I'd like to unsubscribe from the postal service

One of my favorite Seinfeld bits is when Kramer tries to cancel his mail service.  I so wish it was possible.  The best you can do is hold your mail for 30 days over and over, getting one delivery a month.  Kiri isn't interested in that.  I've managed to reduce my junk mail to Cycle Gear and a couple Occupant flyers.  This year I've kept track of what I've gotten delivered to the house, FedEx/UPS/etc included.  Just to get an idea.

January
Club: Spice of the month club, Cigar of the month club
Government: Registration reminder
Amazon: Garage door opener x 2, air filter, electric switch, trash can

February
Club: Spice of the month club, Cigar of the month club
Government:  Registration, Absentee ballot
Amazon: Garage door opener, floor mat

March
Club: Spice of the month club, Cigar of the month club

Amazon: Pants, Chromebook, sunglasses, car jack, light switch, nail clipper

Disney: Annual pass

Harry's: Razor blades

Doctor: Refund check

Credit cards: New credit card, renewed credit card, cash advance check

April

Club: Spice of the month club, Cigar of the month club

Amazon: Outlet cover, insulation, Kiri's birthday presents

Credit cards: Gift cards x 4, renewed credit card

Health insurance: New card

Motorcycle Safety Foundation: Curriculum update

Aluminium company: Bill

A bit on P2P

In the beginning there was Napster.  And it was good.

So originally peer to peer networks were little more than a LAN with a search function.  Look into everyone's shared folders and download from them.  Then we got Napster which let us hook up with people around the world and download pieces of the same file from multiple people so it was faster.  Napster kept a database of who had what files.  That centralized architecture led to them being a target by copyright holders.  Eventually file sharing evolved to torrents.  Something like the Pirate Bay doesn't hold the list of who owns what.  Now they hold torrent files which by themselves are nothing.  When put into a torrent client program, the torrents seek out the file associated with the torrent across all torrent clients.  Before torrents, you had to decide if you were searching the Napster network or the Limewire network or whatever.  With torrents, all networks are searched at once, resulting in better connections from more people and faster downloads.

The actual process is like when Mike Teevee goes across the room in Willy Wonka, but with multiple copies of Mike Teevee being sampled and reassembled by the client program.

The copyright part of all this is that most of the content "shared" doesn't belong to the person sharing and is being shared without permission.  In the early days, there was a real push that it was a legitimate platform for new artists.  People would tag their original music with "(like Limp Bizkit)" or "(If you like Weird Al you'll like this)".  I would search for "comedy" and get weird songs that never became well known but were hilarious.  As connection speeds increased though, more movies and albums were shared and the well-intentioned movement was overshadowed by the copyright violators.

Something to remember is that it can take hours to convert a stolen movie to a sharable format and there is no compensation model in the effort.  It's always been really weird to think that people are out there are putting all this effort for... a good feeling.  It's a feeling of rebellion, or a feeling of community, or a feeling of prestige inside the community for being known for quality or rarity, or a feeling that all information should be free and without copyright as a political statement.

People downloading files are often caught.  I don't know much about what happens after that.  It is possible to see the IP addresses of people copying a file from you so copyright holders will download a popular torrent they want to scare people away from then watch the IP addresses.  They send a stern letter to the internet provider of that IP address.  Usually the internet provider tells them to piss off, but sends a stern letter to the user.  This, I assume, is to show some sort of compliance with the copyright holders, but more to dissuade the user from file sharing in general which can clog data lines with large file transfers.

Fun fact: In 2000, I saw that Madonna's "Music" music video was going to have a world premiere on MTV.  I wrote a paper on p2p and part of it was timing how long it took from it's airing on MTV to being available to download on Napster (back when there was less than 1 GB in the whole network).  I think it was 28 minutes.

Fun fact:  File sharers love the Oscars.  All those Blu-ray copies sent out to so many Academy judges.  Some of the movies have just come out in theaters.  Someone along the chain of custody of every single movie will put it online and then we get a great copy of a new movie with the added bonus of a subtitle saying something like "Property of Disney - For Academy Consideration Only"

Fun fact:  My all time favorite file is the "workprint" for X-Men Origins: Wolverine that had the full movie with only half the effects finished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5AsOEk-ZJU

HA!

"What's the issue dear?  Why are you holding back from such a man?"

Is it the quickstep way he walks?
Or the acrid way he talks?
Or the scary, hairy weirdness of his feet?
And though we know he's meaning well, he
Always ends up talking cruelly
But you'll never meet a fella who's as fun, loyal, and neat

So he's a bit of a fixer upper
So he's got a few quirks
His peculiar brain, girl, his weird lack of anger
Though he stills comes off a jerk

So he's a bit of a fixer upper, but this we're certain of
You can fix this fixer upper with a little bit of love

Is it the way his arm's impaired?
Or that he walks around bare?
Or that he can't sit still throughout a show?
Are you holding back your fondness
Due to his tailor-hated brawnness?
Or the way he covers up you set his face aglow?

He's just a bit of a fixer upper
He's got a few bugs
His isolation is confirmation
Of his desperation for healing hugs

So he's a big of a fixer upper
But we know what to do
The way to fix this fixer upper
Is to fix him up with you

"Enough!  She's still in high school!"

So she's a bit of a grower upper
That's a minor dent
This quote age problem isn't so solemn
And she's still in the age of consent

So she's a bit of a grower upper
Her age's a bit betwixt
Get her to bend on the weekend
And the whole thing will be fixed!