Censored Tweets

Twitter wants to be available in all countries and for good reason. Having a worldwide user base is a necessity these days, but is it wise to conform to censorship laws in every country? This is, essentially, what Twitter is agreeing to do. Their blog post expresses that they will be able to delete tweets on a country-by-country basis depending on text.

It’s hard to believe that the web site whose name was emblazoned on the Arab Spring protests (Google search “Twitter Revolution”) would now like to prevent anything like that from happening again. There’s a lot more at stake says Mark Gibbs in Forbes Magazine, Twitter could easily be sued by numerous governments if the filter fails at any point. They are better off taking the hands-off approach and allowing the tyrants to be the bad guys when they shut off access to Twitter or the entire Internet.

For a whole lot more on this story, visit the Storify site. I will continue this conversation in the comments section and elsewhere on the Internet. I care what Twitter does to a point and that point is when somebody else comes in to take their place.

(Not So) Final Thoughts

It is now January 19th. Wikipedia is back in view, Reddit, Wordpress, Google and all of the other sites who "blacked out" yesterday are now back to normal. But this issue is not done by long shot. As you will find out at the end of this post, there is still a lifetime of work to be done. The controversial bills that were being protested are not the end of the line, nor were they the beginning. SOPA and PIPA were just the continuation in the chain of bills drafted by the entertainment industry to stop any and all sharing of any of their stuff for any reason. Currently, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows anybody to share anything as long as the person sharing is not making money. This is called Fair-Use. The entertainment industry seek to remove that. If, for example, I post a photo and somebody wants to critique it, he or she can copy the photo, repost it in whole or in part, with attribution, and mark it and say anything about it. I have no legal recourse because it's fair-use. This would be taken away under SOPA and/or PIPA. I can't explain all of it myself, so I will let Clay Shirky, writer and teacher, explain it. It may not appear below if this legislation passes, so you will have to go to the TED website and look for Clay Shirky talking about SOPA and PIPA. I wouldn't even be able to link to the video, let alone embed it.

As a bonus, I have also included the Khan Academy explanation of these two bills.

Keep our Internet free. Thank you.

The Internet Must Remain Free

Don't let them shut down the Internet. Shut them down instead. If you are a blogger and oppose these bills, repost this list on your own blog. Spread it around.

H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act
Sponsor: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)
Co-sponsors: Rep. Howard Berman (D-California)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-California)
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)
Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan)
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Florida)
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-California)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia)
Rep. Timothy Griffin (R-Arkansas)
Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Arizona)
Rep. Dennis A. Ross (R-Florida)
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California)
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Nebraska)

S.968 – Protect IP Act of 2011
Sponsor: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
Co-sponsors: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee)
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire)
Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colorado)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut)
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri)
Sen. John Boozman (R- Arkansas)
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Maryland)
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pennsylvania)
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi)
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Delaware)
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois)
Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyoming) 
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California)
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota)
Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-New York)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-North Carolina)
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota)
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Connecticut)
Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida)
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire)
Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island)

Pirate Me, Please

In a couple days as of this writing, many sites on the Internet will go black for a day. This is to protest and show how the Internet in the US will look if the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) were to become law. I am fully opposed to both of these bills which would stifle the free speech of the Internet. The reasoning behind both of these bills is flawed and the response from the White House, although opposed to the bills, states that digital piracy is a serious and real problem. The real problem with this statement and the arguments in favor of these bills is that they show no proof that digital piracy is a true threat to copyright holders.

Piracy can be a good thing. I have bought a few programs after trying the pirated copies because the demo version was so limited that I found it unusable. I have been introduced to some of my favorite music because of piracy and have spent a lot of money buying high-quality copies of the songs that I like. Piracy can help the starving artist, the floundering writer or the failing musician by spreading his or her name around. I have no problem if people use my photos or my writing on their sites. I don’t even have a lawyer. All I ask is that you give credit where it’s due. Link back to me or use my name, AlienCG, and give me the credit that I deserve.

By the way, I will not be blacking out my blog on January 18 because I don’t have the readership. I will, however, not post anything that day. As of the writing of this post, the House bill, SOPA, is most likely dead and no further action will be taken on it as it stands.

A Few of My Favorite Things

A long time ago on a blog far, far away I had an idea to do a weekly post about free stuff that can be found online. Well, I couldn't sustain the idea for longer than three weeks since I wasn't always looking for free stuff. So I quit that idea and moved on to other things. I am back now with what I will call a periodic feature where I discuss free stuff. Also, since I didn't get you anything for Christmas, here you go.

I've had a long time to look around and I have found useful tools, entertainment and fun stuff that costs nothing to own. Let's get started with a necessary piece of software that is required to get other stuff.

1. Google Chrome Browser
In case you’ve been in a coma or have no knowledge off this little, mom-and-pop run company known as Google, they have a web browser. It’s a pretty lightweight, fast browser that has its own web store which is why I had to bring up the browser first.

2. Angry Birds
The Chrome Web Store has, free-of-charge, this highly addictive game about birds who are angry at pigs and slingshot themselves at their hideouts (or something to that effect). I kept hearing about it for so long and finally, when I saw it free through the Chrome store, I had to download it. It can be played offline.

3. Word^2 (Word Squared)
Word^2 is a massively multiplayer online Scrabble-style game. Players level-up, get bonuses and can use these bonuses to buy blank tiles. There are achievements for various things throughout the game, like having no vowels or having no consonants. It’s an excellent way to waste time, but it does require an Internet connection.

4. If This, Then That (ifttt.com)
If This, then That is a service to set up triggers for many, many tasks, such as posting to Facebook when something is posted to Twitter, or posting an RSS feed to a site or e-mail or text message. I have a task set up to remind me that it is time to pay the bills (a monthly trigger) which is simply a Date/Time trigger that sends a text message to my phone on a particular day of the month. Check it out, I’m sure you will find a purpose for this site.

5. Ihnatko Almanac
Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times and the TWiT network’s MacBreak Weekly has his own show on the 5by5 network. Each week is something a little different, such as comic books, the MIT yard sale, Roger Ebert’s memoir, why White Christmas is not a classic Christmas movie and many other topics. This is a weekly podcast and Mr. Ihnatko is witty and intelligent and just a lot of fun. Subscribe on iTunes or go to 5by5.com for more details.

Follow my guide and you will be entertained absolutely free. Do you have an interesting website, podcast, free game or useful tool to share? Send me an e-mail and tell me about it, then I’ll post about my favorites. Have a good day and I hope you enjoy this free stuff.

New Year, Same Me

Happy New Year, everyone.

Sorry about the unannounced hiatus, but I can assure you that I am coming back to the land of the living (and blogging). The work situation continues to try my patience as I am still looking for a sense of security (false or otherwise at this point). I am still just a lowly temp at the place I've been for more than a year now and currently out of work until things pick up again. Enough of my bellyaching, though. How have you been?

I've been doing a lot of different stuff lately, including a trip to Pittsburgh to see the Bengals play the Steelers with my brother (Evil-E). I also took a road trip on January 2nd with AlienGF (who is still my fiancée) to Toledo, OH. We went to Tony Packo's and just tooled are the city for a bit. I am going to get back into the blogging scene, but probably doing fewer, more though out posts.

I Dislike the Like

I'm a member of Facebook, Google+, Digg, Twitter and a few other services online. One of things I dislike about these services is the idea of the Like, +1 and Digg buttons. All of these give an impression that the reader truly "likes" the article that they are reading. I don't like the idea of these positively named buttons because, psychologically, it prevents me from "liking" an article that may be questionable in nature. If I click one of those buttons and the article is about something I disagree with, such as a hot-button political issue, does that mean that I agree with the issue being discussed? I hope not. I think the idea behind these buttons should be more neutral than they are. I would prefer a simple bookmark or recommend button.

Over the past month or so I have been prevented from sharing articles because it might give people a false impression of who I am. Because I "Like" an article about a controversial issue should not be indicative of where I stand on that issue. It could mean that I "Like" this article in the sense that I think there is merit to this article and people should read it and discuss it. That's what I want to see. Instead, the marketing machines inside of Google and Facebook have come up with a way to find out more about who we are. They want to know where we stand politically, so most will only "Like" articles that they agree with. Therefore, a favorable article about the president will get "Liked" by more democrats than republicans. I think we need to start using these buttons in the way that they are meant, to share information and start discussions.