Also, my client would be here tomorrow, and it’s driving me nuts. I get this weird pressure to “over-deliver” when he’s here, and it makes me feel like a dog trying to impress its owner who just came home from a long travel. lol

BRB. I promise I’ll have something kewl.

To the U.S., January 18, 2012 is the designated protest date by most online companies which are opposing the internet bill being passed to the senate: House Bill 3261, The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and S.968, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) which is in essence, meant to stop illegal trading of copyrighted products, be it media, or tangible items, online. However, in as much as the bill meant well to protect corporations, it also has the ability to put a stop on millions of websites if abused by lawmakers, and has the capacity to silence free speech. If you have the time, you can read this one-pager here.

Now while this is being deliberated in the U.S. for now, websites are now pulling down their opperations for 24-hours to create awareness this January 18th. Some of the confirmed participants are Google, WordPress, Reddit, and more.

Now, despite the excitement of people who are aware of what this message would bring, this would however not just create awareness to people in the U.S.–anyone who’s dependent on the internet would realize that in fact, this does not just concern the U.S., but has the potential to influence worldwide users. This will affect online-trading, livelihood, and worse–free speech. This may block access to pages which used to fuel our knowledge, taste, and lifestyle. No more new discoveries. It can be massive censorship. And before you even get started with this is only for the U.S., you can bet your ass it will happen to all the countries which trades with the United States. There’s a capacity to influence and intimidate if no law is replicated here.

A few weeks ago, I remember personally calling a local radio station (Magic 89.9) and asking if they are familiar of the on-going bill deliberation, and although the DJs are usually current-events familiar, they found themselves not educated about this scenario. In about a few hours more, however, this will trigger curiosity from the world. Because honestly–who doesn’t use Wikipedia?

This is one of the best ways to trigger the world. And now we ask, how will this affect us?



This is Wikipedia before the blackout 6 hours earlier:

English Wikipedia Site is set to blackout at 12mn of January 18, which is estimated 1PM Manila time. This is the most recent screenshot:

I can almost imagine it now, and it’s a very sad concept.

What do you think, Filipinos? How is this going to affect us and the free-speech of the world?

You are writing this because in truth you are much more interested in getting home and re-configuring your mac than you are working. So you get up, take that first 15 minute break on the system, and return to your desktop and tap tap tap. There’s a certain rhythm to it that you recognize and you continue writing words which do not immediately make sense, but the prospect of getting a constant tap tap tap on the keyboard excites you.

You have a shitload of work to do and you know your mind should be tethered to only the work you have within only 1-foot radius of your workstation. You know you should be focusing. You know you should be sending a shitload of emails. You don’t care. You can get exhausted more than you can even bother imagining for yourself, but there’s an excitement that the abundance of emails will not be able to quench: it’s the amount of new tinkering that you have waiting at home. Over the weekend, you managed to get your paw on a system extremely alien to you, and in as much as your best friend of a laptop’s memory is badgering you, you know that Wicky—despite its video card death—will be happy for you. For how many weeks you have been glumly looking at your girlfriend’s laptop—the other household laptop, Finn—and you know you will never be at home with a system you cannot bastardize for your own comfort. You laugh at the word bastardize, but in truth, that’s the only way you can work with something—if it resembles your mind every time you look at it. If it had a stench that will be unmistakably yours. 



She knows it—your girlfriend who has been tolerating your desperation and depression and swinging moods and tastes which instigate vertigo on her, but you can’t make up your mind on which system you really want—an N900? A Samsung? A Blackberry? An unbranded tablet pegged to be more powerful than a Samsung but can’t be repaired cheap when it breaks down? She knows it, and she definitely knew it when she can’t even really bother you while you’re in front of that system and reconfiguring it, talking to her only on the small instances that you deem it proper, and only to inform her about your reports/findings about the laptop that’s so full of jargon but she still nods her head trying to make you feel she understands. She doesn’t. And she doesn’t really give a fuck. But she loves you, hence, she nods her head and tries to grasp what you’re trying to say. But she knows it. She knows you’re excited as hell and she knows it will not die down for the next few weeks. She knows it while she looks at you configuring your desktop workspace to look as workable as it suits your taste. You put in a kick-ass looking wallpaper (it isn’t the best but it will do) and start moving around things in order of your need for use, and she looks at it and she asks why you never fixed Finn to look like that. But she knows it. 


She even suggests her time by offering to download some programs for you. You know it can’t help because most of those programs are too heavy and you can’t find the source just yet, but you’re thankful she’s supporting your ridiculousness. You go through the list of programs you need and you tinker with the OS and you wonder why you didn’t stumble into it earlier. Your inner geek is protesting because it’s a system that’s too simple for your own complex inanities, but you can’t help but applaud the way that in truth, it has sort of made your life easier. It WILL take some getting used to, but it’s very exciting right now. And you can’t wait to do projects and wonders with it. And you wonder when you can finally install the needed basic programs – a graphics creator, a photo fixer, a desktop publisher, a live microblogging feed reader, a video editor, a music editor, and possibly even a dj program that the girlfriend can tinker with. Yes, it’s a small list for now but it will soon be on your cluttered desktop. And you will hate the clutter and fix them again into something very neat and instant, that it’s almost like you know the feeling of an oriental cook discovering Ramen—it’s oh so simple and quick and you know you can do better but you can’t deny that it’s a pretty good solution to maximize for your hunger for now.



Hunger. You haven’t even thought of eating much. You have thought of allocating the money for those disks for installation instead. Hunger. To type, to create, to blog, to do graphics. Hunger to do something new. Hunger to be new.



Your 15 minutes is up. You try to set your mind on work now. You kind of manage to do so. But you know something new is waiting for you at home. And it’s making you work with a smile.




Love,
Jayce

“It’s like he would take a photograph of Sam, and the photograph would be beautiful. And he would think that the reason the photograph was beautiful was because of how he took it. If I took it, I would know that the only reason it’s beautiful is because of Sam.”

- The Perks of Being a Wallflower

#randombedtimestories