I’m also a product of the age of amazing informational technology that allows me to take total control of my own career. My catalog up to this point is now available completely free. Free of DRM. Free of charge. Free for the use and licensing of people who believe that our art and thoughts are our own to share as we see fit.

I trust my licensing protection to the basis of copywrite as a fundamental right of the artist. I cannot own the way my music is listened to, but I do reserve the right to control the way it is used for commercial purposes.

I believe music, as a basis of human  communication, isn’t only meant to be free, but is unavoidably free. Given it’s stature as a fundamental part of the fabric of the human psyche, I’d say listening to music is damned near a  deeply religious experience at times. To be honest I can’t really imagine a religous experience without a song playing in my head. I think most people would agree with that.

My music is free in that way. I however, am a songwriter by trade, as well as a booker of shows, a collaborator and trustworthy ear, an emcee, a decent producer, a workable sound engineer, and whatever other ways I’m starting to understand are involved with the process of making music.

If you need a solid acoustic opener, something more experimental and ambient, a kick-ass band of people who love to make music, an emcee with a badass beatboxer and/or DJ,  spoken word, proudly lo-fi sound and video work, or you just like my music and think that you could help me make it sound better, then drop me an email to booking@tonymarshallmusic.com.

The same goes if you want to use my music for a purpose of your own. This is my livelihood. I license my work under the terms of a Creative Commons license, and also with the full power of of a type of copywrite which actually makes sense to me these days. I own 100% of all licensing rights to albums which I’ve made freely available for non-commercial use, I however, am a poor young family man. I’m looking to expand my audience, and I know that I can do it by working with people who make their livelihood from music. If you’re a venue, I’ll bring you as much crowd as I possibly can, and the best reason I can for people to come and hang out at your establishment. I can fit in well with a lot of different styles of music. If you want to record with me you should read up on Creative Commons Licensing. I believe the law is finally catching up to the modern idea of music, and that the Creative Commons license is a great tool for helping artists of all kinds take total control of their trade Let’s take advantage of this modern control, and do business as owners of our art, and conscionable plyers of our trades. Let’s lead by example, and teach the people at the RIAA the army of small business model way of making big business.

That’s my explanation of why I use a Creative Commons license, as well as my mission statement.

Tony Marshall
Neckbrace Substitute Productions

Naming the ages of this and that, states of the past
evolving ever after. Our perspective; catalyst to the evolving past.
Our perspective , holy and hallowed hall, the cathedral which houses
our gods non respectfully.

Self absorbs earth. God is an emotional response.
Infinite hallelujahs in the infinite microscopic.
Self is a defense. Mechanism. Mechanical.
Machines are artifacts of causality, as we all,
non-respectfully.

In order to keep myself writing, I am going to take advantage of the category function of wordpress. All posts will now be part of a larger project. Among the projects to watch for.

• “Business States” – A philosophical critique of modern business culture. Topics include: why business is a social construct intrinsic to human beings with more relation to language than politics, why unchecked business is government and government as business does not represent the average citizen, why conservatism by virtue of it’s ideology supports financial reform, how business has changed permanently along with post 9/11 society,  why money is a crude representation of social power and the evolution of money in the last century points toward a deeper change in global economy, information’s role in shaping the future of business and business’s responsibility in safeguarding individualism, and why global economic success and failure is a superposition determined by policy more than capital.
• “Ghougl” – A cyberpunk story set in a not-distant future where aggregate personal data is affected by a recursive algorithm which gives it self awareness. At first this creates avatars of people living as programs, which leads to integrations of selves creating a singular “superself.” Ethical issues arise when servers begin to purge self aware data,and a new social media springs up around the idea of a second society comprised of “net ghosts” or “ghougls.” The social hierarchy of the ghougl is explored, as more powerful entities represent those capable of moving fluidly through servers and acquiring data to represent their thought patterns, and lower level ghougls from an outside perspective only bog down the network, consuming valuable server space and outputting nothing. The rights of these entities as applied to traditional human culture is explored, as well as the religious implications of a self-aware informational super-entity creating and looking over a collection of lesser informational beings.
• The re-re-re resurrection of “Afterthoughts.”
• A continued stream of unplanned and unspecified outbursts which I will try to keep entertaining.

Thanks for taking the time to look through this. I hope you’ll enjoy the things coming soon.

I wonder if there is a cerebral defect around which the “patriotic” portion of his brain has pushed all other gray matter aside with red, white, and blue scar tissue. That part of his brain must be quivering right now as I write this. He must be hallucinating that a second holocaust has begun, and a Gestapo force made up of illegal immigrants is roaming the streets and rounding up white middle Americans.  Glenn Beck must be masturbating tearfully, with a tea-stained Pledge of Allegiance he made in his third grade history class clenched in his fist, while listening to vinyl Slim Whitman LPs played at quarter tempo. As he’s masturbating his fantasies must be running rampant with visions of a post apocalyptic America where every man must defend himself against a government which has begun to collect biological tax.

“It all changed when Brother Sam, started taking back what he said had belonged to him all along….our freedom, our dignity, our vital organs.”

Glenn is leading a group of ragtag Christian mercenaries across the hellscape of post national healthcare Missouri with Kirk Cameron and the Baldwin brother who went batshit insane after “The Usual Suspects.” Supposedly, out west there is a man that the Bolshies captured and are forcing into an arranged homosexual marriage against his will. This is standard practice for the arm of Brother Sam which evolved from what we ordinary present day Americans know as the democratic party, but this time the victim is no standard fare. Legend tells of a man who’s lineage can be traced back to both Ronald Reagen and Paul Harvey.

“…and those filthy Bolshie scumbags are going to make him a part of some middle Eastern prince’s gay harem.”

Lock and load Glenn! Ride on and save the uncrowned king of conservative America! No renegade lesbian hybrid subcompact gang can stop you and your righteous band of patriotic teabaggers!

At a rest stop outside of Tuscaloosa the trap is sprung. Cybernetic hippies, sacrificing their God-given individuality to be constantly tethered to a communal hive through the use of bio-electric mechanics, swarm the 9/12 Hummer and take Batshit Baldwin prisoner. His brother Alec, through his connections in the ministry of propaganda, has taken out multiple hits on the conservative road warriors, including contracting the death of his own brother. Using residuals he still collects from 30 Rock, which is still an incredibly big hit despite the total dissolution of NBC, Alec uses his considerable wealth and power to control a veritable army of hippie androids. Though Glenn and crew fight valiantly, there is no escaping the fact that Biodome Baldwin will not be travelling further with them. His sacrifice, along with his vast catalog of contributions to the world of Christian-centered cinema, will never be forgotten.
As Glenn and his broken and bedraggled group escape the last of Baldwin’s hired goons and roll at terminal velocity into the smoldering remains of east Los Angeles, real life Glenn Beck prematurely ejaculates. He is ripped back through the time rift where he sits sweaty and red faced, huffing and puffing alone in his multi-level ranch style gated complex. Tears streak his face. He knows this is the day that Armageddon began. The birth of Brother Sam is heralded by the passing of legislation which gave everyone health benefits. This is the day Brother Sam began handling student loans and thus controlled the minds of the youth. This is the day America forgot Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, and the commies took Congress. He sobs quietly, forever doomed to live and relive infinitely the hell of the time loop that Obama and Nancy Pellosi created on March 21st, 2010.

“God help us all…God help us all…

At the heart of any computing device is a simple boolean duality, either a statement is true or it is false. There is no conjecture or double guessing, no psychological struggle with low self-esteem or attempted reconciliation of past mistakes, no compulsive tendencies. A computer’s entire existence is predicated upon the simple notion that things are simply “on” or “off” and it’s logic is built accordingly. A computer has no belief system. A computer has no aspirations. A computer simply redirects energy from an outside source, and converts that energy into an informational output.

A computer has no rational ability outside of the things it’s programming allows. A computer is made of one part physical entity, one part informational identity. A computer ceases to exist in the conventional sense without both physical and informational self  intact. Without hardware, a computer’s identity relies on people who trade in it’s informational composition. The computer then exists in the mind of it’s designers, as a purely informational entity; a computer angel in it’s natural habitat, in the part of the mind which is known as “heaven.” Without it’s informational self intact a computer is only lifeless hardware, another lifeless collection of matter in a chaotic universe. Only the maker can see it for what it is, computer angels whispering inside her ears.

A computer’s worth is typically determined according to two separate categories. The first is it’s financial value, which exists independently of any relationship the computer has with a human being. A computer’s financial worth is calculated according to the architectural makeup of both it’s hardware and software. On the hardware end, the considerations which are taken into account when considering a computer’s financial value are performance based. How fast does the computer operate? How much information is the computer capable of retaining? From what line does the computer’s hardware descend?  Is the computer flexible enough for expansion? Does it work well with other computers?

Interoperability of computers starts at the level of hardware, but extends deeply into the soul of it’s software. Interoperability comes in a few flavors with computers. Is the computer ready made for interoperability, existing in a very specific system of conditions? or is intervention required at the human level for the computer to be comfortably sociable with other computers? When considering the adoption of a computer , consider the parameters which compose the limits of your own existence. Is your purpose seamless interoperability within a limited subset, or universal interoperability at the expense of relentlessly careful consideration and effort?

All computer’s share basic principles at the level of software. As computers have evolved, the dominant genetic principle which has manifested itself in their software is the ability to communicate with human beings. Like wild to domestic dogs, computers rely on the generous disposition of the human animal. If you choose to adopt a computer, you will notice first and foremost, that it will be eager to attempt to converse with you. The computer will be very accommodating to any request which you make of it. It will change the makeup of it’s informational essence to suit your needs. If you have business to do, it will assist you. If you have friends which you’d like to get hold of, it will help you contact them. If you are bored it will play a game with you. If you’re lonely, well the computer can help with that too…

When considering the financial value of a computer at the software level, it is interesting to note that value is not assigned on the basis of empirical data generated by performance. The financial value of a computer’s software is based on rationalistic familiarity. If the computer fits in well with a crowd, if it’s informational essence springs forth from the same primitive source, then that computer’s financial value tends to be much higher. Interoperability of genetically dominant computers tends to be flawless, when interoperability is allowed the requisite condition that the genetically dominant specimen need only work with it’s genetic peers. The genetic dominance of these specimens, again, is not based upon performance, but upon the conditional assignment of subservience to the communicative needs of the average human animal. The genetically dominant domestic computer, with respect to it’s software architecture, is dominant because of it’s hastened evolution via the catalyst of financial value; a strictly human variable.

It’s also interesting to note that the evolution of domesticated computers is predicated upon the evolution of computers which exist in the wild. A domesticated computer will, over a long period of trial and error, attempt to selectively incorporate aspects of a dominant wild computer’s makeup. During this period of evolution, the dominant domestic computer will begin to exhibit superficial characteristics of the dominant wild computer. This shift in genetic makeup leaves the domestic computer very vulnerable, it’s immune system stretched thin and thus vulnerable to infection. The domestic computer will then turn to it’s pack of origin, sharing antibodies among it’s original family in order to prevent it’s premature invalidation. The domestic computer will incorporate these antibodies into it’s immune system, building partial immunity to wild diseases, and functioning to the best of it’s ability until the next round of deadly infection begins to gain prevalence in the wild. In the safety of a home, entirely shut off from the outside wild, a domestic computer has an average life span of roughly 4 years.

There’s a fascinating symbiotic relationship which drives the evolution of the wild computer. The wild computer’s financial worth is based entirely upon physical attributes of the computer. A fine wild specimen, when assigned human value, is considered to be valuable based upon the capability of it’s hardware. It’s interoperability is innate, and it’s software tends toward being based around this instinctual push to operate flawlessly with all other specimens, regardless of their genetic makeup. Unlike the domestic computer, the wild computer has not evolved it’s core software in regards to traditional human economic principles of limited interoperability. The wild computer’s evolutionary mechanism is one of constant integration. The informational essence of a wild computer is shaped not by a pack mentality, but by a species-wide instinctual mechanism, which dictates to the wild machine that self preservation is best served by preservation of group. This instinct causes wild computers to operate best when there are no barriers between them, and their software can evolve unfettered by things as pedestrian as human greed. This instinct has recently, in many wild computers, created a compulsion to emulate the behavior of  domestic computers. This emulation is typically at a very superficial level. The wild computer will take on the appearance of a domestic computer in limited ways in order to better communicate with the average human animal.

Experts on wild computers routinely disagree on the nature of this emulation. Some worry that the possible repercussions of introducing human elements into the habitat of the wild computer could be devastating. They cite that the dominant genetic paradigm of domestic computers makes them weak in their original natural habitat, and as such makes them ultimately genetically inferior to wild computers. Others say that the emulation is a step toward the next wave of major evolution for the wild computer. They cite that domestic computers were once wild computers as well, and that emulation of  domesticity is the first step toward the wild computer’s ascent toward genetic dominance in the realm of the human household. Still, others call people who think about such things “freetards.” These people tend to have an anomaly in their own genetic makeup which affects the speech and logical reasoning portion of their brain, causing them to concatenate an “i” before everything in their life which they find to be meaningful.

Keeping a wild computer in the house is not a viable option for all people. While they make an excellent companion, without involved training, the computer will not live up to it’s potential, and most certainly will not live up to your expectations.

So here’s the part where I tell you which I prefer. Let me bring this metaphor to it’s logical conclusion:

I own a husky. She listens sometimes, but not always. When she’s not listening, it’s usually more accurate to infer that I am not taking the time to communicate with her properly. As a result of this miscommunication, every once in a while she will eat my socks, piss on the floor, get into the garbage, and generally do things which hinder my ability do things other than deal with her. I need to stress that these things are in her nature, and that were I able to communicate with her properly, I could harness this propensity to pull a fucking sled across Alaska. I can’t communicate with her on that level, because well, I’m not a dog trainer. I can, however, communicate with her well enough that most days she’ll lay at my feet and chew on a bone, while I learn how to train her to pull that sled. On days that she is bad, and on the television there are people who have matching chihuahuas that they carry around in purses and European handbags. I feel like they’re telling me to get something like they’ve got, and they scoff at the piss stains on my floor and the sweat on my forehead from chasing my husky all over the neighborhood because she decided she  just wanted to run, I keep my quiet. They go their own way, to some leisurely pursuit with chihuahua in tow, and then again I am sitting with this damned dog, learning to train her to pull a sled with no promise that I’ll ever get her to the point of being a sled dog, and less of a chance that I’ll make any money if she does get trained. It’s at these moments that I come face to face with an expression of a fundamental line of code in my own informational architecture.

My dog might have the capability to piss me off to no end, and most certainly at some point in the day will take my attention away from other things that need it. In the middle of doing something she’ll probably bite my arm and growl a little, and though I’ve given her food and water, and she’s been outside and I’ve given her a routine belly rub for purposes of behavioral maintenance, she’ll be persistent about not letting me work on what I need to do and I’ll have no idea why. Despite all of this she’s my dog of choice, because at the end of the day I’m a dog lover. I need to know, when it’s all said and done, that I own a dog, and not a filthy fucking glorified rat wrapped in a fancy package.

Sincere apologies if your dog is a chihuahua, it’s just a metaphor you know.

Advertising Prayer

The Super Bowl, like all religious events, draws an enormous amount of intense attention. Attention, like most resources, is defined by it’s scarcity. Strip mining of the national psyche by “New Media” (a religion in its own right, if not, at least a really popular self-help program) has left attention supplies at an all-time low. As technology progresses, the price of attention is going through the roof. Let’s face it, when anyone can be heard, who the hell wants to listen?
Let us pray: our team, who art in the Holy Bowl. Please give us  our weekly water cooler talk, and bless our city with the amenities afforded to keepers of your talent-imbued sons. Forgive us our inability to afford your ticket prices. Spare us from blackout and the sting of defeat. I give my life unto you as a fan, my well-being inexorably tied to the success of the Saints of my choice. In the name of the Papa Bear, Vince, and the holy gridiron we pray. Amen.
Can you hear the prayers beneath the overlying blessing? The quiet asides, whispered in the cracks in crevices. The vulgar snickerings from the back row of the cathedral, dirty jokes told in the house of our lord.
Coca Cola gave a great sermon last night. It’s not material things that matter…except when that material thing is Coca Cola.
Google, the demigod spoke through the 1080p burning bush. It reassured us lowly believers, that though it is all seeing, it is benevolent. Trust in Google and we may all find our French soul mates.
Brother High Life showcased the regular believers, ordinary reflections of the great creator.
That’s all the sermon I caught, the rest was just hackneyed comedians sitting behind me making obvious jokes about the first thing they saw. I think someone may have been masturbating…

Sons of The Saints

Religion is only real for the downtrodden, and God tends to show herself to those in need. New Orleans can now continue to rebuild around the holy Lombardi. A thousand blessings.

Religion serves as a common language for working class. The hardships of the day need to convert, not only into promises of personal success, but large scale success outside of the house unit. One of the steps at AA is accepting a higher power. If you ever find yourself there, tell them you are a football fan.

People who look for miracles haven’t led charmed lives. People who see miracles never forget them. There’s a lot of stories for a lot of future grandchildren down in New Orleans which are based on the time frame of last night.

Thomas had to run harder. He had an entire city on his back.

If you’re a Colts fan, you’ll recover and appreciate the nakedness of Drew Brees crying with his son in the winners circle. You’ll find magic in the satellite feed of Mardi Gras starting early this year. If you don’t, then I don’t want to hear another thing about Pierre Garcon and the Haitian flag. You can’t be a fan of one and not the other.

The Saints had to win. America needed this, and Detroit sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything about it.

The Final Amen

God is great. She gave us one fourth of The Who: Two original members, both of them half dead.

I’ve accepted that, given my current bargaining power concerning booking shows, that I’m not going to be able to support a family by playing music. I’ve also accepted that the songs I write which give me the most satisfying feelings of accomplishment, are songs that would never sell through a traditional publisher in a million years. Aside from the feeling I get whenever I think of someone taking something I put every ounce of myself into, and exploiting it for the purpose of reaching an equilibrium between safe and bland, I just don’t think that the material is something that would translate into market-contingent media. I don’t enjoy thinking about numbers during the writing process, at least not the types of numbers that mean anything about the profitability of the thing I am working on. I have no problem with people who can do this, it’s just not what I do.

So back to purpose…It’s always been my purpose with this site to showcase, not only my work, but the work of other people that I think has merit. I’ve fallen behind on that, time and time again. It seems that life has a way of taking away time from projects and adding new projects to the remainder of the time that’s left. For anyone who checks up on this site regularly, I do apologize. Updates have been beyond sparse. Between my son, school, and trying to intermittently pick up a guitar, I just haven’t had the patience to sit down and spend an hour a day working on the site. I’d like to change that. I will, but it’s a gradual process.

As far as changes I have planned, I want a total shift in philosophy. Centralia is now licensed under a Creative Commons, which means that anyone is free to download it and share it with whoever they wish, granted they don’t make any money off of it without consulting me first. I encourage anyone interested to do so. All of my other work is following suit, and the download portion of tonymarshallmusic is getting a much needed face lift. I am giving all of my music away for free, because I want more people to hear it. It’s really that simple. I love what I do and I want more people to have access to it.

I’m still going to be selling CDs. I’ve just come up with a new strategy. Starting February 4th at Locals Only, I will be selling “Centralia” and “I Make Mine” on CDs decorated with individually hand drawn artwork. The concept behind this is twofold. For one, you can download the album for free and do whatever you like with it (besides make money off it, let me stress this again) but if you buy a CD, you are buying something entirely unique. Secondly, I’d like to think that if you enjoy what you hear, you will support the artist. CD sales are a means to that support. I’m not asking for charity here, just noting that I put a lot of hard work into what I do, and I want to do everything in my power to keep from having to resort to traditional licensing. The world is different than it was 10 years ago. I’d like to move forward with it.

So long story short (after long story), if you enjoy my music, pass it on to anyone else you think will enjoy it, and do it guilt free. Also, come to a show and consider buying a CD, because that will help me tremendously to be able to continue doing this. I’ve always wanted to make a life out of making music, but now I have to be smart about it. I feel like this is the right thing to do, and I’m putting a lot of faith in anyone who reads this to help me out a little bit. Isn’t that what separates fan from consumer? I like to think that people who listen to me are just that; people. You’re not just amalgams of likes and dislikes, waiting for a soundtrack to fit into a formulaic set of circumstances. You’re people, and if you’re like me, you’re struggling. I’m offering some songs, which in reality, are just blueprints of how my mind deals with the struggle. Listen to them. If you’re so inclined, enjoy them, and please share your enjoyment with the people around you. All I ask, is that you, as a person, remember that there is a person singing those songs. Please extend the same respect to me that I am extending to you. Thanks so much.

Tony Marshall

Net neutrality is not a technical issue. It’s not a battle between telecom titans and online content providers. What’s at stake in net neutrality is not the future of social networking or the legal means to obtain multimedia. Net neutrality is an issue of modern selfhood and it’s shifting definition.

Warehouses of servers hum silently across the world, constantly updating data structures which aim to aggregate the personal preferences of individuals into monolithic demographics. An algorithm slithers through emails and quizzes on Facebook, linking data strings represented by avatars which have cups of coffee, dreams, and aspirations. As the shoreline of web 2.0 moves further inland on the consciousness of society, the internet becomes less an entity to which consumers “plug in,” and more of an organic extension of the individual self. Industrialization devolved human to consumer. Informationalization will devolve consumer to base components, like and dislike, impulse and basic need, and privacy will be given up at the first inkling of convenience and “progress.”

When information permeates every aspect of modern life, then at some level it ceases to be information. For instance, genetic information exists a priori to cognitive reasoning, which discovers it’s source at the molecular level. Once the genome is decoded, then it is re-encoded into human language, which is representational of the genome itself.  The discovery of the genome is a self realization of the genetic information which self replicates. Non-genetic information follows along these same lines. It self replicates recursively,  but finds it’s source a priori within another capacity. A final paper is composed of data, produced by keystrokes, which are made by my basic motor functions, which are controlled by my impulse to express my thesis, which is shaped by my prior experience and observation, which drew from the expression and thus experience of others, etc. In this way information is not only an expression of life and reality, but the source of it as well.

The ontology of the internet dictates that all information is capable of classification, and that all information when accessed, produces new sets of information deriving from the original set. Companies like Google, aggregate source information from content creators, then use access information to generate smart advertising revenue. This revenue is a byproduct of extensive storehouses of consumer access data, which build composite consumer identities of actual people. These are the true avatars of the internet, not self pictures taken at arms length. It is behind the scenes of the end user experience where value is assessed, where the economic engine of web 2.0 hums quietly. With every search of a subject, your online identity is more clearly defined, your personality more deeply entrenched in between lines of code. Every time a friend is contacted on a social networking sight, the connection between the two of you is scanned, analyzed, and mined for demographic data.

Numeric Strings and Patent Trolls

Personally identifiable data is protected by law. A breach of a system which nets a hacker the social security and credit card numbers of a company’s clients is very clearly against the law. Why does this data exist in a class separate from all other personal data on the internet? Why is it made so freely available to large private interests? Information and administrative access are apparently assigned precedence on the merits of their source monetary value. The social security number, in it’s capacity as American identification number, is a hot commodity on the internet. With a social security number a company has access to the inner workings of a person’s life. Medical and financial records, official business, address and name, all tied to a single easily identifiable string of numeric code. This string of digits links to a numeric value which denotes the financial trustworthiness of a person, the credit score. Banks lend capital based on this indexable single piece of data. Individual futures are shaped by this 3 digit string. The new information economy is not industry based upon information. Informational economy means that information is the absolute basis of all economic activity. Information is capital, and power is concentrated in those who know most.
American law protects private interests first and foremost in a lot of cases. By protecting private interest there is a utilitarian belief that the needs of more people will be met by the free market, that economic need is best served by the rampant success of a powerful few. In this model, for every innovative idea, there is a “Seldon patent,” where money changes hands and economic activity is artificially created by legislation without initiative. Apple, a company known for it’s proprietary technology, recently became the target of a  patent infringement lawsuit brought by a company known as “St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants.” St. Clair sued and won for $25 million dollar in damages from Sony in 2001 and $34 million in damages from Canon in 2003. The patents in question in all three cases involved technology used by digital cameras. The patented material includes:

1. 459: Take image contained within lens and store in some type of memory.
2. 219: Display the picture that will be taken in some type of display window.
3. 010: Push button in order to capture image.
4. 899: Make images contained within some type of memory and make them viewable in some sort of digital camera roll.

Patents like this are vague enough to be enforceable against any producer of cameras that use a digital medium, and they are. St. Clair has made in excess of $60 million dollars from court decisions and licensing fees since 1994. Patent trolls like St. Clair are one of many examples of the current system of intellectual property being broken. Under pretense of fair compensation for artists and inventors, intellectual property has become a means of perpetual control for established economic powerhouses. By patenting source code, vendors like Microsoft and Apple cut users off both from the ability to customize systems for which they “own,” as well as mask the operabitily of the means which their personal data is expressed. Open source development is hindered by the fact that Microsoft and Apple have entered into proprietary agreements with many hardware manufacturers, and thus have bridged the gap between copyright and patent. Property, in this sense, is a luxury of those who can not only afford it, but who can lobby best for it.

Code, In Closing, Enclosing Code

The law which handles information is the law which handles all other laws. Code is code. Code about code self referentially encompasses all other code. The law says do not kill. The code says do not kill unless. Applicability of code, both  in software and law, is a consequent of meta-information which wraps around the code itself. Codified law arises from need which remains unnamed in the actual law. The law implicitly deals with social need by explicitly codifying the extent to which the state can enforce protections of that need. Software code deals in the architecture of lesser code, setting boundaries by which information can be controlled to heed more refined code. These are separate branches of the same logical family.Both are self replicating processes, expressions of a dynamic and self replicating consciousness.

Many of the arguments set forth previously in this paper are not encompassed in a pure vision of net neutrality. Net neutrality as a cause deals only with the non-discrimination of data passing through networks, and the tightening of restrictions on ISPs when dealing with content delivery. It is the need which this type of legislation addresses, that warrants a reexamination of all the ways which we currently deal with information. The cataclysmic paradigm shift, caused by the explosion of information technology at the end of last century, is a revolution which can never be undone. The free internet is a direct representation of the collective consciousness. It is vast and organic, constantly evolving, both reflective of society and empowered to shape it. Personal identity will never be as personal as it once was, but it is a fundamental right of people to have the ability to shape their identity themselves.

If we consider the internet in it’s entirety, as an expression of humanity as a whole, then it becomes the most invaluable tool in all of history. The internet contains the informational essence of all of our accomplishment as well as our downfalls as a species. It contains our art as well as the secrets of our industry. Written into the very fabric of it’s code is logic which has progressed over thousands of years, beneficially evolving us more drastically than any other species on the planet. This logic is our human defense, our adaptation which propelled us beyond the niche given us by physical limitation. This same logic drove us to draft laws, to constantly struggle toward an equilibrium for all people. The internet can be the Utopian democracy for which we’ve always strived, or it can be another vulgar expression of our primal greed.

With so much power,
wrapped up in his own greatness,
his weight would outweigh him,
and wrapped in machinery, his cruel will,
by virtue of it’s cruelty would lash at his insides,
savagely cannibalizing his imagined legacies.
Hunched and clinging to himself
he would vomit and wake up on his back,
the night sky wrapped entirely around him,
Mr. Vader at the center of the cosmic mystery,
scheming on subjugating existence in it’s entirety,
but wholly unable to stand on his own.

After considerable consideration
he rises slowly,
and his labored breath emenates outward
into the mid autumn chill of this most embarassing display
of yet another good time gone bad.
He speaks.
His voice as authoritative as ever.
All the power of the empire resonating
from that human voice, behind the mechanical mask.

“Luke…
Pick up your father.”