The Stop Online Piracy Act Protest

Tomorrow this blog will go dark to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act, generally known by its initials as SOPA. In case you haven't heard, this is a nasty piece of legislation that the United States are planning to pass to make it easy for anyone to take down someone else's website if they claim copyright violation.

It doesn't have to be the person who's complaining that their copyright has been violated, and there is no need for a trial: the website will be taken down before any case is heard. You will be held to be guilty until proved innocent - which is going to be bloody hard in the case of copyright law.

It's very easy to inadvertently violate copyright. Indeed, some of the people behind the new law have been found doing just that. We're all at risk of being taken down and so are all of our favourite websites.

If you want to protest, you can find the code to make your blog go dark here: http://sopablackout.org/
You can find out more about SOPA on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Take_action


Edited to Add: to black out your website, open the template for your blog. In Blogger, you go to Design, Edit HTML. I recommend clicking on Download Full Template first: this will allow you to save a version of your blog on your computer.

Then find < head>, and after that insert this code: <script type="text/javascript" src="//js.sopablackout.org/sopablackout.js"></script>

It helps to leave a space before and after the code, so you can find it easily when you want to delete it. Save the template and check your blog. It should now have gone dark!

Fed up with Facebook?

There's another new alternative to Facebook: Diaspora.

The big advantage is that it's independently run and that it doesn't demand your "real name" or your gender. If you choose to set your gender, you have a blank box to fill in so you're not stuck with only male or female.

It does allow you to connect your account to Facebook and I have very mixed feelings about that. And it's still in alpha, so likely to be buggy.

It's interesting to see what they're doing though so if anyone wants an invitation, let me know and I'll invite you over. You can email me at doyouwanttojoindiaspora.fairyhedgehog@recursor.net - I wouldn't put your email address in the comments here, it will be harvested by spambots!

Stupid Filter

I've just tried out the Stupid Filter on my LOLcats post and to my suprise it found it

not likely to be stupid

It is my most visited post but only for the cute picture. I'd better put up some more pictures of my little monsters darlings soon.

The LOL Meter

I have shamelessly stolen this from Dennis Cass' blog. He proposes a new widget:

LOL Meter
Yes, you LOL'd. But how much did you LOL? And was it is a sad, rueful LOL? Or the innocent, joyous LOL-ing of a young girl? And, while we're at it, are we even LOL-ing for the same reason? Attach a microphone to your computer and it captures, records and sorts all your LOLs. Social network feature allows you to compare and share with friends. You'll never ROTF the same way again.

This is obviously a brilliant and funny idea. I wondered if we could maybe avoid having to embrace the new technology with all its attendant hiccups (do hiccups attend?) by simply inventing a few more LOLs. At the moment we have hehe, LOL, ROTFL and ROTFLMAO. Which additional ones do you think we need? If we all agree on some maybe we can start a new meme out there in blogland and even right across the interwebs as my son tells me it's called.

My suggestions
SS: Snorting Snigger
SCOK: Spews Coffee Onto Keyboard
HHWG: Hits Head While Groaning

I'm sure you have some much better ones.

Oh, and do go and visit Dennis Cass, he's very funny and so is his YouTube video.