[teh_funnay] If You're For Internet Freedom And Against Delicious Mexican Desserts …

2760.

There are sopapillas moving through Congrefs right now. STOP THEM BEFORE ITS TOO LATE, or before Congrefs eats up all the good ones. They are delicious, but must be stopped before we become a flanocracy. Though I loves me some flan, too.

Source.

[net_liff] SOPA/PIPA Stopped … For Now

2759.The past day of protest may or may not have had anything to do with the new reluctance on the Congrefs's part. But some of the rules have seemed to have changed: A thing that was a sure thing is still a possible thing, but not a sure thing anymore.

It's important that one Senator who supported PIPA - Sen. Rubio (R-Florida) and two Representatives who supported SOPA (Terry (R-Ind), Quayle (R-Ariz) have pulled support. To me, it's important that they're conservative Republicans. It's no longer politically safe to do.

However, it's not over until it's over, as Yogi said, and the legislation is shelved, but only for now. Perhaps they think that they just have to tinker with it, I don't understand why. It's simply a bad idea.

Given that online piracy is a disease, SOPA/PIPA is curing the disease by killing the patient. We, as a nation, cannot say with a straight face that we promote free enterprise and, at the same time, make it impossible for free enterprise to flourish.

TechCrunch has a very good overview of the whole magila at this link hyar.

We're safe from SOPA and PIPPA for the moment, though, which means we can blow off some steam by making jokes about it. Such as:

So sweet, so pretty, and so very dangerous to a free and open internet.

Word.

[design] Creative Pencil-Shaped Salt and Pepper Mills (SOPA-Compliant)

2758.I don't like to be too far away from my art supplies, as a rule. You usually have to put down the pencil/paper/paint/what-have-you to at least pick up the fork/knife/spoon/what-have-you. With this cute set of pencil-shaped salt-n-pepper mills, you at least won't be far away from what looks like an art supply:

It's available from a European vendor (Panic Design) for £42. which, we believe, is 27.50 centipedes in the Metric system. But it's worth checkin' out.

[comics] A Look At The New Little, Brown Tintin Graphic Novel Covers! (SOPA-Compliant)

2757.Good news, fellow Tintin fans! As far as I'm concerned (and I'm sure I'll get no disagreement here), a rerelease of the Tintin stories has been a needful thing for far too long. I just found, via Facebook, that several Tintin albums are getting the graphic-novel treatment and will be released again soon. I don't know if this means the format of the pages will change, I suppose that can go either way) but it's got to be some kind of good news.

I've gotten a look at some of the covers, and I like them muchly. Here they are:

I'm looking forward to them, aren't you?

Yeah, I knew ya were.

[design] Nifty Illustrator Pen Tutorial (SOPA-Compliant)

2755.Just found this nifty Adobe Illustrator pen tool tutorial that's just a basic exercise that I wanted to share. It's pretty simple. It involves downloading an Illustrator document, opening it, and simply following the instructions in the document.

Go to this URL here (http://veerle.duoh.com/design/article/illustrator_pen_tool_exercises) and download the files. They're free, and they have CS3/4 and CS5 versions.

[net_liff] SOPA? Why Does You Hates Us, Congrefs? (NOW! With Creator-Approved Piracy!)

2754.As it turns out, I'm just not smart enough to block out this entire blog, and even though I'm not the most popular destination of the Intertubez (I've kinda made my peace with this (no, I haven't)) eventually there comes a time when you do have to say something.

The Oatmeal has invited everyone to 'pirate the shit' out of the following animated GIF. It explains it all in terms that anyone should be able to get. If you don't like The Oatmeal, you're uncool and should have your Internet connection downgraded to dialup, but that's just me for you.

What I don't understand is where Congress (or, as they called it in the days of the founding of our republic, Congrefs) got the idea that we want this stuff. I didn't say, gee, Congrefs, when you go into session next year, could you please come up with a law that will turn me into a criminal just for linking to someone's site, and make it impossible for me to say, start a business without having to have a legal team the size of the First Army to make sure my legal i's are crossed and my t's are dotted?


I didn't say that. Did any of you? Didn't think so.

So much for all that. If you want to pirate The Oatmeal's animated GIF, go here (http://theoatmeal.com/sopa), and we really recommend that you read this short, comprehensible FAQ produced by teh Google: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/ and note that Google and Wikipedia both blacked out for the day, and imagine what it would be like to have to deal with an Internet like that, because if we get stuck with SOPA and PIPA, that's just what we'll have ... all the time.

Piracy is a problem. SOPA and PIPA are not the solution.