Lots of Oddities, Some Real Stupidity, A Bit of Humor, and the Blackest Black

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Apparently, the push yesterday to let the FCC know how we think they should rule on Net Neutrality once again crashed their website. So much so that at least one of the groups that was facilitating the electronic submissions just up and printed out the messages that didn’t get through and hand delivered them so they’d be in by the comment deadline.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s enough volume of ordinary people and money from big organizations (like Google) to swing this the right way.

I’m not holding my breath. I’m not even all that optimistic. But at least I can see there’s a chance.

Guess we’ll see soon enough.

Everyone keep your fingers and things crossed.

Now, on with the feed…

Science, Aliens, Sexism, Stupid Application of the Law, and Buzz Aldrin

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I’ve been fiddling with websites all day–first at the day job and then after I got home.

But, pretty much every site I have my fingers in is up to date now. So, that’s good.

Sadly, this is the only one of my own sites that gets regular content these days. (And, really, calling some of this intro text “content” is really a stretch… and the FB feed reposting doesn’t count at all.)

I have a plan for tomorrow’s feed… I should have pre-loaded everything, but I haven’t. So I’m just going to be winging it tomorrow between crunching through on projects. Y’know, just like normally do. But it’ll be more frustrating, because I do have a plan I’d like to carry out.

Ah, well, my own fault for not budgeting time better.

Onward with today’s (surprisingly short) feed… (I must have really been busy)…

Star Wars Stuff, Perspective on Numerous Levels, Cool Looking Hobbies, and (of course) Politics

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I’ve spent far too long reading stuff and watching YouTube videos. Between that and hitting a meeting down in Silver Spring proper after work tonight, my “free time” has all but vanished, leaving me, once again, at the “Oh, crap, I should probably be going to sleep now-ish” point.

My “normal” sleep schedule really doesn’t fit well with the “normal” world. There’s really nothing close to normal about it. It rotates oddly if I’m left to my own devices. And, while I’ve found plenty of documented cases of variously odd natural sleep schedules. documentation doesn’t really help solve the problem of it not at all matching with a typical work schedule. (Let alone when anything else is going on.)

This has been the case for pretty much as long as I can remember.

And it really shows no signs of changing for the better. No matter how much I try to tweak it.

So, here’s the feed from today and the weekend. Enjoy it. I did. šŸ™‚

Shocking Lightning, Soggy Bears, Militarized Police, Turing Test Fudge, Really Questionable Politics, and an End to Board Cheese

I’m pretty open about the fact that I have a number of issues with the politicians who run the country, supposedly in our name. This has been the case through at least two decades at this point.

Today there’s a story about a state senator from Virginia who’s resigning from his position. Ostensibly in order to take a more prestigious political appointment and to clear the way for his daughter to get an appointment that his current position precludes her from holding. That in and of itself is pretty shady if you ask me. I mean, the guy was elected by his constituents to represent them and now he’s all, “Oh, yeah, sorry about that… you won’t mind if I just step down and get a better job over here, right?”

Not. Cool.

What makes it even less cool is that he’s a Democrat and his resignation tips the balance in the state legislature in favor of the Republicans.

So, not only is he stepping away from the position that those who voted for him entrusted to him in order to pursue personal gain and glory, in doing so he’s effectively handing over his hunk of the legislature to the other side. That’s totally: “Oh, yeah, and by the way, all that stuff I promised I’d represent you about… I’m just going to go and let it get outvoted by the people you disagree with the most. That’s not a problem, right?”

Doubly. Not. Cool.

The final tidbit is just icing on the cake at this point. Seems that shiny new appointment he’s leaving for (and the one that his daughter will get now that she’s free to do so)… those are positions that the Republican party has the power to grant. The scuttlebutt, of course, is that they’ve offered him these perks in order to get him out of the way so they can have a clear path to blocking anything the governor wants to do. So we can just tack on to the above two sentences, “Oh, and I’m doing it at the behest of those people that you sent me here to fight against.”

That’s just beyond “not cool.” That’s downright traitorous. That’s a full and complete middle finger to anyone who voted for him and trusted that he’d continue to do the job he’s been doing for years.

This is politics at its worst.

It makes me a bit ill to read about it.

Because it’s happening right in the open and, so far, no one’s doing anything about it.

Because it’s nothing new. This is how things have “worked” on and off since the first time one person was put in charge of the well being of others.

But just because it’s nothing new doesn’t mean itĀ has to be business as usual. We know about it. We can do something about it (even if it is just shun the hell out of this guy). We can speak up and say “This sort of thing is more than unacceptable, it’s reprehensible.”

And, really, I hope a lot of people in Virginia do that.

Creative Living, Tone Deaf ‘Comedy’, Brain Science, Net Neutrality Sniping, and Reset the Net

This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

A year ago, a light got directed into a dark corner of our government.

How that light got turned on is a bit questionable, but it happened and now there’s no way to deny that our intelligence agencies are more than a little out of control. Without the knowledge of a large part of the government, and most certainly without a mandate from the population, massive amounts of data were being collected on American citizens.

Gleaned from every electronic network you could imagine, “metadata” was being harvested hand over fist… just because. They’re calling it “metadata” because that belies just how revealing it can be by masking it in techno-babble. “We’re not listening in! We’re just getting the metadata!” (So, y’know, they only who you’re talking to, when, for how long, and where both parties are… noting invasive in that, right?)

There’s a fight going on now. A fight for our rights to privacy. A fight for our right to know what our government is up to. A fight for the future usefulness of the Internet as a whole.

Yes, this ties into the whole Net Neutrality battle, too.

There’s just far too much at stake toĀ not take some sort of stand, to not speak out. Remaining on the sidelines isn’t an option if you want things to change for the better… if you want to know you’re not going to suddenly find yourself on a watch list, or banned from air travel, or just constantly under surveillance for no good reason other than “they can.”

If you’re not ready to speak out loudly, then at least listen. Take the time to actually read a few articles. To think about the road we’ve been on for well over a decade. About the rash decisions that have chipped away at the freedoms we, as Americans, tend to cling to. Freedom, Rule of Law, Presumption of Innocence. “Little” things that are the cornerstones of everything we tend to think of as kind of important… things we’ve fought shooting wars in the name of and that we cheer whenever another nation steps up to those who would crush those ideals.

Some will say “Why bother? Nothing’s going to change anyway. They may be listening, but they neverĀ listen when we call for change. They’ll always just do what they want, anyway.”

If you don’t speak up, you only ensure you won’t be heard. You prove “them” right when they argue back that they have to take such an active role because people don’t care enough to take any action themselves… “after all,” they’d likely add, “no one’s really complaining about it.”

Be loud. Be active. Make it so no one canĀ ever say We the People don’t care. So no one can ever think they can just walk all over us.

That can only happen if we let it.

We still have power.

Use it.

Reset the Net