Settling into a routine

Thought for the day: More people would eat healthy if McDonalds wasn't So. Damn. CHEAP.

So I'm back at school, Thank God. No updates this last week or so as I settled into a routine. Regular updates resume nowish.

A few things that have come to pass since last update.

1. I now play DnD with my Piggott group on Skype every Sunday. It's pretty cool.
2. I'm attempting to get into shape this semester. By this I mean I'm planning on a diet and workout plan that are designed to build lean muscle mass. What I've learned from this: healthy food is EXPENSIVE! I mean, just buying veggies and fruit nearly bankrupts me. And let's not even speak of the vitamins and supplements the plan advises me to take(the plan's statement on  supplements is "you don't have to, but if you don't you won't see results as fast or as dramatic").
3. Related to 2: I need a job, desperately.
4. Related to 3: I need a car, desperately.
5. Related to 2-4: Shameless plug- Note the donation button in the corner. ;D
6. Among the classes I'm taking this year is "Legal Environment of Business". It's at 8am, but I'm trying to get up early this semester anyway; see 2. The professor is the county judge. I am, apparently, the teacher's pet. Why? Because out of the entire 20+ persons in the class, I was the only one who had read the Constitution. So, yeah, I'm enjoying the class. My other classes are looking up, too. Yes, even Stats.
7. Still searching for an internship. No news on that front.

That's about it so far. More tomorrow, maybe, or less. All depends on how the day goes. It's Accounting and Earth Science, so don't hope for much.

Later,
Bill

Argleblargtravelgargletired.

Thought for the day: When one person says "I'll go to register at (x) time, when there are fewer people", then it's smart. When everyone says it, it rather defeats the purpose.

Back at school. Exhausted from travelling five hours to get here, plus post-registration today. Classes start at 8am tomorrow; will let you know how it goes.

SOPA's bad, mmkay?

Thought for the day: "If SOPA does pass, we will have to depend on the judgement of well informed, internet-savvy judges to not jump the gun.Those exist, right?" tweeted by Dan Shive on Dec 14, 2012, just before the first round of SOPA voting.


Ok. So, I posted this to my Facebook wall last night. Sparky then asked me what SOPA actually was, since she had looked it up but was still a bit confused. Thus, since I haven't posted in a couple of days(they can be summarised as Cold, Wet, And Boring: A Play in Two Acts) I thought I'd give an overview of

1. What SOPA is
2. The Protests(specifically the blackouts)
3. And the latest news on SOPA's pass/fail status.

Let's start with what SOPA is. SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, an bill currently before the United States House of Representatives. There is a competing bill before the Senate, the Protect IP Act. The problems with thte bills are largely similar, so we're going to stick with SOPA here.

The idea behind SOPA is as follows:

• The Internet, as regards copyrighted materials, is a bit like an Old West boom town between Sheriffs: Law is an abstract concept, and the most responsible people are the ones running the brothel.
• People in general, and Americans in particular, should be able to buy and sell their works on the Internet without fear that they will be undercut by some pirate site.

Now, we can all agree that the intentions here are good. Very good. I'm sure Lucifer appreciates the paving stones for the Road to Hell.

See, the bill is catastrophically, unforgivably, horribly worded. The problems with SOPA are, in brief:

• The bill bans anything which might be used to block copyright enforcement. Remember all those proxy servers that helped preserve anonymity of posters during the Arab Spring uprisings? Illegal, under SOPA.
• The bill threatens user created content sites. Cloud services, Youtube, Flicker; they're all at risk, because some users might use them to disseminate copyrighted materials. But what about when those copyrighted materials belong to the user, not some outside company or person? Well...
• Fair Trials are right out the window with SOPA. If you hold a copyright, and you CLAIM that someone has uploaded your intellectual property, the act ASSUMES you to be telling the truth and allows the Dept. of Justice to have your site blocked. You can, of course, hire a lawyer and contest it, but if the website is your primary source of income, and it's now blocked, well... You Are Screwed.
• The damn thing won't actually stop pirates. The wording makes it clear that the writers of the bill have no idea how the technology they're regulating works; in the first place, they don't know the difference between an IP address and a DNS (Caveat: though it was one of the major flaws in the bill, the DNS blocking has been removed from the bill. There are, of course, plenty of others)

I could go on, but if you want more, that's why God gave us Wikipedia. Speaking of: the bill resumes consideration when the House comes back from recess on January 18. On that day, in response to this nonsense, Reddit intends to black out. From 8am to 8pm, Eastern Standard Time, Reddit.com will be unavaiable. Instead there will be a series of links and statements about the dangers of SOPA. The following sites have confirmed to blackout with Reddit(source):
Reddit.com
Tucows.com
The entire Cheezburger Network  Thus Saith Ceiling Cat: YOU CAN NO HAZ SOPA.
Destructoid.com
Hacktivist group, Anonymous
Red 5 Studios, developer of the Firefall MMO
Mojang.com and Popular MMO, Minecraft
NLB Creations
Webmaster community Admin Forums
Web design company, Skytemple.com
Gaming site Video Game Generation
Right Angle Recording
All sites in Major League Gaming’s network
GamingBus.com
Errata Security
XDA Developers
Gaming site, GOG.com
Hey It’s Free!
Harder Blogger Faster
Colossal Mind
Sonic Retro
BrentAnderson.info
Working It Out
e-cloudy.com
Seibertron.com
NewGrounds
Through the Eyes of a Pirate
Cynical Brit
Platform Nation
Digital Suicide
GOOD Evening
Rage Maker
FreakOutNation
TheLeakyWiki
Doxie Lovers Club
Twitpic – They won’t be going completely black, but will be posting censored versions of their site.
Age of Coins
A Softer World
This Is Why Im Broke
Cake Wrecks
Dance Top 40
Code Labs
MediaMyriad.com


Also, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter are all very publicly against SOPA, and will probably do something similar(see Twitpic above).


So, that's the basics of SOPA and why it's bad. You want more, go read around, there's plenty on it. Heck, go read the bill itself. If you want to get involved, remember that Blackout Day is Jan. 18, but the bill probably won't go to vote for some time afterwards. Plenty of time to complain to your congresspersons; I did, and got back responses, too (One wants to scrap it wholesale, the other wants to rewrite it).

In the meantime, good luck, God speed, and may the Schwartz be with you (while I'm still allowed to say that under copyright).
Bill.

An Embuggerance

Thought for the day: There are, generally speaking, two ways of dealing with a crushing blow: Despair, "Alas! My dream is crushed."; and Indignation, "I BEG your pardon?! Crush MY dreams? Oh, I don't THINK so sir!"

So, last night I didn't post. The reason is that I didn't get the Google BOLD internship. Alas. So, yesterday I spent much of the morning and afternoon feeling sorry for myself.

And then I thought, you know what? F@#$ this shit. I'm going to find ANOTHER internship out in California for the summer, one that pays anywhere-from-nearly-as-well-to-just-as-well,-because-there's-not-a-lot-that-pay-better.

So I spent the night applying for internships instead. I applied to about 3 so far; one with Adobe(HR and Marketing), one with a pharmaceutical company(HR dept), and one with LeadAmerica (Team Leader position).

And today? Nothing happened. Sooo....Peace out, and wish me luck.
Bill

Badger Badger, Motherf@#$.

Thought for the day: Sometimes, God's in a funny mood, and you get to roll a natural 20 when it would be most epic.


Today was D&D. I killed a dragon with a badger.

This is mitigated by the following factors:

1. Said badger was in fact a Celestial Badger, a bit stronger(but not much) than your average badger.
2. The party tank had already dropped it down to only 1HP.
3. I did not actually know that at the time, nor did I intend to slay dragon with said badger; the intent was to provide a distraction so the Sorcerer could fling off another spell.

Nevertheless, I turned to my dungeon master, with nothing but my remaining Bardic Performances and a Wand of Summon Monster I. The rough transcript is as follows:

"So, the limit to the wand is the monster only stays 1 round, right?"
"Right."
"But I can place that monster anywhere I want within the 50ft range of the spell, right"
"Right, so long as you can see it." (This last was in the DM's I-know-you-are-planning-something-and-I-am-intrigued voice).
"I can't see within the sleet-storm the cleric used to pin the dragon down, though."
"Yep."
"I can see the dragon's face, can't I?"

It came down to a roll of the dice. Anything short of a Natural 20 wouldn't make it.

And the Lord said...
And the LORD said...
And The LORD Said...

Epic Win.

Glory to God in the highest, especially in His aspect as Master of Probability.

Yours in FLAWLESS VICTORY,

Bill

Show Some Love

Thought for the day: One good turn deserves another.

No real post today, can't really think of anything. So, instead, here's a link to Autumn Brontide, which has been linking here a lot. Lauren, this is as close as I'll ever come to paying for free advertising. The reason being, 'free' means I don't pay for it.

Much love to all my readers,
Bill

Left My Heart without even going

Thought for the day: Love, being an idea, is strongest in the mind.

I've fallen in love with California, especially the Bay Area.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, in California. But, I ended up falling anyway. I know where it started, of course.

 
See, I'm in the process of applying for Google's BOLD Program- Building Opportunities for Leadership Development. I'd really, really like to get this, because even if I don't get hired for Google afterwards, I can put it on my resume and get hired...pretty much anywhere else, actually. This would, among other things, mean moving the the Bay Area for the summer. So, naturally, I started looking into the Bay Area and California in general.

His Imperial Majesty The Emperor Of These United States

As those who know me personally will recall, my personal hero was a San Franciscan, His Majesty Emperor Norton. I shan't go into the details here, at least not in this post, but suffice it to say that it had already predisposed towards liking the place; it has a reputation as a haven for weirdos like myself. Silicon Valley is, of course, the Great Geekopolis, so points there as well. Then I find, in the course of my researches, that San Francisco and San Jose both tend to rank in the Top 25, if not the Top 10, places for new grads.

Actually, let's veer off on a tangent for a moment. Let's talk about the job market for persons age 15-24. Unemployment for this group is anywhere from 15% to 20%, with the U.S. Dept. of Labor ranking it somewhere in the 18% range. Oh, yes, we can't find jobs anywhere - oh, but yes we can, because those numbers also includes high school and college dropouts. For those with a degree, it's about 4.5%; yes, finding a job is hard, but it's ALWAYS hard. The universe does not fall into your lap, sad but true.

Anyway, back to my Californication. And there, you see, is when I really got hooked. For a lark I started listening to songs about California and SF. The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Train both figured heavily. The lyrics and images kept swimming around my head. I fell, head over heels, with California, sight unseen.

YES, I'm aware of the catastrophic problems out there. SF is dirty, the homeless and vagrant problems(distinct but overlapping) are immense, and God help the transit system. And that doesn't even SPEAK to the immense cost of living as compared to here. But, you know what?

I'm sick and tired of small towns. I'm sick and tired of small people who think small and use small words. I've had enough, I want to, just once, get out to the Big City by the Big Sea(which I have YET to see, EVER!). And I will pray to a Big God when I kneel in the Big Church!

(And snow white pillows, for my big fat head. ;))

Thursday. The most Meh of Days.

Thought for the day: When you have no car, no cash, and are stuck three miles from nowhere for the remainder of your vacation, you tend not to have interesting days.

As I posted a whopper of a post last night, tonight will be short. Nothing new from Netflix, but it's scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Did some research into the Whuffie Bank, which has relaunched but appears to be having technical difficulties(the bane of all digital endeavors), so I've got no new info on that, but when it DOES come fully online I'll toy with it and give my two cents.

In the meantime, peace out.
Bill

Virtual Worlds, And Why I'm Fascinated With Them

Thought for the day: For every Google, there's 5,000 guys with startups living in a cardboard box. On the other side, for every 5,000 guys with startups living in a cardboard box, there's a Google, which employs 10,000+. We come out on the plus, is what I'm saying.

Second Life is a Virtual World - THE VW, in fact, because the major competitor at the moment is OpenSim, and open source variant of, you guessed it, Second Life. In Second Life, you can fly. You can swim. You can build a car, a house, a boat. You can be male, female, animal, human, robot, a creature made from crystals and light, all within about 5 minutes of each other. You can run a business using a real currency- the Linden Dollar($L). You can, and here's the kicker, exchange Lindens for USD, and vice versa. If you're particularly clever, you can make a living from Second Life.

For quite a while, Second life was the darling of the major Old Media. Corporations were FLOCKING to it. Reebok, Dell, they all set up digital storefronts. Everyone was convinced Second Life was the wave of the future, going to change the way we interacted with the Net.

And it flopped. Crashed. Businesses are shuttering all over SL. In 2011 they had about 1mil logins per month- in that same period, Facebook had 500mil. Why? Why did this supposed golden opportunity for business turn out to be nothing more than an, ahem, golden river?

Remember all those things you could be? Ask yourself honestly, now. If you can dress like Dracula, Dyonisus and Dianna Ross, are you really going to buy Abercrombie and Fitch? If you can be a mermaid, is Sketchers going to get your business? If you can fly by pressing and holding the Page Up key, what need have you for Volvo?

But, ah! Cast no stones just yet. There is a silver lining for Second Life. Corporate forays into Second Life flopped, but they were not the only ones who saw the immense potential in a virtual world. Educators, also, toyed with it. And SL is sooooo much kinder to Education than Commerce.

Princeton University's Second Life Campus

Harvard is on Second Life, as are several others.That last links to a case study of The New Media Consortium, a group which aims to help member organizations, including Harvard, Yale and MIT, use virtual worlds as much to their advantage as possible. There are even some organizations, like Rockcliffe University, which are strictly virtual, having no real world campus whatsoever.

Rockcliffe's an odd example though. What it teaches, mostly, is virtual worlds; not just SL, though the primary campus is there, but also WoW, which comes under the heading of a game-type virtual world. On the other hand, the capstone classes for the various programs are, essentially, How To Apply What You Learned Here To The Real World. And, of course, it has courses teaching in media, specifically for First Responders type information. I have to admit, it seems like the best use of SL I've seen so far.

And of course beyond all that there's the recreational use of SL. I happen to have visited, among other places, a lovely Steampunk City, Paris in 1905, Konoha and Minas Tirith; because of this being the Internet, there's also a lot of adult entertainment as well.

But that's not why I'm fascinated. Well, only No, my fascination is in the Linden Dollar. A truly virtual currency, which could be traded at will? It's a novel idea. We already exist in a digital world. How much do you own in virtual goods? All the data on your computer, in clouds on the Net, the games you play on Facebook. I own a lot more in virtual goods than I do in tangible goods. A digital currency might be exactly what the Internet needs.

And it has choices, too. The $L, of course, is bound to the USD. On the other hand, there's the Ven, which aims to be an ACTUAL currency. The $L became what it is by accident; Linden Labs basically woke up one morning and said "HO SHIT! We accidentally made an economy!" Which, I suppose, is one of the reasons the Linden fails; they never really foresaw the full power of their product. They continually produce more Lindens on demand; this is a bad idea for the same reason the US Govt. doesn't simply print $16 trillion one-dollar bills and have a surplus.

The Ven

But the Ven actually IS designed to be a real currency. And I think it could come to prosper, if it can get USE. Use, ultimately, is the life and death of an idea. How many of you had heard of the Ven before reading this? Despite the fact that it could be quite useful, how many of you will actually keep a stash of Ven in your Paypal?(actually, you wouldn't need to, but that's not the point) Most of you won't, is what I'm getting at. Or, maybe, a lot of us will. It depends. As my Thought said: for every 5000 failures, you get a Google.

Here's to being 5001.
Bill

Oh, Iowa.

Thought for the day: When you are so despised by the LGBT community that they successfully make your name a neologism for the 'sloppy' in 'sloppy seconds', you should probably not try to run for a national office, much less President.

Rick Santorum tied with Mit Romney in the Iowa Caucus, with Ron Paul pulling a close third.

But Jon Stewart was solace personified, as usual. "REALLY, Republicans? You're going to try EVERY possible option before Romney?"

Alright, I'm going to drop this before I get upset. Tomorrow night, I'll be talking about Second Life. For now, good night.

Botheration

Thought for the day: Whenever possible, one should attempt to figure out unfamiliar technology BEFORE Captain Morgan arrives to the party.

I swear I posted something for New Years Eve. It's in the Outbox on my phone. I don't know what happened, but there we are.

I didn't post last night, and will only post a short one tonight, because I'm still a little out of it from New Years Eve(Friday night was a computer crash). Staying up more than 24 hours with copious(but responsible) amounts of alcohol will do that to you. On the other hand, it looks like my circadian rhythm is finally on roughly the same cycle it needs to be for school. So, all I have to do is avoid messing that up.

With that in mind, I'm going to hit the hay for the night. See you tomorrow.
Bill