Piracy and South Park

Many of us loooove South Park, right?

When I started reading the first chapter, it reminded me of one of the South Park episodes where the boys find out about online piracy and that celebrities were losing money because no one was buying their CDs.

One of the celebrities said to the boys, "Because people are illegally downloading songs I wasn't able to buy my private island for my birthday".

HA!


Think about it, how march harm is piracy doing to celebrities?  This might sound cruel, but they have enough money anyway.  Sorry I don't have as much money as them to buy a CD so they can buy a private island, jet, huge mansion, etc.

At least that's what South Park taught me.  Thought it was note worthy.

Suing a 12 year old...

I started to read the first chapter of the Generation Digital book, and it said that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) was suing hundreds of young adults, teens, and kids for illegally downloading music.

Here's my problem with the situation:  the RIAA was suing KIDS who probably didn't know much about the law, let alone that they could get in so much trouble for it.  They didn't know what was coming for them...

That's heartless of the RIAA to sue kids (like poor 12 year old Brianna LaHara), having them stand in court facing fines for something they may not have fully understood.

Even a rapper thought they were crazy...

The White House Has YouTube Channel?!

I discovered that the White House has a YouTube channel!


I saw it on YouTube's main page, the top video on the sidebar was an hour long video on the State of the Union.

And here the government wanted to pass SOPA/PIPA (and now ACTA) that would eventually shutdown YouTube...


Anyone else see the irony?

SOPA/PIPA, More info

Yes, these laws have been shelved, but we may run into a similar problem (like with the ACTA law).

Here's a video a friend found on Vimeo. Here's the link.


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

SOPA/PIPA Rises Again!

So I'm sure many have heard that SOPA and PIPA have been shelved because of the amount of hate that people had for them.

Well, sadly these things come in THREES!


This one is called ACTA, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.  This one appears to allow other countries to use this act....greeeaaaaat.  But it basically does the same thing (but it sounds like it's not just limited to the Internet...I think it can strike at ANYTHING), it's designed to boost the already advanced copyright laws...

We've got two down, one to go!

Books vs. eBooks?

So in class we were talking about whether Google was making us stupid.  The conversation then veered off into the Internet in general (and how you can just Google search books or keywords to get the info you want).

Then I got to thinking:  What about the rise of eBooks (the elimination of paper books, you can just buy a book off the internet and get it on your tablet, iPad, phone, etc., for a much lower price)?  How will regular paper books be affected?

The sad truth is, paper books could be eliminated.  With the rise of demand for "going green", almost everything has been made to eliminate waste and overuse of resources.  Books are no exception.

There are avid supporters of both, but I'm just going to write my thoughts on it.

Yes, eBooks are nice (especially for those darn expensive textbooks!), and they save paper, cost less, etc.

However, if people don't read everything on the Internet, how can they read an eBook? I don't think I can.  All that brightness and pixel made letters (instead of ink stained onto a page in thick blots), I think my eyes would go bad (or worse).  Reading things on a bright screen (like on the Internet) just makes my brain go all fuzzy.

Here's where the whole "Is Google making us stupid" argument comes in.  If people just scan web pages, and go someplace else for more info, why won't some people do the same for eBooks?

That's why I still support paper books.  I can actually put it close to my face and it won't possibly blind me...

But how much longer will books be around?  With the rise of the Internet and digital media, and the many uses you can get out of such media, may very well eliminate paper materials altogether!

Harry Potter vs. SOPA/PIPA

First off, I really enjoyed the chapter from Jenkins' book "Convergence Culture" on the Harry Potter wars and fanfiction.

I got to thinking, Warner Bros. had tried to shut down sites that "exploited" the property rights of Harry Potter back when the movies were underway.  This led to fan writers accusing them of violating their freedom of speech, unfair prejudice on small sites, etc.

So can SOPA/PIPA still do the same?  Take legal action to shut down these sites that Warner Bros. has already deemed safe and fair?

Rowling appears to have supported the existence of fanfiction, and Warner Bros. soon was forced to follow.

But SOPA/PIPA has not.  


Not only can these new laws potentially shut down Harry Potter fanfiction sites (assuming someone else bypasses Rowling and Warner Bros., if at all possible), but then can shut down any fanfiction known to man!

Will Harry Potter be at risk again?

PIPA Is The New SOPA!

We’ve all heard of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), right?

Well now there’s another one!

It’s called PIPA (Protect IP Act).  It’s supposed to enter the Senate on Jan. 24^th, and does basically the same thing as SOPA.

Restricts our right to the Internet!

(Google for more info J)

This is a call for concern, since SOPA has been receiving so much negative attention, if people don’t do the same for PIPA, it could be passed!

So remember,

PIPA is also bad!

The Blackout Is Coming! The Blackout Is Coming!

In retaliation against SOPA, multiple sites are blacking out!

Sites are shutting down for 12 hours tomorrow (Jan. 18^th) from 7AM to 7PM Central Time.

This includes: Wikipedia, imgur, reddit, Cheezburgers, and much, much more!

This is what the web could look like under the Stop Online Piracy Act.  The webpage (if you click anywhere on the page) will also provide you with the script used to blackout your page in that same manner.

So if the site you are trying to use tomorrow shows that, it’s blacked out for the day!

Blog Prompt #2: Am I addicted to Google?

Why, yes I am!

I love Google!  And if anyone has heard me, I say it all the time, especially in this class.  I think my recent fascination with Google came with entering college.  I would run into problems that a textbook wouldn’t help me with, so I Googled it.

Every time!

Mainly I would Google Adobe questions I had, like how to make a liquid layout in Dreamweaver (which is how I made my personal site for this class).

Not only have I Googled questions I had for classes and programs, I’ve also Googled how to create ringtones for my iPhone (something my dad couldn’t figure out!)

And I’ve Googled problems I’ve had with technology.

And I always get an answer!

It might take a while, and some of those answers might suck a bit, but Google always helped me figure things out.

However, Google is great and all, but what about our privacy?  I will have to say that it concerns me a bit that Google tracks my location and recent searches to give me specific ads.  It’s really frightening, but it’s not going to frighten me away from Google. I usually just ignore it all anyway and pretend it doesn’t happen.  Google is tracking millions of people; they can’t possibly single out a single person for anything drastic, right?

It’s the search engine for me, and it will always be that way.

SOPA and How It's Gonna Ruin Our Lives

Anyone hear of SOPA yet?  It's that bill the government is trying to pass that will restrict our Internet (like China does).  So America wants to become a Communistic country! Yaaaaaay! 

*bangs head on desk*

This is great, just great.  The bill is intended to stop piracy (and we all know that people will find loopholes), but SOPA will, in turn, restrict our usage of the Internet.

This is a violation of our Constitutional rights!

Of course, you have probably all heard that, but it’s true.  If the government takes away our use of the Internet in any way they want, they are thus restricting our freedom to use it.

What’s next?!

ICANN’t Stand New Domain Names!

Everyone knows what the .com, .org, .gov and .edu stand for on webpages.  “.com” is the generic site domain name that may not be as trustworthy as .gov or .edu sites.  It is also the most common domain name.  Anyone who creates a site that is not related to an organization, government, or education has a .com domain name.

“.org” is an organization site, any organization can have one!  This one is semi-trustworthy, it really depends on the organization (is it a good one, or a bad one?).

Then there is “.gov” for government.  ONLY American government sites have the .gov domain name.

And “.edu” is for education.  All of our schools have a .edu domain name.  These signify higher educations and information sites and are very trustworthy.

Since Internet around the world uses these same domain names, we need to learn to share as html and web creators.  In Japan, their .com domain names end with “.co/jp”.  That seems to work.  It separates Japan from American sites.

However, apparently everyone is upset that they cannot have “.gov”, because it is strictly for American use.  Yes, that seems unfair.  But the solution of ICANN, the group that runs domain names as a business, is to create more domain names!

Instead of everyone having “.gov” or “.com” at the end of their sites, now ICANN will start selling personalized domain names for about $185,000.  That’s a lot of money!

So if Google wants a new domain name instead of “.com”, they can buy their own domain name for thousands of dollars to have a “.google” domain name.

Problems:

1.        My key problem is that organization of sites will go down the drain.  Now we won’t know what sites are trustworthy or not because the hierarchal system that our previous domain names provide will be gone!

2.        Now we need to remember more to sites.  We can’t just guess and assume that the site we want ends in “.com”.  Now we actually need to remember what its site and domain name are!

3.        Businesses are going to waste tons of money and possibly go bankrupt because they want to stay on top and have their own domain name.  If you don’t have your own domain name your fucked!  You won’t seem as powerful to online consumers with just a “.org”, “.gov” or “.edu”

4.        Now if someone were to scam people out of thousands of dollars to buy a fancy domain name to scam and con more people, then consumers will just believe the site is true and powerful because it has the big fancy domain name!

It’s stupid, it’s a waste of money, and dear God now we will have billions of sites that we won’t know what exactly their function is.

Why can't everyone just have a ".gov/countryinitials"?

Beard Line?!

I’m sure everyone has an inside joke that no one outside of your major will understand.

But I think I’ve found one that tops them all.

And it’s called:

Beard Line!

What’s a beard line?  It’s a typography term used to describe the bottom of a character that goes below the blue line on a sheet of notebook paper (or the descender).  Such as the bottom of the “p”.

I guess you could say that the descending line is like a beard falling from the face.  Other than that, I don’t know why they call it that.  All the rest of the terms make sense!  Just not beard line…

Haha, beard line.

The Life and Love of Dreamweaver

I decided to use Dreamweaver instead of KompoZer to create my personal web page for my SPC 260 course.  And I decided to challenge the hell out of myself.  I had only learned how to create a site using a fixed size for the web page (this means that the web page would only fill a portion of the browser screen, not stretch to fill it all).  Instead, I decided to try my hand at a liquid layout

And, boy, was I stupid.

I Googled practically everything I needed to know to create this format, and nearly nothing made it work!  I spend half a day trying to actually get the damn page to format right, but instead of giving up and going back to a fixed layout I just kept making this work!

And, so, after painstaking hours of screaming at my computer and trying everything I could to have a nice looking layout that shrunk and stretched with the browser size,

ê I finally got it to work! ê

Now I kind of know how to make a web page that fills the whole browser.  Onto the designing part!

Once you go Dreamweaver, you’ll never go back.

When our class went over the Nvu (now know as KompoZer) how-to and did a little in-class exercise, I wanted to bang my head through the wall!  It has nothing to do with the class (the class is AMAZING so far ;D ), just the KompoZer program!

Here are my reasons why:

• I could not, for the life of me, get any of it to work!  The text would format weird, I couldn't get the banner along the top to look right
• I hated the format!  There was all this white space around the banner, which I couldn't get to size right in the first place...
• And when you have already taken a class in Dreamweaver, nothing else makes sense.

So, to make up for my anger at the KompoZer program and my lack of ability to understand the simplest web design program, I wrote a big:

I don’t get this, I’m using Dreamweaver!!!

Where has all the snow gone?

As you all probably know (unless you live in a cave and never come out), there has been no snow this winter!  At least no snow that has stuck to the ground and covered more than a mm.

It has seriously started to screw up our ecosystem!  All the fat squirrels are still out…they should be sleeping right now!  And last night my friend mentioned that birds are starting to fly back.  That’s bad.  When it really starts to get cold (which it will!  Just really late in the year.  Either that, or it will get warm in March instead of May), those birds and squirrels are going to freeze.

Another thing about why this winter sucks.  I did not get to have a white Christmas! Instead, it didn’t feel like Christmas at all.

L

Blog on "Bloggers on Blogging": The Tiffany B. Brown Story

Now say that 5 times fast!

For the 1st blog prompt, blogging on our thoughts about an interview with bloggers by Rebecca Blood.  I chose to read Tiffany B. Brown's interview.

I skimmed most of the other interviews, like any other reader of online material, and what attracted me to Brown's interview was the phrase: "Web technology and design, internet life, stuff that catches my eye, and whatever is rumbling through my head at the moment".


Well, I really breezed over the "web technology and design..." part.  What really interested me was "stuff that catches my eye, and whatever is rumbling through my head..."!  Interesting people are only interesting if they can get away from the dry, boring stuff and into the random, what-the-heck-is-that stuff.


I also enjoyed when Brown said that she thought she had more to write about when she focused on topics in gender, race, and culture instead of web development.  


Because people are more interested in controversies than stuff they cannot understand.

The First Amazing Blog: CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Welcome to my first blog.  This one is very boring.

The end.