Joe's Random Ramblings

Ars Technica reports that at least 18 Senators have declared their opposition to PIPA, some changed from support to opposition.
The EFF reported over 1 million emails to Congress people going through their site. Google reported 4.5 million signatures on their petition against SOPA and PIPA.
I haven't found numbers on the number of petitions/emails filed through Wikipedia, but the Wikipedia blackout was of course very important since that's what got pretty much every news outlet to report on the blackout (although often in a somewhat slanted way, not surprising with the big media companies supporting SOPA and PIPA.)
Some companies, like Facebook and Microsoft, jumped onto the bandwagon very late, but it is important that they spoke out against SOPA. The inevitable backlash from the MPAA and other media companies about the "Internet pirates" is rendered ineffective by companies like Microsoft opposing SOPA and PIPA. Microsoft is not known for piracy, and indeed, Bill Gates has a reputation dating back to the very early days of MS of fighting against piracy (see the TV documentary "Nerds 2.0" by Bob Cringely.)

Update: Ars Technica now reports that Wikipedia had reached 162 million people with their blackout website, and 8 million looked up their Congressperson through the site. And Google got 7 million signatures on its petition (an update from the 4.5m reported earlier.)

The main stream media has been pretty quiet on the opposition to the SOPA and PIPA censorship bills in Congress. Not all that surprising, since the media companies are all supporters of the bill, and have been lobbying hard for them.
My own domains had been registered with GoDaddy, which was a SOPA supporter. I have since moved my domains off GoDaddy, to the Namecheap registrar. GoDaddy later did a weaselly withdrawal of their SOPA support. Money talks

Anyway, my websites will go dark in protest tomorrow, Jan. 18, 2012. I will be redirecting to http://sopastrike.com/strike the whole day.
I have of course also sent mail to my Senators and Representatives. I urge everybody to do the same.

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/12/dennis-ritchie-1941-2011-computer-scientist-unix-co-creator-c-co-inventor.html
RIP. Your legacy lives on. Unix and C shaped the modern computer world.

Steve Jobs was standing on the shoulders of giants. One of those giants was Dennis Ritchie.

Update: A great eulogy by Herb Sutter.

And more from Wired, echoing my own sentiment above:

The tributes to Dennis Ritchie won?t match the river of praise that spilled out over the web after the death of Steve Jobs. But they should.

And then some.

I have had AT&T U-Verse Internet access for nearly a year. I took advantage of a promotion they had to get 12MB downspeed for a decent price.
Unfortunately, their billing system isn't quite up-to-par. They always "forget" to deduct the promotional amount. I have to call them every month to get the bill corrected. The amount is then charged to my credit card automatically, something AT&T calls "autopay." For the September bill, they said the amount would get corrected by their billing system automatically. Of course, it didn't
So, this time, I disputed the amount they overcharged me on the credit card. The credit card company reverted the overcharge, and my AT&T bill showed the appropriate adjustment. So far, so good.
But then, something completely unexpected happened: They canceled the autopay, and when I went to proceed paying the bill with the credit card, they refused to accept the card. They claimed that the card issuer put the card number on some fraud prevention list. Of course, that was just some kind of heavy BS. I talked with the credit card company, and they say the card is good to use. And, AT&T continues to accept the same credit card just fine for my cell-phone payments...

So, the bottom line, what AT&T did was just retaliation for me disputing a charge. The credit card company calls this "card suppression," and they are now taking this up with AT&T.
I have no idea why some id*ot at AT&T thought retaliating against a customer would be a good idea

Update 10/31: AT&T personnel now at least confirms that they blocked my use of the credit card for payment on the account because I disputed a charge. Took them a long time to even acknowledge that
But at least now I know that it is retaliation.

Update 2, 11/07: I seem to have rattled enough on the cage that this now gets escalated. I have been talking with somebody who doesn't give me the usual boilerplate, scripted answers, who actually seems to look into the issue more.
Anyway, the latest is that because of some internal code they got with the chargeback of the amount they overcharged me, they consider that fraud and don't allow the use of the card anymore. That's apparently this mysterious "fraud prevention list" that not even their first- and second-level customer support knows anything about... They obviously try to keep that list and even the knowledge of the existence of that list pretty much a secret
It still continues to be retaliation, punishing me for exercising my right to not get overcharged. If they don't have a code for this in their computer system, they need to find better programmers, or at least provide a way to override the code, a way that doesn't involve countless hours on the phone with them. Unless they don't care about their customers, of course... All this doesn't bode well for the planned buy of T-Mobile. It shows how badly AT&T interacts with their customers...
In any case, I will take this higher if necessary.

Update 3, 11/11: This now seems to be resolved. The one friendly AT&T person I eventually ended up talking with was able to get the block removed, to get my credit card off their "fraud prevention list." Why oh why is it so hard to get more such people in their customer support?

As a private pilot, I always have been interested in all things aviation.
So, as I have done in previous years, and will continue in the next years, I have attended this year's Reno National Championship Air Races.
Everybody who watches the news knows by now that there has been a horrific crash of a P-51 Mustang at the last race on Friday. My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.
I personally was at the far end of the field, and only saw the plane pitch up and then go down.

There is at this point a lot of speculation about the cause of the accident. Right now, the most likely cause seems to be a mechanical failure, a failure of the elevator trim tab, making the plane unmaneuverable. When the plane pitched up, the pilot probably became unconscious due to the G-forces, likely over 10 G. We will never know if he regained some consciousness at the apex, and was able to push the stick enough to get away from the grandstands.

There are also some voices calling for an end to air shows. That is rather misguided. In fact, this accident is the first accident involving spectators in the history of the Reno Air Races. The Air Races have had millions of spectators over the years, so it is a very safe event. All the races happen way outside of the spectator area. Loss of life is always tragic, but one freak accident should not be used as an item in an anti-aviation agenda.

To the memory of the accident victims, to pilot Jimmy Leeward, and to the air races in the coming years.

Update: James Gosling, Java creator, was in the box seats, really close. His account is here.
He has more info here and some theorizing, based on some now widely known pictures here.

Update 2: The New York Times has a good article about the tragic event and the desire of us fans to have the races continue. A quote:

?Any kind of endeavor that is about human progress is going to have some risk,? Mr. Shim said. ?That?s how we move forward and advance. If we stop taking risks, we stop living.?
At least one message left at the memorial seemed to echo Mr. Shim?s sentiment.
?Jimmy?s flying with the best of ?em now,? the card read. It ended with the motto of the Reno races. ?Let?s honor him the best way we can: fly low, fly fast and turn left.?