1and1.com’s Stance on SOPA

Posted on December 29, 2011 0 comments |

Dear Sir/Miss,

You may have heard about Protect-IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act
(SOPA) currently under consideration in Congress. If passed, among other
things, SOPA requires Web hosting companies like 1&1 to police websites in
order to prevent them from communicating copyrighted information on the
internet. We would like to make sure you are aware of 1&1’s official
position on SOPA.

As a global provider of domains and hosting services, we oppose the Stop
Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or Protect-IP (PIPA) Acts currently under
consideration. While we observe the concerns of those who are troubled by
the potential impact on protecting intellectual property online, 1&1 feels
there is an urgent need to strike a balance between dissemination of and
access to information and protection against its illegal use within the
public domain.

The US government is currently reviewing SOPA and PIPA as possible ways to
prevent unlawful distribution of copyrighted materials available on the
internet. These current proposals, if passed, would allow for significant
interventions into the technological and economical basis of the internet.
This could put the vast benefits and economic opportunities of entirely
legal and legitimate e-business models at risk. Generally, companies
offering technological services should not be forced to be the executor of
authority in such matters. If they were to act upon every implication of
content infringement without any judicial research into the actual usage of
its customers, the integrity behind their customer’s freedom of
information and speech would be enormously harmed.

1&1 Internet, Inc. has worked through associations and with related
companies to ensure that these aspects are taken into account. Thus, we
welcome the serious consideration by the US Congress of the potential
harmful effects on Internet freedom should SOPA and / or PIPA be passed as
law, and hope the stability of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS)
remains intact.

We encourage every Internet user concerned about these plans to contribute
to the debate and to raise their voice with their local representatives in
the House or Senate. One way to express your concerns could be to use one
of the websites that emerged to protect user interests in the current
legislative debate, such as http://fightforthefuture.org/.

At 1&1 we support you, our customer, and an open internet. If you find that
you are supporting a company that encourages SOPA and wish to drop them as
a provider, please follow the simple instructions contained on the website
linked below.

Thank you for being one of our extremely valued customers, and for taking
the time to read this.

Best regards,

Frederick Iwans
General Manager 1&1 Internet Inc.

http://aar0on.posterous.com/1and1coms-stance-on-sopa

New York City

Posted on April 20, 2011 0 comments |

"If you imagine one very moment, at an intersection in New York City, and there’s a pause which is a street light, and some people are stopped and others are in motion; some cars are stopped and others are in motion.  If you were to put that into film terms, into freeze-frame, and hold everything for a second, you’d realize that there’s a universe there of totally disparate intentions.  Everybody going about his or her business, in the silence of their own minds.  With everybody else, and the street, and the time of day, and the architecture, and the quality of the light, and the nature of the weather, as kind of background–or field–for the individual consciousness and the drama it is making of itself in that moment.  And you think about that.  That’s what happens in a city.  And that somehow the city can embrace and accept and accommodate all that disparate intention, at one in the same time.  Not only in that corner, but in thousands of corners."

– E. L. Doctorow, Writer

Going back in June and I can’t wait.

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More photos on my Flickr.

Best Bacon

Posted on December 18, 2010 0 comments |

Even before it was an internet meme, I loved bacon.  But now I’ve come up with a way to cook it that beats everything I’ve tried before.

First, you have to forgo the regular bacon, and buy the thick stuff.  There’s some ultra-thick cut out there, but it’s a bit much, so normal thick cut will do.  Next, sprinkle some Grill Mates Spicy Montreal Steak seasoning on it right as you put it in the pan.  That reminds me, cook it at below the halfway point on your temp dial; i.e. if your dial goes to 10, cook it at about 4.

After a minute or so of cooking the first side–it will only slightly be heating up at this point assuming you turned the burner on and immediately put the bacon in the pan–flip it over and put more spices on the other side.  The trick is to get the spices to cook themselves into the bacon, which won’t happen if you allow it to darken before adding them.

With both sides seasoned, continue to flip it often and cook slowly.  I stop cooking before it has a chance to get extra crispy, but if that’s the way you like it, go for it.

Tip:  try not to inhale too much of the spices as the bacon really begins cooking; it’ll open your sinuses at best, burn them at worst.  And if you’re a huge wuss, use the non-spicy seasoning.

————–

While I’m at it, I should also mention my greatest invention ever:  the Bacon McRib.  It’s pretty self-explanatory, but if you need more help, I gotcha covered:  http://www.baconmcrib.com/

Death to the Phone Book

Posted on November 12, 2010 0 comments |

Year after year, I get home from work, see the newest phone book laying at my front door, pick it up, and walk it straight to the dumpster.  I’d recycle, but let’s face it, I don’t love the planet that much.

This year I was actually home when the phone book crew–yes, there were 4 of them at my apartment complex placing them at peoples’ front doors–showed up, so I jumped on the chance, and told the kid I didn’t need one.  She asked if I was sure, and I told her I just look up numbers online.  "Okay, but if they asked if we left you one, tell them we did, okay?"  She sounded somewhat nervous when she said it, so it made me wonder just what they do to their temp workers back at the Verizon phone book warehouse.

Anyway, the phone book is dead, and I’m glad people other than me and a few other internetters are beginning to realize it.

Link:  http://gizmodo.com/5687822/die-phone-book-die

Sunsets

Posted on November 3, 2010 0 comments |

The only thing I like about this time of year is, I don’t have to stay out really late to see some pretty awesome sunsets.  With dusk hitting around 6pm, I’m able to finish up a bike ride fairly early.  Unfortunately, next week it’ll be an hour earlier, but if the sky looks like this every night, I won’t mind.

Shot at the top of the parking lot at Stephens Park, Columbia, MO.

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Flickr

Floor Mats

Posted on November 2, 2010 0 comments |

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I know this counts as a great big "who gives a shit" for most people, but for me, it’s a bit of a big deal.  You see, this is the first time I’ve had floor mats in my car…. ever.

I bought my first car back in 1995, a new Honda Civic DX hatchback, bone stock, and low on options.  It even had manual steering, which is the greatest thing in the world, but I won’t get into how much I loved that just now.  Another thing it didn’t come with:  floor mats.  Eh, who gives a crap, right?  I mean, you drive the car home, and on your next trip to AutoZone, you pick up a pair and you’re good to go.  Right?

About ten-and-a-half years went by, with plenty of mods to the car–stereo, 17" wheels, adjustable shocks, racing clutch for the monstrous 102hp 4-cyl engine, short shifter, etc–but not once did I bother putting floor mats in it.  Near it’s untimely death (an accident that totaled it), the carpet under my clutch foot was worn bare, and it looked awful.  When I bought a new car, I swore it’d have mats so that wouldn’t happen again.

Anyway, on Halloween day of ’05, I bought a used ’02 Civic Si (EP3), which happened to be lacking the stock floor mats.  I wasn’t too happy about it, but I got a good deal on the car, and promised I’d order some OEM mats right away.  …And then I forgot.  Over the next five years, I’ve remembered it a hundred times while sitting at work, but never once while I was online.  I can remember friends’ phone numbers from when I was 10, but not this.  Until last week, that is.  By some unbelievable matter of luck, I happened to get the idea to look for some OEM mats while I was playing on the internets, found them immediately, and ordered the damn things.  I got them yesterday, plopped them in place, and the rest is history.

Fifteen-and-a-half years driving around in cars with bare carpet floors.  15 years of thinking to myself, man, I should get some floor mats.  15 years of putting it off due to one thing or another.  If you’ll pardon me, I think I might go take a nap on them.

I Voted

Posted on November 2, 2010 0 comments |

I voted today.  Not because I think it’s my "patriotic duty", because that just sounds so cliche.  Hell, it’s not my patriotic duty to vote, it’s my patriotic duty to keep America as close to the way the founders envisioned it as possible.  Keeping that in mind, I voted mostly Libertarian, where such a party was available to vote on.  I voted to oust every judge currently on the bench–you’re not a king, but a civil s-e-r-v-a-n-t, and you’ve served your time long enough.  If it was up to me, and obviously it isn’t, no elected official would be allowed to serve more than one term per office.

Locally, we also had Prop 2, which was meant to essentially make it illegal for anyone–including the police–to use tasers on others.  Listen, retards, the whole damn point of the taser (as far as law enforcement goes) is to keep from having to shoot people or bash them in the head with a baton.  Would you rather get hit with a quick shock that throws you on the ground, or pierced with a bullet?  Both can kill you, sure, but the bullet is much more likely to do so.  Also, if you’ve been tased, and the cop still kicks your ass, you have a better chance of suing, since you can claim you were incapacitated, and unable to fight back.  If the cop just has to wrestle you to the ground–untased–his defense will be that you put up a struggle, therefore, his extra time spent beating on you was justified.

Anyway, as you roll through the streets of my city, you see "No on Prop 2" signs all over the high-crime neighborhoods.  In the nicer areas–where lawns are cut and people smile at you, instead of giving you a look of warning–you see the "Yes on Prop 2" signs.  It’s not difficult to do the math as far as who I want to vote with.

Something many don’t seem to realize is, Prop 2 would also ban civilians from using tasers as a means of defense.  Many people rely on them to prevent rape (MU campus is the rape capital of Missouri, I’m pretty sure), or to disarm an intruder at home, without having to take a chance with killing anyone.  Voting against law enforement’s ability to use tasers is a vote against your own ability to use one.

Anyway, I voted, and I hope plenty of people who disagree with me totally forgot to.  Either way, the world will continue to spin.

Nationally, an even more interesting vote is California’s Prop 19.  Having never smoked a joint, and never planning to, I hope the dope heads get what they want over there.  Government has far too much control as it is, and it’s never made a damn bit of sense to me why alcohol and tobacco are perfectly legal, while marijuana isn’t.  Maybe it’s a gateway drug to worse drugs, but I think the more prominent gateway drug is shitty parenting, and God knows they’ll never make it illegal for morons to procreate.

Good luck, stoners.  Chill in your parents’ basements, play your video games, and leave me alone.  In the mean time, the cops can spend more time working on stopping real crime, like gang violence and jaywalking.

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