Newsspot – With Twitter, Blackouts and Demonstrations, Web Flexes Its Muscle

Morning readers! Well, I managed to get up today, apparently, and I gravitated straight to my desk, so I could fulfill my promise of another post for you guys. This article was on the home page of the NY Times, and I thought it would be very relevant, seeing as the protests finished last night, and this explains what they’ve achieved. I, personally, think that we may even have a chance of winning one over the leaders at this point, and it may even be a turning point in how things work. As you probably saw, I myself was protesting yesterday on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ among the throng of americans that were looking for web freedom too. Most europeans didn’t feel the need to do anything, seing as it’s a US bill, but I thought different. In my eyes, if the bill was passed, then it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the countries followed. That, and the SOPA (or PIPA, my memory fails me) gave some rights to oppose foreign servers, too. What about the Pirate Bay?! I’ve paid for Office 2010 and Windows 7 ultimate, but my ISO links expired! Where would I get them from?! Anyway, talk over, here’s the newsspot:

With Twitter, Blackouts and Demonstrations, Web Flexes Its Muscle

Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Nadine Wolf at a protest in Manhattan at the office of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

By JENNA WORTHAM

Published: January 18, 2012

 

The Web buzzed with protests large and small on Wednesday as the tech industry rallied against Congressional legislation to curb Internet piracy.

Some sites blacked out — among them, the English-language Wikipedia, though it was possible to access the encyclopedia through several clever workarounds — while others, including Google and Craigslist, draped their pages with information about the bills, or restricted access.

Many start-ups quickly cobbled together tech solutions to support their cause. HelloFax, for example, created a tool that let people send their representatives faxes voicing their opinions through the Web.

The effort was an unusual orchestration that began gathering steam online late Tuesday night and escalated early Wednesday morning, eventually whipping the Web into a frenzy.

Google said 4.5 million people signed its online petition to Congress, voicing displeasure at the legislation; Twitter said more than two million posts on the subject flowed through the site by early afternoon, nearly four times as many as usual.

Engine Advocacy, a service that helps people call their local members of Congress, said on Twitter that it was averaging roughly 2,000 calls per second, while Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees Wikipedia, said four million people used its blacked-out site to look up contact information for their local representative.

Opponents of the legislation also took their demonstrations into the real world in New York, San Francisco and Seattle, but drew relatively modest numbers of protesters. Still, for a group that tends to be more comfortable showing solidarity from behind the warm glow of a computer screen — by changing a profile picture or reposting a favorite motto — it was a considerable showing.

The New York rally, organized by a tech industry trade group, attracted about a thousand protesters in Midtown Manhattan.. Sebastian Delmont, 38, who works at StreetEasy, a real estate search site, said about half of his co-workers attended the protest. “Our worry is that they are building something like a Great Firewall, like in China and the Middle East,” he said.

In Washington by Wednesday morning, several lawmakers had reconsidered their support of the bills — one in the House, one in the Senate. The legislation is intended to curtail copyright abuses by preventing American search engines and Web sites from directing users to the mostly foreign sites that allow for the distribution of stolen materials like music, movies, television shows, software and other content.

The tech industry has argued that the bills are too broad, threaten free speech, stifle innovation and most likely will not even effectively eliminate piracy.

To read the rest of this article, click the link: NY Times – With Twitter, Blackouts and Demonstrations, Web Flexes Its Muscle

That’s all for now, but a photo of the day should be coming shortly, since I’ve already picked it out. All related articles are below.

Related articles

• SOPA/PIPA Blackout is not “foolish” (eoghann.com)
• SOPA: CEO Dick Costolo calls a blackout of Twitter ‘foolish’ (nextlevelofnews.com)
• SOPA blackout shows little hope of peace with Hollywood (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Wikipedia Blackout Wednesday – Where’s Twitter? (edelman.com.au)
• Wikipedia blackout over SOPA and PIPA online piracy bills (dailymail.co.uk)

The Evening Post – Issue 9

My oh my! It seems as if I have left all you readers without a decent post for a whole week! Well then that must change and what better time to change that situation other than now! I shan’t bother to fill you in on the last seven days since that would take too long and I’m short for time as it is so I’ll give you the last two days of my life instead…

Tuesday was an exciting day. I went to the Wildside Centre with my friends George, Liam, Luke, Myles and Georgia. We started out going for a walk in which on several occasions George’s little brother, Henry, attempted to stab me with blunt twigs but to no avail. Our aim was to collect and make a mosaic to remind us of the colours of spring on a small pallet of paper that we were given just before we began. After completing this task we were introduced to an artistic challenge where we had to gather twelve twigs to make a picture or art sculpture on the floor. Me and George teamed up and, with 24 twigs, created a excellent TeePee. This project was then shortly followed by another in which we had to build a birds nest. Since me and George like extremes we built the largest one which could withstand the weight of a human! After this we left back and did some drawing. Whilst drawing Georgia decided to run off and, as a result, I had to chase her and bring her back to a supervised area. Unfortunately after this we didn’t stay for long and soon had to leave out to fetch Rubie, much to my dismay.

After my keyboard lesson and my trek to pathfinders we were given the task of checking tents. We did most of them before I left and I was also given the burden of taking control of the Bible Study on Friday since we didn’t finish the topic of the Holy Trinity. I was also confronted with the fact that we didn’t have enough money for my camping trip which, to be honest, I was very pleased with. Shortly after this my Tuesday decided to end…so I shall continue on with today…

Today saw a new beginning in my productivity. I’ve finally been getting my tasks done, making a decent amount of progress in my work and finally have all my weeks planned out so I get enough free time for myself also. Most of today, after my work of course, was spent at the park in which many pictures were taken, some of which I will include in this post. After a while, since I had to get back home for keyboard practice, I left at record pace back home only to find out that I had left my keyboard book at pathfinders! I was stuck with what to do until Rubie mentioned that she wanted me to play with her outside and I remembered the state of the garden. Now our garden was very neat at one stage, but, as everything eventually does, it got neglected and so I put upon myself the task of mowing, trimming and cleaning the expanse of grass that is now a very tidy garden. It took at least three hours, I’ll admit that, but overall it was worth it and, as I look over other people’s gardens in our neighbourhood I can proudly say that ours just may be the tidiest in all of Bushbury. Overall this Wednesday has been one of work and heat and I’m glad to be indoors for once with my windows wide open for the evening. That’s all for today but, before I go, I would like to leave you with two things. One of which are the pictures below and also a question. If the brain sends electrical impulses to our body then I would like to ask this: What volume of electricity does the brain send, what is the resistance to electricity of the membrane and, if used, how many volts are required to push the current through the membrane?