Lauowolf pointed me to Mary Robinette Kowal’s post on A Month of Letters challenge.

The idea is simple – in the month of February, commit to mailing one piece of correspondence for every day of the month that the postal service runs in your country.  You can mail postcards, letters, packages.  You can hand-write them, you can type them, you can make a ransom note out of words cut out of the newspaper, if you want.  You can send one out each day of the month, or mail them in a big batch once a week.  But send out REAL MAIL, and brighten someone’s day.  (Challenge part 2 is writing back to everyone who writes to you – I’ll leave this as an extra mission for you, should you choose to accept it.  This message will NOT self-destruct in 5 seconds.)

I’m going to participate, but so far I’m short on addresses of people to write to.  If you’d like to receive some REAL MAIL from me, send me an note with your address to rossruns@gmail.com – I promise not to share it or sell it, just like I promise that if you send me your address, you’ll get something from me in the mail!

And hey, if you want to participate too, awesome! Lauowolf is gathering peoples’ names together to get a circle of ex-Voxers and others in on the fun – if you want to participate, head over here and send Lauowolf your address (the email address is buried in the post on that link), and you’ll get some addresses in return to help you on your way.  And don’t be dissuaded by a whole Month of Letters – if you can only get out 1, or 2, or 5 letters, those are that many more that will go help put a smile on someone’s face.

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In my first apartment after college, in 2001, I had my computer connected up through Time Warner Cable.  One day, they shut off my internet.  When I called to inquire, they said the a record label associated with the RIAA had reported me as in violation of copyright infringement for sharing copyrighted music files.  I think they had a list of about 40-50 tracks they specifically had called out as hosted by my computer available for people to download.

This was before all the RIAA lawsuits started. TWC told me to remove any file sharing software and public access to my music and they would reinstate my internet connection.  No harm, no foul.  I got off with a warning.

Had this been 2-5 years later, I could have been hit with a $3000-$5000 “settlement fee” for the same offense.  Or if I fought it? I might have ended up with a $2 million judgement against me, like Jammie Thomas-Rasset in 2007.  I got lucky.  I don’t download or share music anymore.

Piracy today is rampant.  If you could persuade teenagers to be honest with you, most would tell you they don’t buy music – they have tools to rip the tracks off of the audio in Youtube videos, or they torrent them, or download from sites like the recently-shut-down MegaUpload. Some people boast of terabytes of music in their archives – an amount which would cost any normal purchaser thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to acquire “honestly”.

SOPA and PIPA are obviously flawed measures, and would do a much greater order of magnitude of damage to the internet than any benefit they’d provide to the RIAA and MPAA.  But lobbyists and lawmakers are going to continue to push and push for these kind of regulatory actions because of all this piracy.  The recording and motion picture industries are mired in old technology, and they believe they cannot survive if the piracy continues.  (Whether they actually can or not is something I’ve not seen enough information on to have a firm opinion about, but I suspect that there are enough innovative groups and labels out there that are getting by without the frivolous lawsuits that the RIAA and MPAA’s whole arguments are thrown into a doubtful light.)

So if SOPA and PIPA won’t work, can we eliminate piracy by means other than legislation? Probably not. Especially not if the public mindset continues to be “Everyone’s Doing It”, and people believe they’re immune from reprisal because they’re “just one in a million”, or they’re “just downloading one movie only, and not even a good one at that” (both arguments I’ve actually heard for justifying piracy).

Killing piracy is like curing poverty – idealistically, it would just require enough people to care enough to take action (or stop taking action, as the case may be) to effect change.  Realistically, if parents don’t govern their kids’ behavior, colleges don’t crack down on their students’ activities, and ISPs don’t punish ALL offenders, the number of incidences of piracy is not going to decrease.  And the only way to really get ANY of that to occur is to make piracy not only so illegal, but so prohibitively costly to NOT monitor and protect against it that ISPs, college campuses, and individual families begin to comply.

The men and women in Congress know this.  Every day, lobbyists from the RIAA and MPAA hound them with this truth.  And so they work to develop bills like SOPA and PIPA to fight back.  Yes, these bills are horrendous and could break the internet as we know it today.  If they do come to a vote next week, they probably won’t pass.  But that doesn’t mean they’re going to just go away.  Just like music and movie piracy, the legislation to combat piracy is going to keep popping up, rearing its ugly head until the lobbyists can ram through something to help out the record and movie labels (assuming anything can, at this point).

So stay strong, stay informed, and keep fighting against censorship, but be aware that it’s going to be a long battle ahead.  Oh, and if you can, consider obtaining your music and movies legally instead of bootlegging them.  It’s not going to end the piracy, but I’d REALLY hate to see your name on the next lawsuit filed by the RIAA/MPAA.

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Chardonnay Lionheart.

That is one truly awesome name for a laptop.

And you know what?

My poor laptop has been struggling along under the weight of my numerous endeavors for YEARS now with the same lack of respect I bestow on my garbage can.

My car has a name (Abe, aka The Silver Sparrow).

My children have many names (not all of them fit for company).

Hell, even my house has a name (Casa de Bedlam).

But my poor computer? It is as anonymous as, well, Anonymous.

So now, I am engaging in a quest.  A quest for the perfect name.

I expect it will end one evening with the storm looming outside and the windows blowing open, and I will shout my laptop’s given name into the raging tempest and save Fantasia from The Nothing.

Oh wait, sorry, that’s already been done.  Scrap that last paragraph.

Ok, I actually expect it will end one evening with me cleaning the fingerprint-smudged screen and, after closing the laptop’s cover and giving it a single pat on its hard casing, speaking aloud the words, “That’ll do, __________.  Good night.”

So here’s to finding the perfect name.  My laptop has faithfully stood by me for years of unquestioning service – it’s about time I show it how much I care for it in return.

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Paul Thie, an artist friend of a friend of a friend has a new project he’s doing called Everyone. It’s a really neat idea – he accepts photograph submissions from friends, relatives, and now total strangers and turns them into mini ink portraits (1.25″ by 1″).  The results run the gamut in styles (it looks like there are some cubist, expressionist, surrealist, and realist pieces up there, among others), but all feel linked together by a common thread of the medium and composition.  After he draws them, he scans and posts the complete portrait on the site, and, if you’re so inclined, it appears you can buy the original artwork for $25.

I submitted my photo a couple of days ago and he already worked his magic and put up my portrait.  I’m the 6th row, on the end (hover your mouse over it to see the tooltip “RG”), and this is the photo I submitted for his inspiration, if you want to get a peek into the artist’s mind:

He hasn’t said anything about stopping any time soon, but I’m sure there’s a limit to how many he’s going to end up doing, so if you want your photo interpreted by a talented artist, go over to his site and submit your own picture!

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Although I’m not a fan of installing yet another app installer, this looks like it could be worthwhile if Amazon’s going to help subsidize the cost of some of the paid apps out there and offer some worthwhile apps for free (if only for a day).  Plus, by going through Amazon you also get to use their always-helpful recommendation engine, which helped me to find 2 or 3 other apps I was interested in but would have had extreme difficulty finding on the hard-to-navigate Android Market on my phone.

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However, the search terms are a whole different story – these are just plain entertaining. Here’s a list of the best and/or most interesting terms that brought people to my blog:

1. mood ring colors – Geez Louise – you do one post about how the length of your fingernails reflects your mood and suddenly everyone thinks you’re a mood-ring expert.  It helps that the photo I used in this post used to come up as one of the top hits for the Google Image Search for mood rings, but I’m guessing most people were disappointed when they finally clicked through.
2. reblog your own post tumblr – By far my most popular post on this blog, I made a bookmarklet for people to use to reblog their own posts on the microblogging platform Tumblr.  I’ve got 76 variations on this search term that lead people to this post, so obviously there’s a lot of folks out there that want to reblog their own content for some reason or another.  Hope my bookmarklet helps them out!
3. papercraft cd case – The internet is gaga over papercraft.  I could probably title posts “Papercraft Toilet” and “Papercraft Model of the Human Uterus” and I’d get more hits on those posts than all of my others combined. (Actually, I’d love to see either of those if they actually exist!)
4. barber shop strip club – People still seem to enjoy my “it seemed like a good idea at the time” post about having a barber shop and strip club under one roof, even though I very clearly pointed out how, in the end, it just wouldn’t pan out well.
5. doing just enough to get by – The unspoken slacker code.  Mostly unspoken because it would take too much effort for the slackers to document it somewhere.
6. human torch candle in the wind – You know, they really should do a reboot of the Fantastic Four series.  Elton John would be perfect as Johnny Storm. “Flame On! Like a Diva!”
7. “funny always” “funny once” “funny never” – What are my favorite authors’ blog posts, my attempts at humor, and practical jokes, respectively, Alex?
8. audible amazon is rubbish – I agree.  And until they remove DRM from their products, I’ll never be a subscriber.
9. bad nursery rhymes – Happy to oblige: “Mary had a little lamb / its fleece as white as snow / and everywhere that Mary went / pineapple!”
10. barbershop with strip club – See, what did I say?  Something about that idea just strikes a chord with people!
11. being a flamingo dancer in a past life – Why yes, my adopted Native American name DOES translates to “Dancing With Flamingos” – how did you know?
12. can’t wait to meet my family – You and me both!
13. friends ross calls himself rossotron – Well, I don’t technically call MYSELF Rossotron, so you’re probably looking for a different Ross.  There’s a lot of us out there, so it’s ok if you got confused.
14. gentlemen club barbar shops – Ok really, that’s enough folks.  THERE IS NO STRIP CLUB BARBER SHOP. END OF CONVERSATION.
15. grass wolf scrunt – I have no idea what this means, but it sounds like an AWESOME band name.  Feel free to use it and send me a copy of your first demo, and I’ll see if I can get it some play on the radio for you.
16. green eggs and ham led zeppelin – I’m pretty sure green eggs and ham were NOT on the gig rider for any of Zeppelin’s tours, but I could be mistaken.
17. haiku about feeling crazy – How’s this? “Insane in da brain / (I’m) Insane in da membrane / Insane in da brain!” Oh no, wait, that’s just Cypress Hill lyrics in haiku form.  Sorry, I guess that’s the best I can manage on such short notice.
18. how can i get a copy of my purchase receipt from circuit city – I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure you’re out of luck.  Good rule of thumb to remember for the future though: Always request a copy of your purchase receipt BEFORE the company declares bankruptcy.
19. how not to cry on your wedding day – There’s only one surefire way – surgical removal of the tear ducts.  Better start saving now though – I’m pretty sure that’s not a procedure covered by many HMOs.
20. how to make my wife cry tears of you at our wedding – Well, you can always do what I did, but I’d recommend just trying to make her day extra-special, and if the tears come, they come.
21. i made her day – Good for you! If she’s important to you, try to make her day again tomorrow, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum.  She’ll appreciate it, I promise you.
22. lady in the water scrunt making – Oh wait, NOW I know where that “grass wolf scrunt” search term came from.  Wishing I could forget, though.  Just like I wish I could erase the entire Lady in the Water movie from my brain.  Some things you just can never unsee, however.
23. liquor and gun shop combo – Sounds like another one of those “It seemed like a good idea at the time” schemes.  I like the double entendre of “taking shots” though.
24. makemywifecry – Sorry, not my bag.  I’m sure your wife doesn’t enjoy it when someone makes her cry, either.
25. my mother makes it clear i was an accident – Wow, that’s a little too much information.  It sounds like maybe both you and her need a little group therapy to work through whatever issues are going on there.
26. radon inspector bainbridge island – Have you heard of the yellow pages? Because I sure as hell won’t be of any use on this query.
27. redheaded woodpecker smoking a cigar – Now this is something I’d like to see!  How soon can you arrange for me to take a photo of such an avian spectacle?
28. strip club and barbershop in little rock,ar. – Hmmm. This search seems oddly specific. Perhaps I spoke too soon about the non-existence of a strip club barber shop?  Must do some more research on the subject, methinks.
29. what is the direction of the movie “city of ember” – Generally, outwards and upwards.  I hope this doesn’t give away too much of the plot for you.
30. what things come in fives – Fingers and toes come to mind.  Oh yeah, and the Heineken Holiday Five Pack.
31. why is my sense of direction bad – I have no clue but if you find out, could you please tell me?  I suffer from such an ailment myself and would love to learn how to improve it.
32. william goldman is a liar – Wow, harsh words there buddy.  And frankly, I’m not sure I believe you.  Where’s your evidence?  And remember that making statements like this in print can be construed as libel, and based on extensive legal knowledge gleaned over the years from such shows as Ally McBeal and Night Court, I can authoritatively tell you this is NOT something you want William Goldman to sue you over.

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What a story to wake up to with your morning coffee, huh?

The Victoria Times Colonist is all over this tale, with enough details out that I’m surprised that it isn’t already a made-for-TV movie.  It’s a simple enough story – boy meets girl online, boy falls in love with girl, boy travels internationally and gets engaged to girl, girl spends time with boy, girl spurns boy, girl marries another boy, first boy goes psycho and plots to kill girl and her new husband in cold blood, with an automatic handgun, shotgun, and materials for making explosives:

David Ross Goldberg, 38, is charged with trying to kill Tatcha Aroonjaratsang, 26, and her husband, Jeremy Stewart Walsh, 22, on Sept. 24, 2008, as well as possessing explosive materials.

Goldberg, an engineer, met Aroonjaratsang on the Internet in 2007 while she was living in Thailand and studying law, the Crown alleges. Goldberg travelled to meet her in Thailand and the two became engaged.

However, after Aroonjaratsang visited Goldberg in his hometown of Culver City, she broke off the engagement, Jensen said. In an email on March 18, 2008, she made it clear to Goldberg the relationship was over: “I rather to die, if I have to be with you all the rest of my life.”

The apparent turning point, according to the Crown, was a July 19, 2008, email to Goldberg in which Aroonjaratsang told him she had met Walsh, a Canadian, and that they had married in the spring of 2008.

“David, I am married and have my life as I want, with the best person whom I love him. So it’s no point for you to try and find me. I won’t never go anywhere with you. even you try to contact anyone, Nobody gonna tell you my personal information. I am adult and married. I own my life.”

Really, after a note like that, who wouldn’t go stalker-crazy and plan to travel up to her home in B.C. with a handgun and 50 rounds of ammo, a shotgun with 4 boxes of shells, a night-vision scope, fertilizer, stump-remover, and a police scanner?  I mean, she was basically taunting him, right? Right?

Luckily, the only one injured was David Ross Goldberg; while he and the new husband were on the ground wrestling over his handgun, the quick-thinking ex-fiancée pulled a folding knife from her husband’s pocket and incapacitated David Ross Goldberg by stabbing him with it several times.

The trial is going on right now, and is expected to conclude mid-February.  From everything I’ve seen the poor guy definitely seems to have some mental issues, so hopefully the judge’s ruling includes some treatment of some kind to try to help whatever’s wrong with him.

More importantly though – can all folks out there named Ross Goldberg please legally change their names BEFORE committing crimes that get them in the news?  It’s bad enough that you have to go through 1-2 pages of Google search results before coming on a single hit related to me without things like this diluting the search pool even further!  I mean really, have some respect for your fellow Ross Goldbergs and lay off the front-page stories, will you?

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This is fantastic news, but the best part is, as far as I can see, these were NOT EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS, but adult stem cells from an adult donor’s bone marrow – the donor had a resistance to HIV because his CD4 cells lacked the CCR5 receptor, which is a necessary feature for HIV to infect immune system cells of the CD4 type.  Other donors exist, and as the article states, there’s the possibility that with more research, gene therapy efforts can exist that transform non-compliant stem cells into those kind resistant to HIV – saving much of the effort of finding matching donors and allowing a much larger percentage of those infected with HIV to benefit from such treatment.

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Anyway, enjoy the video, even if you don’t remember the difference between an exothermic and endothermic reaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBCmt_pJTRA

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Luckily, there’s a simpler solution for all those folks out there – using a website that handles the OAuth handshake for you lets you essentially proxy your Twitter calls through an authorized site, meaning you can hang on to your scripts and tools with minimal modifications.

The easiest solution I’ve found out there is SuperTweet.net.  Designed to transparently replace direct calls to Twitter, SimpleTweet does all the heavy lifting and has quite an extensive API to utilize.  Setup is relatively quick and painless (see details below) and for the most simple one-line tweeting solutions, just requires you replacing your Twitter password with your SuperTweet password, and changing the URL you hit to the SimpleTweet gateway URL.

An alternate solution, and one I’ve had only partial success with, is Elliot Kember’s Simple Auth Twitter.  Although it boasts an easier setup (basically, click one link and you’ve got everything set up for you), it appears to be more limited in what you can do on Twitter via the proxy, and requires you to change your format of your scripts to hit a custom URL for each status tweet.  Although it worked for me on unix-based systems, I could not get it to work via curl for Windows.

My recommendation, if you like to tweet from the command line or have a script/tool that needs to do so, is use SimpleTweet.net to replace your old basic authentication calls to Twitter.  It took me about 2 minutes to set up and edit my scripts to use this, and they’ve worked flawlessly since then.  Sure, there’s a third party in the loop now, but if the alternative is learning OAuth or giving up on my scripts entirely, I’ll happily take the quick & dirty solution and go about the rest of my day doing something more fun.

1) If you’re not already signed in, login into Twitter via the Twitter homepage with the account you want to use with SuperTweet’s API Proxy

2) Go to the SuperTweet.net homepage and click the “Sign in With Twitter” button to get to the Twitter authorization page

3) Click the “Allow” button to allow “MyAuth API Proxy by supertweet.net” access to your Twitter account.  This is the step where they’re setting up the OAuth handshake for you so you can use SuperTweet as a proxy without having to do OAuth yourself.

4) You’ll be returned to the SuperTweet site, with a page that shows the credentials that are set up for your account.  Right now, the account is Inactive because you have not set up a password.  Click the “Activate” link to set up a password.

4) On the next screen, enter the password you want to use with your command-line tools.  Note: They recommend NOT using your Twitter password here to add a little extra safety to your account.  Most command line tools are going to transmit this password in the clear, so it’s probably a good idea to use an alternate password.

5) You should now be returned to the credentials page, with a note next to your status saying your account is active.  Congratulations, you can now use SuperTweet as a proxy for your Twitter calls!

Here’s an example to get you started – if you want to tweet your status from the command line, use the following one-liner:

curl -u your_twitter_username_here:your_SuperTweet_password_here -d status="Status you want tweeted goes here" http://api.supertweet.net/1/statuses/update.xml

(Curl for Windows uses arguments slightly differently, but it’s similar enough that I think you can figure it out.)

The full list of API calls is available here. Lots of possibilities out there if you want to get more complex, but I think most people just want their script/tool to be able to tweet status info based on the outcome of their script, which is what I’ve listed above.

Hope this helps you out, letting you continue to use those scripts/tools you wrote and Twitter broke with their OAuthcalypse!

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