Super Ginormous

SOPA Breaks the Internet

This item was posted by Chris Harrison on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012.

Politicians shouldn’t be allowed to legislate that which they do not understand. I’m all for copyright protection, but SOPA is too far-reaching. In a nutshell, big companies will be able to censor anything they feel violates their copyright.

Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! - fightforthefuture.org/pipa

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites– they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that’s for a fix that won’t work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights.

This petition on We the People: Your Voice in Our Government, nearly 50,000 people have signed a petition asking our President to VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information. People that work on the web have probably been more vocal about this issue than most, but this will impact anyone who uses the web in the United States should it pass.

Categories:

• Web Development

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Dwelling on the past

This item was posted by Chris Harrison on Monday, January 9th, 2012.

Dwelling on the past distracts you from the present. 2011 was a good year for me, but I struggled personally and professionally with a number of things. Rather than rehash it all, I’ve realized that I need to learn from those experiences, try my damnedest not to repeat the mistakes that were made and head full steam into 2012.

To help me, I’ve set some attainable, professional goals.

• Tweet less.
• Blog more. Expect at least one blog post a week.
• Create more. Expect at least one post to dribbble a week.
• Build something I’m proud of.
• Spend an hour a day learning/improving my skills.
• Set realistic deadlines and expectations before starting any project.

What are you going to do to make 2012 better than 2011?

Categories:

• Personal

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Happiness is a Yellow Balloon

This item was posted by Chris Harrison on Monday, October 31st, 2011.

I let a balloon go in front of my son yesterday and he got really, really upset – like, “You’re not my dude anymore” upset. To me it was just a balloon. To him, it was something much more. I told him that we’d get him another one to replace it at some point. I tried to let him know it wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t work.

While riding with his mom last night he told her that he had wished upon a star that his balloon would come back to him.

Kim, being the awesome mom she is, devised a plan. Shortly after Tyler went to sleep, she found a yellow balloon, blew it up and tied it with gold ribbon, perfectly matching the one I let go. We debated on leaving it on the front porch, but decided it was too cold. So she tied it to his bed instead.

Tyler woke up and ran into our bedroom. “Daddy! Daddy! Wishes do come true. My balloon came back to me. I told you it would.” It blew his mind that the balloon returned.

Kim made his day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger smile on him.

Categories:

• Personal

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