I've been following the news about SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday there was an interesting development when 83 of the most prominent engineers responsible for creating the Internet signed an open letter voicing their opposition to SOPA. This in and of itself is hardly surprising. Since the law was introduced anyone with a shred of technical acumen has stated that a.) It will not work. The law will not hinder piracy. b.) It will be hugely detrimental to the normal operation of the Internet.

But, this made me think. If a ...

By hook and/or crook I managed to wangle an invitation to Google+ yesterday. After messing around with it a little, I really like what they've done and I think it has great potential.

The circles are clearly the defining feature. The ability to compartmentalize friends into different groups and share things with only certain groups (or combinations thereof) is what everyone has been wanting from social networking sites for a while now. I think they might have solved the dilemma everyone has faced when their boss or parents want to friend them. To be fair, I don't ...

I heard on the radio the other day that Top 40 songs have gotten more self-centered recently. Supposedly, songs in the past used to be about ideas and now they're just all about the person singing the song. The DJ picked a few examples, found that it was the case, and declared this to be true.

Is it though? It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to test. I plan to do just that in the following manner.

1. Get a list of every Billboard #1 single going back as far as possible
2. Get lyrics for each song ...

I never thought this day would come. For years now, I've chuckled at the naysayers who lamented that "Reddit has gone downhill". People have been saying that for about as long as I can remember, and I've been there for over four years. Sooner or later, though, I guess we all become what we hate, because here I am.

Reddit has gone downhill.

Maybe that's not even quite the right way to put it. It's more like Reddit has hit a plateau. From my perspective, it's tough to tell if it's actually changed or ...

Crooks and Liars is parading around a twelve year old article wherein Trump proposed a one time 14.25% tax on the top 1% of Americans (then defined as households with a net worth of greater than $10 million) to pay off the national debt then $5.7 trillion.

The rest of Trump's politics aside, this doesn't sound like such a horrible idea, if the math works out. In 1999, if a 14.25% tax on the net worth of the top one percent would have paid off the $5.7 trillion national debt at the time, that ...