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Stop Online Piracy Act!!!
Here at Tom’s Hardware, you know we don’t typically get political because with the heated debates between AMD vs. Intel who needs Donkeys vs. Elephants?
We’ve got no agenda beyond providing the best hardware news and reviews we can dig up. But here at Year’s end, there’s a subject we want to share with you that may come to affect how you experience us and the rest of the internet. It’s called SOPA, or the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, and it is headed through U.S. Congress with its sister bill PROTECT-IP in the Senate. SOPA threatens to fundamentally change the way information is presented online by placing massive restrictions on user-generated content like posts to forums, video uploads, podcasts or images. In a nutshell, here’s what the law would do:
Assign liability to site owners for everything users post, without consideration for whether or not the user posted without permission. Site owners could face jail time or heavy fines, and DNS blacklisting.
It would require web services like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to monitor and aggressively filter everything all users upload.
It would deny site owners due process of law, by initiating a DNS blacklisting based solely on a good faith assertion by an individual copyright or intellectual property owner.
It would give the U.S. government the power to selectively censor the web using techniques similar to those used in China, Malaysia and Iran. The Great Firewall of China is an example of this type of embedded, infrastructural internet censorship.
As an example, imagine a user posts a video clip to the Tom’s Community of a step-by-step guide on how to set up water cooling on an overclocked i7 CPU. Playing in the background behind the voiceover is “Derezzed” by Daft Punk. The studio representing Daft Punk could issue a complaint, without being required to notify us or request a take-down. Tom’s Hardware would be liable and prosecuted solely on a good faith assertion of the copyright owner, without notification, with the site operators subject to possible jail time for not preventing the video from being posted. In short order, thehttp://www.tomshardware.com/ domain in the United States would no longer resolve to our servers and visitors attempting to come to Tom’s Hardware would be redirected to a “This site under review for piracy/copyright violations” page.
To conform to these new restrictions would mean that Tom’s Hardware would have to switch to a review/approval process for any and all new posts to our forums and articles. Our community team would have to approve every single news comment, every new thread, and every new response before it went live and filter them for potentially infringing material. Even so, we would still possibly be under threat from violations not caught – a user posting a paragraph from “Unix for Dummies” as an example or a snippet of software news from another website in excess of a certain summary threshold. That’s just here on Tom’s. The effect on sites like YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and the rest of the internet would be devastating, and progress and innovation would grind to a halt under the cumbersome new restrictions.
The intent of the legislation is to stop piracy, which isn’t affected in the least by this approach. The DNS censoring method is circumvented by navigating to the IP directly, and many have already installed Anti-SOPA browser extensions that do this automatically. Unfortunately the legislation in the House and Senate has a wide margin of bi-partisan support and looks likely to pass after the holidays. We strongly oppose the censorship of the internet and strongly encourage you to contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators to voice your opposition. Believe it or not, your Congress-critters do count the number of calls and emails they get on a particular issue, and most of the time only the people in their jurisdiction (read- you) can sway their opinion on something – so your action on this is important.
Please take a moment to contact your representative and tell them you oppose the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. Here’s a link that can give you more information and provide you with contact info for your elected official. Your action on this matters.
https://action.eff.o...action_KEY=8173
Yours,
The Tom’s Hardware Team
We’ve got no agenda beyond providing the best hardware news and reviews we can dig up. But here at Year’s end, there’s a subject we want to share with you that may come to affect how you experience us and the rest of the internet. It’s called SOPA, or the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, and it is headed through U.S. Congress with its sister bill PROTECT-IP in the Senate. SOPA threatens to fundamentally change the way information is presented online by placing massive restrictions on user-generated content like posts to forums, video uploads, podcasts or images. In a nutshell, here’s what the law would do:
Assign liability to site owners for everything users post, without consideration for whether or not the user posted without permission. Site owners could face jail time or heavy fines, and DNS blacklisting.
It would require web services like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to monitor and aggressively filter everything all users upload.
It would deny site owners due process of law, by initiating a DNS blacklisting based solely on a good faith assertion by an individual copyright or intellectual property owner.
It would give the U.S. government the power to selectively censor the web using techniques similar to those used in China, Malaysia and Iran. The Great Firewall of China is an example of this type of embedded, infrastructural internet censorship.
As an example, imagine a user posts a video clip to the Tom’s Community of a step-by-step guide on how to set up water cooling on an overclocked i7 CPU. Playing in the background behind the voiceover is “Derezzed” by Daft Punk. The studio representing Daft Punk could issue a complaint, without being required to notify us or request a take-down. Tom’s Hardware would be liable and prosecuted solely on a good faith assertion of the copyright owner, without notification, with the site operators subject to possible jail time for not preventing the video from being posted. In short order, thehttp://www.tomshardware.com/ domain in the United States would no longer resolve to our servers and visitors attempting to come to Tom’s Hardware would be redirected to a “This site under review for piracy/copyright violations” page.
To conform to these new restrictions would mean that Tom’s Hardware would have to switch to a review/approval process for any and all new posts to our forums and articles. Our community team would have to approve every single news comment, every new thread, and every new response before it went live and filter them for potentially infringing material. Even so, we would still possibly be under threat from violations not caught – a user posting a paragraph from “Unix for Dummies” as an example or a snippet of software news from another website in excess of a certain summary threshold. That’s just here on Tom’s. The effect on sites like YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and the rest of the internet would be devastating, and progress and innovation would grind to a halt under the cumbersome new restrictions.
The intent of the legislation is to stop piracy, which isn’t affected in the least by this approach. The DNS censoring method is circumvented by navigating to the IP directly, and many have already installed Anti-SOPA browser extensions that do this automatically. Unfortunately the legislation in the House and Senate has a wide margin of bi-partisan support and looks likely to pass after the holidays. We strongly oppose the censorship of the internet and strongly encourage you to contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators to voice your opposition. Believe it or not, your Congress-critters do count the number of calls and emails they get on a particular issue, and most of the time only the people in their jurisdiction (read- you) can sway their opinion on something – so your action on this is important.
Please take a moment to contact your representative and tell them you oppose the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. Here’s a link that can give you more information and provide you with contact info for your elected official. Your action on this matters.
https://action.eff.o...action_KEY=8173
Yours,
The Tom’s Hardware Team
"Superstitions" - dhamma talk by Ajahn Brahm
A hint of irreverence for all forms of superstition, lashings of humour in this talk, serve to stress that it's ONLY our personal accountability and actions that make a difference. Trinket jewellery, mindless chanting and holy water do not. Is there heaven and hell? What is the mind? Ajahn's stories of the 'Samurai Warrior and the Monk' and 'The Cloaked Emperor' provide the answers...
Peaceful and Gentle
The defining moments of something peaceful and gentle,
Purity untouched is always benevolent
Poetry is speakable in tongues is beneficial to the one, who hears his or her tongue
Languages break down barriers of untapped floetry
Connection between the two is always poetry, so always realize this is an illusion
As something stands between the one sharing moment in despair
Of glowing upon the face of the dreaming voices hearing songs
As beauty encompasses into the hearts of the one
Who needs to hear it one last time, before he or she is put to rest
And moved up or down below the underground of tomorrows busy bodies
All these things could be a confusing memory relapse
Or simply words of enchanted moments of understanding the reason for your reasoning
Still a confused face of unknown, so let me speak to you alone.
Listen and hear yourself plea
Look inside the face and then do not escape your grace
This music is supposed to touch your gaze and change your ways
So nothing, extreme of negativity destroys your face
Relax and glide into the moments of joy and peace
Tranquility is something you supposed to feel
Without much complexity as this is once again purity for the one
That simply lays down to sleep and dreams big dreams
Sweet dreams…
So kindness beams into your moving heart.
Leon Basin
Love Chess Games...
Yes, here I am and here you are…here we go…listen..Just listen I want you to listen for 1 min. just listen.
Here we go….yes, yes…yess
Glory name, is love the same,
When one is to blame for all the games,
How pretty is your name, when not spoken
But reacted and acted upon,
Through mirrors of emotions,
My devotions speak through journey,
It’s my own convulsions, I need to go through,
In order to release my pain through poetry,
My emotions are glorious as they are speaking to you through these beautiful words of honor,
Compassion and forgiving myself first,
And then perhaps you,
It’s my own progressive moments of glory,
To raise my hands up above my head,
And speak, in words that only you can understand,
As these words are written for you in hot steamy arrow of rainbow rays,
And then re-connected to descramble into ocean of waves,
Then re-posted into icicles form of visionary imagery,
So one can stare at them,
Without feeling a mystery,
As these words are true,
like these feelings that ring from my heart rang through your telephone wire of musical notes of bringing you white light through, when darkness was on your side, but you began to seek embezzlement against dark side,
And lifted your head for a happier light
I was there, watching you, guiding you, seeing you and believing in you,
As I was in darkness too, and I experienced pain too, but I wanted to stay back and help you Understand,
I was there for you and that it will always be that way
I would never leave, and I will stay connected to your soul and to your mind
Let us listen enjoy this opportunity now, to understand our destination, it is never late, to repeat these word again…love is so true, I belong to you….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyrzWk0aKc0&feature=related
Here we go….yes, yes…yess
Glory name, is love the same,
When one is to blame for all the games,
How pretty is your name, when not spoken
But reacted and acted upon,
Through mirrors of emotions,
My devotions speak through journey,
It’s my own convulsions, I need to go through,
In order to release my pain through poetry,
My emotions are glorious as they are speaking to you through these beautiful words of honor,
Compassion and forgiving myself first,
And then perhaps you,
It’s my own progressive moments of glory,
To raise my hands up above my head,
And speak, in words that only you can understand,
As these words are written for you in hot steamy arrow of rainbow rays,
And then re-connected to descramble into ocean of waves,
Then re-posted into icicles form of visionary imagery,
So one can stare at them,
Without feeling a mystery,
As these words are true,
like these feelings that ring from my heart rang through your telephone wire of musical notes of bringing you white light through, when darkness was on your side, but you began to seek embezzlement against dark side,
And lifted your head for a happier light
I was there, watching you, guiding you, seeing you and believing in you,
As I was in darkness too, and I experienced pain too, but I wanted to stay back and help you Understand,
I was there for you and that it will always be that way
I would never leave, and I will stay connected to your soul and to your mind
Let us listen enjoy this opportunity now, to understand our destination, it is never late, to repeat these word again…love is so true, I belong to you….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyrzWk0aKc0&feature=related
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