When I started blogging, I feared I would run out of things to say…
And, while I think ths blog has evolved since March 2008, I still don’t have enough time to say all that I want to say, to comment on all that I would like to comment on….
Still, I am rather tickled pink that I have reached this completely arbitrary milestone – this being the 999th post.
Thank you for taking this journey with me! I hope there will be much more to come.
Of course, CISPA does not replace SOPA, it is a separate thing altogether. The backroom negotiations to re-introduce SOPA are already underway…
Now, that is a diamond I could really enjoy!
‘Like all diamonds, the diamond used by the researchers has impurities — things other than carbon. The more impurities in a diamond, the less attractive it is as a piece of jewelry, because it makes the crystal appear cloudy.
The team, however, utilized the impurities themselves.
A rogue nitrogen nucleus became the first qubit. In a second flaw sat an electron, which became the second qubit. (Though put more accurately, the “spin” of each of these subatomic particles was used as the qubit.)’
This is exciting!
Many legislators fail to understand the impact of the laws that they pass – but this takes the cake.
A bill has passed in Arizona – and only awaits the governor’s signature to become a law – which would punish trolling on the internet by 25 years in jail:
‘ The legislature recently passed House Bill 2549,which uses broad language that could turn a troublingly large swath of online chatter into a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 25 years in jail. It reads:
“It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.” ‘
Really?
What were they thinking!!!
This is a long and painful conversation during which Thunderf00t attempts to explain the philosophical concept that made Socrates famous: I know that I know nothing!
Thunderf00t then goes to present his 3 basal accumptions on which he has built his model of reality – and attempts to explain this to Mr. Hovind.
Eric Hovind fails to understand the concept altogether – and gets stuck on it.
There is a simple thing each and every one of us can do: whenever we purchase meat or meat products or meals that contain meat, we should ask the seller to certify that this meat was never halal-slaughtered.
If they cannot, don’t buy it.
It may be a little bit of an inconvenience to us, but, you can rest assured that the merchants will supply what customers are asking for. Unless there are more people asking for meat which is certified to be non-halal-slaughtered than people asking for halal-certified meat, the meat in stores and restaurant will surely become mostly halal-slaughtered.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease…so, let’s start squeaking!
Pretty soon, not just China but just about all national and supra-national governments will build firewalls in order to disarm its citizenry by denying them access to accurate information. Whether this is done in the name of anti-piracy/IP protection or for security concerns, this frontal assault on the freedom of the internet is only going to become stronger.
That is why it is essential that we employ all tools available to us to protect ourselves and the free flow of information amongst peoples!
Of course, the more strategies we have, the longer we can hold them off – the more ways to circumvent we find – the better our future will be.
Which is why the following story is both interesting and important:
‘It has been long-known that the ‘Great Firewall Wall of China’ has attempted to block citizens from using the Tor network, by blocking access to some IP addresses or using HTTP header filters to weed out suspect traffic.
But Philipp Winter and Stefan Lindskog of Karlstad University in Sweden have discovered that Chinese authorities have recently increased the sophistication of their filtering tools, making it more difficult for citizens to browse the web freely, by blocking so-called Tor bridges.’
…
‘The researchers were able to show that by using so-called packet fragmentation tools, which split TCP streams in to small segments, it is possible to disguise Tor traffic, making it harder to detect.’
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 