Published: 01/19/2012
Remember when Ralphie beat the crap out of Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story? It sort of felt like that.
By 1:00 AM on Wednesday, January 18th, 3.03% of all tweets contained “SOPA” in one form or another, up from 0.16% on Tuesday (and 0.04% on Sunday) during the same hour. Reddit locked up its doors, Wikipedia turned off its lights, and Google’s plastered a horrid, black square over its logo. Many other websites and blogs, by some estimates up to 50,000 of them, followed suit. Suddenly, two bills that a day before very few people even knew about, everyone was talking about.
Traditional news outlets, most of them big supporters of the SOPA and PIPA bills who had been keeping quiet, were forced to start talking about them. Sponsors in both the House and Senate started pulling their support. According to a tweet from Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, the House of Representative phone system went down under the strain of people calling in to express their opposition. “…the campaign is working…” he said. “Melt the phones!”
All of the sudden, everyone cared.
It was the first time that “the geek” stood up to it’s older, bully brother, and all his big, ugly friends. It was just one wet willie from Sony, one swirlie from NBC Universal, and one sucker punch from CBS too many. January 18th, 2012 was the day the Internet community finally punched back. Watching the news come through the day was an amazing, and I’m don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Today, we finally did something. Today, we whipped the bully.
But, unlike Ralphie’s tussle with Scut Farkus, one good butt whipping isn’t going to be the end of this fight. It looks like the bills, in their current versions, now have drawn enough attention that the lawmakers will have to reign in the powers they intended to give to these proposed laws. There will, however, be new versions, but we have to make sure we get these laws right. Today was a great example of how free speech is too important to screw up.
The piracy of music and movies must be stopped, but not at the expense of a free and open Internet. Under no circumstances should the United States employ the same tactics as China by placing a wall around our little corner of the ‘net.
The word is now out. Continue to read up on SOPA and PIPA. Keep yourself educated. Make sure you know who represents you in Washington, and what their phone number is. We may have to melt the phones a few more times down the road, and it may have to be soon.
Published: 01/11/2012
So I’ve never really been into the New Year’s Resolution thing. For the last handful of years, I’ve always just made my New Year’s Resolution to not make any New Year’s Resolutions the next year. (Which, of course, I broke every year by making the same resolution.) But I’ve been thinking about it and have decided that I wanted to put together a list of, while all not all exactly resolutions, goals that I want to have for this year.
I tried to make it a pretty eclectic list, ranging from adventures, relaxation, physical and mental self improvement, relationship building, and giving back to others. Nice and well-rounded. So, without further ado, here is my 2012 to do list, which I’m creatively calling my “Twelve for Twelve.”
#1 – Go Zip Lining
Starting off with a simple, but exciting one. I’ve wanted to go zip lining for several years, and have never taken the time to just go do it. It looks like a blast, and I’m told that it is. If anyone is interested in joining me on this one, let me know. I’m thinking late spring in Hocking Hills area, but could be somewhat flexible.
#2 – Run 500 Miles
But not all at once, of course. Sounds like a big number to me, but it when I did the math, it would only be an average of just under 1.4 miles per day. I guess I can do that. Those two zeros still look pretty daunting, not to mention that I’m already 15 miles behind pace.
#3 – Release 12 Premium WordPress Themes
I’ve been developing WordPress themes for clients now for just over two years, but I’ve never released any for sale. Could be a good way to expand 10T’s business a bit. So in any spare time I have with the business this year, I’m going to spend working on a dozen.
#4 – Learn AJAX
What could be more New Year’s Resoluton-esque than to dive into something completely new, right? Whenever Java’s been around, I’ve always stood on the other side of the room. Time for the two of us to get to know each other.
#5 – Try Out Drupal
And speaking of diving into something new and uncomfortable, add Drupal to the list as well. I’ve always been a WordPress guy, but acknowledge that Drupal must have benefits of its own. Time to find out for myself what they are.
#6 – Post Twice a Week
I mentioned when I started this blog that I didn’t know why I was starting a blog when I had never really been all that committed to them in the past. Still, I want to give it an real effort to see if I can keep it up for a whole year. It’s only a little over 100 posts. Easy, right?
#7 – Take Julie and Shannon Camping
For those of you who know these two girly-girls, you might find this one a little funny. This one could quite possibly be the most challenging of the twelve, because I actually have to convince them to go first, which will be the hard part. The actual camping will be the easy part.
#8 – Complete 100 Hours of Pro Bono Web Design
I’m no good a fund raising, and public speaking makes my knees shake. But I can design web pages, so I’m looking to volunteer in a way that would actually be beneficial to the group that I’m volunteering for, specifically, for small South-Eastern Ohio non-profit organizations. If anyone out there is part of one that is looking to have a website, please let me know. First come, first served.
#9 – Say “Thank You” to Anyone in Military Uniform
Whenever possible and especially if I don’t know them. I know that this isn’t why these guys and gals do it, but if you’ve ever just walked up to a member of the military, and given them a smile and a “Thank You,” you will see how much that simple act means to them, and they don’t get to hear it nearly as often as they deserve.
#10 – Brew Five Different Beers
Thanks to the fantastic Christmas present from Julie, I really think that home brewing might just be my new hobby, and I want to give it a good chance to be so. I figure that if I’m as interested on the fifth batch as I am on the first, new hobby found.
#11 – Hike a Total of 30 Miles
Hiking for me is extremely relaxing, mentally clearing, and just generally gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. And I didn’t hike a single step in 2011. That simply has to change. Thirty miles of hiking isn’t that ambitious of a goal, but it’s a lot further than none at all.
#12 – Watch the Sun Rise Over the Ocean
Last but not least, a simple pleasure. I haven’t seen this happen in ten years. That’s an unacceptable length of time.
So, there they are. Twelve for Twelve.
Ready? Go!
Published: 01/08/2012
It’s bottling day! After almost two weeks of sitting and watching my West Coast Pale Ale bubble and bubble (and bubble), bottling day has finally arrived. I’m hoping that everything went alright with the fermenting process, being as this is my first batch I have no reference as to if I did everything right or not. At the very least, the bit that I tried today tasted like flat, warm beer. (Flat, warm, good beer, actually.) So, now it’s all bottled up and hopefully working away at carbonating.
For my next trick, or at least my next beer, I’ve decided on a Blueberry Bock. In fact, I just ordered the fixings.
Published: 12/26/2011
Remember when you were in school, and the first day back from Summer vacation you had to write an essay about what you did over the summer. I always hated doing that. So why am I doing it now for my Christmas Vacation when (1) I hated doing that and (2) I didn’t really have a vacation? Because I got to brew beer.
Or, at least, I got to start the process of brewing beer. So, yea, my amazing fiancée Julie gave me a home brewing kit for Christmas, which pretty much makes her amazing. (The fact that she also bought me two pairs of thick wool socks removes any remaining doubt.) So, I took the time last night to read through all of the instructions and get myself familiar with how this was all going to go, and then this evening set about working on the first batch, which would be a West Coast Pale Ale.
While I was preparing the wart, I was absolutely stunned by how awful it smelled. I don’t know if this is a smell you eventually get used to, or perhaps even grow to like, but to me it smelled really sickeningly sweet. Imagine you have a fresh cherry pie. Then imagine you put that cherry pie in the trunk of your car. You know, the car the windows don’t roll down in. And then you took the car, with pie still in the trunk, on vacation. To Florida. In August. For three months. That’s about what it smelled like.
But, all in all, I think it went pretty smooth. I learned a few things, like make sure you have a whisk sanitized, and that water is pretty heavy, but there were no major bumps.
The fermentation process is supposed to take 7 to 14 days, then an additional 7 to 14 days of carbonation, and then about 7 days for conditioning, but we’ll see how it goes. For those of you who are local and might be interested in trying some, the window for completion is between January 16th and 30th, so keep this in mind when filling in your social calendars. Also, I’m trying to decide what the next batch is going to be, so any of you that have home-brewed before have any suggestions, let me know.
Published: 12/20/2011
Every year since 2006, IBM has released a list of five predictions for the next five years. So, what’s on this year’s list? Well, in a quick summary:
- Kinetic motion wasted by things like walking or biking will be captured and used to, say, charge your cell phone.
- Passwords will be a thing of the past, as multifactor biometrics become the standard security check.
- Your cell phone will gain the ability to read your mind, allowing you to call someone just by thinking about calling them.
- The digital divide will go by the wayside, as mobile devices become available to even the lowest income bracket.
- Junk email will advance to the point where it’s so personalized, it doesn’t even feel like spam anymore.
All this stuff sounds pretty great, but before you get your hopes up for personalized spam, let’s look at some of IBM’s past predictions. The 2006 predictions, the first set they did, should by now have happened. Let’s go to the list:
- We will be able to access healthcare remotely, from just about anywhere in the world – No dice. Remote healthcare is becoming more and more mainstream here in the United States, but it’s hardly accessible in from just about anywhere in the lower 48, let alone anywhere in the world.
- Real-time speech translation—once a vision only in science fiction—will become the norm – Well, we’ve come a long way, that’s for sure. I can now talk to my cell phone and it can figure out what I want to text to someone half of the time… almost. Has it become the norm? Nope.
- There will be a 3-D Internet – What? We can’t even figure out what CSS3 is going to be, let alone “CSS3D.” And I realize that there are some “3D” things out there, but they are really not much more than what 3D movies are, so that doesn’t count.
- Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance – Nanobots? I don’t know what else this could possibly refer to, so I’m going to go with nanobots. Sing along with me here: “Yes, we have no na-no-bots. We have no na-no-bots, today!”
- Our mobile phones will start to read our minds – Yea, I’m calling shenanigans on this one. Something they predicted five years ago they predicted again this year! Nice try, IBM.
So, yea, not so good on those ones. In fairness, they did predict in 2007 that Your cell phone will be your wallet, ticket broker, concierge, bank, shopping buddy and more. You could argue that all that is possible now, but take into consideration that this prediction was made the same year the iPhone came out, so it wasn’t that big of a limb they crawled out on. As far as I can tell, that, and You will have your own digital shopping assistants (2008) (which again could be your smartphone and the same thing), I’m not sure any of their predictions have come true.
Published: 12/19/2011
Hot off the press! WordPress for Android released version 2.0 earlier today. I’m giving it a bit of a workout right now writing this post.
The Great – This was originally just going to have a good and bad sections, but I can’t in fairness just call the new features just “good.”
I really love the new user interface. The dashboard is easy to use and gives you quick access to anything you need quick access to, including the new Quick Photo and Quick Video. Also new is the updated editor, the best part of which is either the new formatting toolbar or advanced media options. It’s a bit of a toss up as to which one I like more, as they are both pretty useful.
My favorite new feature, however, isn’t even mentioned on the WordPress for Android website. Instead of approving, spamming, or deleting comments one at a time, you can now mass update those comments with the new comment approval interface. Approving 20 comments just went from a several minute task to a several second task.
The Bad – Well, there isn’t much, really. In case you couldn’t already tell, I’m in love with the UI, so no huge complaints. One thing that I have noticed is that the post and page editing doesn’t separate the paragraphs with a single ‘enter.’ It treats it more like a line break for one enter, and a new paragraph for two. I guess that this is really more of an “I would have done it differently” thing, and it’s easy to work with once you know what to expect.
It does have the habit of crashing after adding a new self hosted site, but, in fairness, I am running it on a 1st generation Motorola Droid, so that may be contributing to the problem. The blogs still added properly in spite of the crashing, so it isn’t more than an annoyance than a major problem, but it did happen on three out of four attempts.
In Conclusion – Upgrade. It’s pretty sweet.
Published: 12/18/2011
So a Google employee, Kenton Varda, has apparently build a home for himself, and designed it to be able to host the ultimate LAN party, complete with 12 gaming stations (separated into two rooms for team play).
The stations themselves only contain a monitor with a mouse and keyboard, while the actual computers are housed in a different room and connected to a server machine.
Pretty neat stuff, Kenton Varda. Pretty neat.
Read the full story here.
Published: 12/07/2011
Yep, you heard me correct: My tweets are going to be in the Library of Congress. Actually, your tweets will be in there too, as well as every other public tweet sent since the beginning of Twitter-Time.
The Library of Congress and Twitter have made an agreement that they will all be put into the library’s repository of historical documents.
“Why,” you might ask? According to the original story on the Federal News Radio website:
“There have been studies involved with what are the moods of the public at various times of the day in reaction to certain kinds of news events,” [Bill] Lefurgy [digital initiatives program manager at the library’s national digital information infrastructure and preservation program] said. “There’s all these interesting kinds of mixing and matching that can be done using the tweets as a big set of data.”
Remember that time you tweeted about how much you hate your job? How about the time that you drunk-tweeted from the bar’s restroom? And who could forget the time you just tweeted “FML” every day for a week?
Yep, there all going to be in there. Now the Library of Congress will finally be complete.
Published: 12/07/2011
Well, it has been a long time since I blogged personally, and even when I have before I’ve never seemed to stick with it for very long. (Now, that’s an opening line that really makes you want to read on, huh?) For some odd reason, I feel compelled to start again.
Spent most of my day working on an E-commerce site for a client. It’s going well, I think, for such an ambitious site. Their best guess at how many products they have is around 100,000 with all the different product variations. Cool stuff.
The rest of the day has been spent designing the fun theme here.
It’s bottling day! After almost two weeks of sitting and watching my West Coast Pale Ale bubble and bubble (and bubble), bottling day has finally arrived. I’m hoping that everything went alright with the fermenting process, being as this is my first batch I have no reference as to if I did everything right or not. At the very least, the bit that I tried today tasted like flat, warm beer. (Flat, warm, good beer, actually.) So, now it’s all bottled up and hopefully working away at carbonating.
Or, at least, I got to start the process of brewing beer. So, yea, my amazing fiancée Julie gave me a home brewing kit for Christmas, which pretty much makes her amazing. (The fact that she also bought me two pairs of thick wool socks removes any remaining doubt.) So, I took the time last night to read through all of the instructions and get myself familiar with how this was all going to go, and then this evening set about working on the first batch, which would be a West Coast Pale Ale.
While I was preparing the wart, I was absolutely stunned by how awful it smelled. I don’t know if this is a smell you eventually get used to, or perhaps even grow to like, but to me it smelled really sickeningly sweet. Imagine you have a fresh cherry pie. Then imagine you put that cherry pie in the trunk of your car. You know, the car the windows don’t roll down in. And then you took the car, with pie still in the trunk, on vacation. To Florida. In August. For three months. That’s about what it smelled like.
But, all in all, I think it went pretty smooth. I learned a few things, like make sure you have a whisk sanitized, and that water is pretty heavy, but there were no major bumps.