Millions of Americans Oppose SOPA and PIPA Because These Bills Would Censor The Internet … …

 

Heard of SOPA and PIPA?  These are two bills that U.S. Congress is deliberating over and if passed, may vastly change how the internet will be.

It makes me wonder.  How can one country pass a bill that affects the whole world without any input from the rest of the world?

Several companies and non-profit web sites are speaking up about this, amongst them, Google.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you
feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.


How I Started Learning Programming: Me & My Micro (with Fred Harris)

In the mid 80s, there was a TV programme called “Me & My Micro”, a production by British Broadcasting Corporation with Fred Harris.

That is how I really started learning programming at home when I was studying in secondary one.

In the programme, he would showcase some new technology or software written by a guest and have a section where he introduces programming concepts and source codes in BASIC.

Here are two clips.  Enjoy!

Food For Thought ~ Eat Your Own Dog Food

In the software industry that I came from, there’s an expression “Eat Your own Dog Food!”.  It means “Use the apps that you write”.  This made a lot of sense in that only when a developer use their own apps, do they perhaps know the pain or joy of using it as a user.

In organisations and societies, this statement is quite apt too.  If one organises events but do not take part in them, how would you know how well it was?  How would you learn from it or benefit from it?

Beyond benefitting from it, it is also essential for other reasons.  When we organise events for others without benefitting from them personally, then it is easy for our motivation to be pegged to the turn out of the event.  We start to feel disheartened if the turn out is low or be elated if there are thousands.

If management or the working committee organise events or activities solely for others, and have little intention or wish to participate, then it can become work, a burden, a duty.  Whereas if the comm organise events or activities that they themselves wishes to participate, and are interested in, then organising the event itself is rewarding already while the participation of the members come as a bonus!! 🙂

So, Eat Your own Dog Food!

References

Patch File for wpbooker to Fix Spam Comments Syncing with Facebook

So I am using wordbooker to sync the blog posts and comments with facebook.

The latest version of wordbooker seem to sync the comments, including spam, onto facebook.

Thanks to Stephen, after some back and forth on their support forum over the Chinese New Year, we’ve got a patch below which may end up in the wordbooker’s next update or release.

Get it here wordbooker.php.tar
As always, backup your wordbooker.php file.  Untar it.  Test it with spams and normal comments.  Let me know how it works.

Continue reading if you
want to know why the spam was synced to facebook and what this patch does.
You can also read the original forum thread over here

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