The ACTA is a treaty drafted in secret which is being negotiated between most of the world’s countries and which, among other things, proposes certain agreements between governments regarding the Internet.

I suggest you read this BoingBoing summary of the Internet section of ACTA.

Did you read it?  No?  Go ahead, click that link.  I’ll wait.

Alright, you’ve read it.  Surely you’ll agree, this is A Bad Thing(tm).  There is no possible scenario in which this treaty can have a good effect on the Internet.

Please everyone, write your House Reps and Senators and demand that this be examined by professionals who actually know what they’re doing.  That way it can be destroyed before it’s ever agreed on by governments.

I liked the last episode of Stargate Universe, more or less, except for one thing.  Remember how I complained that Scott’s relationship with the Senator’s daughter was out of the blue?  I wasn’t just imagining things – there’s another female soldier that he was “sleeping” with in the first episode, and they refer to it in this episode.

What’s particularly confusing about this is that last episode (Darkness), the Senator’s daughter says to Scott, “I’ve never felt so close to anyone.”  (Something along those lines, anyway.)

Wait, wait, wait.  They’ve given this exactly zero screen time, and they’ve spent two or three segments developing a relationship between her and Eli.  What happened?  Did they just randomly decide to switch who she’s going to want?  What happened to developing a relationship with Eli?

Basically Scott is coming across as a jerk who sleeps with whoever he can, whenever he can.  I don’t like that.

Oh, another thing that bugged me about this episode is that Eli seemed to be excessively angry for no apparent reason.  Perhaps he was jealous of Scott for his thing with the Senator’s daughter?  I don’t know.  It didn’t make much sense.

As far as the plot goes, it was fairly good.  They explained the dust creature from the second episode, which was a good thing.

I have a question for anyone who knows.  Did anyone else notice a ship detaching from Destiny at the end of the first or second episode and flying away?  What was that?  Did they ever give any other indication of what that might be?

For my first Cheddar Monk assignment, I went to a local aquarium to practice Summon Bigger Fish.  They were kind enough to agree to care for any fish I managed to summon.

Vader attacks!

Luke’s female duplicate comes to assist.

I begin by summoning a small fish.

I summon another small fish, to be sure.

I summon a bigger fish.

… and yet bigger.

… and even bigger.

Encouraged, I summon a group of small fish.

I proceed to summon a school of bigger fish.

… and bigger fish.

... and even bigger.

They were selling these. I'm not sure what to think.

The term “net neutrality” has been defined and redefined and undefined and double-defined so many times that it doesn’t mean anything anymore.  Half the people using it mean one thing, and half the people using it mean exactly the opposite.  As a result, politicians are doing more harm than good by calling something “pro-net-neutrality” or “anti-net-neutrality”, because no matter which label is chosen people will interpret it the wrong way.

So, let me define what I mean when I say “net neutrality”, so there’s no confusion for the rest of this post:  “net neutrality” is the idea that the internet should be treated as an impartial communication medium, just like a telephone network.  ISPs should not be able to prioritize one type of traffic over another for any reason other than traffic management (which I’ll get back to in a moment).

(more…)

I realize Jedi don’t wear glasses… I suppose my abilities in the Force are not yet advanced enough.