What Are SOPA/PIPA, and Why Should You Care?

What is SOPA?
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R. 3261) is on the surface a bill that attempts to curb online piracy. Sadly, the proposed way it goes about doing this could devastate the online economy and the overall freedom of the web.

It would particularly affect sites with heavy user generated content. Sites like Youtube, Reddit, Twitter, and others could cease to exist in their current form if this bill is passed.

What is PIPA?
The Protect IP Act (PIPA, S. 968) is SOPA’s twin in the Senate. Under current DMCA law, if a user uploads a copyrighted movie, music, or text to sites like Youtube, EzineArticles, or MP3 sharing sites, the site isn’t held accountable so long as they provide a way to report user infringement.

The user who uploaded the movie is held accountable for their actions, not the site.

PIPA would change that – it would place the blame on the site itself, and would also provide a way for copyright holders to seize the site’s domain in extreme circumstances.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation laid out four excellent points as to why the bills are not only dangerous, but are also not effective for what they are trying to accomplish:

• The blacklist bills are expensive. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that PIPA alone would cost the taxpayers at least $47 million over 5 years, and could cost the private sector many times more. Those costs would be carried mostly by the tech industry, hampering growth and innovation.
• The blacklist bills silence legitimate speech. Rightsholders, ISPs, or the government could shut down sites with accusations of infringement, and without real due process.
• The blacklist bills are bad for the architecture of the Internet. But don’t take our word for it: see the open letters that dozens of the Internet’s concerned creators have submitted to Congress about the impact the bills would have on the security of the web.
• The blacklist bills won’t stop online piracy. The tools these bills would grant rightsholders are like chainsaws in an operating room: they do a lot of damage, and they aren’t very effective in the first place. The filtering methods might dissuade casual users, but they would be trivial for dedicated and technically savvy users to circumvent.

Want to do something to voice your thoughts about it? Go here.

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Funny Improv Video

This is a funny guerilla real-world improv. which takes place in a grocery store with hidden cameras.

Hope you enjoy. It definitely got a chuckle from me.

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Family Memories of Gordon Nuttall

Here are some of the family’s collected memories of the man they knew as their dad and grandpa.

J.T. Rooney (Cousin)
After Grandpa Gordon passed away [...] the family gathered to talk about his life.

I learned more that night about him than I ever had before, and the new information has allowed me to look back on previous memories more fondly.

Finding out he played string bass was amazing and led me to play bass later on, which in turn affected all of my musical choices and experiences afterwards.

Abby Kelleher (Cousin)
My favorite memory of Grandpa Gordon is

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Feature Friday: Risk Poem In Honor of Gordon Nuttall

Today’s Feature Friday was purchased by Lisa Kraft, in honor of Gordon Nuttall.

Gordon Nuttall was my Grandpa.  He was a master carpenter, a tradesman, a father of six, and a jokester.

His path was not always easy, nor did he take the straight road to his destination.

He was a caring man. He was someone who took the time for others, listened to their stories, and always had an interesting story to tell himself.

Some of my strongest memories of him are when he lived with us after his Quintuple Bypass surgery.  He lived with us for nearly a year.  I wish I had been older, or could remember more of the stories he used to tell us.  But I do remember a few things.

Grandpa Gordon taught me how to play Chess.  He taught me how to cheat at Checkers.  He also taught me how to play Poker.  His favorite poker game (at least what he played with us a lot) was 5 card draw.  We played for pennies.

I remember driving with him out east of where my parents live, somewhere on the eastern plains of Colorado, out to where there were old missile silos.  

• How did he know there were missile silos there?
• How did he know it was safe for us to be there? 

He probably didn’t know it was safe, but probably figured he could get us out of whatever we might actually stumble onto.

At that time, he had a Cadillac, and we bounced along on unpaved roads and sometimes barely tracked fields, just driving around looking at things.

When he passed on, I got to keep one of this tools – a hammer. 

I am so glad to have that hammer as it reminds me of the craftsman my grandpa was, and also serves as a metaphorical reminder to me that if you don’t know what the right tool is for a job, the answer isn’t always a hammer… but if a hammer is all you have, then that’s what you’ll use. 

So life has to be about gaining more “tools” so that you can have and use the right tool for the job.

I’ve learned this from my parents as well.

Also among my grandpa’s things was found a poem called Risk.

I read it at his funeral.

Today, in honor of the life of Gordon Nuttall, a man who lived his life taking risks, I would like to share this poem with you.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool;
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental;
To reach out for another is to risk involvement;
To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss;
To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying;
To hope is to risk despair;
To try is to risk failure.

But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing;

They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they simply cannot learn, feel change, grow, love, or live.

Chained by their certitude, they are a slave.

They have forfeited freedom.

Only the person who risks is free.

~~ Author Unknown ~~

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Feature Fridays 2011: Your Business Featured!

We are doing something we think is really exciting in 2011, and would love your feedback!

It might not be “right” for you, but if you know someone who this kind of advertising is right for, would you please forward them this page/video?

If you or they want to get questions answered or join the notification list, please visit the Feature Fridays section.

Also, we’d LOVE to have your thoughts/comments here on the site!

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OK GO does it again

I’m not much one for music videos.  But a while back I saw “OK GO”‘s “Here It Goes Again”, in which its four band members execute a tightly choreographed dance routine built around a handful of treadmills, video. I thought it was absolutely amazing!

They had to top that one with their next song, “This Too Shall Pass”.  You have to see their result:

Not one to shy away from a challenge, the band set about constructing a painstakingly executed two-story Rube Goldberg machine, set to trigger in time to the music for its latest video, “This Too Shall Pass.” Although it starts out small, with a toy truck knocking over some dominoes, the contraptions that make up the machine rapidly get larger and much more complex — pianos are dropped, shopping carts come crashing down ramps, and one band member is launched headlong through a wall of boxes. After assembling a team of dozens of engineers to construct the set, more than 60 takes were needed to get everything working just right during filming.
–NPR

And just in case you somehow missed it, or just

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The Lost Generation?

Thanks to my sister Deanna for sending this to me. I really like it.

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Do You Have A Sixth Sense? Check This Out!

Some of you know that I really love new and innovative technologies.

I watched this video tonight about a technology called Sixth Sense from a conference called TED (A conference which I would love to attend sometime).

From this video, I hope you will enjoy learning about how technology is making relevant and important information instant and useful in our daily lives.

There are very powerful applications for this technology today and into the future.

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Bugs in Boquete: Panamanian Bugs and Critters

We had a blast making this video about Panama’s Bugs and critters.
It’s a bit of a tribute to Steve Irwin and really was just done in silliness.
Hope you enjoy seeing the bugs and critters that we discovered in Boquete, Panama.
It’s all a bunch of silliness, really.

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Will Smith On Talent And Being “Realistic”

Will Smith is one of my favorite people.
He seems to truly practice what he preaches.

Two of the philosophies I hear him saying in this video that I really love:
Talent is overrated. Skill is being willing working at something until you’re either really good at it, or you die getting good at it.
Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.

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