Tagged: computers

Some brief observations and opinions on the direction of Windows

I originally posted this as a comment on Facebook to a post by someone who tried out Windows 8 and didn’t like it. Unsurprisingly, I have opinions on this. I have also added some additional context in italics throughout the post. The problem with Windows recently has been twofold: 1) computers have become ubiquitous, and therefore, the lowest common denominator of users has gotten lower and lower. 2) When the “average” user today is a lot dumber than the “average” user 10 or 15 years ago, and MS creates focus groups for features and UI, you wind up with a...

Internet blackout post-mortem: Who still supports SOPA/PIPA? Who went dark? Did it help?

In the last day my search engine traffic has been divided into three categories: 1) Why is [Wikipedia/Google/some other site] blacked out? 2) Which sites are blacked out today? 3) Which politicians support SOPA? The first one, admittedly, I was trolling for, and I got it. The second one, I had a partial list, but I’m not sure anyone had a truly complete list since more and more sites were going dark all day. SOPA Strike, created by AmericanCensorship.org, has probably the most complete list of sites that participated in some kind of protest, whether they went completely dark like...

Learning about SOPA (and PIPA): A multimedia approach

I’ve been saying for a couple weeks that I’d make a nice, comprehensive post about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The great thing about being a procrastinator about writing about popular topics is that by the time you get around to it, others have done it as well or better, and you can just create a “best of” compilation. So that’s kind of what I’m doing. Plenty of companies, organizations, and blogs have dedicated today to protesting these bills in various ways. Many, like Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist, WordPress, and others...

Why is Wikipedia blacked out? (A complete idiot’s guide)

Wikipedia (and other sites) are blacked out today to protest two bills in Congress, SOPA and PIPA. If passed, these laws could cause sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Tumblr, and even Google to be blacked out FOREVER in the U.S. They want you to contact your senators and representatives and tell them to OPPOSE the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. SOPA and PIPA could CENSOR the internet in America JUST LIKE it is censored in CHINA and IRAN.

Official list of organizations supporting SOPA: Call for boycott, Move Your Domain Day

This deserves its own post, and I promise I’ll have a more comprehensive post about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and why it’s a Bad Thing soon. Until then, have a look at this list of 142 organizations that are officially on record as supporting the bill. Some of the ones you may have heard of include ABC, CBS, Comcast/NBC/Universal, Disney, ESPN, GoDaddy.com, MPAA, NewsCorp, and several more. Several discussions on Reddit and around the internet have proposed boycotting the companies on the list. One specific proposal is Move Your Domain Day on December 29. On this day, if...