difference was that the REC line had way less strains available and an eighth cost $60. Everyone in the REC line kept looking over at the MED options, and I imagined a weed riot breaking out right there in the store. Instead, every customer calmly bought their weed and walked out holding their stapled paper bag.

On the way back to REC, we stopped to buy rolling papers from a gas station. A young black dude and a frumpy middle-aged white guy worked behind the counter. “Do you guys have any hemp papers?” I asked. The young guy said, “Yeah, I know what you mean, but we don’t have those. But yeah, it’s legal now.” I said, “Hell yeah!” and asked him if he’d smoked legal weed yet. In a half second of body language, he expressed that the old guy next to him was totally not down and that he would like to keep his job. I looked at the old guy and asked him the same thing. He looked disgusted and said, “I want nothing to do with it.” I said, “That’s understandable,” although I didn't understand his perspective—he was the first guy I met in Denver that was unhappy about weed being legal. Thank you for the reality check, you sour, old bastard.

Check out my Instagram to see more photos from Denver. And shout-out to Flosstradamus for sampling Weediquette Episode One on the intro of their new mixtape

@ImYourKid

All Bad News Considered: Libertarians Created RonPaulCoin, and Oregon Let Mothers Take Their Placentas Home

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New Year's Day is a period of rebirth, where everyone magically casts aside the terrible habits they developed over the past 365 days. Perhaps this means joining a gym, trying to get that career of yours off the ground, or simply using protection every time you drunkenly stumble onto someone's genitals in the back of a bar. Although realistically whatever resolution you choose will be forgotten by the first of February, you should still definitely tell all your Facebook friends about your resolution with some life-affirming like-bait.

Yeah, all this emotional resonance reserved for the annual calendar flip-over was bullshit, but you know what wasn’t bullshit? The fact that on January 1 new laws came into effect—most importantly, the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. And what's happened so far? On the bright side, an Iraq War vet made the first purchase, but unfortunately, price gaugers have also already become the market's norm, and David Brooks took advantage of Paul Krugman having a day off to write something silly about pot—in other words, super predictable nonsense. Miraculously, all of Colorado didn't fall asleep with a half-open bag of potato chips. Way to keep it together, potheads!

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Another new law that's now officially on the books? In Oregon, mothers are now allowed to take placentas home with them from the hospital. Before the law went into effect, the rules about doggie bag placentas differed depending on the hospital. But now no matter where the delivery takes place, a new mother can take the fleshy pile of junk and bury it next to a tree to cast a protection spell for her child, mix it with kale and chia seeds in a smoothie she'll jokingly call “Baby's Bathwater,” frame it because why the fuck not, or make atrocious art with twigs and grass to signify how we're all part of nature or some shit. In any case, life's about to get a whole lot weirder in Oregon.

Screenshot of the RonPaulCoin logo.

This week, the libertarian gold standard crazies have decreed that, unlike the ongoing tragedy of the American dollar, Bitcoin is the best representation of what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they developed currency. This of course means someone had to go and develop their own version of Bitcoin and call it RonPaulCoin. The big difference between Bitcoin and RonPaulCoin? The number of bitcoins will peak at 21 million in 2140 while the new RonPaulCoin will only have a peak distribution of 2.1 million, making it extremely rare and thus much more valuable. At least, that's the plan. When was the last time a libertarian's plan actually worked? In any case, check out the “In Ron We Trust” logo on the coinage!

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On New Year's Day, 105,491 people attended a game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings at Michigan Stadium, possibly breaking the previous three-year-old record. The abacus-wielders at Guinness World Records have yet to confirm the record, but if it turns out the attendance is short of the record, it'll be broken next year. Or the year after. And then that one will broken too, and on and on, as this weird new trend of going to giant football stadiums to watch hockey—a sport, mind you, where the size of the object being fought after is literally the size of a hockey puck—continues to get people excited for half a minute before they turn over to a rerun of Seinfeld, pass out, and drift off to constant nightmares of a fat mailman trying to eat them.

@RickPaulas

Hollywood’s War on Kim Dotcom Will Hurt Online Innovation

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Kim on his giant property. Photo by Patrick McGuire.

In January 2012, the powers that be in Hollywood bagged one of their most sought-after targets with the help of their friends in the White House: Megaupload and Kim Dotcom. 76 police officers and two helicopters swarmed a private residence in Auckland, New Zealand and arrested Kim Dotcom, a man once known as “Dr. Evil” in elite Hollywood circles. To those powerful movie-making types, and now among the public at large, Kim has been positioned as a criminal pirate mastermind, and his power struggle with the old guard of the entertainment industry over alleged copyright infringement has captured global attention.

Last night, 60 Minutes profiled Kim Dotcom in a segment titled “Kim Dotcom: Hollywood’s Villain” that included such gems as Eriq Gardner from the Hollywood Reporter stating that each and every one of Megaupload’s 50 million users represented lost revenue for the entertainment industry. The segment concluded with the MPAA providing a canned statement that plainly called Kim Dotcom a thief. 60 Minutes fairly profiled Kim’s dodgy past as a computer hacker, who claimed to have once broken into NASA, but they barely discussed the various legal uses for Megaupload and services like it. Also omitted from the 60 Minutes segment was Kim’s buddy-buddy relationship with the artists he allegedly steals from, like Swizz Beatz.

Oftentimes, Kim’s wildly flamboyant lifestyle is the focal point of most conversations surrounding the Megaupload case. It’s not hard to see why, given that any search of the man’s name brings up videos of parties on yachts, hang seshes with rap illuminati like Diddy and Bun B, and sports car races as part of the Gumball Rally, a cross-continent mega-race for rich men only. All of that happened before Hollywood pushed American authorities into seizing Kim’s company and all of his funds. Today, thanks to the legal restrictions placed upon him, he is a slightly more modest man.

In case you’ve never used the internet before, Megaupload was, at one time, responsible for 4% of internet traffic. It was by far the fastest and most reliable file locker service for sending large files across the internet’s various tubes and fiber optic cables before it was seized by the USA. Megaupload was widely beloved, but ultimately it provided a far-too-easy solution for piracy—and as the old Japanese proverb goes, the nail that sticks up the most gets hammered down first.

In October 2013, I was invited to visit Kim Dotcom in Auckland. This digital entrepreneur, once living the very definition of lavish excess, is now at the center of history’s largest copyright case. Unsurprisingly, it’s drained him financially and emotionally, and he hasn’t even set foot in an American courtroom as of this writing. Kim still rents an extravagant compound that sits on 60 acres—it’s the most expensive home in New Zealand—but his dreams of purchasing it have been squashed by the draining legal battle he continues to fight.
 


Kim Dotcom: The Man Behind Mega. Our documentary about the man in question.

I arrived at the Dotcom estate with Tim Pool, another VICE staffer and the host of our short documentary. I was excited, nervous, and completely unsure about what I would see and hear during my time with Mr. Dotcom. After driving through the New Zealand countryside for about twenty minutes—gawking at strange birds and occasionally swerving into the wrong lane of traffic, thanks to our North American conditioning—we arrived at the gates of Dotcom Mansion.

As we pulled into the driveway, a security guard—who works out of a little hut on the front lawn, beside a massive “MEGA” logo that’s singed into the grass—approached our car to ensure we weren’t agents of Hollywood, then waved us past the gates. As we drove along the winding driveway towards the main house (there is an eight bedroom guesthouse on the property that’s a four-minute golf cart ride away from the primary residence) we passed a metal giraffe that towered over us from atop a nearby hill. Later, Kim told us the giraffe was left there by the previous tenants.

Arriving at Kim’s home feels like escaping into a film that’s equal parts Jurassic Park, Batman, and Pirates of Silicon Valley. For the first few minutes, Tim and I had little to say to each other besides “this is crazy” and “it feels like we’re in a movie.” Jars of candy were everywhere and a beautiful aquarium full of tropical fish served as the backsplash to Kim’s pristine kitchen. Outside, where we waited for Kim to finish a meeting, we sat at a long communal table beside a Ping-Pong table, a hedge maze, a swimming pool, and a 60” television hanging within eyeshot—one of many screens operating in the Dotcom estate. This beautiful, giraffe-friendly mega-home is where Kim and his wife Mona, who was pregnant with twins at the time, bunkered down during his arrest inside a panic room he was unable to show us because his people were widening the door.

***

January 2012 was a tough month for internet freedom. The day before the raid on Kim’s compound, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) died in the US Congress. The bill had been gaining support from massive internet companies like GoDaddy, effectively outing themselves as lapdogs of the pro-Hollywood lobby. Thankfully, the activism of people like late Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, along with service blackouts launched by Wikipedia, Reddit, and other web titans, ensured that the public’s outrage was too loud for Congress to ignore. SOPA was killed. But if it had passed, the web would currently be a much more censored space.

When Kim was taken into custody, the United States government released an indictment that painted him as a Bond villain, stacking riches from a pirate empire. According to the US government’s indictment document, $110 million passed through Megaupload’s PayPal account in the six years before its dissolution. The US claims that in 2010 alone, Kim’s company made $42,000,000 off the site.

In that same document, Kim’s lavish lifestyle is itemized in full, as the US Government listed the flashy assets it repossessed: 14 Mercedes Benzes, a Predator statue, two 108” TVs, a Rolls Royce Phantom with the license plate “GOD.” (Other cars sported plates that read “HACKER,” “STONED,” CEO,” and “MAFIA.”)

Beyond the MTV Cribs-style bounty snatched by the authorities, the indictment laid out accusations that the Megaupload staff was consciously allowing piracy to occur. For example, it claimed the tools Megaupload had in place to help copyright owners take down infringing material weren’t effective—if two people uploaded a copy of a movie, Megaupload would not duplicate the file on their server, they would create two links pointing to the same file. If the copyright owner found a link it believed to be infringing, Mega would not take the file down. They would simply remove the link. Some people saw this is an incomplete fix designed to keep copyright infringement on Megaupload alive and well.

Because of all this, when Tim and I first discussed the line of questioning we would have for Kim upon our arrival, we both agreed that underneath Kim’s flamboyance was a conscious pirate. It really did seem, based on the indictment and Kim’s over-the-top lifestyle, that he had been trying to pull one over on Hollywood for years. It didn’t help that the government had named Kim—and his associates—as part of a “Mega Conspiracy.”

Since the raid, Kim has repeatedly skirted the US government’s attempts to extradite him, thanks in part to a New Zealand court decision that declared the raid on his house illegal. He’s also had the Prime Minister of New Zealand apologize to him publicly, after Kim proved the government was illegally spying on him. Plus, Kim brazenly launched a new file-sharing resource called MEGA, which so far has not resulted in a large-scale government raid.

Because of the apparently shaky case the US has against Kim, it wasn’t completely surprising to discover—after grilling him about the accusations and evidence in the indictment—that Kim is not really the maniacal individual that he’s been painted as. This is a man who’s won the Gumball Rally twice and is one of the world’s top Call of Duty players, yet when we arrived he was so unassuming that he asked us not to film him downing a glass of milk. “They’ll all be like, ‘What, he’s drinking milk?’” he joked. “Who is he, Popeye? That’s super nerdy.”

Kim appears to have studied every nook and cranny of the allegations against him, and he often has perfectly reasonable rebuttals to many of the claims. As for the allegation that Megaupload’s copyright infringement tool—for helping movie studios and the like to pull down bootleg content—was purposely ineffective, he issued a simple defense. Imagine that two users have uploaded the same film. One is doing so to make a legal backup, the other user is doing so to illegally spread the file. Why should Megaupload take down every instance of that file, effectively punishing users that had signed onto the service for perfectly legitimate means?


Kim Dotcom in the studio. Photo by Patrick McGuire.

Tim and I were hoping Kim would take us in a helicopter with a bunch of models and champagne on ice, carpet bombing Auckland with glitter and laughing about the good times. However, most of our time was spent in a recording studio in downtown Auckland, observing Kim as he patiently crafted his upcoming German-style EDM album. Kim had flown out a team of young LA sound engineers to work on the record. They told me they had been staying in his guesthouse for weeks—and would be there for months more.

In the studio, we heard a sample of his newest track, an upbeat banger called “Live My Life.” The lyrics are what you would expect from a man whose life was torn from his hands:

"Don’t want to be criticized ‘cause my life’s unauthorized / Just wanna drive fast, leave behind the past / I create my paradise where all the nonsense is on ice / I just want to live my life (my life)"

When I asked him where the lyrics came from, he said, “That’s me! That’s how I feel. I put a lot of thought into the lyrics, and it’s the first idea I had for a song after the raid. Like, Leave me alone, what have I done to you? I’m creating these innovations that are making society better, allowing everyone to communicate better and share things, and here you are trying to destroy me.”

Kim senses the target on his back, aggravated by a perceived double standard between himself and internet freedom entrepreneurs like Sean Parker, the man who helped create Napster, a service explicitly built for music piracy. After a very public legal headache starring Lars Ulrich, Sean was slapped with a $26,000,000 settlement with the major record labels, but since then he’s gone on to help make Facebook what it is today.

When we asked Kim about Napster, he pointed to the new climate of surveillance and copyright protectionism. “It’s interesting how times have changed,” he told us, “How important copyright is today. It’s almost a matter of national security when you consider the NSA and the whole apparatus spying on me—a guy who’s an alleged pirate.”

New political climate or not, Megaupload always operated in a legal grey zone. It would be hard to imagine that Kim Dotcom, a proven visionary when it comes to internet entrepreneurialism, didn’t see this shitstorm coming. Anyone who used Megaupload knows it helped create one of the broadest piracy networks ever. Minimal advertising—even for free users—mixed with incredibly fast speeds made it a tantalizingly good platform for anyone looking to spread a film or a TV show across the internet.

That’s not to say Megaupload was the only network that trafficked heavily in pirated content. “YouTube knows. Google knows. Everybody knows that piracy is occurring on the internet. You go to any ISP like Verizon or Comcast, and you ask them: ‘Honestly, how much of your traffic do you think is piracy?’ They’ll tell you to your face, ‘Up to 50%,’" Kim said. "But the safe harbor provisions in the US law protect them from being liable to these actions of users—and for good reason. They shouldn’t be made responsible for the actions of third parties.”

These safe harbor provisions were designed to protect online businesses from the actions of their users. If a user uploads a bootleg music video to YouTube and a record label objects, YouTube isn’t liable. For some reason, these provisions did not apply to Megaupload.
 


Kim's estate. Photo by Meighan Ellis.

In “Megaupload, the Copyright Lobby, and the Future of Digital Rights: The United States vs. You (and Kim Dotcom),” a white paper drafted by Kim’s legal team, an infamous lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube takes center stage. In this particular case, Viacom was attempting to penalize YouTube for the sheer amount of copyright infringement streaming freely through their site. The trial took place in April 2013, and the court eventually ruled in favor of YouTube, stating, “no service provider could possibly be aware of the contents of each such video.” Therefore, as Viacom could not sufficiently prove anyone was consciously ignoring copyrighted material, YouTube was protected under safe harbor provisions.

The question remains: Why doesn’t Megaupload qualify for the same type of safe harbor provisions as YouTube? “It’s a question I’ve asked myself since all of this happened,” Kim told us. “If you look at it, we’re not much different from sites like YouTube or Dropbox. YouTube probably has ten times more copyright infringement on its site than Megaupload ever had in its history. It’s interesting that they picked us, a foreign company based in Hong Kong, and me, an entrepreneur who’s German and Finnish with a flamboyant lifestyle, funny license plates, and a conviction as a hacker. They picked me to be a scapegoat for copyright.”

Despite being at odds with the US Government now, in 2010 Kim complied with an information request from the Americans that led to the shutdown of a site called Ninjavideo—a pirate streaming portal that used Megaupload and Megavideo to provide its content. Kim’s compliance resulted in the imprisonment of two Ninjavideo admins including Hana Beshara, aka Queen Phara, who spent over a year in prison, owes $200,000 in fines to the MPAA, and is currently serving two years of supervised release. This resulted in a backlash from Anonymous—the same multi-headed hacktivist group that rallied behind Kim when Megaupload was first shut down—to which Kim insisted, over Twitter, that he had “no choice” because “Megaupload had to comply with warrants.”

Hana Beshara sees Kim as a snitch, who is trying to feign ignorance to Megaupload’s power as a tool of piracy, and doesn’t respect his cooperation with the US. Hana told me: “He’s slicked up his whole image... I've been the same woman since before I was imprisoned. Ultimately that's the reason we're so different. I didn't try to front like I had no idea what was going on when the shit hit the fan... Kim had a choice. I forced a no-cooperation agreement with the government, practically guaranteeing myself more jail time, so that i would never speak against my friends or my site." In short, she doesn't see him as a true advocate of copyright reform.

While it would certainly be unpleasant if Kim and Hana ever met in real life, Kim Dotcom was acting in accordance with US law when he shared information with the government he now publicly disrespects: “What they did to us never happened before,” he told us. “The US government is eager to win this case, so they seized all of our assets so we couldn’t afford a fair defense. When we asked the US court to release some of the assets, the US government argued that I’m a fugitive who must be extradited before I gain access to funds for my legal defense—which basically means they want to dehydrate me from funding to pay for my lawyers, and if I wasn’t a successful entrepreneur, they would have probably succeeded.”

Leaning on the defense that Megaupload should have the same defenses as Youtube is obviously problematic, as there is a significant difference in service between streaming a copyrighted video—like you can on YouTube today—and downloading a HD copy of that same video—like you could on Megaupload or any of the pirate networks that still exist. However, the need to transfer large files online is one that, clearly, millions of people want—and it’s one that could always be used for illegal purposes; just as the post office can always be used to mail heroin and anthrax. 

One major difference between YouTube vs. Viacom and Megaupload vs. America is that YouTube’s case was civil, whereas Megaupload’s is criminal. Kim Dotcom and his associates have been charged with money laundering and racketeering on a massive scale. No one has ever accused YouTube of such crimes. In the Megaupload indictment, there’s almost no elaboration as to why the American government charged the company with these offenses. Last week, the US finally released their 191-page summary of evidence against Kim that includes Skype chatlogs intercepted by the US government—which seemingly show how Megaupload was incentivizing uploaders of pirated content with cash. These chatlogs also detail one particular episode where Kim got mad at one of his staff for removing Megaupload links to pirated content.

I got in touch with Kim about these new revelations, and his response was plainly defiant: “I'm not worried about the 191 pages of nothingness. All they show is that there never was a criminal conspiracy. But until we get access to our data to show the real picture, it is pointless talking about it, because all I have are words. I need to show the emails and chats that will form our rebuttal and the DOJ is refusing access. Let’s hope the NZ Supreme Court comes back with a decision to give us access to our own data.”
 


Kim's souped up golf cart. Photo by Meighan Ellis.

No other file-sharing site in history has faced the type of grandiose shutdown that Megaupload did, but that doesn’t mean Hollywood’s warpath ended there. In August 2013, the MPAA prematurely announced it had won a case against Hotfile before the judge’s ruling had been made public. (Hotfile is a site that once offered a similar, but more crappy, service to Megaupload.)

Chris Dodd, the CEO of the MPAA, issued a statement about the MPAA’s legal victory: “This decision sends a clear signal that businesses like Hotfile that are built on a foundation of stolen works will be held accountable for the damage they do both to the hardworking people in the creative industries and to a secure, legitimate internet.”

While the MPAA certainly did win the case against Hotfile, another site that for whatever reason does not qualify for safe harbor provisions, US judge Kathleen Williams appeared to be very uncertain about whether or not Hotfile was deliberately set up to encourage piracy—even though it was clear Hotfile was making money from the users who were infringing copyrights, and was doing very little to discourage them from using their service. Hotfile has now been “permanently shut down.”

In addition to Hotfile, in late October 2013, a popular torrent site called isoHunt closed its doors after being slapped with a lawsuit. The site’s owner—a Canadian dude from British Columbia named Gary Fung—agreed to pay the MPAA $110 million as a result of their legal action. Once again, Chris Dodd poked his head into the public, saying the case was a “major step forward” for the copyright gatekeepers of the USA. In a statement on isoHunt (titled “Initiating Self Destruct”) Gary signed off with the Schwarzeneggerism: “I’ll be backkk.” A Terminator trailer was embedded at the bottom of the page.

It’s hard to imagine how an internet admin can return from a $110 million debt, but, never say never I suppose.
 


This is what you see on isohunt.com today. A nearly identical message has been published on Hotfile.com.

On top of all that, a “Trans-Pacific Partnership” (TPP) trade treaty is being developed between the US, Canada, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, and a few other countries. (Europe, as a whole, refused to participate.) The TPP has a chapter focusing specifically on intellectual property and the Washington Post described its proposed provisions as a “Hollywood wish list.”

For example, the US is asking all countries who sign the TPP to extend the copyright of authors to last for 70 years after their death. If passed, this would allow the gatekeepers of commercial content, like the MPAA, to keep rolling in cash long after the artist is dead. Furthermore, the TPP is looking to weaken the safe harbor provisions that protected YouTube from Viacom in the first place—and to make them an international norm outside of the US. This is a very clear example of copyright’s massive influence on American law, and how that influence is beginning to spread globally—to Kim Dotcom’s property and beyond.

Given that the raid on Kim’s compound was launched one day after SOPA died in Congress, Kim believes he was some kind of Plan B trophy for the Hollywood lobby after their anti-piracy legislation failed to pass as law: “Politically, the timing is very interesting. Right after the raid and the shutdown of Megaupload, Obama was touring Hollywood for the fundraising of his re-election campaign [Obama beat Romney 16:1 in Hollywood donations]. I think he would have had a really hard time raising that money after SOPA failed, so they needed something else.”

While in person, Kim diminished the “political timing” by calling it “very interesting,” he is, in fact, obsessed with the connections between Obama’s administration and Hollywood.

Chris Dodd is not only the head of the MPAA, he’s also a former senator, and has been described by Joe Biden as “one of his best friends in life.” The close relationship between the MPAA and the White House has been made very clear in the white paper released by Kim’s lawyers. Moreover, the white paper also refers to a particular Fox News appearance during which Chris Dodd threatened the future of Democrat funding from Hollywood, in response to the Obama administration’s fair statement that any anti-piracy legislation must protect both content creators, and the tech industry at large:

“Don’t make the assumption that because the quote ‘Hollywood community’ has been historically supportive of Democrats, which they have, don’t make the false assumption this year that because we did it in years past, we will do it this year.”

Megaupload could certainly have been sold as a suitable second-prize after SOPA’s failing, given its popularity at the time. Kim claims, however, that most of the site’s traffic was taken up by legitimate users—a claim that is impossible to verify without access to Megaupload’s internal database and a giant team of researchers.

There is, however, a recent study by Northeastern University I can point to that was able to examine 35% of Megaupload’s database of 250 million files, to check for overall copyright infringement. Those researchers found that over 10 million files on Megaupload were perfectly legal. Which means that the US government destroyed over 10 million personal files belonging to ordinary citizens, from all over the world, for absolutely no reason.

“We had 15,000 US soldiers—based in Iraq and Afghanistan—on Megaupload. They used Megaupload to stay in touch with their families. They would make these video messages, upload them to Megaupload, and then send the link by email to their families and loved ones, because the military net could not handle large attachments… This is just one of the wide range of perfectly legitimate uses that Megaupload had.”

It’s clear that the Hollywood lobby is a powerful one whose donations and influence speak loudly in Washington. In May 2013, US Attorney General Eric Holder denied that the Megaupload shutdown was an example of Washington being Hollywood’s bitch: “[The Megaupload case] was brought on the basis of facts, on the basis of law, and it is consistent with the enforcement priorities that this administration has had.”

Who sets those “enforcement priorities” is a whole other question—but it’s worth noting that while networks like Megaupload clearly antagonize the Hollywood lobby, they also don’t play ball with the US government on a security level. Last year, thanks to Edward Snowden, we learned that Google, YouTube’s parent company, has been accepting money from the NSA since 2011 to make their services compliant with the infamous mega-spy tool PRISM.

Could part of Google’s PRISM compliance deal include safe harbor provisions from copyright infringement charges? It’s certainly not the most far-fetched theory one could think of in light of 2013’s completely mind-blowing surveillance revelations.

While Kim Dotcom waits to see if he’ll be extradited, in what is certainly a move to further strengthen his wave of public support in the face of Hollywood’s massive legal resources, Kim announced in September 2013 that he would be stepping down as the chairman of MEGA to start a political party—one that’s built upon a “digital bill of rights” he has, apparently, already penned.

Ultimately, Kim’s political ambitions are inconsequential (unless he becomes the president of the USA and the head of the MPAA simultaneously) in the face of the larger problem: Hollywood’s influence over America’s legal smackdown capabilities. With business-crushing lawsuits being launched against all sorts of file-sharing sites, and their influence being crystal clear in the proposed TPP provisions (and failed acts before it, like SOPA), copyright is ostensibly the king in these disputes. Given the popularity of Megaupload and sites like it, there’s more to all of this than a love of piracy; these sites offer a better method for transmitting information than DVDs or even iTunes ever can. Great open networks are fast, easy, free, and can easily be used for legal means; but Hollywood can’t monetize them.

Whether a site like Megaupload is used to store pirated copies of the entire Fast and the Furious series or host wedding videos is up to the users, not Kim Dotcom—and yet we are living in a world where America can prosecute innovative online businesses that are not headquartered in the United States. That’s an incredibly detrimental trend for the future of a democratic, job-creating internet. As a result, it certainly seems as if keeping Hollywood old boys in Lamborghinis is more important than allowing the internet to change the world. Essentially, innovation is being stifled through extending the power of copyright by penning new laws and treaties, while suing anyone who gets in the way. That type of litigious protectionism and brash anti-innovation makes the trial of Kim Dotcom, and others like him, a very important issue that could set some unfortunate precedents for the tech industry; because regardless of its conclusion, the final verdict in Kim Dotcom’s case will have an enormous impact on the future of a free internet.   
 

@patrickmcguire


Mind-Controlled Robot Legs Will Make the First Kick of the World Cup

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Mind-Controlled Robot Legs Will Make the First Kick of the World Cup

The VICE Guide to Making 2014 Better Than 2013: How to Have Better Sex in 2014

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Photo by Coco Capitan, graphic work by Sam Taylor

This is an article about having better sex in 2014. To take you to new erotic heights, I was going to give you some practical sex advice: don’t fuck two participants in a threesome with the same condom on, a guy will almost always love it if you sit on his face, ladies don’t like cum in their hair, etc. But, to be honest, practical tips turn sex into a bizarre shopping list: If you didn't like Tip #2: "Draw a sexy bull's-eye around your nipple with rhinestones and eyelash glue” (an actual Cosmo tip), then try Tip #9: "Gently stick his penis through the hole of a glazed donut" (another REAL TIP). These tips are impractical. There is really only one tip I can give you: use your mouth.

For talking, guys. For talking. I talked to a bunch of normal people I know and asked them what happened with their dicks, pussies, and asses in 2013 and what they're going to do to make it better in 2014.

Pat, 30, is a regular human who had a good sex year: “Sex for me this year was all about learning to have sex consistently with one partner. Previously I was more of a casual sex/fuckbuddy person, but now that I have a girlfriend I had to get used to the idea of having monogamous sex with the same woman, all the time. Partner sex is less about getting drunk enough to do crazy shit and more about looking each other in the eyes and soberly telling each other what you want. In 2014 I think that trust will serve to help us explore even further our desires and sexual proclivities in a way that neither of us have had the opportunity to in the past. And by that I mean butt stuff.”

Pat also agrees with Dan Savage that queer sex is the best sex—that it’s generally more frequent and of a higher quality—because, duh, communication. “Lesbians know things, like how bullshit the concept of virginity is, and the false idea that tightness is something that one values and loses over time with use, that penetration is only necessary for short periods and oral and digital manipulation are way more important.”

LESSON: You don’t need to be gay to queer your sex life.

Amy, 26, works in television production and spent part of 2013 on a weeklong vacation in Jamaica with a professional gambler she met over Tinder. She bought both their tickets and treated her Tinder delight to a sex vacation she described as “safeventurous.” She made him send her a picture of his driver’s license “in case he should murder me,” but otherwise says it was “one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. Men take women on vacations for sex all the time. Women should do it more often. He made me come like 15 times under the Jamaican moonlight, so fuck you.”

LESSON: There are wealthy women on Tinder who want to take you to a tropical sex paradise. Find them.

Obviously not everyone’s year was a 24/7 fuckstravaganza. For every Tinder sex vacation there were a dozen friends texting me things like: “I think my vagina is going to seal itself closed. June Brown gets more action than I do,” and “RIP my dick, we hardly knew ye.” According to James, a 22-year-old student, “Something’s not been right this year. It’s been terrible. I went months without getting laid and by the time I got a girl back to my apartment I was so nervous it just… didn’t happen.”

LESSON: Sometimes sex just doesn’t happen. Not much of a lesson, but definitely a fact.

Sarah, 24, was peed on by a guy she later discovered had a girlfriend. Michael, 21, attended an actual masked orgy. And I discovered this new kind of porn that is just like, muscular women wrestling each other and they have sex at the end. Which is great.

LESSON: Everyone’s weird. Admit it, you’re weird.

A common trend among people actually getting some was a desire for sexual openness. The communication thing everyone (read: me, right now) is so into continued right into the bedroom, and then out of the bedroom and into someone else’s bedroom. Craig, 27, gave up on a long-term relationship and did a bit of classic field-playing, having a lot of sex with different partners, which he described as “nice.”

“I tried to be honest about my desire to not get serious with anyone, but sometimes stuff like that just emerges and sometimes it ends up painful on both sides of the equation, which was my biggest regret," he explained. "In 2014 I want to give an open relationship a shot, and am kind of already doing it, but it's totally theoretical right now because we're still really into boning each other. God-willing one day this year I'll wake up and be the guy with two dicks. His life sounds perfect.”

LESSON: Grow two dicks, maybe? Just kidding, be honest about your sexpectations up front to save everyone a lot of trouble down the road.

Tom, 28, isn’t looking for two dicks but decided that in the new year, one might be nice. He previously identified as straight and poly, but “in 2014 I’m going to change my OkCupid profile to bisexual. I've always been attracted to women more than men, but keep making out with dudes at parties and should make the serious step. I feel intimidated at being in my late twenties but feeling like a gawky teenager. I also started seeing a trangendered lady who is having surgery mid-summer. We have only had hot makeouts so far. This is exciting territory to explore. (She's not JUST exciting because of that).”

LESSON: A stupid risk is unprotected sex with a guy wearing a bucket hat. A smart one is allowing yourself to be vulnerable and pursuing your sexual interests, however surprised by them you may be.

So, how to have better sex in 2014? Talk more about it. And I don't mean talk more about whether or not Robin Thicke's new single is misogynist because it's literally just the sound of someone throwing some jelly at some tits, or whether or not you can be a feminist and still duet with R. Kelly, but talk more about the kind of sex you want to have, with the people you are having it with. With the internet spewing out word-garbage faster than your mom's friend Deb can share it with her 30 friends on Facebook, we're going to be surrounded by stupid social sex think-pieces (including mine) until we're in our Instagraves. Instead of wasting time wondering whether or not Beyonce's slutshaming you, just figure out what'll make you happy.

Actually, you want to make ONE SINGLE CHANGE for better sex in 2014? Stop feeling ashamed of yourself, and don’t cause shame in others. Think how unselfconscious a boner is. It’s aroused, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s going to let you know it. This year, be a boner.*

(*Don’t do anything dumb like exposing yourself on a bus. Be a metaphorical boner.)

Follow Monica on Twitter: @monicaheisey

The Worst Types of People on Music Twitter

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The Worst Types of People on Music Twitter

Rat Tail: “The Story of Oh Donna”

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All photos by Janicza Bravo featuring Nicole LaLiberté as Oh Donna. Wardrobe provided by Arron Mendoza and Ben Phen at L.A.G. Vintage, 4557 Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California, 90029

Below are the lyrics to the long-lost classic “The Story of Oh Donna,” by the completely anonymous white 80s hip-hop artist Rat Tail, whose current whereabouts are unknown. It was transcribed from a cassette tape discovered a year ago, wrapped in a ball of human hair in a garbage dump in Guadalajara, Mexico.

I had a lot of girlies since the day I was born
Lots of bitches on my dick like I was acting in porn
But the ones that you fall for make you fall
Forever shittin’ on you like a bathroom stall
They turn on the charm and make you hot like a sauna
And the hottest of them all went by the name of Oh Donna

I met Oh Donna in McDonald’s, she was eating some fries
I pulled my Oakleys down so she could check out my eyes
She giggled, then she asked if I was in a disguise
I pulled out a wad of cash and said, “No, I’m just fly”
Next me and Oh Donna were kissing and stuff
She grabbed the cash out my hand and said, “I like my sex rough
Rough and tough in the buff, I just can’t get enough”
Then she kicked me in the nuts and bitch left in a huff
This is the story of Oh Donna, so you best listen up
You fuck with the wrong girl and you get fucked up

Oh Donna just another schemin’ bitch-ass ho
Oh if these hoes were Pinocchios, their noses would grow

The next day I woke up to a knock on my door
It was Oh Donna, she was sorry for the bullshit before 
She said, “Let me make it up, let’s go out for a walk”
My cock was rock, we hit the block, and we started to talk
I said, “Yeah, what you did, yo that shit wasn’t cool
Rat Tail ain’t a punk, and I ain’t no fool
I respect myself for real, I graduated high school”
Then Oh Donna grabbed my dick and then I started to drool
She said, “Yeah, you like that when I grip your shit?”
I said, “I wanna fuck you so bad it’s making me sick
So sick it’s almost blinding where I can’t even see”
She said, “Speaking of sick, that’s what you make me”
With that she pulled a knife and held it up to my gut
She said, “I’ll cut you up from your neck to your butt”
She didn’t really cut me deep but really deep she cut
’Cause once again Oh Donna went ahead and acted the slut 

Oh Donna just another schemin’ bitch-ass ho
Oh if these hoes were Pinocchios, their noses would grow
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh, Oh Donna, Oh
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh, Oh Donna, Oh

Once again the next day Oh Donna came back around
I said, “Hit the road, Oh Donna, your lies are boggin’ me down”
“Rat Tail, I mean it this time, I’ll stop making you frown”
To prove herself, she sunk down, dug her knees in the ground
She hummed on my fly, oh me, oh my
I said, “Damn, I’m one lucky motherfucking guy”
She stood right back up and she released my bone
“Before we fuck, Rat Tail, can I use your phone?”
I said sure, I handed Oh Donna my Motorola
I bet her pussy so sweet, lip-smackin’ like Coca-Cola
But she talked and she talked, and then she talked some more
I said, “Oh Donna, please, this conversation’s a bore”
“Oh really, Rat Tail, is that really so?
Well, if I’m being such a bore then I guess I should go”
Oh Donna then split with my most prized possession
I’m a sucker for the schemers, this is Rat Tail’s confession

Oh Donna just another schemin’ bitch-ass ho
Oh if these hoes were Pinocchios, their noses would grow
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh, Oh Donna, Oh
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh Donna, Oh Donna
Oh, Oh Donna, Oh

All photos by Janicza Bravo

VICE will be publishing the lyrics to one of Rat Tail’s masterpieces for at least the next seven months. Read them all and listen to Rat Tail’s fourth long-lost track, “KevEn 11 Is My Homie.”

The VICE Guide to Making 2014 Better Than 2013: How to Make Atheism Less Awful in 2014

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Photo by Chloe Orefice, graphic work by Sam Taylor

Atheism never meant much to me growing up. The first time I ever used the word was while filling out some school form, wondering whether I should put “Church of England” when I didn’t actually believe in God. My mom, without trying to push me in any particular direction, explained that "atheist" was the option that meant not believing in a god, and so at the flick of a biro I became one of those, and didn't think much more of it for at least another decade or so.

Then 9/11 happened, at the start of my second year in college. The horror triggered a wave of condemnation of religion, leading to the rise of "New Atheism." As much publishing phenomenon as political movement, the next few years would see high-profile bestsellers by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett among others (though it was these four men who became popularly known as the Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse). With the long-term demographic shift away from religion, and public revulsion over the sort of faith-based extremism that led to terrorism, it felt like we’d reached a turning point in the never-ending battle for sanity.

Inevitably, though, things began to fray at the seams. Harris blundered into controversy over his apparent support for racial profiling; Hitchens passed away; and Dawkins joined Twitter, beginning an infuriatingendless cycle of controversy and bewilderment. Hordes of New Atheist fans began popping up on the internet and it turned out that a lot of them were angry pricks. Different fronts and factions emerged, each with their own ideas about what capital-A Atheism should mean and stand for. New Atheism has matured, and for some that means learning to hate each other in imaginative new ways.

At the start of 2014 there are four broad—and overlapping—schisms in atheism, which can be summed up as: Dicks vs. Cowards, Islamophobes vs. More Cowards, Misogynists vs. Feminists, and Americans vs. Europeans. We could also count Richard Dawkins’ Twitter Account vs. the Collective Sanity of the Internet, but that sort of falls under "all of the above."

The War on Dicks goes back a few years, but things hardened considerably in the wake of talks by Rebecca Watson and Phil Plait in 2010 and 2011, both titled “Don’t be a Dick” and making the controversial point that people generally shouldn’t be dicks. As Plait put it, how many of us changed our beliefs “because somebody screaming in your face called you an idiot, brain-damaged, and a retard?”

This caused outrage in the dick community, many of whom identify with skepticism or atheism precisely because it allows them to act like complete pricks to people; based on the popular logic that it’s acceptable to be nasty as long as you’re right. Prominent dicks retaliated by declaring non-dicks to be "pussies" or cowards, who clearly lacked the steel-spined bravery it takes to join a few dozen people leaving angry comments on an obscure Creationist blog post that a famous author just linked everyone to.

Famous dicks were swiftly dragged into the fray, with Dawkins the focus of the attention. “I get daily messages, apparently from different people but all using identically illiterate spelling: 'Your a dick.' Coordinated campaign?” he asked in February, starting his 47th Twitter explosion of the year. As we enter 2014, Dawkins is still railing against the idea that he’s a grouch, proving Suzanne Moore’s comments about "dour grumpiness" among atheists wrong by snarking about her writing ability on Twitter.

There are more subtle arguments and disagreements about tone, though. One issue is the fundamental differences between atheism in Britain and the United States, the latter of which has a habit of poaching atheists from the former with the lure of bright lights, bigger arguments, and the faint possibility of actually earning money from a writing career.

In Britain, religious institutions simply don’t matter that much. Sure, there are irritations—Bishops in the House of Lords, prayers in school, that dude with the hook for a hand—but they have limited and diminishing influence. Hymns and sinister pirates convert very few people. The Church of England, much like the monarchy it clings to, survives by being so meek and inoffensive that nobody could ever really get pissed off at it. Calls to abolish it are met by a sort of bewildered sympathy. “Those old guys? With the gay priests? Aww, really? Let's just leave them alone, they're going to evaporate soon enough."

A more militant form of atheism makes sense in many parts of the US, where fundamentalists have been able to exert influence on legislature and—depending which state you live in—"outing" yourself as an Atheist is a relatively brave move. In the UK, faced with tea-swilling vicars who don’t always “do the God thing,” the pseudo-Christian morality of social conservatives is a far greater threat to enlightenment values, and rationalists tend to be more focused on the media and political classes as a result.

Of course, that attitude can lead to complacency, a charge levelled at many left-leaning atheists by Nick Cohen, Richard Dawkins, and others, especially when talking about Islam.

Cropped image by Surian Soosay via Creative Commons

Islamists played a big part in the emergence of New Atheism to begin with. Post 9/11, Muslims became the new folk demon, and a rise in racist and xenophobic hatred was directed toward them. Far-right groups and conservative newspapers leapt on this trend, and sometimes the two even seemed to overlap.

And so, inevitably, came the backlash against the backlash, as the left became increasingly uneasy about the treatment of Britain’s Muslim minority. The term "Islamophobia," coined in the 90s, became increasingly used to describe the sort of semi-racist innuendo and baiting directed by media outlets who seemed determined to paint all Muslims as psychotic, death-dealing extremists, ready to detonate themselves at the slightest glimpse of an offensive cartoon. At the same time, left-leaning atheists became uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric coming from leading atheists—from Dawkins' apparent support for far-right figures like Geert Wilders and Pat Condell, to Sam Harris’ clumsy and misguided comments about racial profiling.

The risk here, though, as Cohen has argued, is that that the backlash to the backlash ignores the original "lash." That vulnerable people suffering at the hands of a bigoted, homophobic, and sexist religion (or just "religion," since they pretty much all fulfil those criteria at the institutional level) risk having their voices ignored in the race to be politically correct: “One day," says Cohen, "thousands who have suffered genital mutilation, religious threats, and forced marriages will turn to the intellectual and political establishments of our day and ask why they did not protect them. The pathetic and discreditable reply can only be: ‘We were too busy fighting Richard Dawkins to offer you any support at all.’”

So how do we move these issues along in 2014? Cohen is right that there’s queasiness about questioning Islam, even though he’s mistaken about the cause. It isn’t cowardice or fear that holds people back, but sympathy. The religion simply isn’t big enough in the UK to rally much interest outside of the paranoia of the far right. As a result, it's always getting assaulted by the right. And, as a consequence, maybe people don’t pay enough attention to travesties like forced marriage or female genital mutilation. That’s a problem, and it’s something we need to change, but dumb, lazy rhetoric from Dawkins, Harris, and other hardline anti-theists has impeded that progress as much as anyone else.

2014 is a year in which misogynists will continue to whine about their miserable, sexless lives, dicks will continue to behave like angry toddlers, the conversation about the correct response to Islam will continue to fester, and Dawkins will keep saying dumb things on Twitter. But for all the noise and fury around these debates and divisions, the people involved represent only a tiny proportion of atheists around the world.

The real progress is happening more quietly. The Church of England, already little more than a quaint anachronism in the minds of many voters, continues to wane. In the US, progress is slow but reasonably steady. In the West, the number of people who believe in a god continues to decline. Even activism seems to have entered a new, more mature phase—in recognition, perhaps, that poster campaigns and old trolls don’t really achieve much. The Women in Secularism conference has helped build closer ties between feminism and atheism—to the obvious terror of many woman-fearing dicks. The Rationalist Association has re-launched the 128-year-old New Humanist with an evolved editorial line and a superb lineup of writers, while their Apostasy Project—far from the madding crowds of Twitter—is quietly building links in Islamic communities and providing practical support for those leaving religion.

More than that, atheist identities seem to be evolving, subsumed by other, more positive labels. Atheism as an identity never seemed particularly comfortable to me, because it’s ultimately a name for something that I’m not. It isn’t a "thing," but the absence of a thing. I’m not an atheist any more than I’m an avegetarian, and it feels odd to be defined against a culture standard that I reject. On the other hand, I can positively identify as a humanist, or a secularist, or a liberal. I’ll always be an atheist, but the labels I chose mean more to me than those I was given.

As we move toward the end of the New Atheism era, "atheism" is becoming less of an end than a means. A new generation of atheists—people like Alom Shaha, Dan Trilling, Melody Hensley, Tom Chivers, and Rebecca Watson—are defined as much by their positive humanism, secularism, or feminism as they are by their negative godlessness. Their focus is on building new systems and advancing new philosophies rather than tearing down old ones, and they lead through example rather than evangelism or head-bashing.

There will always be room for multiple approaches—I don’t think I’d be capable of writing without being at least a *little* bit of a dick—but for those engaging in godless activism in 2014, there are far better role models than a bunch of angry men ranting about their honey on Twitter.

Follow Martin on Twitter: @mjrobbins

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