Done yesterday (20111118 Fr)

If I think about my finances or the state of the country or our stupid politicians I get depressed. Denial -- it's not just a river in Egypt anymore. See links in the notes.

My coffee cup has a hole in the top.

Went up to the Menlo Park office, early (for me), to interview an applicant for our embedded systems job, which left me with less time in the morning for music. I made up for it some during the hour-long power failure last night.

The gateway machine lasted only about half an hour; I strongly suspect that the extra power drain was coming from the UVerse modem, since my Linux router is only using about 17W. I'm going to move the DHCP server down to the fileserver, so at least the internal network can keep going if it happens again.

Go read sweetmusic_27: November 19th is International Survivors of Suicide Day.

( raw notes )

Thankful... oh. right.

Um... looks like I missed last week, too. Oops! So, thanks for...

• Colleen's increasing independence. The improvement has been gradual, but when I look back at last year and two years ago it's amazing.
• Feeling better about myself.
• Connecting with old friends at Orycon, and making new ones.
• Getting a few things done off my to.do list.
• My UPSs.

BAD Internet Laws Heading Your Way

Originally posted by write_light at BAD Internet Laws Heading Your Way

From the flist: 



Spread the word, even you're not a US citizen, it is important for everyone!! It easy to do and it can change everything. More info by clicking on the banner.
<center><a href="http://americancensorship.org/"><img src="http://pics.livejournal.com/justmyb0nes/pic/002q4gwp"></a></center><textarea>

Website Blocking

The government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.

Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users

It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.

Chaos for the Internet

Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn't be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.

Read this analysis from boing-boing.net

Get on the phone and call your representative. Express your disapproval. Tell him or her exactly how you feel, and that you don't support this. Tell your friends to call their representatives, their Congressperson, and complain. Mention that you are a registered voter that takes your civic responsibility seriously and that you will use that vote to express your feelings about this.

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_60/Internet-Companies-Boost-Hill-Lobbying-210345-1.html?pos=olobh

“We support the bill’s stated goals — providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign ‘rogue’ websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting,” the Internet companies wrote in Tuesday’s letter. “Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites.”  The chamber-led coalition in support of the bill includes Walmart, Eli Lilly & Co. and Netflix.

Google and other opponents of the legislation argue that restricting the Internet in the U.S. sets a bad international precedent and that the language defines infringing too broadly.

Songs for Saturday: Die Gedanken sind frei

I was originally going to post something entirely different today -- I wanted to post one of my own love songs. Maybe I'll save it for February. Because I started thinking about the internet censorship laws now being debated in the House, and what's going on in New York, Davis, Seattle, and, well, just about everywhere...

And in the car this morning I remembered Die Gedanken sind frei.

Since the days of the Carlsbad Decrees and the Age of Metternich Die Gedanken sind frei was a popular protest song against political repression and censorship, especially among the banned Burschenschaften student fraternities. In the aftermath of the 1848 German Revolution the song was proscribed.

OK, then.

Here's Die Gedanken sind frei, the rally song of the 1942-43 German anti-Nazi youth movement, the White Rose. And here's Pete Seeger's translated version from his 1966 album, Dangerous Songs!? (Lyrics here.)

And remember that if those bills pass, and the Great Firewall of China comes to the US, this could be the last song I'll post here.