The Bad Influence Speaks

Thank you for your service

“On this Veterans Day, let us remember the service of our veterans, and let us renew our national promise to fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much so that we can live free.”
—Dan Lipinski, Representative D-IL

Internet Slowdown

If you woke up tomorrow, and your internet looked like this, what would you do?

Imagine all your favorite websites taking forever to load, while you get annoying notifications from your ISP suggesting you switch to one of their approved “Fast Lane” sites.

Think about what we would lose: all the weird, alternative, interesting, and enlightening stuff that makes the Internet so much cooler than mainstream Cable TV. What if the only news sites you could reliably connect to were the ones that had deals with companies like Comcast and Verizon?

On September 10th, just a few days before the FCC’s comment deadline, public interest organizations are issuing an open, international call for websites and internet users to unite for an “Internet Slowdown” to show the world what the web would be like if Team Cable gets their way and trashes net neutrality. Net neutrality is hard to explain, so our hope is that this action will help SHOW the world what’s really at stake if we lose the open Internet.

If you’ve got a website, blog or tumblr, get the code to join the #InternetSlowdown here: https://battleforthenet.com/sept10th

Everyone else, here’s a quick list of things you can do to help spread the word about the slowdown:http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/96020972118/be-a-part-of-the-great-internet-slowdown  

Random entertainment

from the Dutch Harbor Telegraph police blotter:

2 February, Saturday
1907 - Suspicious Person/Activity – A drunken man phoned police and said he was naked, cold, and exposing himself to passing vehicles and in need of assistance. He was unable to name or describe his location. Officers searched the common and not so common haunts of naked drunks but did not find the man in question. No other calls were received from the man.

22 January, Tuesday
1739 - Drunk Disturbance – Drunken brother reported his equally intoxicated sibling was being loud while they were watching television. An officer told both of the legal adults to be quiet.

8 January, Tuesday
1306 - Traffic Roads – Caller reported a pedestrian was walking on the roadway instead of using the sidewalk conveniently located only a few feet from the road. An officer contacted the pedestrian and advised her to walk on the sidewalk.

9 January, Wednesday
0123 - Assistance Rendered – Drunk reported that his brother stole his half-gallon of booze while he was being treated at the clinic. Officers found no half-gallon bottles, full or otherwise, in the house and advised the drunk to look for his liquor in the morning.

12 January, Saturday
2326 - Welfare Check – Wife, in Oregon, phoned police because her husband had not called today as expected. Officers found the husband and told him to call his wife.

11 February, Monday
2353 - Theft – Cab driver reported a passenger had refused to pay his fare. By the time officers arrived on scene, the man had paid and returned to his vessel. Both the passenger and the driver claimed that the other was rude.

12 February, Tuesday
1115 - Harassment – Two taxi drivers called each other bad names and directed rude gestures at one another. One driver believed the exchange was over allegations of stealing fares; the other driver believed it was due to parking in a handicapped parking space. The responding officer asked the two drivers to handle their business problems like adults.

13 February, Wednesday
0249 - Welfare Check – Caller asked police to check on an elderly neighbor whose door was open and whose dog was running about. Officers found the neighbor inside and determined he did not need police assistance. The dog was put inside and the door was shut before departure.

5 February, Tuesday
0122 - Welfare Check – Inebriated brother called to report that something was wrong with his inebriated sibling. Officers responded to the residence and were told that a pretty woman was doing things with his sibling.

0714 - Assistance Rendered – Inebriated brother called to report his inebriated sibling had told him to shut up. Officers responded to the residence and found the two were arguing about a pretty woman.

8 February, Friday
1912 - Suspicious Person/Activity – Driver reported a stumbling, apparently intoxicated man in the roadway. Officers found the inebriate in question sitting on the side of the roadway and ensured that he was capable of walking the remaining 200 yards to his residence.

9 February, Saturday
2242 - Welfare Check – Officer checked the airport terminal after multiple 911 calls were received from a pay phone at that location. The officer was told by one child that another child had seen a monster and so had phoned 911. The officer did not find any of the aforesaid monsters in the terminal.

31 January, Thursday
0115 - Trespass – Drunken homeowner asked that two women be barred from his home for the next year. An officer reminded the drunk that he often makes such requests only to rescind them the next day, and told him to call police again when he’s sober if he still wishes to take that course of action.

Sorry for all the delay

I've gotten massively backed up because of work and a class I'm taking. I promise we should return to regular posting soon.

On my To Do List, I have:

• Leverage: The First Contact Job, The French Connection Job, and The Gimme A K Street Job
• Warehouse 13: Season 4 episodes 1 to 4
• White Collar and Covert Affairs
• Finishing up Supernatural season 6 commentary
• Teen Wolf: seasons 1 and 2 (and I blame Tumblr for this).
• Sherlock series 1
• Wallander series 2
• Commentary and wrap up for Eureka final episode
• Movie reviews for The Bourne Legacy, The Expendables 2, and The Dark Knight Rises

 

Also, Dragon*Con is next week (holy frakking crap, Batman) and that will have a whole series of posts including costume posts, and panel commentary and photos. If you check out my tumblr and twitter, I'll try to do some posts while there. Everything will have a DragonCon 2012 tag.

Stop SOPA/PIPA

What will you find when you go online? Not much of anything if MPAA, RIAA, and Congress have anything to say about it which is being demonstrated today by Wikipedia, Reddit, and others.

 

 

 

 

I urge all of you to call, email and tweet your congresspeople. You can look up their information at: usa.gov. Petition are also available for signing at the links below. Please join myself and millions of others in letting our government know that we are against this attempted suppression of free speech. There are better ways to prevent online piracy and a solution can be reached with the help of the tech industry rather than on the money and pressure of the entertainment industry.

For information on SOPA and PIPA including links to the full text of the bills visit:

Google: End Piracy, Not Liberty

Wikipedia: Stop Online Piracy Act

Arstechnica: SOPA lives—and MPAA calls protests an "abuse of power"

The Verge: Why The Verge and Vox Media are opposed to SOPA

Blog.Reddit: A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP

Geekosystem: SOPA May Be Shelved, But PIPA Is Still On

 

 

Please take action today so this isn't emblazoned on all our monitors.

The risk we all run with SOPA and PROTECT-IP

I’ve ████ ████████, ██████, and █████ ███████████ █████ ████ and ███████-IP all ████ the ████████ for the ████ few ████. █████████, I ███████ and ███████ my ██████████████ █████ it. █████, I ████ ████ in ██████’s ███████ and ██████ my ██████████████, ██████ on the ███████████ to co-███████ in my ██████████ (IT), ██████ the ███████████ to an ████████ █████ in █████ I ████ ████, and █████ ███████████ to my ████, ███████, ████████ and ██████+. It’s ████ a ████ ████ of my █████ for █████.

Yet…Not one of my █████ TV ████████ or █████ █████████ ████████ ████████ ████ of ███████-IP ██████ the do ███████ █████ ██████ ████ in the █████ █████.I ██████ how ████ ███████ the ████ █████ ████ any ████ ████ █████ ████████████ are ██████ to do.████ is █████████ we ████ to ███████ our ████████ on. ██████ █████ out to ████ ██████████████ and ████ ████ to ████ "NO" to ████ ████████ of our ████ ██████ ██████.

 

Visit: AmericanCensorship.org for more information

Last night for voting in #GoodreadsChoiceAwards

Tonight is the last night to vote for your favorite books of 2011 in the Goodreads Choice Awards. This is the third round of voting. All books on the list were culled from reader rankings and total number of times the book was marked read.

Just click here to vote!

Some of my picks were:

Favorite Book of 2011: City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Fiction: The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

Paranormal Fantasy: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

Nonfiction: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins

Romance: Retribution by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Regarding #Censorship, #SOPA and PROTECT-IP

Reposted from my Tumblr account:

I’ve seen articles, tweets, and other information about SOPA and PROTECT-IP all over the internet for the past few days. Yesterday, I emailed and tweeted my Congresspeople about it. Today, I took part in Tumblr’s efforts and called my representative, passed on the information to co-workers in my department (IT), posted the information to an academic forum in which I take part, and added information to my blog, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. It’s been a huge part of my world for a few days.

Yet…

Not one of my local TV stations or local newspaper websites mentions SOPA of PROTECT-IP though the do mention other things done in the House today.

BBCNews, however, has an article about it.

I wonder how many outside the tech world have any idea what these corporations are trying to do.

 

UPDATE:
These bills aren't finish yet. SOPA has been tabled for revisions. We're going to see its like again.

Here's a collection of links if you'd like further reading:
Jerry Brito: Congress's Piracy Blacklist Plan A Cure Worse Than the Disease
Michael Giest: SOPA: The Whole World's Internet Under US Jurisdiction
The Mary Sue: What the Deal Was With Tumblr Today (And A Few Other Sites): The Protect IP Act
Jason Kincaid: Tumblr Takes Fight Against SOPA Up A Notch, 'Censors' Users Dashboards
Tumblr’s response
Copy of House bill HR. 3261

RIP Steve Jobs

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tools I've encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
-Steve Jobs

 

The first computer my family owned was an Apple IIe. On it I entertained myself for hours with games (most notable Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Santiago?), learned word processing and BASIC programming. Every paper I wrote in middle and high school was typed on that computer. My application essays for college were typed on it. Even more than 25 years later, that computer still runs. I'll even occasionally play Oregon Trail on it using the 5 inch floppy that you have to flip halfway through the game. hen it came out, it was revolutionary, which is probably the best way to describe Steve Jobs.

He was a revolutionary. The products he created changed the world. Every new product altered how we think and how we use technology. His commitment to working with higher education radically improved how technology is used in classrooms around the world.

Though my iPod nano and iTunes are the only Apple products I currently use (I can't afford more), that Apple IIe is what introduced me to computers. It's what gave me the background that got my current job. It's why I work in IT in higher education and love what I do. As Wil Wheaton said on his blog, "I don't agree with everything Apple does, but I feel like the world lost an important person today, and I feel like I lost a distant relative who I never got to meet, but knew everything about because for one reason or another his influence was everywhere I looked."

Steve Jobs gave us the tools to be more creative, to learn better, and to view ourselves differently. Steve Jobs gave us the future.