Monday, January 16, 2012

SOPA stopped, for now..

Looks like SOPA (stop online piracy act) is not being voted on until they reach a consensus. Which hopefuly will be never.

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said early Saturday morning that Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised him the House will not vote on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) unless there is consensus on the bill.
"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House," Issa said in a statement.  "Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote."

The announcement comes just hours after Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), SOPA's sponsor, made a major concession to the bill's critics by agreeing to drop a controversial provision that would have required Internet service providers to block infringing websites.SOPA is designed to go after foreign websites that offer illegal copies of music, movies and TV shows with impunity. Even without the provision allowing sites to be blocked, the bill would empower the Justice Department and copyright holders to demand that search engines delete links to sites “dedicated” to copyright infringement. Ad networks and payment processors would be prohibited from doing business with the sites.
The bill has sparked a backlash from Internet freedom advocates and Web companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook, who say it would stifle innovation and suppress free speech.  
The provision that would have required Internet providers to block infringing websites was one of the most controversial aspects of the bill. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt compared the provision to how China censors political speech online.

Taken from:  http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/204167-sopa-shelved-until-consensus-is-found

This is a win for every internet user in the world :)


Weight loss/gain

Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) quantifies the number of calories you burn in a day. This measure is best estimated by scaling your Basal Metabolic Rate to your level of activity. TDEE is critical in tailoring your nutrition plan to desired fitness goals. 

Here is the calculator:

1: Fill out your stats
2: Eat less kcal than it says = lose weight
3: ???
4: PROFIT

(eating more = gaining weight)

It's really that simple.


Sunday, January 15, 2012

Carpe Diem!


Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace that has become an aphorism. It is popularly translated as "seize the day". Carpe literally means "to pick, pluck, pluck off, cull, crop, gather", but Ovid used the word in the sense of, "to enjoy, seize, use, make use of".

You only live once, make the most of it!

Friday, January 13, 2012

SOPA in action

NOT A GOOD THING! :((

So, you probably know what SOPA is.. No?
Well, its the censorship of the internet.
There is a vid explaining it furhter down the page.
It has already begun.


A Sheffield student can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled.
Richard O'Dwyer, 23, set up the TVShack website which US authorities say hosts links to pirated copyrighted films and television programmes.
The Sheffield Hallam University student lost his case in a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
If found guilty in a US court he could face up to five years in jail.
Mr O'Dwyer's lawyer, Ben Cooper, indicated during the hearing that he would appeal against the ruling.
Mr Cooper said the website did not store copyright material itself and merely directed users to other sites, making it similar to Google.
He also argued that his client, who would be the first British citizen to be extradited for such an offence, was being used as a "guinea pig" for copyright law in the US.
But District Judge Quentin Purdy ruled the extradition could go ahead.
Mr O'Dwyer's mother, Julia O'Dwyer, from Chesterfield, has described the moves by US authorities as "beyond belief" and described Britain's extradition treaty with the United States as "rotten".
Speaking before the hearing, Mr O'Dwyer said he was "surprised" when police officers from the UK and America seized equipment at his home in South Yorkshire in November 2010.
However, no criminal charges followed from the UK authorities.
The case was brought by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which claims that the TVShack.net website earned "over $230,000 in advertising revenue" before US authorities obtained a warrant and seized the domain name in June 2010.

January, Friday the 13th, 2012 - death of the internet

oh well, we had a good run i guess..


Friday the 13th!!



According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century. The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini:
Rossini was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky
Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.
One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.
  • In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 Descendants of Muhammad Imams, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.
  • Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s. It has also been suggested that Friday has been considered an unlucky day because, according to Christian scripture and tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday.
  • One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.[4] Records of the superstition are rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common.
The connection between the Friday the 13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. However, experts agree that this is a relatively recent correlation, and most likely a modern-day invention. Although according to many Freemasons, this date corresponds with the slaughtering of the Knights Templar by the Church. Many Knights Templar also escaped their persecution by fleeing to Scotland.

More info on this on:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th

Thursday, January 12, 2012

SMILE! :D


I'm sure all of you guys know that when approaching anyone (esp. women) nothing is more cordial and inviting than a bright eyed smile. It is also a great way to gauge initial interest.

First of all, smiling puts everyone at ease. It reassures them that you mean well and "come in peace." It's fun and jovial and shows a caring, confident attitude.

When someone smiles at you, very rarely do you not smile back. Also a smile makes you feel a little better about your day. It's as if someone saw something in you and it made them happy. They recognized you, and that is the most flattering thing a total stranger can do for us.

Now women behave rather interestingly when they are "interested" in us. A smile and gaze into their eyes will always get a positive response and you will be seen as attractive (not to mention you are more attractive when you smile). This serves you well and makes them think well of you.

If a woman is attracted to you, and you give her a warm smile (it has to be sincere and the eyes have to smile too), she will smile back and look at the ground or blush. It's an involuntary reaction so she won't be able to help it. The ice is already broken and you haven't even said a word.

I must mention this...Don't Stare! Smile and nod your head or say Hi. Practice this constantly. It will do wonders for your confidence because we are fueled by positive human interaction. I remember someone once told me that to stay emotionally healthy we need a certain amount of touches by people a day (Yes, we are that needy). Don't only smile at women to whom you are attracted. Smile at everyone. I once heard an old school pimp say you can tell a real player because every woman in the room is drawn to him. You want to have that level of magnetism where everyone is drawn to you. You don't want this to be rehearsed and contrived though. It has to flow from your natural goodness and yearning for positive human interaction. The reason we don't smile more often is because we're (esp. us guys) afraid to show our vulnerability and soft side.

The reason the smile is so effective is because you reflect goodness to someone. When someone smiles at you, you feel good about yourself, and in turn about that person. It gives you an emotional boost. When you start letting this happiness flow through you (even if you aren't particularly in a good mood), you will see how other people positively respond to it and you will be affected by their response just as much as they were affected by your smile.

Smiling also releases endorphins which calm you and make you happier. In life there are leaders and followers. There are those of us waiting for someone to smile at us and make us happy and there are those of us who are willing to give happiness first knowing that their happiness comes from making someone else happy.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

USD - EUR - NOK - SEK

Here's a currency converter you can bookmark:


I use it all the time, and it's always up to date!

:)

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