Online Piracy - is it really that bad?

Piracy, the smelly fish in the internet market
The topic of Internet Piracy tends to bring up many harsh words and criticism, often leading to separation of friends, ending of marriages, and spit ridden coffee. Even more drastic is the prosecution, imprisonment, and tarnishing of ones record. While the statistics are bright as day with proof behind the illegality of piracy, I believe there are ways that both parties, corporate and personal users can be satisfied.

The argument
Supporters of Software Piracy argue that it enhances a companies outreach, allowing more users to participate in their products, effectively introducing more users to the product. In turn, most folks will proceed with a purchase. HBO said recently that online piracy of their popular production Game of Thrones  was "a compliment that doesn't hurt sales". More impressively, a recent study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre found that piracy does not negatively affect music sales, rather it promotes and online purchase of the content. Lastly, a study by TweakGuides reveals that users who enjoy a title that features a "free-to-play" or reduced cost play model will be more likely to purchase downloadable content or upgrade accounts to a higher, more expensive tier level.

But does it matter? It is my own personal opinion that companies need to understand that folks often like things for free. Moreover, they enjoy trying things before they dig deep into their wallets and make a purchase. Companies should always offer users something for free, and know just where to stop their trial to keep customers wanting more. If prospective patrons can get a taste for an application, they're sure to make a purchase. If I can play a game to a certain level to be left with a cliffhanger, I'm sure to buy the whole game. If I absolutely love a bands demo, I'm more than likely going to buy the whole album.

Short and sweet, give customers enough proof that the product they're interested in is worth the cash. Otherwise, you just appear as a greedy corporation or band that wants to get rich.


Resources
http://bgr.com/2013/04/01/hbo-online-piracy-analysis-408449/ HBO Quote
http://www.ibtimes.com/online-piracy-does-not-negatively-affect-digital-music-sales-may-actually-help-music-industry ECJR Quote
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html Game Piracy

If the working world has changed so much, why not education yet?!

With new technology comes new ways of doing things. And with new ways of doing things comes new kinds of jobs. But if the whole United States has changed so much in this sense even within the past 50 years, then how come the educational system is almost exactly the same? Math, history, science, and the language arts are still good to know the basics of, and large amounts of knowledge of them is required for some jobs still, but many new occupations require much more than that.

This modern world is made up of business, technology, and extensive healthcare, so I propose the college degree requirements to be shrunk to include mostly just that, and for those subjects to be encouraged to be studied a lot more. Not only that, but the elementary-high school educational system should be shrunk, plus have those subjects be taught part time to those that young by experts in those fields. If we want a better economy and workforce, then we have to implicate a better educational system.

Contaminated Fish Are Everywhere!

 So I’m sure I’m not the only one who spends time at a family cabin. Despite being a mostly-vegetarian, I occasionally partake in a fish-fry with my family of fish caught off our lake. 

 

It’s a beautiful lake, no big industry or farms, just smallish cabins all around. So I assumed the fish was perfectly healthy.

I long ago gave up most meat due to how increasingly unhealthy it is due to factory farming (the moral reasons are more secondary for me). So, I occasionally eat meat when I know that it’s humanely raised and free of ridiculous antibiotics and whatnot. For instance, last year I was in Ireland where cows are raised like this and you better believe I ate a full irish breakfast.

Anyway, I know that fish is supposed to be very healthy with lots of essential fatty acids. So, I figured eating some nice “wild” fish off the lake every couple months is probably good for my health. So I was very surprised when I was writing an article at work the other day and my research suggested that pregnant women limit their intake of fish.

Now I knew that pregnant women should avoid some types of fish higher up on the food chain and probably anything factory farmed. But, on a whim I searched and found this site from the Minnesota Department of Health that says that women who are or may become pregnant shouldn't have walleye caught in Minnesota more than once a month.

Ok, this was crazy because I was sure Minnesota had some pretty clean lakes. But surely they didn't mean my lake. I mean I know we boat and ski on it but come on that's just on the surface. They probably meant lakes down in the metro area which I could totally understand.

Nope! Right here I scrolled down and found my poor lake info telling me that those crappie and sunfish I love to have at family fish-frys are contaminated with mercury.

So I guess my point is that there really is no safe place to get clean food any more. It's a sad day when even the fish you catch on lakes a hundred miles from any major city are contaminated with mercury. Don't be a fool like me and think that this sort of contamination is only near major cities and areas of the country with terrible regulation and evil corporations.

The not so distant future

Recently 3d printing hit the news with people printing high capacity ammo clips. I see 3d printing having a much larger reach than just to weirdos in Texas. The ammo clip is a great example of how our world is changing.

3d printing is like a glue gun on steroids. A plastic filament is melted and the printer lays the melted plastic down according to the computer blueprint. 3d printing can do pretty much any kind of manufacturing with plastic and some companies are working on ceramic printing.

The 3d printers are currently used for fast prototyping and small scale manufacturing. They cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars for DIY kits to tens of thousands for multi-axis printers. Most people have only heard of 3d printers and they aren't part of our daily dialog except when it is a news worthy item. I believe they will be part of our daily lives and in a big way.

Look around you and note how much of what you see is plastic. 3d printers allow you to make all of it, everything that is plastic around you. You just need the blueprint. I envision a world where we won't buy many products we currently purchase. We will buy the computer blueprint, download it and then we print the product out on our home 3d printers. And when that product breaks or it goes out of fashion, we melt it down and print out the latest greatest version.

Sound far fetched? It's already being done, the ammo clips were made on a $1500.00 3d printer and the blueprint is online for anyone to download. I don't think it'll be long of companies to grab hold of this technology and create a new business model.

I think it'll be really cool to customize everything. And not just superficially, but the entire object. Is you water bottle to big/small for you hand? Tweak the design and print a new one. Is your alarm clock taking up to much space on the nightstand? You know what to do…..

Pets and adoption

Every year 4-5 million dogs and cats are euthanized by shelters, mostly due to lack of space and the animals not being adopted.  That breaks down to 61 percent of all dogs entering shelters and 75 percent of cats entering shelter according to the Humane Society. 

As an owner of 2 cats this really hurts to see such high numbers of mostly loving animals being put to “sleep” due to people no longer wanting them along with the lack of people getting their cat or dog spayed or neutered. 

The bottom line is if you don’t want more kittens or puppies then you need to spay or neuter them if not, I hope you can find them loving homes.  But a lot of people who do take on the challenge of raising a kitten of puppy will fall in love with the cuteness of that stage and as time goes on and they grow up they suddenly are too big of a problem, people don’t have space, apartments don’t allow them, etc., etc.  They then are turned into the Humane Society where older animals have a very slim chance of being adopted and then end up being euthanized. 

Before you get a puppy or kitten please remember that they will be with you for quite a while, so please be willing to commit that much time to having them and they will add a lot of joy to your life. 

Analytical review

This article from courant.com makes an assumption that a parking lot accident will result in an extortion of money or a “shootout” if guns were involved.  This is purely just that an assumption and why if this encounter was going to turn out so violently as the author assumes it would, did the drivers of the other car not chase him down with his “deadly” car and run him off the road?  Because after all cars kill more people than guns do. 

What if the angry man had a knife would he then pull it and stabbed in anger?  If so we should ban all knives, which is the same type of argument.  He claims that people with guns kill, but if we take away guns are we not going to just find another way to kill if that is our intention?  Boston showed the use of pressure cookers, 9-11 showed airplane use, the school stabbing in Los Angeles showed that a knife can be used as well. 

This article is completely biased and assumes too much and uses “what if” statements to build an image, made up in his own head, of what would have happened if the angry driver had a gun. 

Infrastructure

All of us in Minnesota remember the collapse of the I-35 bridge collapse but are we alone in the nation, in this tragedy, or is it a bigger problem?

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 report card, they give America’s total infrastructure a rating of a D+.  Really? A D+ as a college student I would be truly disappointed if I were to receive this grade and I would truly try anything to get that score up. 

So, how about the state of just the other bridges in America?  According to suite101.com the bridges in America get a slightly better grade of C, with 26 percent of the bridges in America being considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

So this begs us to ask why in a nation as powerful as ours our infrastructure is so horrible and nothing in being done about it?  Why are we not spending more money to fix this problem? Why are we giving money to other nations when our own is in such need of repair?  I would think that I-35 would act as a wake-up call but almost 6 years after the collapse and we are still getting such poor grades. 

Suicide Prevention

http://fitsuccess.blogspot.com/2012_11_01_archive.html

In the blog above, the memory of a young woman is reflected upon and remembered.   The journey of friendship these two individuals had from the time they were young and having slumber parties until college approached them.  College didn’t separate the two or put a strain on their relationship because of the ongoing letters they wrote.  They did this same thing when they were younger and temporarily separated in a family move.  Signs were never brought to the forefront of this horrific event that would lead to a young woman taking her life.  This is an excellent blog and I admire the openness of the writer because I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it would be to talk about an issue such as this on such a public forum.  I understand that this is a blog about reflection and less on the facts of suicide, but I think to add facts about the issue would have been a great addition to the blog.   Suicide is something that has impacted my life and is something that I stay aware about within all the friends and family I surround myself.  It is difficult to know the specifics per person, but to just be aware of the surroundings is the first start.  The following link : http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org is a great starting point to become more educated about the issue.

Marijuana use=the cause of violence and ignorance of certain world issues?

In order to please Bill O'Reilly and his fans, Jesse Watters went to the Colorado Pot Convention to interview its attendees, which was shown on The O'Reilly Factor. But instead of showing viewers questions being asked that were relevant to this kind of meeting, such as why they were so passionate and grateful about marijuana becoming legal in that state that they're having a whole convention about it, the video there was mostly shown of some attendees not knowing the facts of a couple of world issues. The whole video made it seem as if this ignorance was only due to them being pot-smokers. Furthermore, the shootings near this location seemed to be contributed to the convention being about marijuana use.

As usual, The O'Reilly Factor was being biased in their conservative "values." Marijuana being illegal in all of the U.S. for almost a century, with the exception of Washington and Colorado the past few months, has given it a bad stigma towards those who do not have much experience or knowledge of it. Bill O'Reilly also seemed to confuse correlation with causation in what people smoke compared to what knowledge they have and how violent they are. I personally would reason some attendees not knowing the answers to the world news questions being asked to them being young adults, and as one myself I understand the disinterest in what's happening in the world that doesn't affect me, especially compared to those older. The shootings that were near the convention also could not be contributed to marijuana use necessarily because it was not as if everyone or even most were being violent there.

Criticism is a Dangerous Slope to Slip in the Internet World

Criticism, of the constructive type, is normally a useful - even helpful and desirable tool for improvement. As  I researched for this blog, I uncovered a dark snarky beast hiding in the folds of my mild-mannered Minnesota Hyde.

Our third blog exercise is about finding something on the Internet to criticize. I began my journey by demurely pondering a good site to criticize. With the detached objectivity of a researcher, I considered the easy prey. No, I wouldn't criticize Metro's website.

That's just too easy and I've done it before, I thought.

I turned to the news for something to criticize. Then the idea hit me. I felt the small electric charge zipping along my spine that ended with a sour feeling as I considered the name and whispered it to no one particular.

Ann Coulter.

My normal inclination when reading some news headline about the fierily conservative pundit is to shake my head in dismissal and quickly click to somewhere else. I know she's playing to her fan base. I know her rhetoric feeds the need for controversy that Those Who Inhabit that aisle along the ideological fringe desire.  It isn't any different for the opposite aisle who often spew similar, yet dissimilar rhetoric.

I'm above all this, I think, sipping from my imaginary Latte with my pinky finger sticking out.

Huffington Post

Does my hair suddenly seem just a little "wilder"? Or is it just my middle-aged imagination making up for hair loss? I google "Ann Coulter" and what I see makes me cringe.

"Ann Coulter: Bombing Suspect's Wife Should Be Jailed For Wearing Hijab"


Oh. Come. On... I think.

Surprised by the little frothy spittle on my lips, I quickly wipe it away with a napkin and sheepishly peer out of my cubicle at work.

Did I just make a grunting noise?

Alarmed at my own morbid curiosity, but helpless, I begin reading the article. Pulsing between fascination and horror, I can only get so far before I need to stop. I'm breathing a little too hard now. Are my eyes seeming a little white around the edges like a caged animal?

Blinking back the crazy, the student researcher in me re-emerges for a brief moment. I wonder about other articles and whether they might add some nice context to my blog post.

Ooh, ohh, yea. Like this one.  And I'm off to the races again.

Before I know it, I'm flashing back to a headline I saw some time ago. I recall that Coulter suggested that the daughter of a prominent politician should be murdered.

Meghan McCain goes on Twitter rant against Ann Coulter

As I read on, Ann Coulter slowly returns to just a sideline irritation. My adrenaline begins to fade and the whites around my eyes return to normal. My cube looks worse for wear; wheel marks from my chair make crazy eights in the carpet and my coffee is all gone.

I straighten my shirt, comb my hair back with my fingers, and begin to write my blog exercise without recalling what just happened.

I'm above all this, I think.

This is my blogging exercise 3

Is fishing done?

As a child growing up in Minnesota I remember summer vacation from school as a time to get outdoors and enjoy the weather by fishing.  However these days when I am out on the lake I notice less and less younger people out doing the same.

Minnesota is well known as the land of 10,000 lakes and having wonderful lakes to catch small or large size fish.  So what is the issue? Am I just fishing the wrong lakes at the wrong time or is it true that the percent of youth fishing in Minnesota is on the decline?

According to Minnesota Public Radio the evidence is yes.  In the past 15 years there has been a decline in the amount of youth obtaining fishing licenses and young adults aren’t fishing as often or taking their young children fishing. 

I know that a lot of people are too busy these days, have too much to do, and have other things that don’t allow time for fishing, and the excuses go on and on.  I say it is valuable family time that needs to be carried on as a tradition in Minnesota, allows you to relieve stress, and is a wonderful time to bond with your children. 

With over 10,000 lakes we need to carry on this wonderful gift we have been given and pass it to our kids.  Leave the phone, IPod, and other electronics at home and get out on the lakes with your children, relive part of your childhood, and ensure it is part of your child’s childhood. 

Think you're too young to have cancer?

The TL/DR sum-up:
You're not too young. Get checked.

The longer version:

A few years ago, my friend Jason threw a totally hilarious 33rd birthday party. Its theme was "Over the Top," a Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie.

Everyone was encouraged to dress the part, with truck-driver hats, plaid shirts with the sleeves ripped off, aviator glasses worn inside...

I didn't go because I had something else to do. I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I remember thinking, "I'll go next year."

I called him soon after and asked about getting together to give him his birthday present. The day we were going to hang out, he let me know he was going in to the doctor - he thought he might have kidney stones.

Later that day, I got a text from him to the effect of "****, I have cancer."

Seven weeks after he was diagnosed, he had died of colon cancer.

He had not experienced previous symptoms. He was too young for cancer screening.

Jason was an incredibly vivacious person. He was a cartographer, a photographer, an avid traveller; he'd been planning a trip to Vietnam with friends.

But suddenly, there was no 'next year.'

I certainly learned a life lesson about prioritizing events and time with friends, but that conversation is for another day.

I also learned that cancer is NOT an old person's disease.

You probably know someone young who has been affected by this as well. One of my high school classmates discovered he had testicular cancer at only 19 years old. I recently found out that a young woman in my social circle - also only 19 years old - has stage 4 colon cancer. (The link goes to a break-down of cancer stages, but think 'Oh holy **** that's really bad.')

Why, then, are people encouraged to begin screening at age 50 if they are considered to be at 'average risk'?

I don't know.

As a woman, I was expected to begin annual Pap tests as a teenager. I had no family history of cervical cancer, I was not sexually active and so the chances of finding HPV were pretty darn small, and I was, what, 16 years old? Part of that annual exam includes the health care worker palpating my breasts to check for lumps.

I mention these things because I want to point out that societally, we already accept the importance of early screening for various medical concerns, including STDs/VDs (even if the patient is not yet sexually active [yes, I do understand that sexual contact is not the only way to transmit many of those diseases]). When will we begin to expect proper screening for colorectal cancer? What other cancers or auto-immune disfunctions should we, as patients, be demanding tests for?

If you have a change in your normal health, please, please, please don't ignore it. Go in and discuss it with a health care provider. If your health care provider doesn't listen, see a different provider. You are the client, and you deserve good care in return for your money.

There are many websites devoted to information about this. Here's a good one to start with.

Please spread the word. It might save someone's life.

Wonderful. Just Wonderful. Social Media Again Embarrasses Someone in Government - but 15 at Once?

I love this photo.

Senate Hearing on Long-Term Unemployment Last Thursday

Guess the correct answer to this question: 

Where are all the lawmakers at this important Senate hearing on long-term unemployment?

1. Someone heard the Mr. Frosty ice cream truck outside.They'll be right back.
2. Someone said they saw a gen-u-ine gold dollar coin under here somewhere. It's mine I think. Pardon while we all look.
3. Nobody decided to show up.

If you chose the answer three, then - DING, DING, DING - you win!

Well, you almost win. To our credit, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was the only lawmaker who showed up on time. Granted she is the committee's vice-chair. While I really want to give her credit, the critical thinker in me wonders if she just pulled the short straw, or someone double-dared her.

It seems none of the other 18 highly paid senators - democrats and republicans alike - decided addressing long-term unemployment is important considering the wonderful state of our economy.

Niraj Chokshi's Tweet

Not until Niraj Chokshi, a smart journalist reporting for the National Journal Reporter decided to tweet the above photo, did a few senators begin to trickle in. Eventually three other Senators arrived, probably scuffing their shoes on the expensive carpet we all paid for as they sullenly made their way to cushy leather armchairs. I wonder if the guys testifying felt relieved or insulted, "Helloooo. is anyone there?"

Social media, especially Twitter, once again proves its value at exposing what before would probably have gone unseen.

Check out the National Journal Reporter article.

Some of the Tweets about this are also interesting.

This is my blogging exercise 2

Great weapons ?

        These days, people have not only talked about the use of social media; how cool it is , how it has been helpful for social, economical and cultural development  in many place. Most us have concluded that social media is the best weapons that can save the world from undemocratic government , poverty and lack of  communication  among  individuals , groups and  community. Therefore, many of us think that this technology is pretty great for all people. Really?  If you one who  think that way , don't' full yourself. This technology has used by many organized groups and governments to invade people liberty; basic human right, freedom of speech and privacy in all over the world .  Million if not billion people are not allow to use social media , or allowed only partially in some country.  Furthermore,  many  people are not  fortunate for this technology. There are some arguments  contrary to the above promise by saying  that  these matter have happened  only  in autocratic,  undemocratic, socialist  countries. Is that true ?  Here is what the  New York times  investigation have found:  

By NICOLE PERLROTH
New York Tim

 

 

 

Ethiopian intelligence uses FinSpy, a surveillance software, that grab images off computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and keystrokes.By NICOLE PERLROTH
New York TimesLast May, two security researchers volunteered to look at a few suspicious e-mails sent to some Bahraini activists. Almost one year later, the two have uncovered evidence that some 25 governments, many with questionable records on human rights, may be using off-the-shelf surveillance software to spy on their own citizens.

Morgan Marquis-Boire, a security researcher at Citizen Lab, at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, and Bill Marczak, a computer science doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, found that the e-mails contained surveillance software that could grab images off computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes. The word “FinSpy” appeared in the spyware code. FinSpy is spyware sold by the Gamma Group, a British company that says it sells monitoring software to governments solely for criminal investigations.

Now, one year later, Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak have found evidence that FinSpy is being run off servers in 25 countries, including Ethiopia and Serbia, without oversight.

Until Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak stumbled upon FinSpy last May, security researchers had tried, unsuccessfully, for a year to track it down. FinSpy gained notoriety in March 2011 after protesters raided Egypt’s state security headquarters and discovered a document that appeared to be a proposal by the Gamma Group to sell FinSpy to the government of President Hosni Mubarak .

Martin J. Muench, a Gamma Group managing director, has said his company does not disclose its customers but that Gamma Group sold its technology to governments only to monitor criminals. He said that it was most frequently used “against pedophiles, terrorists, organized crime, kidnapping and human trafficking.”

But evidence suggests the software is being sold to governments where the potential for abuse is high. “If you look at the list of countries that Gamma is selling to, many do not have a robust rule of law,” Mr. Marquis-Boire said. “Rather than catching kidnappers and drug dealers, it looks more likely that it is being used for politically motivated surveillance.”

As of last year, Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak, with other researchers at Rapid7, CrowdStrike and others, had found command-and-control servers running the spyware in just over a dozen countries. They have since scanned the entire Internet for FinSpy.

The Munk School is publishing their updated findings on Wednesday. The list of countries with servers running FinSpy is now Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Britain, Brunei, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Qatar, Serbia, Singapore, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Vietnam.

In Ethiopia, FinSpy was disguised in e-mails that were specifically aimed at political dissidents. The e-mails lured targets to click on pictures of members of Ginbot 7, an Ethiopian opposition group. When they clicked on the pictures, FinSpy downloaded to their machines and their computers began communicating with a local server in Ethiopia.

“This continues the theme of FinSpy deployments with strong indications of politically motivated targeting,” the researchers wrote in their report.

A Turkmenistan server running the software belonged to a range of I.P. addresses specifically assigned to the ministry of communications. Turkmenistan is the first clear-cut case of a government running the spyware off its own computer system. Human Rights Watch has called Turkmenistan one of the world’s “most repressive countries” and warned that dissidents faced “constant threat of government reprisal.”

In Vietnam, the researchers found evidence that FinSpy was running on Android-powered phones. They found one Android phone infected with FinSpy that was sending text messages back to a Vietnamese telephone number. That finding was particularly troubling, researchers say, given recent clampdowns by the nation’s government. Last year, Vietnam introduced censorship laws that prohibit bloggers from speaking out against the country’s ruling Communist party. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 40 people had since been convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Many are now serving terms ranging from three to 13 years

Taking Identity Theft to a New Level

On February 10, 2013, the British newspaper, The Guardian, ran a story on it's website with chilling implications for social media. The American defense contractor, Raytheon had recently developed - but not yet marketed - a new software program that can uncover where you have been, track where you are now, and predict - with some accuracy - where you will be in the near future. 

Raytheon's software, known as Riot (Rapid Information Overlay Technology) exploits easily acquirable user data, such as GPS location, date, and time information found by trolling social media sites, which intelligent algorithms then use to deduce information about you.

Soon after the Guardian article, other established organizations, such as Zdnet, PCmag, The Telegraph (another British newspaper), and the ACLU offered their own take on Raytheon's Riot software. While their responses ranged from calling Riot "Google for Spies" (Guardian), "stalking software" (Telegraph), and "Business as Usual" (ZDnet) the ACLU noted, with some alarm, that "Riot could be used as a way to schedule a black-bag job to plant spyware on someone’s laptop". 

Check out the articles for yourself.

The Guardian

PCmag

Zdnet

ACLU

This is my blogging exercise 1

Revolutionary Communication: 1968 Paris Uprising Posters

Cook's Choice- POST 5

My first sighting of Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster was at Barbette in Minneapolis. I routinely peruse billboards and I don’t think I hesitated more than five seconds before I unpinned it from the cork board, rolled it up and gently tucked it under my arm. I knew I had a treasure (and besides, there was more than one). The bartender noticed and I had to do a little sweet talking, but I still have that poster, among others. Not all of the posters I’ve collected are political, but it seems that some of the best posters in history have been either musically or politically oriented. 

"Return to Normal"

  
It’s widely acknowledged that the political posters from the Paris Uprisings of 1968 greatly define the genre. I was first exposed to this period of French history through the steamy film The Dreamers, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and set before and during the uprising. The posters shown briefly in the film piqued my interest more than the NC-17 content did, yet I could only find limited information, most of which was in French. Thanks to the Arab Spring and Occupy, the history of protest and protest art seem to have gained a lot of attention lately. There are all kinds of sources on the net and also a few beautiful new books dealing specifically with the poster art of this brief period.
 

"Be Young and Shut Up"

The uprising started with a small student protest and burgeoned into a 11,000,000 worker labor strike- 22% of France's population at the time. They shut down the country and President Charles de Gaulle's government was dangerously close to being toppled. You will often see de Gaulle caricatured as a large-nosed figure (see poster to the left). At the end of the protests, the National Assembly was dissolved and new parliamentary elections were held. The uprising forever changed France- all in two weeks!

"A Youth Disturbed Too Often by the Future"

The posters are the product of a group of art students called the Atelier Populaire (Popular Workshop). They took over the printing studios of their own university and cranked out an impressive volume and variety of posters in a remarkably short time. They switched from lithography to silkscreen because the prior method was too slow- the group often produced over 2000 posters per night. Most of the posters are monochrome, simple in design and direct in message. Posters were chosen by vote within the group and then posted nightly for the public to see current issues every morning. I will never again complain about how much work a social media campaign can be!

Although Occupy and these students share a common root (Situationist International), there is nothing vague about the poster messages of May 1968. They express anxiety for the future and distrust of authority and the press. They warn and inform of police brutality and call for for unity of the workforce and a better quality of life. They express that merely producing and consuming goods is not a good way to live and encouraged the viewer to believe that so much more was possible. They encouraged people to fight for change.

 

Atelier Populaire Mission Statement:
"The posters produced by the Atelier Populaire are weapons in the service of the struggle and are an inseparable part of it. Their rightful place is in the centers of conflict ... in the streets and on the walls of the factories. To use them for decorative purposes, to display them in bourgeois places of culture or to consider them as objects of aesthetic interest is to impair both their function and their effect."








Individual artists never took credit nor signed their work and long after these events had passed, the Popular Workshop refused to put any of the posters up for sale. I'm sure if these students had the media at the time, they would of been gods of Twitter and Facebook. Fortunately the media of the time left us a lasting and powerful record that is still relevant today. Despite the fact that the Popular Workshop would despise and discount me for a bourgeoisie, I would love to have just one of these posters prominently displayed in my collection. Ça, c'est dommage!  


To view more posters check out Art for Change.
To buy a book, see Beauty Is in the Street: A Visual Record of the May '68 Paris Uprising