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Internet Blackout Day on January 18

Powered by Dan will be joining thousands of other websites around the United States and the world in protest against Senate Bill 968: the Protect IP Act also known as SOPA. If this bill is passed it will jeopardize internet freedom and shift the power of the independent web into the hands of corporations. We must stop it.

On January 18, 2012 many sites around the web — from small personal blogs to internet institutions like Mozilla,Wikipediareddit, and I Can Has Cheezburger? – will be going dark in protest and to drive their visitors to sites like americancensorship.org to take action and help fight the passage of the Protect IP Act. So will WordPress.org.

If you want to join the protest by blacking out your WordPress site or applying a ribbon, there is now a variety of blackout plugins in the WordPress.org plugins directory. While joining the protest in this manner is laudable, please don’t forget to also make those phone calls to U.S. Senators — they’re the ones with the voting power.

Blackout the Internet on January 18th to prevent it from being blacked out by Corporations.

Dear Internet…

People of the Internet, we have a problem. For too long there have been people who pass along rumors without checking the facts. Sure it sounds like a true story but sounding like a true story and being a true story are two completely separate things. For those of you that don’t know I’ve been using the Internet for nearly 18 years and if there is one truth I have learned from the Internet, it is that if you forward an email from Microsoft, Pepsi, or AOL you will end up a millionaire. Oh wait no you won’t because that was a fucking lie 15 years ago and it’s still a fucking lie today. Also did you know that there is a kid on their deathbed right now that wants to you to send him 1,000,000 postcards and be the postcard king? Wait, wait, wait, that kid never existed?!?!? Oh MY GOD how could someone lie on the Intarwebs???

There are BILLIONS of barrels of oil right in the middle of the good ol U.S. of A. Billions I tell you! Shale Oil is the next big thing!!!!!111!1one

Talking about lying did you hear that congress doesn’t pay taxes, gets paid for the rest of their life even if they only serve one term, and that they feast on the dead but still warm bodies of puppies and kittens?! It’s true my uncle Sam’s friends cousins bosses gardener forwarded it to me, which means it must be true. I once read that the brand new (if 10 years ago is new) gold $1 coins don’t have “In God We Trust” on them. Wait I have one right here, nope there is no In God We Trust on the coin… Oh wait there it is on the fucking edge of the coin. See this is the problem with a large percentage of the general, they don’t really know what they are forwarding.

Dollar Coins "In God We Trust"

The unfortunate part is that many of the people who send these things are actually intelligent people, and I know they meant well when they forwarded along the message, but every person that reads this cutting edge information is another possible fish that might fall for the lies.

My real issue here is who is the idiot that first creates these false sensationalistic stories that tug on our heart-strings, hit on our religious beliefs, or social awareness. Was it really some smart person that thought they could pull a fast one on the me? Or is it some stupid bastard that thinks they can get the pitchforks and torches pulled on the targets of their deceit?

With great power comes great responsibility, and with the Internet it appears as though responsibility has got thrown out with the baby and bathwater.

Please think before you link, or forward.

Here is a list of websites that you can confirm facts on before forwarding along stories that could be deceiving or have misinformation.

Factcheck.Org
Snopes
Truth or Fiction
PolitiFact

By the way, Obama is a US citizen, Congress is held to the same laws as all citizens, the DreamAct would offer amnesty for illegals that join the military or has at least 2 years of college under their belt, AND if we all don’t buy gas one day it won’t do anything since we will buy gas another day… moron.

If you have a friend or family member that sends along emails or Facebook links to lies like those listed above, send them this email next time and maybe they will check their facts before they spread the lies.

The End of Gowalla…

Go out, go discover, go share, Gowalla!

Go as in AWAY from Gowalla

For those of you that don’t know I have been an avid user of Gowalla (and Foursquare) for well over a year. I first started with checkin apps when I discovered Foursquare, I loved the concept of being able to track where I had gone for my personal benefit but also I enjoyed sharing cool places I went to with others that I socialized with. When I discovered Gowalla I was impressed and felt they took the Foursquare concept to the next level with the addition of pins and really nice looking stamps and badges that you could collect for your Gowalla page. Sure these weren’t real tangible but I still thought it was neat. For a months I would check in on both Gowalla and Foursquare. Then Gowalla came out with what I thought was the killer app they incorporated a way to checkin to both them and other sites at the same time, I no longer had to spend time checking into two applications. Since then I’ve been almost exclusively a Gowalla user (except when I checked on Foursquare to make sure I got checked in).

Unfortunately today my use of Gowalla ends. It appears with the next version of Gowalla 4.0 they have transitioned their business away from the checkin application and decided to become a travel guide. Now when I log into Gowalla and attempt to checkin to where I am the first list of 20 or so places I see are “Recommended places”. Which is Gowalla speak for places that have paid us money to make sure you see them instead of where you actually are. That’s great Gowalla, good for you! You have discovered a business model that has completely alienated they majority of your userbase, the locals. If I wanted to use Gowalla as a travel guide I shouldn’t be forced to use it that way because although I love Disneyland I don’t need to see every Disneyland location near me instead of the places I am actually next to.

Why did you fuck up so bad? Because you didn’t actually try it out with your CORE users before you screwed it all up. Changes like this are something you test out with users that are willing to try out new things, you don’t just change it and tell your users to deal with it. Wait that isn’t exactly what you said. You told the users reading your blog that there has been a “Fabulous response”, I don’t think you are reading the same response I’m reading, because the majority of the responses on your blog have been negative. You have completely alienated the userbase that created the database you now use as your travelguide. More power to you for taking advantage to our two years of patronage to create yourself a business model that will be the end of you.

Bye Gowalla.

Related articles

Cool Stuff for January 24th through February 3rd

These are the cool things I found around the web for January 24th through February 3rd:

Gloria Allred is an Extortionist!

Gloria Allred to David Boreanaz: Pay Up or Else! | TMZ.com.

I don’t get how she is able to do this and not be charged with a felony…

FOX and ABC Won’t Air Ad With Normal Size Women In It

The ad in question.

YouTube Preview Image

So why won’t they air this Lane Bryant ad, but air just about any Victoria’s Secret ad?  My guess is that they don’t like real women with real bodies to be in bras and panties! (NO NOES!)

I mean come on they are airing this VS “The Nakeds” ad right now and it’s not any less ‘risque’.

YouTube Preview Image

By the way, Weekly Cool Links will return later today!

Other articles about this.

Asylum

Consumerist

Weekly Cool Links #22 : The $499 Millennium Falcon!

Hey it’s that time again!  The links of the world, link or rama, link a dink a ding dong.  Yeah that wasn’t really funny.  So the last couple weeks were pretty busy.  On February 14th, my parents celebrates their 40th wedding anniversary, and impressive accomplishment in todays world.  Both Kelly’s parents and mine, are great role models to have.  Talking about Kelly and I, we celebrated Valentine’s day with dinner at Mr. Stox in Anaheim and then a night time trip to Disneyland.  Dinner was really good, I had their blue crab cakes and Kelly had the filet of steak.  This weekend we are going to our friend Sean and Amber’s for their daughters 1st birthday party, we haven’t seen them for awhile so that should be fun.  So that’s the update, now on to the links!  Oh wait one last thing, CONGRATS TO DREW BREES!

Food Stuff
For Super Bowl we had a small party with our parents coming over to watch the game with us, I wanted to try and cook buffalo wings, but wasn’t at all in the mood for frying them up, I found this awesome recipe two days before the game for cooking up crunchy buffalo like wings in the oven from Serious Eats, you owe it to yourself to cook them this way!  I also found this cool site that reviews all the interesting snack foods out there called Taquitos.net, they have everything from national brands to regional favorites.  Lastly if you are the type of person that is interested in trying your hand at brewing your own beer check out this quick blurb on Lifehacker about two free open source programs that will help you with your goal.

Music Stuff
I haven’t had much music stuff lately, but I had to share this awesome project that Michael Deal is working on that is a graphical exploration into the Beatles and the creation of their music.  This is a project and any true Beatles fan will want to check out.

Sad Stuff
For those that don’t know the Mars rover Spirit is stuck and can no longer move, so they have pretty much pulled the plug on the project, xkcd has a sad comic to show us that rovers have feelings too.

Funny Stuff
If you are a friend of mine on Facebook you might have already seen this, but if not, check out this graphic on How to Suck at Facebook.   I’m proud to say I don’t do any of those things listed, so I must not suck.  If you saw the Google commercial during the Super Bowl (which was my favorite ad) you saw a clever use of their auto complete feature, the site Autocomplete Me turns the auto complete feature into a interesting look at what people search for on Google.

The Lego Millennium Falcon!

The Lego Millennium Falcon!

Cool Stuff
I just found this today but I wanted to pass it on, someone has taken the initiative to educate today’s men on what they need in their wardrobe, with Newbie Fashion Tips for Grown Men.  It really is a good group of tips and suggestions on how to look your best.  Wardrobe Oxygen takes it a step further, but I have to disagree with some their what to remove from your wardrobe section.  I’ve been wanting to get some Lego sets recently to put together for fun and I was checking out the online Lego store, they have a $499 Star Wars Millennium Falcon, a little more than I want to spend (it is 5000+ pieces though)…  I’ve seen a couple places recently selling recycled bottles that have had their tops cut off so you can use them as glasses, here is someone that decided they could just make them instead.  Check out this great article on the 19 Most Complex and Dangerous road in the world, I’ve seen some of these on Top Gear, the Road of Death in Bolivia looks like a bitch.  If you know me you know that Kelly and I met online, so I find the research that OkCupid is doing on their dating site is extraordinary, they recently wrote an article about profile pictures, and I highly suggest anyone that is doing any sort of online dating read their articles, they will help you make a better personal ad.  Example, Men: don’t make eye contact and don’t smile, Women: make eye contact and a flirty face.  And the last of the cool stuff, this blog post regarding the changes to the Crayola color spectrum throughout the years.

Not Cool Sports Stuff
The Chicago Cubs have thought up an complete asshole plan, they are going to charge a 20% premium on those that purchase tickets the 1st week they are on sale, and then after that they will be the normal face value.  Talk about scalping your customers.  I hope we don’t see this become a trend.  (edit, this is nothing new they have been doing it for 8 years.)

Cool Videos
Some geeks have figured out an awesome use for Microsoft’s surface, Dungeons and Dragons!

D&D on the Microsoft Surface from CrunchGear on Vimeo.

Hot Tub Time Machine will be the movie event of the year!

Someone has edited all the violence from the 2010 Super Bowl commercials into one epic Youtube video.

And last but not least does this sound familiar?

OC Food Reviews

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