SOPA: Its bad.

SOPA is a new bill that was proposed by Lamar Smith a Texas Repulican who is backed by 31 other co-signers. This bill plans to censor the internet for piracy content yet is that the true intent? This bill has so many loopholes that almost many websites would be shut down or forced to change e.g. Google, Facebook, etc. How can the US promote internet freedom if it doesn't even uphold it's own belief.

This bill hopes to end piracy, but it is one way of diminishing free speech. The bill will shut down anything that can be used to access copyright content. A lot of services fill in that vague definition. VPN and proxy services that people use for legal purposes such as privacy and protection or trying to access services blocked in that country such as during the Arab Spring. These services would be shut down as they fill that vague definition as they can be used for that service.

It is not very effective in stopping piracy as things can be done. Piracy sites like thepiratebay.org, demonoid.me, etc. can change domains frequently. Torrents also don't require servers, they require people and a website is just the place where you get the download. To bypass, people could send the torrent link to each other and then soon we'll have e-mail being censored, because it can be used to spread pirate works.

The bill has so many loopholes that it doesn't give many people a leg to stand on. Under the DMCA, websites were asked kindly to remove kindly. Under SOPA, websites were shut down automatically and the website would have to appeal. The definition of the bill is also so unclear that what would be called legal is now illegal or is it? The bill is so unclear that it could tip in both favors giving the defendant whether it's a 24 year old hacker or a 5 year old uploading a music video. Sites like Google and Twitter would have to censor their sites 24/7 which goes against their business models. For Google, it's to categorize the worlds information and for Twitter its to share whats on your mind. It could end the idea of having a normal internet. Its also happening right now.

SOPA is a good idea and its a step in the right direction yet some bugs need to be fixed. They should make the SRRA bill (Stop Retarded Republicans Act).

Thomas Edison Quotes

If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.

Thomas A. Edison, Encyclopaedia Britannica

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Thomas A. Edison, Harper's Monthly, 1932

Jack Layton and his Legacy

One of Jack Layton's final words.

     Jack Layton is not a person you meet everyday, especially one that's in politics. He was known as the "healthcare" guy in our country for his countless acts to enforce healthcare and make life a better place. He was different. He wasn't the same old politician you see everyday. He had this thing where people like him, friend or foe. I always thought it wasn't true until I say friends and foes mourning his death. He was a true politician.

     He became captain of the NDP in 2003. At that time the NDP had become the laughing stock of the House of Commons and was losing grip on what it was saying. Then Jack came along even though he was only a city counselor before with no experience in Ottawa politics. He then turned a losing party into a winner with the 2011 election turning the party into the Official Opposition which it has never reached before. Furthermore, he influenced our health care system and negotiating with other parties to get not only what he wanted, but what all Canadians wanted: healthcare and affordable housing. He gave the basic necessities we all need but forget most of the time.

    He was also one of the few or should I say only leader that could actually connect with voters. Jack managed to know what people want and how to connect with them. That really showed when Quebec was first painted orange NDP for the first time after the Bloc had a monopoly on Quebec. He was a leader who was serious and knew how to have a good time. He always has a simple message so everyone can actually get it. Not only that, he looks at the good side of things. He doesn't show a lot of attack ads, instead showing ways the NDP would be different instead of saying that the Conservatives are creating more tax cuts for businesses or Michael Ignatief is corrupt since he lived in America previously.

     Jack Layton may have died on August 22, 2011 peacefully to unite a country and to bring change. He doesn't care about friends or foes as he treats them all the same. He works with people instead of fighting and tried to get things done. A type of man we won't see for a long time. A state funeral has been planned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper which is very unusual showing that Layton made many friends even though they were political foes.

Do you miss Limewire? Comparing whats left in the legal department.

Limewire Website Currently After A Court Injunction

     Limewire was known as a music store for free people (people who didn’t want to pay). They offered every song you could possibly see on any other music store like Rhapsody or iTunes, but at a better quality, format, and cost (free). Yet does shutting down this powerhouse mean the end of piracy on music itself. No, but it sends a clear message that paid methods aren’t enough or just don’t work. If we compare this service to others we will see major differences and ideas that other services don’t hang on to.

AAC format and what it looks like in iTunes.

     Limewire offered music in many formats. It may have not offered it in every single format, but it gave you more choice than iTunes which is AAC and works on Apple products only or Rhapsody’s low quality MP3s. The people who share on Limewire offer more choices than what you can get in iTunes. It can give you OGG, MP3, AAC, etc. Limewire gives the user greater flexibility.

     The service offered great benefits to Independent Artists.  This allowed artists who didn’t have enough capital get noticed around the world by downloaders using Limewire. The service basically offered free advertising for artists and publicity. Limewire helped to promote the work by offering it as a download like anything else. Then people started listening and sharing and the independent artists were pleased.

Amazon MP3 offers 69 cent downloads.

    

     The music is free, but it causes a rethinking. Limewire offers brand name music at a low price, nothing. This gave users an idea: Why should I pay for music that I can get for free? Next, a response, the RIAA started suing people over the DMCA act. This also caused a Renaissance in the music industry; the removal of DRM from legal downloads as they started to realize that people are downloading because they can find things for free that are better than paid. This made iTunes remove DRM and Amazon to charge $0.69 music downloads, far lower than the industry standards.

     Limewire may have caused havoc in US copyright laws, but it did change things in the way consumers get their music. As they say, more competition equals more return for the consumer.

Space Shuttle Prezi

Space Shuttle on Prezi

Here's a Prezi on the Space Shuttle that I made. In commemoration of the final Space Shuttle launch STS-135 (Atlantis). Its also my first time using it.

LSE and TMX Deal Fails - Canada Has Failed

Canada was supposed to be a free country with free speech. We invented many things like the internet and maple syrup. Yet, in modern times we have fallen in everything. We have crappy internet and we lose out on deals that could make this place a greater place. RIM is failing, everyone knew that was going to happen. All our tech geniuses left us for the states because we're too cheap to fund them. What have we got left? A crappy country that ruins everything.

Banks want to control the stock exchange. I say screw their cocks! You want it, well you can't have it. I don't want to go back to the days of Ma Bell, thank you. If you have a monopoly then no innovation happens. Change is what everyone hates. The banks, so called "Maple" which is retarded, want to buy the TMX. Well this is just saying, the big bully wants to buy the popular guy. Would you like it if there was only one internet provider, one phone company, or one stock exchange owned by one company. A monopoly is what it's called. Banks have done nothing to give back to everyone so why should we let them take our icon?

The NYSE did it. The NASDAQ did it. Everyone did it in the states, why not here? Canada now looks horrible. Nobody wants to do business here any more. To the government, that's like a hurrah yet to us Canadians, it's lost return. BHP could've bought Potash. They could create more jobs and move the HQ from the US to Canada. They would create more jobs and blah. We said no! That was bad enough.

Now the world gave us another chance, create the worlds largest stock exchange. It was a win-win deal. Yet everyone is so f***ing retarded in Ontario to realize that. You bank CEO's are stupid, retarded, and assholes. Maple is what you call yourself and you hold Canada's interests at heart. No this fact, banks are cruel and will try anything to make money. Things have always been apart for a reason. Banks will make things worse, nobody will buy things off the TSX if the banks own it. Lost business, lost jobs, lost everything. Is that what you want?

I'm just giving my two cents. The Liberals have really screwed up, the banks are asses, and the government did nothing to make Canada look like it really should. A country that welcomes investment and innovation. Instead we showed them how we are not friendly and don't want people messin' with our stuff. What is wrong with you? Read this and think....................

Cloud Music - What do you really want?

Cloud music is a new thing in the industry. Cloud music started ever since cloud storage existed. The idea sprang up, but was never done. Amazon has launched the fully fledged service with Google launching one soon. Apple is playing catch up to this though. The big question is, is this really convenient?

Would you like to upload tons of music you downloaded or pirated to Amazon which could take hours considering how big your music collection is. It would take a long time to do so even for just the sole benefit of the fact your music might finally be organized.

It costs cash. Amazon offers 5GB free of music storage. I don't think that's enough for most people. You can pay per year for extra storage like any other storage provider, but get upgraded to 20GB automatically if you buy an album. They also claim if you buy music from them, they'll add it to your cloud folder automatically. That sounds nice, but when did consumer stupidity come to play? Consumers don't know everything in the world, but they don't like an inconvenience.

Cloud music has a lot of work to do, but the war for music has just only started.

The iPhone, Is it a Gamechanger

The iPhone has led to many things over the years. It has just recently been released to Verizon and was originally released to AT&T. T-Mobile and Sprint have never been in on this action and have felt left out. They don't seem to happy, especially since they're losing customers because of the iPhone anyways. It's like whoever has the iPhone, is the carrier that gets the most customers. Now that might seem unfair, but everyone's network is different and one thing can't support all.

T-Mobile and Sprint are just the networks that Apple's iPhone just doesn't support. T-Mobile runs on the new spectrum known as AWS or 1700. Sprint runs on CDMA and WiMAX which doesn't relate to the iPhone. The iPhone runs on GSM and CDMA, but only works on Verizon and AT&T. It could work on Sprint, it's just Verizon won't let them. You want more customers, well you got to get rid of the competition. That may not be fair or legal, but that's the way things are. Look at the AT&T merger with T-Mobile that's has come up. Is this the return of the monopoly days where one company controlled everything. Will innovation turn to a standstill?

Let's just wait and see. Will Google trump the iPhone. We just don't know yet.

What happened to the Blackberry?

The Blackberry, the pride of Canada, is not so popular as it was in the olden days. Apple and Google seem to have taken everything from them. Their customers and money and loving fans. Look at it this way, RIM has lost almost everything and is not even a good seller of phones compared to Microsoft. People only buy it because of BBM, which in my opinion is weird, but now it's on iOS and Android, so RIM wake up!

RIM seems to have a failure already before it started. RIM's Playbook looks like garbage the moment I saw it. RIM must really want to be the pioneer of innovation, because it's OS has a long way to go. RIM is what you call a "late goer". RIM is like the guy who's last invited to the party. RIM is dying in my opinion, a company struggling to survive and find ways to buy its products even though it can't. iPad and it's competitors are still better than the Playbook. It also has low apps and not the best specs you could wish for.

RIM has just lost its game.

Is the AT&T and T-Mobile Merger A Good Thing?

AT&T aka Ma Bell is coming back again. It's giving an offer for T-Mobile about 39 billion dollars to be exact. It's owner, Deutsche Telekom, is selling it because it can't make money out of it anymore due to the iPhone. Sprint and T-Mobile have been suffering ever since the iPhone came out, losing customers as people just wanted the latest gadget so it's owner got desperate. DT wants to sell T-Mobile USA. Why should it concern you? Well, you should be worried. T-Mobile and Sprint are the only ones standing up to AT&T and Verizon and those two big companies care about money not innovation.

T-Mobile was the first company to bring Android phones to the market. They sparked innovation and a true iPhone competitor and this has brought Android across all carriers, because of it's popularity. Sprint has announced it will support number porting with Google Voice natively and will give it's users the option to. Sprint and T-Mobile are needed to make the mobile atmosphere changing otherwise we will be stuck in the Ma Bell days where everything just seemed to stay still and boring.

Get rid of T-Mobile? If you do, you're getting rid of innovation and change here.

Would you like a nuclear reactor in the neighborhood?

Nuclear reactors are everywhere as the world tries to look at ways to make energy without oil. Japan is one of such countries. A country with no oil whatsoever so what could it resort to, nuclear plants. Sure people complain but what choice did they have? These plants make 24% of Japan's energy. That's about a quarter and a lot. Right now countries express fear as they fear the same fate as Japan and will they? This I don't know, but would you like to live right beside one?

Say your in a country with no means of oil. I mean no oil at all and no coal. Imagine your a carbon free country. What would you do? Would you import all your oil? Nonsense that would be crazy and expensive. Renewable energy? Bah! Like that could ever generate enough electricity to power a country. What do we have left? Hydroelectric dams and nuclear energy. I would choose nuclear energy first, don't you think. It's makes a lot of energy and requires uranium which is a whole lot cheaper than oil. Also, it seems safer. The accident risk is less. The ability to make energy is so desperate that you build tons around the country. You then realize your on an island where earthquakes come like as if they're a habit. Why do we build then? Demand always bests safety in a fight to the death.

Demand may have brought nuclear haven to our countries. The catastrophic consequences of nuclear power plants over the decade are low, but when one happens. it is unthinkable what will happen and how many lives are lost and how embarrassing you feel addressing the worried public like you have never done before showing the world your country has a poor reputation for something it always had pride in: dependability. The effects are more powerful than any oil spill can ever cause in it's lifetime. Sometimes great power comes with great risks.

Japan - Is the Government Keeping a Secret

Japan has been struck by disaster many times before, but none like this. This disaster has destroyed the nation and has ruined lives. It has shocked the nation into what seems to be likely called Haiti's Big Brother since it has the same effect, but worse it comes with a tsunami. There's an old Japanese saying that lies come in 3's and 8's. The Japanese said a 30km radius from the reactors, but now say you should be 80km away from the reactor. Three's and eight's isn't it. Don't you think.

The nuclear situation is something the government shouldn't be counted on. When the guy in trouble says no and many other smarter people say yes, they are probably not trying to show fear and that they are stupid. They also might feel embarrassed if the ask for help. Japan is a well developed country, it's not Haiti.

Japan has felt the disaster of it's reputation.

Japan's Nuclear Reactors - A Taste of What's To Come

Japan is a country previously ravaged by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a devastating tsunami with devastating aftershocks. Japan hasn't recovered yet, because it's nuclear reactors are going out of control. Fukushima Dai-ichi and Fukushima II have both suffered fires, but Fukushima III is the one that changes everything.

It uses a combination of plutonium and uranium making it even more deadly than its siblings. It has suffered an explosion and cooling using sea water has been cancelled. The reserve pool has been used up and the plant is in worse shape compared to its siblings. They are trying to inject water, but so far with not much success.

Lets let the story play out and lets see where it goes. Will it Chernobyl again, this is something that I don't know, but it won't come back fast and may leave the area devastated for more than a century.

Who Should Pay After the Crash?

Car crashes come and car crashes go. Who shall pay nobody knows, but one things for sure the impact will be felt after the crash. That's right, all those dollars you spent on your car has gone down. Say it was worth $15,000, now it's $10,000. That's called diminished value or accelerated depreciation as we call it in Canada. Whatever it is, it's not usually covered in your insurance policy.

Would you buy a car that was in an accident? Probably not. That's the same thing the buyer would think if you were trying to sell your car if it had an accident. Would you like it? Probably not again. Yet this is the reality of this world. We want things with no problems and that makes things hard for you: the owner. No insurance company wants this to become the law because they don't want to pay for something that they can't quantify. You see if you drive it until the wheels go under, there is no diminished value. Thats the reason they won't pay. Usually people have to lawsuit just to get the money and brokers always try to keep it on the down low.

Georgia, USA is probably the only place where it's probably the law that diminished value must be compensated for the owner of the person in an accident regardless of who's at fault. They claim that since it's your property, you have the right to sell it and you'll never know if your never going to ever sell it. Since it's your property the insurance company is supposed to put you back in the place you were prior to the accident, isn't that the reason we pay for insurance. To get our money back?

Many brokers will fight over this issue. Some may even lawsuit against a law such as this to be passed. Yet know this fact, all the claims they make are false. The sky shall not fall, insurance rates will stay the same and you'll have a happier state/province.

The Fight For Bandwith

Now we all know how the government likes to intervene at things that could make the consumers unhappy. Take Wind Mobile which the Conservative government overturned the CRTC judgment that said Wind Mobile couldn't operate because it's owner, Globalive, was mostly controlled by Egypt's Orascom. The CRTC got overruled and Wind Mobile came. Now it's about internet.

The CRTC has delayed their ruling on giving internet providers the power to charge money to small providers by per GB. This would eventually get rid of the "unlimited" plan in Canada. If this were to happen then data caps would be strengthened even more. This was given pressure as the government knows who's affected: small businesses and any threat to let the unemployment rate go to down is bad for the look.

If the government succeeds to do so, not only small providers, but us consumers will also reap the benefits as we will have to offered unlimited plans as well. That means more Netflix for you.

Internet in Canada Just Got Better

Besides using the Bell Canada slogan, the name says it all. That's right after the CRTC is giving internet providers the right to charge users for over dose or going over the data cap. This was so providers can finally stop ripping themselves off. This isn't good for consumers, but the Canadian government wants change.

Canada is known for some things. Unenforced illegal file sharing and no charge if gone over data caps. This is what makes Canada, Canada and what makes the US, the US. The CRTC decision to ruin Canada can be overturned as the Conservatives are looking into it and thinking about removing it, because it doesn't look good on their image.

All in all, just sit back and have fun with your day and let politics take care of itself. :)

Vancouver's Housing Bubble

Vancouver,BC, Canada is a city known for many things. It is known for its 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games and it's highly populated Asian communities. What is unusual is it's housing bubble. The real estate here has increased a lot with the average home price of over $1,000,000 and that's not good enough to get you the home of your dreams.

An example is something like the house above. It was sold for $1,688,000 and it was in a horrible state so it's probably going to be torn down and rebuilt. The neighbor found out about the sale and had lived there for less than three months. They bought it for $1,047,000 and sold it for $1,357,000. There are many desperate people out there. Rich Chinese people are driving the market with their pocketbooks open, Vancouver seems like a good spot for them.

Vancouver will have it's bubble grow until it one day pops and its the end of Vancouver itself.

The US Food System Improvement - Going to be Stalled

The US Democrats are trying to make a new change and this time its a good one: improving the food system and regulating the food that is produced from the US. Now this may be good, but the snotty "Tea Party" is having their say in it. They don't want it to be passed. Why? Well, you'll find out.

This bill will allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the food in the US and prevent anything bad from happening. The Republicans however don't like the fact that it will cost 1 billion and the Tea Party has promised tax cuts and their trying to find ways to deliver or at the next election, the Republican's are history. Yet do the Republicans have to ruin every good thing in America? Some good Republicans include George Bush, but that's it. Sarah Palin, who cares about that stupid bitch? You know what the Republicans want, they want money.

Americans, put your head in shame. You have elected many House of Representatives for the wrong reasons. They'll give you tax cuts. They'll kill healthcare and stimulus spending. They'll cut everything. Why? They're rich bastards. The Democrats were supposed to save us as they care about us civilians. Republicans, they're even worse than Wall Street businessman.