As a general FYI and news of the Day bump, The votes for both PIPA and SOPA have been put on hold, it doesn’t mean they are dead, and with wonderful rhetoric like This Gem from
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), “But the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem. Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy.”
So an industry that employ’s a decent number of people here, but produces all of its promotional items abroad, gets a pat on the back. Millions of jobs lost right there senator.
How can a US law punish someone in another country. I’m pretty sure there are laws in Iran you may have violated today, should we ship you there to face punishment? It makes no sense. All these type of laws do is frustrate and censor citizens in your own country. They can stop a daycare from painting mickey mouse on a wall in Florida but they can’t stop anyone anywhere else from stealing a nickle.
Man I’ve done a lot of ranting lately… Where’s my coffee.
Yesterday wasn’t fun for me. I lost money, and lost a lot of fun. I lost ad revenue from people coming to my tiny little corner of the internet and clicking on an ad or two. Reading a funny post or learning a thing or two. Perhaps listening to the podcast that was supposed to record live last night. I’m not a hard hitting news site, and we all know this. This is where you come for a very niche brand of bad humor, good gadgets and fun. This isn’t a place for political machinations. Hell this isn’t a place that usually uses the word machinations… let alone spells it right both times.
This was the response from former congressman, and now MPAA chief Chris Dodd on Yesterday’s Strike
“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.
It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.
A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.” ~Chris Dodd
Abuse of power? or a showing of strength. I can’t think companies would give up revenue and annoy their uses for no reason.
“If 50 people, yes 50 people a day walk in an sing alice’s restaurant and walk out… then, that, my friends is a movement” ~Alro Guthrie
With all apologies to Arlo for shoving the quote out in a hamfisted way, we have a movement. And people are starting to learn what is happening behind the closed doors in Washington. An educated populace is a dangerous one. You can’t kill a movement.
There are 94 million reasons for the Congress to listen to the MPAA, all of them fronting George Washington. None of those reasons has anything to back it up beyond a old fashioned payoff.
The reasons to keep the internet as it is are much more concrete. The bills as they stand break functionality, will loose people big and small real money and don’t add anything to the equation, in fact the process that the bill would implement would basically set us back years in terms of productivity and cooperative and collaborative work. The DCMA is a fine way to take down content that infringes upon people’s rights. It works, it has oversight. And the onus is on the copyright holder to complain if they feel their work is being misused.
SOPA / PIPA would allow the US Government to shutdown sites first, without a hearing. Upon receiving a complaint. What says the party in power doesn’t use this to shut down a particularly explosive story about one of its members, keep it out of the news long enough to win an election. This is censorship, plain and simple. This is not protecting jobs this is controlling information.
No one is defending piracy. We are rejecting censorship, in any form. Instead of standing up an old business models, innovate. Instead of locking people into content streams and milking them for money at every turn allow them to own their content and take it with them as they see fit. The piracy will go down. People quite simply don’t want to buy DVD’s or disks of any sort. they want files, and will pay for files, as long as the files can be played where they want them to play.
Movies have not lost their revenue due to piracy, but because going to the movies is expensive and the economy sucks. Movies need to be really good for people to throw down coin in a down-turned economy. And that is just logic.
SOPA and PIPA are great examples of how things are really broken in our government. The constituents stand up and say they don’t want something to pass, it shouldn’t pass. Government by the people, not by the bank. A business does not get to vote, and does not get calls it an abuse of power? No my friends we elect people to make that laws. the congress shouldn’t be taking their ques from companies.
You want power? You need to fight. You want to negotiate you have to ask for things you would be willing to cut to get what you really want.
The biggest problems with the SOPA and PIPA legislation that everyone saw right off the bat was DNS filtering. You force sites off the internet by blocking their website from being recognized by DNS, the system that basically runs how the internet works.
DNS as a short example: Every computer connected to the network has a unique address, like a phone number that is that computers signature as it travles about online. There are a host of rules for what address your machine ends up with, and most machines have temporary numbers, when you connect you are given a number dynamically (DHCP), but websites have a Static Address, and DNS is the phonebook that translates www.yahoo.com to 98.139.180.149. Try it… both go to the same place. Big sites have the whole address to themselves, like yahoo, google ect.
but little sites like www.caffination.com -> 74.208.150.174 share the same number with other sites. And its the job of the DNS to sort all of that out.
Well with all of that explanation MPAA has taken the most offensive portion off the table. SOPA and PIPA live on, without the obvious flaw. now the problems which remain are just as bad, but a little less obvious. The laws would require the content providers to police everything that is ever submitted for possible copy-write violation, think about the volume of videos that youtube gets. should someone have to watch every single one as it is submitted. Would you be ok if it took a couple of months for your news and reports to get out?
The laws would also would attempt to legislate non us sites with a US law. How would you feel is Russia passed a law crippling a site you use?
This is like Haggling the MPAA and their friends never really wanted DNS filtering, but how much does it chill you that a company is talking about taking things out of our laws? An organization is negotiating with lawmakers on what they want. The system isn’t supposed to work this way, but it does and its about time it stopped.
We here at the CaffiNation don’t take our freedoms lightly. And we are banding together with Boing Boing, Google and many other websites to show people what the internet means to our society. Bad legislation that gives unchecked power to not only disable sites, but to do so in a hamfisted way, which can very easily break the way the internet functions.
This doesn’t just affect people in the USA, but everywhere. But the problem is that we are the only ones who can can change things. Here is the short explanation. via Michael Geist ”
While there is little that people living outside the U.S. can do to influence SOPA and PIPA, there are many reasons why it is important for everyone to participate in tomorrow’s SOPA protest.
First, the SOPA provisions are designed to have an extra-territorial effect in countries around the world.
Second, non-U.S. businesses and websites could easily find themselves targeted by SOPA. The bill grants the U.S. “in rem” jurisdiction over any website that does not have a domestic jurisdictional connection.
Third, millions rely on the legitimate sites that are affected by the legislation. Whether creating a Wikipedia entry, posting a comment on Reddit, running a WordPress blog, participating in an open source software project, or reading a posting on Boing Boing, the lifeblood of the Internet is a direct target of SOPA. If non-Americans remain silent, they may ultimately find the sites and services they rely upon silenced by this legislation.
Fourth, the U.S. intellectual property strategy has long been premised on exporting its rules to other countries. SOPA virtually guarantees that this will continue.”
Why bother breaking things to try and support business models with legislation? Thats the easy part, the people who have the money have the means to grease the wheels of government. Its time to shine a light on that slimy practice and remind the lawmakers who puts them in those hallowed halls.
I’m always looking for something to spice up the show, like a fine curry one show is never quite like the next. But after 6 years its hard to see the differences some times. I’d love for people to email in and share what they like and don’t about the show. Where should we be spending our time? What do you want to hear more about? Less About? it’s your show we just host it.
CES is happening, and I’m not there. So pay attention to people who are. Like Norbert! He and the fine folks with TPN, have all the goodies.
Tonight’s show is full of puns, a ton of in jokes and a great vibe throughout. We hit on everything from Mario to Makerbots, we touch on Star wars, Coffee, and of course lots of off beat news and happenings
Vinnie Jones, known for playing tough guy roles such roles as Big Chris in” Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels”, Sphinx in “Gone in 60 Seconds, has recently starred in a commercial for “The British Heart Foundation“, where he is promoting “Hands-Only CPR” And in today’s society, I believe people would prefer Hands-Only CPR to what is usually taught.
The CaffiNation Podcast has been running since January 9th 2006, and Since April of 2006 we have been part of the fine folks at the Techpodcast Network. As it is their custom the fine folks at the TPN are winging their way to Las Vegas for CES, the consumer Electronics show. Basically a week long technology festival where all the vendors unviel thier most awesoem stuff, smaller developers get to showcase their wares, and only the best and brightest of tech shines.
We also have a friend of the Show rocking it out as a man on the Street. Norbert Davis is hunting for the best in Totally Cool Tech, So make sure to check out those websites in the coming days. But the CaffiNation will have the live stream of the TPN events on our homepage for the Duration of the conference!
The french are know for a great many refined things in the world, dainty cheeses, varied wines, and champagne. Well you can add another culinary masterpiece, with a little geek flair thrown in.
Enter, with appropriate music of course, the Darth Vader (apprently Vador in french) Burger! Actually the picture looks even more epic when you play the linked video in the back…
This is a special kind of awesome, although it needs to have three patties, just so you could say the force is strong with this one. without knowing any french I can only assume that the Sith Burger would be spicy and awesome and have lots of bacon hidden on it., while the Jedi burger is nondescript, generic Jedi. If it was an Obi Wan burger it would be pious and a little bitter, if it was a Luke burger they would have to serve it with whine.
Because let’s face it is this was a Yoda Burger it would be white castle slider small, and have Guacamole on it… And would still be more awesome than the other two Jedi burgers combined. OK that’s it I need to make my own versions of these now…
You would think with as much build up the holiday season has I would have been ready for it? Well i wasn’t in fact the last week leading up to the Holiday was a blur. Buildings moved at work, sling came off, arm is no longer so special. And a lot of work needed to be done. Quite frankly i was done at the end of the normal work day and didn’t write or think after i got home.
For tonight we have a bevy of Geeky things to share, a few fun wrap ups from the past year, stuff like favorite stories, most popular posts, evil chat room antics… All of it. We have a live show once more set to go off without too many hitches. Time will only tell if all the bugs have been ironed out. We are covering everything from Steve Jobs as a doll, to Meteor showers, Coffee and coffee related stuff a plenty and a fun new graphic I have hanging in my window at work. There are a bunch of fun things to talk about so make sure you join us each week, for the Live Taping!
Did you know that the CaffiNation will be celebrating our 6 year anniversary of podcasting? 6 years as of January 9th 2011. Lots of great times and new friends over that time. People like to make resolutions right around this time every year, and I for years have scoffed at this practice, and that really didn’t help things so this year I’m trying for 1600 x 1200 as a resolution…
CES by TPN, and TCT! Consumer electronics show is right around the corner, we are goignt o be carrying the live stream for the Techpodcast network, as well as pointing you to some awesome content from Norbert at TCT!
We here at the CaffiNation Podcast and Puzzle Piece Productions would like to send out our warmest wishes to you and yours this holiday season. There are so many problems in the world it’s quite nice to spend a few moments with family and friends celebrating the things that are going your way. So our deepest and warmest wishes to you.
Getting into the Holiday mood was never a problem when you were younger. But what about now? How do you continue to kringle things up when you hit the Post childhood years? Why by finding tons of fun things to eyeball and keeping the frown turned upside down with a few laughs. We have everythign from Star was to Trek, from dirty Haiku to wonderful holiday cheer. It all depends on you.
Tonight’s show was a bit of a mish mash of different stories, work life is getting in the way of clear thinking after hours. Huge things are afoot in work, with our new building basically done, and the move on Monday… Crazy times. This was an awesome show with a lot of interplay with the live audience. and a fun hanging challenge at the end of the show. How wrong am i?
If you like this website, hell if you hate this website, but like the ability to choose where you go online please read below. Quite Simply SOPA will allow the US government to turn off websites, on whim of a corporation.
This will break the internet, no hyperbole.
“Tomorrow, the US government will vote to have broad powers to block any site. SOPA would not only hurt free speech, it will choke off the internet workforce and its readers by taking down entire websites. Today is the only day we have left to have our voices heard. It’s time to pull all stops – please make a call right now to protest censorship. Your call matters. If you don’t call, SOPA will pass. If there is one call per minute into every one of our representatives, we have a chance of stalling SOPA enough so it dies for quite some time. Please call Congress now and tell them you oppose internet censorship and stifling the internet. If you own a site, you’re in the best position to spread the word. Please post this call widget. If we’re really going to stop SOPA, we need you to get involved. If you write emails or have a blog, or if you post to Facebook, twitter, tumblr, tell everyone by blacking out your text here. It’s super easy. SOPA kills jobs that we need right now and blocks sites to Americans for the purpose of serving copyright in vague and overbroad ways, in ways that are not even well-agreed on by academics in the field. Please help us stop SOPA now.”
You have to love a good old bad local commercial. And even more when they throw in a lovely swath of geek references. The USS Dodd doesn’t disappoint. And i guess even geeks need to sleep sometime… Now Don’t Klingon to those old mattresses… Classic. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rhett and Link had a new client on their hands.
Ever wanted to fall asleep abroad the USS Enterprise, any of them. To fall asleep after leaving your post, to the sultry sounds of the warp cores humming in some far off section of the ship. Well wait no longer. Here is a 24hr loop of the Ambient engine noise from Star Trek TNG… Wow.
Although decorating the tree for Christmas is festive, I believe making it look like a monster would scar the kids for life…especially in Japan. In 2000, at the Aqua City Odaiba shopping mall, located in Japan, the holiday decorative committee decided to construct a christmas tree in the shape of Godzilla. Not only did they shape it to look like him, but red lights were put in the eyes, and the tree even breathed smoke. I think the only thing that doesn’t make him scary is the little Santa hat on his head.
Thanks for Listening & Stay Caffeinated!
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