Agnes Cheek

From the Album Ways Not to Lose: Luckiest Man

The Internet, Led by Reddit, Wins in the Fight Against Go Daddy

(The Atlantic) The domain registrar Go Daddy has revoked its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) after a boycott against it began gaining momentum. Go Daddy’s CEO Warren Adelman said in a statement on its website, “Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better. It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

The reversal is surprising, particularly following statements yesterday suggesting that Go Daddy was not moved by the boycott. A spokesperson told Ars Technica yesterday, “Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business. We understand there are many differing opinions on the SOPA regulations.” But pressure on the company grew today. As of this writing, eight of the top 10 Reddit technology stories were about the boycott (the other two were a visualization of Reddit comments and an article about Louis CK).

In a post cleverly titled “The Internet’s Go Daddy Issues,” Jason Kottke wrote that the company’s SOPA stance was not its only problem:

Read the rest HERE!

Because it is!

This is almost a daily conversation for me. Not as much about antimatter, but sometimes it may as well be.. Maybe articulation is a good thing! :)

Arizona sheriff’s officers turn in federal credentials

Choice

The best I could translate from the Hermann Hesse piece “Man hatte vor tausend Dingen Angst”

One was afraid of a thousand things,
afraid of pain…. one’s own heart,
one was afraid of the awakening,
of being alone….. namely of death himself.

But all these were only masks and disguises.
In fact, there was only the one thing,
one was afraid of:
letting yourself fall,
the tiny step
across all the assertions given.

And the one who one day,
gave himself just once,
dared the great confidence and
confined himself to destiny, he was relieved.

He was no longer obedient to earthly laws,
he had fallen into space and
swung within the dance of the stars.

Homeless

Beautiful.

Do unto you as you would have then do unto others

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing…

He’s not crazy. This is unhindred freedom. Absolutely breathless, amazing, embodied happiness. I will never stop wanting to do this. Let’s go! Let go.

Physicists at European lab: Close to finding ‘God particle’

(Washington Post By Brian Vastag and Joel Achenbach) It was a big day for a very small particle that, when all was said and done, remained invisible, indeed still theoretical. But even if scientists couldn’t claim Tuesday that they had “discovered” the fabled Higgs boson, they were exultant, convinced that their experiments at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva are zeroing in on a particle believed to be essential to the fabric of the universe.“We know the goal is close,” said Fabiola Gianotti, a physicist representing one of two competing CERN teams searching for the elusive particle. “This is the nicest feeling.”

Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), said another year’s worth of data needs to be compiled before anyone can reach “a definitive answer on the Shakespearean question on the Higgs: To be or not to be?”

But the scientists in Geneva were leaning in one direction Tuesday: It will eventually be. The new results suggest that something roughly 125 times the mass of a proton is being created by collisions at the LHC. It’s not definitive, and that finding could prove to be a statistical fluke — hence the cautious words by the top scientists.

The Higgs is the most sought-after particle in physics, but no one’s ever seen one, even indirectly. Elaborate theories — the orthodoxies of modern particle physics — hang in the balance.

Read the rest HERE

From CERN: In a seminar held at CERN this week, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs. The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.

Click HERE to read the rest of the press release and to watch the video press releases!

 

My new girl crush: Basia Bulat

This is the song Go On from the album Heart of My Own. Her website is HERE if you would like to learn more. If you make it out this Asheville way, come by our studio and say hello!

Call this on my awful luck
Skies they opened wide for us
Oh, what a heavy rain it was that covered all of you
The wind has changed, my boy
I never knew a voice like yours
But I know just what good it was, that lie you hold on to.

But to call those shadows coming after you -
Go on, go on
I couldn’t bear to lose -
Go on, go on
I couldn’t stand to -
They begged you for your awful words
So let them know the burden of your blues.

It could’ve been the one you loved
The visions of the things I’d done
Well, I wouldn’t be the only one if you’d only told the truth.
While they chased you down that night
I was pulling feathers from your lies
Oh I swear I saw it in your eyes, you never told it true.

But to call those shadows coming after you -
Go on, go on
I couldn’t beg you to -
Go on, go on
I couldn’t stand to -
They begged you for your awful words
So let them know the burden of your blues.

Oh to call those shadows coming after you -
Go on, go on
I couldn’t beg you to -
Go on, go on
I couldn’t stand to -
They begged you for your awful words
So let them know the burden of your blues.

Jack White Covers U2′s Love is Blindness

Yes, I know it’s another music post, but in a former incarnation of my blog I posted these as closing time music for whenever we went off the air. Since there isn’t really a “closin time,” per say, I’m gonna keep posting these anyways. I have a seekret blag that I’ll publish out as a music story of my year. Could be interesting!  Thanks again everyone. #love

Did I ask you for attention, when affection is what I need

Beirut at the Orange Peel Dec. 6th in Asheville, NC

Amazing show but the set, I felt was much too short.

I could have listened to them all night there with the man who introduced me to them in early summer between darkness, daylight, and thunderstorms.
Here is one of my favorites:

How to create your own Super Pac!

Trevor Potter explains how the Colbert Super PAC can adopt Karl Rove’s tactic of adopting Ben Nelson’s issue ad tactic. via Colbert Nation

Stephen Colbert Explains SOPA

If you need more information on SOPA, and “the science behind the net-killing SOPA, the worst proposed Internet law in American legislative history,” look no further:

In this video he talks to Danny Goldberg and Jonathan Zittrian who are on opposite sides of the issue.

via @ http://boingboing.net/2011/12/02/stephen-colbert-explains-sopa.html via Comedy Centeral

Congressman Shuler’s response to the SOPA act

(Congressman Shuler’s response is at the bottom of the page}

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)- H.R.3261 sanctions US Government interface with the internet.  The bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.

Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the infringing website; barring search engines from linking to such sites and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites.

The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a felony, meaning that even as a  first time offender, you would be facing 5 years in prison. It also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.

“The bill makes three grave errors,” said Larry Downes, senior adjunct fellow at TechFreedom. “First, SOPA fails to identify the specific problems for which existing laws are inadequate. Second, it favors broad remedies over narrowly tailored solutions. Third, it commissions a proper cost-benefit analysis but only after the bill becomes law — too late to ensure that SOPA strikes the right balance.

Downs believes that these bills will put an unwarranted burden on ISPs if enacted.

“Last summer, House leaders assured Silicon Valley they would correct serious defects in Protect IP — defects that could cause long-term unintended damage to Internet innovation,” Downes said. “Instead, SOPA replaces unworkable technology mandates with vague standards and open-ended requirements. The House bill, in an effort to future-proof the legislation, has actually made it much worse.

“SOPA would give the Department of Justice and media companies unwarranted and unprecedented new powers to shape the structure and content of the Internet,” Downes added. “How far the new law actually goes will be left to prosecutors, lawyers and federal district judges.”

Here is a response from NC congressman Heath Shuler on the issue. It looks to me as though he doesn’t care, is ignorant, or just completely clueless. All of the above maybe? Who in the House or Senate stands to benefit from this bill if it is passed? How is it Constitutional? Follow the money trails.