And, for the last word on SOPA, here’s a copyright infringing YouTube video that I found via Nina Paley.
The Day the LOLcats died
Browsing Posts in Web
The supporters of SOPA, and it’s Senate sister, PIPA claim that it will protect content industries. Tim O’Reilly very effectively takes this argument apart.
At O’Reilly, we have published ebooks DRM-free for the better part of two decades. We’ve watched the growth of this market from its halting early stages to its robust growth today. More than half of our ebook sales now come from overseas, in markets we were completely unable to serve in print. While our books appear widely on unauthorized download sites, our legitimate sales are exploding. The greatest force in reporting unauthorized copies to us is our customers, who value what we do and want us to succeed. Yes, there is piracy, but our embrace of the internet’s unparalleled ability to reach new customers “though it may not be perfect still secures to authors more money than any other system that can be devised.”
These bills are designed to protect companies that are unable – or unwilling – to respond to current market demands. Any law that tries to protect unrealistic business models is, inherently, a bad law.
I am aware that SOPA has been shelved. But being shelved is not the same as being killed. And PIPA is still working its way through the Senate legislative process.
I said yesterday that this site is going dark on Wednesday, as is Pulpmovies, in support of the Stop SOPA campaign. This is still going to happen.
Update
It turns out that SOPA has just been unshelved.
On January 18th, between 08:00 and 20:00 UTC, this little corner of the internet will be joining Identi.ca, Boing Boing, Rasberry Pi, and many others in an internet blackout in protest of the Stop Online Privacy Act proposed in the US Congress and its corresponding Senate bill, Protect IP.
This is a badly drafted bill, promoted by people who don’t understand its impact for the benefit of people who don’t care about your freedoms. It is so widely cast and so badly worded that it will limit what you can say online, regardless of whether you are in the US or not.
You can find more information on the SOPA/PIPA bills, and how they affect you whether or not you live in the USA, at americancensorship.org. And I hope that if you run any sort of Web service or publishing platform, you will join this blackout.
If you read any of the tech press, or spend any time around the nerdier corners of the internet, you will be aware something very bad is currently going through the US legislative process.
If you are not worried about SOPA, which is currently going through Congress, or its Senate sister, PIPA, I urge you to watch the video (from Fight for the Future by way of the WordPress Development blog) below.
I touched on this yesterday but it is worth reiterating. SOPA is a badly drafted law, promoted by people who don’t understand its impact for the benefit of people who don’t care about your freedoms. It is so widely cast and so badly worded that it will limit what you can say online, regardless of whether you are in the US or not – the videos example of Facebook having to censor its users posts is a good one.
If you are a US citizen, make your voice heard. If you are not a US citizen, encourage your American friends to make their voices heard.
If passed, this law will affect all of us.
Last month, Cory Doctorow gave a keynote speech to the Chaos Computer Congress. It turned up online but I have to admit to not having watched it as yet. Handily, though, the text of the speech has been posted on Boing Boing and he makes a strong case.
The TL;DR version is that legislators keep on reaching for regulation that won’t work to solve problems they don’t understand. This is happening now with copyright (the US SOPA legislation being the currently most obvious example), but will continue to happen – and probably increasingly so – as technology progresses.
If we want to be able to own and trust our devices – from the MP3 players we listen to to the cars we drive – the instinct to regulate needs to be stopped. Now.
What’s so great about Firefox, you ask. This is:
I don’t really have anything more to say about Project Euler, but I am quite pleased with myself for having unlocked the second progress award.
I can now claim to be a Python programming Mathematical Decathlete and the 14170th person to unlock this achievement.
I have to admit that my maths were more than a little rusty when I started having a go at these problems but, in figuring out how best to attack these problems, I have both remembered and learned a huge amount. I have also, over the past few weeks, gained a much greater appreciation of just how elegant many mathematical concepts can be.
After mentioning Project Euler yesterday, I signed up and have started working through the problems. What is interesting – and something I hadn’t realised when I signed up – is that once you have solved a problem, you can access a forum discussing it. This allows you to compare your solution to other people’s and gain a decent insight into how your code can be improved.
The other thing that adds to the addictiveness of the site is the progress page and the awards that you can earn.
I have now solved the first three problems which means that I have earned the Baby Steps award. Go me!
From the Project Euler home page, which I found by way of Vincent Knight:
Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.
The motivation for starting Project Euler, and its continuation, is to provide a platform for the inquiring mind to delve into unfamiliar areas and learn new concepts in a fun and recreational context.
The first few problems (as far as I’ve browsed, at least) don’t appear to be particularly difficult from a mathematical point of view, but they do appear to provide enough of a programming/scripting challenge to be worth having a crack at rather than wasting time with the more mind-numbing types of solitaire.
So I turned 43 today. Google noticed.
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