Thursday, January 19, 2012

SOPA and PIPA: The Blackout

January 18, 2012 was a day for the history books. Several sites went black in protest to these two pieces of legislation. The result was tremendous. The phone systems at Congress were heavily overloaded and nearly crashed.
For more info, I have provided several links:

(A video about Pipa)
(Several news links about the protest in general)
(another blogger's thoughts on SOPA)
(Interesting article that helps explain SOPA in layman terms)
(To see the full list of participating sites)

Now after reading up on this, you could be asking yourself, Did the Protest work?
I just provide you with two simple article links that reddit.com posted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/technology/web-protests-piracy-bill-and-2-key-senators-change-course.html?_r=2
The answer is of course yes. Several Congressmen have changed their opinions on where they stand. We have gained a small victory. But the battle is not over. If you go to that sopastrike.com site, you can find a timeline about these bills. There is still going to be a vote over them.
Lastly, I leave you with these two final links:
(Pirate Bay press release about the issue)
(I have provided some photos of the blacked out sites)

EDIT: An interesting article from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

EDIT EDIT: The chairman of the MPAA and his thoughts on the blackout
http://www.mpaa.org/resources/c4c3712a-7b9f-4be8-bd70-25527d5dfad8.pdf
A petition to investigate said chairman of bribery
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/22/1945243/white-house-petition-to-investigate-dodd-for-bribery
and lastly, the small defeat of sopa
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/20/209210/sopa-goes-back-to-the-drawing-board-pipa-postponed

~Captain Steak

Monday, January 16, 2012

SOPA and PIPA

For those who have not heard of these two colossal pieces of legislative crap, Google them for complete details. In a nutshell, these acts would install a Great Firewall of America and severely cripple our Internet. So what is the response to this?
Several sites, myself included, are supporting a Strike Against Sopa. (http://sopastrike.com/)
Basically, several sites are going black on January 18, 2012. This could be a huge impact. However, I am issuing a challenge to one and all. Go offline the entire day of the 18. Show your support for Anti-SOPA!
I am going to be completely offline that day. Who will stand up and go offline? Who will help stop this from becoming law? The choice is up to you.
Also, if you do Google SOPA, you will find plenty of sites on how to go on strike and more details about that. You can also write to your Congress leaders as well.

Captain Steak

Friday, January 6, 2012

Hello and welcome!

Welcome to my blog. This blog is going to be some random thoughts that go through my mind. These could be some poems that I write or some rants and ramblings about various aspects of what is happening in my life. Perhaps just posting some lyrics of songs or maybe some poems that I just read. The main factor behind this, and possibly going to be my first rant, is my growing annoyance with social networking. How often will this blog be updated? I am going to try to post something once a week but no guarantee. With all of that out of the way, welcome to the wierd, black hole like, no holds barred mind of the captain.
Enjoy!

Captain Steak