The Internet Always Wins

While government and industry around the world is busy passing and working to pass more and more internet and free speech hating spy laws, those who actually use and understand the internet and how it works are busy doing what they've always done. Evolving to get around the broken.

A new survey has revealed that young people are responding to tough legislation and increasing levels of online spying by investing in VPN services. The study, carried out by the Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University, found that when compared to figures from late 2009, 40% more 15 to 25-year-olds are now hiding their activities online.

Hilarious. Sad that it's come to this, but still hilarious.

Surely lawmakers and lobbyists would argue that these results don't mean much, likely after they finish asking what in hell a VPN is. They would be somewhat right of course, at least for now. The vast majority of internet users don't know what a VPN or a proxy is, but there was once a time when the vast majority didn't know what a Napster or a LimeWire was either, and that's kind of what got us into some of this surveillance mess in the first place.

Now Anonymous Wants To Whoop Some Judge Rotenberg Ass

When I saw that Anonymous was threatening the Judge Rotenberg center, I was conflicted. here's a brief history on what sounds like a horrible place. On one hand, I thought it was kind of cool of them to be standing up for those who probably have no voice. Maybe this video of things will bring more attention to the situation there. But on the other hand, do they really think a school like this fears being hacked? They probably have a website that hasn't been updated in years, is riddled with mistakes, and left to rot in cyberspace. Would they even notice if Anonymous took it down?

And I'm sorry, but the whole "we are Anonymous, we are legion" thing loses something after a while. This may be the last post you ever see because they might just show me how legion they actually are, but I don't know. Every time I hear it, I think of this Rick Mercer video I saw a little while ago, and then all I can think is we are anonymous, we are...Timmie?

So yeah. I hope this whole threat thing brings more attention to the situation, because good could come from that. I just don't know about the whole hacking thing really having any impact in this case.

I Just Unlocked The I'm A Stalking Victim Badge On Foursquare!

Yee ha. I'm up late because Trix inexplicably has a raging case of the scoots, so I figured why not post something? Hopefully whatever I post won't be really boring or full of nonsense. It's almost 4 in the morning. I should be snoring. But oh no. I'm awake. But hey, it could be worse. I could feel like Trix must feel. That would suck much arse.

I just read about a creepy app that points out all the things I hate about Foursquare and Facebook. Read The tale of 'Girls Around Me'. Now, if you do the Facebook/Foursquare thing, lock that shit down, ok?

In a nutshell, what this app does is figure out where you are, then see how many girls who check into Foursquare are near you. Then it can link you to their Facebook profile, and if it's public, you can read all about them, then go track them down. Doesn't that sound like a recipe for not so good? I sure thought so, and so did the girls he was showing this too.

This particular app has been given a swift kick in the balls by Foursquare, but that doesn't stop the next app from popping up.

People, please, think about your privacy online. Don't leave yourself open to be stalked or worse.

Can I Have Your Password Is A Bad Interview Question, And Yes Is An Even Worse Answer

Job seeker balks at request to provide Facebook login

The article mentions it, but it's worth pointing out again that this is hardly a new thing. I've seen stories through the years of various companies and agencies asking for this type of information. It's troubling that employers think that this is ok in any way, and it's sad that people are in such need that they feel they have no other choice but to comply with what can only be seen as an unreasonable request.

And to those who think it is reasonable, I ask you this: Would you let a job interviewer rifle through your purse, wallet, backpack, briefcase, pockets, car, house, safe or anything else you can think of? You'd probably think it would be insane to allow that, and you'd be right. So, how is this any different? If the profile is private, that basically means what goes on there is none of anybody's damn business aside from those it's been shared with, just like what goes on behind the closed doors of a person's home.

I understand a company wanting to know as much about an employee as possible, but too bad. You can't bug a person's home, and you can't stalk their private life online if it's locked down. All that matters is what kind of a worker you're getting on the clock. If I'm a criminal, I'll be discovered. We have police forces who do a mostly mighty fine job at doing that kind of thing.

The only way anybody should even think about agreeing to fork over passwords is if the company first agrees in writing to pay you your hourly wage 24/7, 365. If they want to essentially be your boss around the clock and make you their representative at all times, then they should be paying for your services like they do when you're at the office.

The internet is a great tool, and employers should definitely be using it. If there's public info out there on a person you want to hire, by all means, have at it. Plenty of people leave their social network profiles open for the world to see. But if my virtual window is closed and the shades are drawn, it's your duty to respect that. Nobody should respect or want to work for any company that can't or won't understand this.

Print Encyclopedias Just Got One Step Closer To Death. What Are We Supposed To Do With All The New Shelf Space?

Newsflash, people in my age range. We're getting old. Encyclopaedia Britannica Gives Up On Print Edition

That's right, the era of the giant bookshelves full of encyclopedias in the living room or the library is coming to an end. We all knew this day would come because it's 2012 and you can find all of the world's information online in about 30 seconds if you're good at Google, but it's still somehow surprising and a little strange knowing it's finally happening.

Britannica isn't going away completely though, it's just kicking it's addiction to tree carcusses. You can buy it in DVD and online digital formats if you're into things much more fact based than Wikipedia. And if you want to own a piece of history in the form of the final print edition, you can still buy one for a cool $1,395. Given the current state of the universe, that price tag explains quite a bit, I think.

Tweet-a-Beer

This is an amazing and possibly way too expensive idea.Tweet-a-Beer – web app for sending a $5 beer through linking Twitter and PayPal accounts.

How exactly does this work?

Tweet-a-Beer is powered by Chirpify, a commerce platform for Twitter. Chirpify is the magic that connects your Twitter account to PayPal in order to pre-approve payments. When you Tweet-a-Beer, you are sending $5.00 to another Twitter user, and ultimately, their PayPal account.

How do I send a beer?

Follow the steps to authenticate your Twitter account with Chirpify. Then “pre-approve” Chirpify to send PayPal payments on your behalf. After this you can use the app to choose the @recipient (on Twitter), send them a beer ($5), and add a reason, meeting place, or requests for the juke box. Once submitted, the recipient will receive a tweet mention from you with a link leading them to details on how to claim the beer money.

And maybe it's not as dangerous as it sounds at first glance, unless you happen to be an overly generous drunk with lots of focus and a long attention span.

Can I send more than $5.00?

Hey, big spender. Send as many beers as you’d like. For security purposes (we're looking at you, college kids), we limit each transfer to $5.00, so you'll have to send one at a time.

It warms the heart like a pint of stout to see technology and human inovation coming together to make the important things in life easier. Well done, folks.

Massive Yahoo Email Server Fail Made An Angry Thunderbird!

Yesterday morning, I got a rather nasty surprise. Early in the morning, I was happily able to send mail. Then at about 10 or so, I tried to send a reply to a message on a mailing list and got the following rather unhelpful error message.

An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Transaction failed : Cannot send message due to possible abuse; please visit http://postmaster.yahoo.com/abuse_smtp.html for more information. Please check the message and try again.

Buh? Abuse? What the hell? I'm not a spammer, nor a phishing fiend, nor anything else bad.

I went to the link, and it's helpfully not available. All you get is the general yahoo customer service page. At least that's all I saw.

So, I fired off a message to Steve, and one to Ro. Both went out without a hitch. I also fired off a new message to the list where I'd been told no by the server. It went, which made me think there was just something about that last message that had the server's shorts needlessly in a twist. Then I tried to reply to the list again. Fail! Fail! Fail! Fail! said the server.

What made things extra fun was I could reply to Steve, Ro, and any listers that might write me off list. And then I discovered I couldn't reply to mail on a Google group I'm on. But again, I could send new messages just fine. Whaaa? Buh?

Somebody thought maybe Rogers had gotten silly and had thought I was spammy until I logged into the web interface, which should reside in the ninth circle of hell by the way. So I logged in and was able to reply all I wanted. Even weirder, after I did that, I was able to send a message or 2 from Thunderbird ok. But after that, it would tell me off again.

So then I fired up Outlook Express to see if I could send from there...and discovered I could. I could send all the mail I wanted from that poor antequated old thing.

So...the problem is something with Thunderbird and Yahoo's servers. Yes, Yahoo's. Rogers mail is handled by Yahoo mail. Yahoo seems to like to do that with a lot of ISP's across the globe. But so many people don't realize that and think I'm crazy for believing that a Rogers address is actually a Yahoo address. But it is true.

So after lots of googling, I found this forum thread. Just look at all the angry Thunderbirders! Would that make them angry birds? Har har. And just look at all the horror stories of techs charging poor shmucks 50 bones to direct log into their computer, only to not be able to fix it and say they don't support thunderbird. Total customer service fail.

Anyway, one of the forum folks discovered that somebody broke something in Yahoo land, and it suddenly didn't like any messages sent as html from Thunderbird, but only Thunderbird. If you send as plain text, you're good.

So, I went into tools, accounts and unchecked send as html. But that wasn't all I had to do. I had to go into tools, options, compose, send options, and enter yahoogroups and googlegroups into the plain text domains tab. This means that whenever I send there, it will send as plain text.

And twas a miracle! All my unsent messages were sendable and I was not being all abusive and stuff!

I may not have needed to uncheck html sending on a global scale, I may have only had to put those domains in plain text, I don't know and don't feel like angering the dragon to find out. But I hope this post helps someone else who suddenly finds it impossible to send to mailing lists or some such.

Silly Yahoo for having a hate on for Thunderbird. I hope they fix the problem soon. Until then, though, I can reply to email again! What a beautiful thing!

#TellVicEverything

I'm not sure who exactly came up with this protest, but you, my friend, are a friggin genius!

You might remember my mentioning the Conservative government's plan to introduce some pretty craptacular internet surveillance legislation. Well, in the last week or two, movement on what I like to call the Awful Access bill has really been heating up. The public outcry has been such that Stephen Harper and his underlings have done something they rarely do, started to back down and say that maybe this here idea needs a rethink. Rethinks are great, but they don't mean the thing is dead. We still have guys like Public Safety Minister Vic Toews spouting stupidity like if you don't support this bill you side with child pornographers, so there still may be a battle ahead.

If you, like most thinking individuals, don't support what the government is trying to do here, there are lots of things you can do. You can write letters, inform your friends and family, call members of Parliament, whatever works for you.

You can also #TellVicEverything. That's right. If Vic Toews is so intent on being able to snoop on what all of us are doing, why don't we save him the trouble and let him know? Are you going to the park? #TellVicEverything. Did you just eat a really good sandwich? #TellVicEverything. Do you have Hotel California stuck in your head? #TellVicEverything. If you're on Twitter, use the #TellVicEverything hash tag and be sure to mention @ToewsVic when you tweet. You don't have to be Canadian to #TellVicEverything, either. We had your back during the whole SOPA thing America, so if you'd like to return the favour, this would be an easy way to do it. Let's make the internet experience as shitty for Vic Toews as he wants to make it for the rest of us.

Here are a few of the things I told Vic over the weekend. Feel free to use them for inspiration.

Urgent news for @ToewsVic. I just coughed twice and had to scratch the left side of my nose. #TellVicEverything

My desk chair spins. It's pretty neat. @ToewsVic #TellVicEverything

Oh sweet Jesus, @ToewsVic. Somebody just farted in here. It's a good thing you're far away trying to ruin the internet. #TellVicEverything

You know who would be interested in all of your 4Sq check-ins? @ToewsVic. Be sure to let him know when you go places. #TellVicEverything

Wondering how the shortest distance between 2 points is always a straight line when some shortcuts are twisty. @ToewsVic #TellVicEverything

Just took a nice dump. Nothing like the kind @ToewsVic and @PMHarper take on our rights and freedoms, but still nice. #TellVicEverything

By now you should have a pretty solid idea of how this works, so go have yourself some fun! Oh, and don't forget to tell Big Brother Vic all about it. #TellVicEverything!

From The Makers Of SOPA And A Bunch Of Other Dicks, It's ACTA!

One thing that's been lost in all the talk about SOPA and PIPA and their dangers is that they aren't the only pieces of poorly thought out and unimaginably damaging policy being hashed out by industry and world governments.

If you've never heard of it, meet ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. It's got all the internet and inovation crippling of SOPA, with a little bit...who am I kidding, a lot of surveillance thrown in. And unlike SOPA/PIPA, this isn't a strictly made in the USA deal. In a way I suppose it is since the U.S. routinely tries to force its dumb ideas on the rest of the world, but it's being secretly negotiated and has been for some time by several countries that would really rather we not find out about it.

The link above goes to a video explaining in basic terms what it is and what it has the potential to do. I'll also gank the description and embed the video below, since for now it's still legal for me to do things like that.

If you stood up against SOPA and PIPA, prepare to keep standing. The internet and the future are counting on all of us yet again.

ACTA is one more offensive against the sharing of culture on the Internet. ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is an agreement secretly negotiated by a small "club" of like-minded countries (39 countries, including the 27 of the European Union, the United States, Japan, etc). Negotiated instead of being democratically debated, ACTA bypasses parliaments and international organizations to dictate a repressive logic dictated by the entertainment industries.

ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. It is thus a major threat to freedom of expression online and creates legal uncertainty for Internet companies. In the name of trademarks and patents, it would also hamper access to generic medicines in poor countries.

Internet Freedom 1, SOPA 0

It's been a while since I've talked about SOPA here, but in that time it hasn't left the news. People have kept up the fight, letting government and industry know at every turn that the bill isn't good for America or the rest of the world. And today, government listened!

In response to online petitions against the SOPA legislation, the President said even though he sees online piracy from foreign websites as a problem, he won’t support any bill that erodes freedom of speech or expression, or that potentially threatens online security.

“Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small,” White House spokesman Macon Phillips said. He added, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

The bill has also been dropped by Congress.

for now good sense has won the day, but that doesn't mean we're out of the woods. There's still PIPA to contend with, which is almost if not just as bad. And just because it's dead now, it's no sure thing that SOPA won't raise its ugly head again in a different form. We can hope it doesn't, but if it does, let's make sure we fight it again, and do so even harder than before.

Hahaha! I Put Tape Over Your Face...Book!

Every family has its own strange dynamics that others may not understand. What seems like mean spirited behaviour or child abuse to one might be game night to another. For that reason, I have no problem with the idea that there may come a point in the parent child relationship when binding and gagging your kids with tape and hanging one of them upside down from a piece of gym equipment could be clasified as "all in fun.," However, when the kids are ages two years and ten months, that time has more than likely not arrived.

The young parents, Frankie and Kayla Almuina, are facing charges of child abuse after one of the mother’s Facebook friends anonymously tipped off the Arizona Child Abuse Hotline.

According to Reuters, the couple’s 2-year-old boy and a 10-month old girl were shown on the mother’s Facebook page with duct tape on their wrists and ankles and with their mouths taped shut. The boy was also pictured hanging upside down from an exercise machine.

The parents told police the photos were “all in fun,” but a sheriff’s department official said the children appeared to be “in sheer terror.”

Investigators seized about a dozen similar photos from the Almuina home and arrested the couple. Their children were turned over to another family member, while the parents were sent to jail.

And they're not the only ones. From the very same article, we also have this recent story.

According to CNN, a 21-year-old Chicago man is facing charges of aggravated domestic battery after posting a picture of his 22-month-old daughter, who was bound with painter’s tape across her mouth, her wrists and ankles, with a caption "This is wut happens wen my baby hits me back. ; )."

I just...I don't know. So many well adjusted people (myself included) are probably never going to have their own kids, but imbeciles like these can have as many as they want. Seems more wrong than usual some days.

Thought Explosions About #SpikeMobileCCC and other things.

Here comes another monster o thoughts. While I'm doing the laundry, I might as well write a blog post.

This whole being out of town part time thing has taught me that I suck at time-management. I was always able to get by since I had lots of flexibility to get stuff done. I didn't get to that today? Oh well I'll do it tomorrow. Now, I have to think ahead to make sure I get everything done on my off days.

Even laundry has become slightly more of a pain since our building has those inaccessible laundry card-filler-uppers. So, if I'm getting low on laundry money, I have to either a. coordinate like hell to be there when the huppy's mom is doing laundry, or b. pray to the lord above that someone will be down there to help me fill the damn card. I'm seriously thinking about rounding up an apartment-sized washer/dryer set. Seriously I am.

Since I don't have as much time/energy to look at Twitter as I did before, I've started organizing the people I follow into lists. As a result, I'm uber behind on the news, people's retweets and random folks I decided to follow. I really need to fix that giant news Twitter hole I've created though. That's just shameful.

And because I'm behind on people's retweets, I didn't notice in enough time that The guys who did Twittereen were at it again, with another contest, Countdown2Christmas.

I suck, and have missed out on two days of the contest, but I don't care. I'm still going to try. I mean, look at the prizes! They wrote 'em out. Yeah yeah yeah I would like a leak-proof travel mug and a Timmy's card. Sure I would.

So wish me good luck in what's left of this here contest, There aren't any iThings, but the contest is still cool.

Edit: looks like I didn't need the luck, since before I posted this, I won the prize I wanted. Yea! Gimme gimme gimme my Timmy Timmy Timmy's stuff!

Another sign that I obviously don't have this whole time-management thing down: I didn't get a happy birthday Steve post up like I try to do. Failbox! Well I guess I did pay for his dinner at Smokin' Tony's. Maybe that makes up for it.

By the way...Smokin' Tony's? Om nom nom! Check out their menu. They really give you a lot of food, and it's good. Mmm sweet potato casserole! When I first walked in I was afraid you could only take your food and go...but then I remembered. They serve beer, they must intend for people to sit down. And they did, and they were great.

Even though Steve and I are doing Christmas together, we figured for the sake of not lugging each other's gifts on the road, we'd exchange our gifts on Steve's birthday. That's probably a good idea, since I can't keep a secret at all. Out of the 6 things I got Steve, he knew what 3 of them were, and had guessed at a fourth. It kind of kills the surprise element when he knew what half the stuff was already. And he didn't snoop, it's because I can't keep a secret worth a damn...and an email came in which had the name of one of his gifts in the subject line..which just happened to read as he walked in the room. Damn JAWS, ya busted me. can't win for losin'.

But I'm happy to say that I own all the Austin Lounge Lizards CD's to date, and their concert DVD! Oooo that one's gonna be fun! Will have to review those when I get some time...so considering my big pile of comments about my lack of ability to time-manage...could be a while.

It is really hard to believe it's Christmas. I'm happy there's no snow, but it's hard to remember to wish people a merry Christmas and stuff when I'm not trompling through the snow. Christmas is going to be here and gone before I know what hit me.

And I think I've found the song that is as irritating to me as it's the most wonderful time of the year is to Steve. It's Do They Know It's Christmas.
I know it was a song raising money for people in Africa, but the line about "Do they know it's Christmas time" kinda bugs me. Maybe they don't care. What if they celebrate something else? And don't they need the money the rest of the year too? I don't know, there's something about that song that bugs me.

So they're starting a Go Train service out of Guelph. Right now it's designed to shuttle people to Toronto, but I hope some day it will go to Kitchener, giving me more options for travel to my awesome job. But as a preview, they gave everyone a free trip to Kitchener, and because a friend was also going, she asked me if I wanted to. Sure, what the heck!

So we headed for the train. She's a far bigger Go guru (goru?) than I am, so told me all about the accessible car, and how if I'm going to take the train, I'd be best to get on there. For one, there's always a person there watching for folks. For another, it always pulls up in the same spot, and third, it opens at every stop! Yup, sounds like a deal to me.

We got on, and actually got to talk to our MPP Liz Sandals. She was surprised that the bus service from Guelph to KW had deteriorated so badly. We talked for a little while to her about how awesome this whole Go service thing would be, because really it's the only truly accessible public transit service there is for folks in wheelchairs. Greyhound? Yeah right. Via? pfffft! Go Bus? Maybe if the drivers remember to do the fancy dancin' with a strip of seats. But with Go Trains, it's cool. A ramp comes out to close the gap between platform and train, and folks in wheelchairs just wheely wheely wheel onboard, and there's an area that's designated as accessible seating...although women with strollers think that means they're entitled, even though there are seniors with walkers and people with wheelchairs in plain sight. May you develop a disability making that seat necessary for you later in life and encounter a stroller-wheeling woman just like you. That is all. But the point is Go is really the only way to go for folks in wheelchairs, so let's start Go-ing in more directions.

The trip was wicked fast, like 20 minutes. Yup, I could deal with that. It's too bad poor Go got stuck behind a broken down freight train, which delayed their exit by an hour. But the trip itself was pretty cool.

In this rambling winding post of crazy, I have to give two gigantic woo's to a couple of folks in a couple of businesses. Let's start with Portions Canada. I heard about them through Twitter, the way I seem to hear about most things these days, and they were talking about having gluten-free food and prepared meals for folks with diabetes and stuff. I knew the shoe thief was kind of run ragged by a bunch of stuff, so I decided to get him a couple of frozen meals and some cookies. So off I went on a crazy adventure.

Can I say again that Google Transit is the worst thing known to man? Unless I'm an epic fail at using it, it always tells me the exactly wrong bus to get on to get to a given destination. I saw a link to it on the Portions Canada's Google map, so I thought I'd try it. "Take the 1 Woodlawn," it said. So I called Guelph Transit to get more details, and their response? "Um? 1 Woodlawn? To get there? Um, erm, not even close! You have to take the 22!"

But that's beside the point. I just couldn't miss the opportunity to rag on Google Transit. After going on a wild adventure through the city, being dumped on a giant grassy sidewalkless zone and being escorted across a busy parking lot to the store, the people *in* the store were nothing short of awesome. They told me next time, just call before I come and they'll come meet me at the bus stop! Not only that, but they went through things until I found the perfect combo of stuff. And to top it off, they delivered it to the shoe thief for me! Like, um, holy crap?

So if you're in the market for gluten-free goodies, stuff for folks with Diabetes or kidney disease, and I'm sure lots of other things, pop in there and see what you will find. But I have learned that if you're alergic to garlic, you should definitely not pop in there. All their meals and stuff have garlic in 'em. Ah well, how else are you going to flavour it without salt?

I have to also give a gigantic thankya to a very cool employee at Wind Mobile. Long story time. I have a blind friend who has been searching for a phone that he could at least possibly operate a little bit. Every phone he gets, he has been promised it talks, but all it has is voice recognition, i.e. "please say a command." That works to an extent, but you can't enter your own contacts, or operate most of the phone's functions. So, eventually, in frustration, he asked me to go with him to the store to see what we could see.

I first went in hoping they had something that could have the Nokia Screen Reader installed on it. I know it's free and kind of preliminary, but CodeFactory had their hand in it, I thought it would get us by. But they had nothing that would take that screen reader. So the woman from Wind Mobile toiled, talked to Samsung tech support, and twisted that phone into halfway working to the point that he might be able to at least get to voice command on his own.

This was no easy feat, but she did it. Not only that, but she taught me a few things about his phone, so I could continue helping him. Adrien from Wind Mobile in Old Quebec Street Mall in Guelph, you are the most awesome of awesome, and we appreciate all your hard work. Thanks to you, I was able to show him a couple more things. You deserve to get promoted yesterday.

You know, I have been buzzed by several colds and flus, and as each one zooms by, I thank my lucky stars. I did not want to be sick and need time off when I'm just starting work. But now, just before Christmas, I've got this wicked cough. Sometimes, when I cough, I sound like I'm pulling a Carl Barron. I can't find a damn clip of him doing it, but maybe others have heard him do that bit with the loud dry sounding cough. I'm hoping to beat it into submission before Friday when we head for Steve's family.

This got me to thinking. Why is it perfectly ok to come home for Christmas with your own family when you have a cold, but if you're going to someone else's family, that's just wrong? Why is it ok to infect your own family? Yup, we're weird.

I've been told by several people that Trixie has a lot more white around her muzzle. Um, eek? I don't like the physical reminders that she is getting older. I know she's still young, but well, it's just another reminder, like the pile of her city tags in the drawer, that time marches on.

I'm making a little something for Trixie's raisers this Christmas. I still don't know if they read here, so can't say what it is yet, but I hope they enjoy it. It'll have to arrive late this year, because I lost their address in the hard drive crash of doom in May, and I've emailed them but haven't heard back yet.

I got some very sad news yesterday. Don't worry, noone died, but it kind of feels like someone did. I just found out that the Fresh at Home program has suddenly been discontinued. You know what that means? No more easy to get local and awesome food. It's back to the grocery store for us, which is one big boo. It was cool that it was delivered, but the cooler part was how amazing it was. It truly was amazing. I don't know what happened to it, but one day, there was a program and the next it was gondo. It makes Steve and I very sad pandas.

And I think this monster has gone for quite long enough. I should be snoring, 6 a.m. comes early. So...I will post, fall down, and finish the thoughts I had left over in another post. Yes, I have more, and other posts that need a place up here. But I have to stop or I'll be no good to anyone tomorrow.

The Pirate Bay Dancing: Soon To Be The Internet's Most Useful Program?

It would be fantastic if programs like this one weren't needed, but since the world's governments and businesses are bent on making sure they are, you may want to head over here and read a little about a program called The Pirate Bay Dancing.

Don't let the name fool you. it may be named for the Pirate Bay, but it serves much more of a purpose than simply letting you download some movies or albums from that one place. It was actually created to make a much wider point and to serve a much wider audience.

When Homeland Security’s ICE unit started seizing domain names last year, a group called “MAFIAAFire” decided to code a browser add-on to redirect the affected websites to their new domains.

The release went viral and by now more than 200,000 people have installed the add-on. ICE wasn’t happy with this and asked Mozilla to pull the add-on from their site. However, Mozilla denied the request, arguing that this type of censorship may threaten the open Internet.

Today MAFIAAFire delivers a new release that aims to thwart the increasing censorship efforts in countries worldwide. Named “ The Pirate Bay Dancing,” the Firefox add-on undoes local DNS and IP blocks by routing users through a series of randomly picked proxies.

The MAFIAAFire team told TorrentFreak that the development of the plugin was partly motivated by SOPA and PIPA, the pending anti-piracy bills in the US.

“DNS and IP blocking is probably the most dangerous part of SOPA/PIPA in terms of ‘breaking the Internet,’ so we tackled that first. We will be going after the other parts of SOPA in later releases but probably not in ‘our usual plugin form’ – the other parts require different solutions that we have already started work on,” we were told.

the add-on is free, and can apparently be set up with just a couple of clicks. I sure hope it's screenreader accessible. Blind people hate censorship too, you know.

Nickelblock

From Aux TV and the people who were kind enough to bring you both Tinted Sheen and Shaved Bieber comes the next great cleanup for your internet experience. Ladies and gentlement, say hello to NICKELBLOCK for chrome and Firefox!

That's right. If all the Nickelback in your world is making it hard to Breathe, just follow the instructions at the link above and never again will you have to hear about them or see their photograph. As good ideas go, this one's not Too Bad. I shall leave you to install this now, as I have nothing else worthy to say.

Hmmm...Maybe It's Time To Change A Password Or Two.

I received this a couple of weeks ago, and keep meaning to put it up, but keep forgetting.

Remember back when I was talking about the mugged in London scam? Well, here's a detailed account of what could happen to you if you get hacked. It's pretty scary. Not only could your friends start sending money to some douchebag hacker, but said douchebag hacker could delete *all* your emails that you have chosen to archive to the web in an attempt to cover his tracks. Yup, all that stuff that you kept in the cloud because it was sooo much less vulnerable to sudden failure? Gonegonegone.

Thankfully, that poor woman got all her stuff back, but oh my god what a mess.

#Twittereen

When I was a kid, and we would go on scavenger hunts, I never really cared about them. I mean, it was fun to run around with my buddies and watch them scoop up clues, but I really wasn't helping out with the hunting down of stuff. I was just sort of along for the ride. But last week, I got to take part in an online scavenger hunt, and it was pretty fun!

The contest is called Twittereen, ya know, in honour of Halloween. Its aim is to get people to learn about some local businesses, follow them on Twitter, engage with them, and some random lucky winners will receive prizes like gift certificates to a bunch of the mentioned local businesses. But the prize I reeeally want is an iPod Touch. yes, yes, gimme gimme.

I have learned about a bunch of cool businesses, sadly a bunch of them aren't in Guelph. One thing I want to do some time is end up at the Indulge Ice Cream caboose in Cambridge for either ice cream or some waffles. Mmmm. I would have never heard of what sounds like the most awesome place ever if it weren't for Twittereen.

One thing I had driven home by this contest is why I don't often go straight to a company's website to learn a bunch about them. It's hit and miss whether a website will be designed with accessibility in mind. Just as an example, one website's homepage was completely composed of an inaccessible flash movie. Another blasted music louder than JAWS. Another had pictures containing some of the information.

But because I want that damn iPod Touch, I persevered and found everything I needed to. Now I wait to see if I get to be a lucky winner.

If you want to play too, here is a pdf of the rules, here's the online entry form, and here are some pictures of prizes. This is what the good fellows at Spike Mobile said were the prizes available.

1st Place is an Extreme Makeover for your car from @WendellMotors , 2nd Place is an 8GB iPod Touch from @spike_mobile. The other prizes are various gift cards from @GibsonSV @Bookshelfnews @SevenShores @Subworx @Waffle_Stacks.

Isn't that the coolest contest ever? Get involved in your community, learn about local businesses, and maybe just win something. Super neat! And it was a scavenger hunt I could play.

So, even though this is against my best interests since it decreases my chances of getting the iPod Touch, go play Twittereen. You have until 12:05 Saturday morning to track down all the clues. Happy hunting!

Things To Do: Waste Time, Bore My Followers...

If I'd had any sense, I should have put this next thing up the day Steve wrote about the ability to make twit tickets. But since I don't, it goes up today.

For some inexplicable reason, someone has come up with the ability for people to write their to do list using Twitter. It's called TwitDo, and to me, it has bad idea written all over it

Yes, boys and girls, you can now bore your followers to death by writing down, and broadcasting, your own personal list of things you want to accomplish. Just add the hashtag #todo to the end of your tweet about how you have to do laundry or pick up milk or delete all those unsavory webpages from your history. You don't even have to make a TwitDo account. Whenever you write a tweet with the hashtag #todo, I guess it finds it and makes you your own personal page where your to do list is stored, which any old person can visit. Then, when you've completed a task, you tweet a keyword from it and write #done. If this catches on, I think it could become way worse than 4Square. Yuck!

I've got a better idea. Write your to do list in your computer! Yeah! Or, if you prefer, write it down or braille it on a piece of paper! Ooo! I know this kind of sounds like this old post laughing at people being shocked that people found their blogs, but it is sort of similar.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, don't let this catch on.

And Now A Message From The US Fail

If you don't realize that the good old postal mail is in trouble and is dying a slow, agonizingly painful death, you don't own a computer, aren't entirely sure what a blog is and probably aren't reading this anyway, so why am I talking to you?

For all of you who are still here, check out this hefty dose of sad and lame brought to you by the United States Postal Service.

Yes, that really is a commercial about how much the internet sucks and is dangerous so please please please stop all this online mucking about and trust the regular mail again because it would be really nice to not go out of business thanks to all your newfangled technology gadgets.

Yes Postal Service, my fridge has never been hacked. It also has never been a victim of identity theft thanks to ol' Jimmy Stickyfingers in the sorting department or Slippery Johnny who makes his living by breaking into the public boxes and looking for the ones that look like cheques. It's also never had to resend a package because the dude carrying the delivery bag decided to turn my purchases into his Christmas bonus. The internet isn't perfect, but it comes pretty close most of the time. It also has the added benefit of being really, really fast. Not next day shipping fast, we're talking next second delivery here. You just can't compete with that, it's impossible.

Not all is lost though, regular mail. We'll still need you to bring us the heavy stuff that the internet can't handle. It would be nice if you'd just be happy with that instead of trying to guilt us with these pathetic commercials. You look like the drunk ex in the corner of the bar telling everyone who'll listen about how Tina doesn't know what she's missing out on and that she'll be sorry when you make it big next year. Please, just stop.

Oh, and way to super-size the fail at the end there, post office. For more information about the benefits of mail, I'm to visit a website? You spend 30 seconds telling me how unsafe the internet is and then tell me to check out your homepage? Why do you even have a homepage? When the internet monsters hack it and take all the stuff out of your fridge, don't come crying to me. and if you want me to learn more about how the mail can help me, why don't you do what you supposedly do best and mail me some info? I'll be waiting...and waiting...and waiting some more...if only there were a faster way.

What A Silky Soft Timeline I Have

I have not a clue why you would want to do this, but if you aren't me and feel that you could benefit from such a thing, here's some info on how to build yourself a Twitter and RSS feed printing toilet paper dispenser. Yes, it will actually print things onto toilet paper. I guess it's a logical step since such a vast number of Twitter updates these days seem to be about where and when people are taking a crap, and it's only getting worse thanks to people incessantly checking in on Foursquare, whatever the hell that is.

Unfortunately the video is all music and no speaking so it's useless if you're blind like some of us, but everybody else can have themselves a time as long as they don't mind spending a fortune on twit tickets.

Overly Social Networking

Sorry it's been so quiet around here this week. I've been feeling mostly like garbage, and Carin's been busy with things much cooler than feeling like garbage.

I can tell I'm still not right. If I was, it would be a lot easier than it's proving to be for me to write about this idiot.

The story goes that 22-year-old Juan Gonzales Jr. broke into a home. He was discovered when one of the girls who lived in it awoke to find him standing over her bed at 3 in the morning. When she screamed, he ran for the hills...but not before grabbing her cellphone. Her roommate also reported a missing phone, laptop and some jewelry, so he managed a fine haul and a clean getaway.

Why then, you wonder, am I bothering to write about him if I'm feeling so awful. Shouldn't I be resting? Well...we're getting there.

An hour passes. A friend of victim number one starts getting some odd text messages from her. The police, doing what police do, set about trying to trace the stolen phone. As they locate it, they get another call. It's from victim number one. A man calling himself Duce Gonzalez has just sent her a Facebook friend request, and he sure looks a lot like the guy that was in her house.

And just in case there was any doubt about these two being the same person, when cops arrived to pick him up, Juan Duce was still wearing the same outfit he had on when the screaming girl got a look at him. What a helpful fellow.

He's in jail now, being held there on charges of second-degree burglary and felony theft. No word on whether or not he likes it.