It looks like Obama is finally going after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He didn’t address it at all in 2009 but he appears to be tackling it in 2010.

One area, however, that he didn’t go after and in fact flip-flopped a bit on, is the Patriot Act. This piece of legislation is the most shocking thing to ever have been passed, and supported by two presidents.  Obama has done nothing to overturn it and has in fact supported some of its provisions.

The Patriot Act is something that should never have been passed. That famous quote of Benjamin Franklin comes to mind: “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither”.  Nevertheless, it was passed and it is still in effect. The Patriot Act gives a tremendous amount of power to the government to do whatever it feels it needs to do in the protection of this country.  Because of the Patriot Act, the government can spy on its own citizens.  It can lock up its citizens based on mere suspicion.

I do believe we must protect this country from terrorists. But let’s face facts. It wasn’t an inability to spy on Americans that caused 9/11. It was inter-agency miscommunication and bureaucracy getting in the way of protecting this country. Has the Patriot Act addressed these issues?  No.  Even if the Patriot Act were to provide us with some immeasurable increased level of safety, do we want to gain that security at the price of our liberty?

Why not?  The worst of it may not even be the Patriot Act. It’s what comes next.  If a President who is sensitive to protecting our civil liberties won’t repeal it, what will President Palin do with it?  What future presidents pursue in the name of security may lead to the eventual eradication of our civil liberties. When you open the door to the restriction of rights, someone will find a way to drive a truck through it.

President Obama may not have opened that door, but he has done nothing to shut it either. I really can’t imagine how this thing is still in place. There simply has to be a way to protect the safety of America without sacrificing the liberties that we as a nation hold dear.

At the end of the day, it’s the giant multiple bureaucracies of this country that cause more danger to Americans than anything else. Why do we need so many different agencies? Why can’t we have a combined FBI, CIA, Secret Service, ATF, etc etc? One agency, one director.  Wouldn’t that eliminate the intelligence failure that caused 9/11?

I’m no expert on this, and yes, I know that Homeland Security was meant to be that central agency.  Unfortunately, Homeland Security became just one more bureaucracy on top of the pile.  The Patriot Act does not streamline communication between these agencies. It only allows them to gather and hoard more information for themselves.

Maybe I am beating an old horse. But Obama, by supporting one of the most contentious bills ever passed by Bush, has done himself and his supporters a disservice.  Allowing the Patriot Act to stand simply maintains the dangerous power-mongering that came to define the Bush era in the minds of liberal Obama supporters. I can only hope that this too will one day be tackled and removed by Obama.  Let’s hope that day comes before 2012.

I know I know, global warming again. Gah. To those who believe Global Warming is here and going to make life hell, they say it doesn’t matter. Climate change is not the weather and the weather is not climate change. Ok, fair enough, still, two massive snow storms in one season, both over 17″, is something I have not seen in 37 years in DC.

When does climate change begin to effect weather if it isn’t doing so now? According to several reports, the only place it’s currently warming is 2000 meters deep in the oceans. And it is true that the oceans are the first to see changes in heat, as they absorb the heat. But really, 2000 meters deep, where no one lives, that’s what all the fuss is about?

I get very concerned with how global warming effects governments, spending, and general trends in how to stop it. Carbon credits are really a waste of time. Hackers have found ways to steal millions in this ridiculous system. Hybrid vehicles going to save us all? Think again, the amount of damage to the environment to build those batteries is significant.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything. And it is true that adding carbon to the atmosphere will have an effect on the climate. But is that effect going to be an unlivable earth in 100 years? Probably not. Forests are growing at an alarming rate, why? They eat carbon, that’s why. Sure they are not going to be able to eat all of the carbon that we put up there but it’s going to be far from some type of global dilemma.

Best course of action? We’re already doing it. In California they are close, very close, to the creation of fusion energy. That’s the power the drives the sun. It’s clean and has a lot of power. Many scientists are proposing artificial trees to eat up some of the carbon as well. And it is that that I think will eventually put this matter to rest.

So, bottom line, don’t worry so much about it. Sure, drive less, save money on gas, don’t get a gas guzzler. But do those things because it’s the responsible way to live, not because the earth will be 100 degrees hotter in 100 years. Are we making the earth hotter? Sure, but at a rate of 1 degree every 100 years.

Enjoy the snow, don’t buy into the doomsday feeling of global warming, and your kids will be just fine. Just remember, we’ve only got 30 or so years left before the Singularity Event. When that happens our computer overlords will tell us how to save the environment.  Hopefully they tell us how to beat the common cold too. I feel one coming on!

In the interests of full disclosure, I am not currently playing Eve Online. I am also not playing Star Trek Online. As a total side note, I did download and am playing the free trail for Fallen Earth, so far pretty decent. Not to get off topic here, but STO was doomed from the start. Why? Several reasons including instancing and using the same engine from previously held games.

I’ve heard several friends that played beta STO describe it as Champions Online in a star ship. The ratings for this MMO have plummeted from their pre-launch hype stats on MMORPG.com and for good reason.

The one thing that Eve has done very well is having one persistent game world. That is a huge selling point and one that many games just don’t seem to grasp. Instancing sucks. I hate being in a zone and wondering where everyone is only to find out they are in zone 1 and I am in zone 10. Lame.

STO is riddled with instancing. The feel of Star Trek is no where to be found. The competition with Eve is a joke. Eve is still the dominating force behind space based MMO’s. I would say that Fallen Earth is a contender but it’s more of a apocalyptic survival game than a Sci-fi game. It’s just not high tech to have zip gun. Sorry.

Why can’t we see an MMO that combines the best of all worlds? One single persistent universe. Avatars. Endless discovery and exploration. Sandbox environment. Some games are coming close but nothing yet has dared to grasp all of the promise.

One new Sci-fi MMO to keep an eye on is Infinity: The Quest for Earth. They promise 200 billion star systems all generated using an algorithm of some sorts. Again, no avatars, but 200 billion star systems is impressive. Lets see how far this one goes. But as far as an Eve challenger, the jury is way out on that.

Eve Online still stands the test of time. They have somewhat limited PVE but impressive PVP system and stellar conquests. You can’t really get into the real depths of this game going solo but finding a group of people, known as corporations, isn’t that hard. Once they, if they ever, launch their avatar system, once known as ambulation, they may rise to the very top of the list. If they ever get Dust 514 launched and maybe even port it to the PC, this game could be the defacto standard in Sci-fi MMO’s.

If you are deciding to go with STO, don’t. Waste of time. COH and Champions clone in a starship. Shame really. Check out Fallen Earth and barring that Eve Online to get your space fix. Don’t hold your breath on the 200 billion star system MMO though, I have a hunch that’s a long shot.

When the Empire struck back they kicked the rebel asses hard. Very hard. Amazon is about to do the same thing to everyone in the e-book market. Why? Because they were first. Being first has its advantages. The Kindle came onto the scene when there was only one competitor, Sony. Since then Amazon updated it’s kindle to a second version and even made a larger DX version with twice the screen size. That was last year.

Amazon hasn’t done much this season and with good reason. I suspect they sat back and watched. They watched Apple, Sony and everyone else scramble to compete with it’s e-reader. Amazon saw different companies ideas and has taken notes. Why have an R&D department when you can watch everyone else?

Expect to see a Kindle 3 in the near future. Expect it to be bad ass. Full multi-touch color e-ink screens. The company that makes e-ink has announced that their e-ink is going to faster, support multi-touch and have color. Amazon is going to take strong advantage of that. They have also recently purchased a company that makes flexible touchscreens.

Lets not forget that Amazon has ‘an app for that’ on PC, Mac, iPhone and other platforms that is basically a Kindle to go. All Amazon really wants to be is your source to purchase books. Having the e-reader is just icing on the cake.

Amazon has sat back and watched everyone else put out e-ink devices or tablet PC’s that really don’t add anything to the market. The next generation e-book is going to be multi-touch, e-ink AND color capable and might even be a flexible display that you can roll up and put in your pocket.

Oh and the name on the top of it will be Kindle.

Well one day I found http://www.splashup.com/ and let me tell you it’s very cool. Perhaps one of the slickest things I’ve seen on the net for awhile. Yeah yeah, all you uber geeks already know about it and use it regularly, well STFU, I didn’t.

Basically, the site lets you do image editing. Really good image editing. No install on your PC, not a pay site, no need to even sign up. They want you to of course and I recommend doing it but it’s not required.

It’s all flash driven. With it you can edit your image to your hearts content. Size, shape, bevels, colors, etc. All the basics that any good web developer would want to do. For me, and the little editing I do, it totally replaces any software I needed before. Goodbye Photoshop!

Now, I’m not saying that this can replace Photoshop for publishers or designers that do heavy duty image magic things. I don’t do that high level stuff as I find it to be pure torture and hellish. Photoshop does a lot of things and I really don’t know if splashup does all of them. But if you are just manipulating an existing image that you may have gotten from istockphoto.com or your iPhone then give it a whirl, it’s very very cool.

Wow. Just when you think you have it hard with Net Neutrality and loopholes to stop bit torrents something comes along and makes ya smile.

Well, it’s true. The Australian government is going forward on massive Internet filtering on all ISP’s to block out any content that is essentially criminal in nature. Any website that has objectionable material will be banned from all places down under. Who decides what is objectionable? Some independent body (special interest??) will decide what goes on the banned list.

Kinda shocking. I agree that child porn should be banned but you ban it by going to the website, finding the owner, and throwing him in jail. What if someone took pictures and mailed them to people? Are you going to ban snail mail too? No! You arrest him and cut off his willie! And just what is child porn anyway? Does Japanese Anime qualify? Some of that stuff is really twisted. It’s not sexual but when a giant demon rapes a teenager with a tentacle, well draw your own conclusions. I recently read a story where an army solider was being court-martial because his mother sent a picture of his niece in a bathtub. The charge? Possessing child pornography. Are you kidding?!? We all want to protect kids but lets have some common sense here.

As for those censor mongers down under, whaddyagonnado. Once you put your foot into censorship of any kind you find it really easy to keep uping the stakes. Today it’s anything “criminal” tomorrow it’s anyone talking about “crime”.

Good luck to you aussies. Sounds like you have a fight on your hands.

Oh and as for the small boob thing, the reddit poster said something like the government thinks only pedophiles look at women with small boobs. I don’t get aussies anymore, must be all those Irukandji Jellyfish in their beaches.

Link to reddit post here.

The Plan was really just a recap of what happened from a Cylon perspective. How they kidnapped their five progenitors and imprisoned them in the colonies. How they were kept alive and somehow all made it to the Galactica fleet. It started and ended with two Cavil’s, 1 models, walking up to a launch tube about to be spaced. From there, it takes a tour of how both of them got to that place. What The Plan actually turns out to be is a huge psychology experiment to discover how the same person can be changed and have two totally opposed viewpoints all by going through different events.

Cavil alpha, calling him number 1 is confusing since his model is 1, started on Galactic. I choose to call him alpha as he was the one who eventually wins out and boxes Cavil beta. Cavil alpha spends his time on Galactica organizing the other Cylons there. Most notably it is he who is the driving force behind Boomer’s multiple personalities. It is Cavil alpha that directed Boomer to blow up the water supply, try to expose Baltar as a traitor, and try to blow up the fleet.

Through his time on Galactic his opinion of humans that they should be destroyed is solidified. It’s interesting that his opinion is locked in not by his observing of humans but by his inability to kill them. As each of his attempts fail, killing of Adama, blowing up of ships in the fleet, he becomes more and more convinced that they need to be destroyed. It’s his own failing that drives him of course, not that the humans are doing anything bad. I should say, his failing and that of his subordinates.

As it turns out, all of his Cylon underlings are actually failing on purpose. They are beginning to see Humans in a different light. The number two, Leoben, is falling in love with Starbuck. Boomer is claiming she is happier when she thinks she is human. Simon, the number four, is head over heals in love with his human wife and adopted child and even commits suicide instead of following Cavil’s orders. All this infuriates Cavil. He clearly hates how his own kind is revering the parasites that are humans. This only serves to convince him that the humans should be killed lest his own people change their minds, something he can’t stand.

I’ve always wondered where the hatred cylons had for humans came from. I can only imagine it was from the destruction of the 13th colony. Though we never found out who destroyed the 13th colony we have to assume it was humans. The final five brought the story with them and Cavil hated humanity for it. My guess anyway.

Cavil beta had an entirely different experience. He was not surrounded by other cylons, only one model four. His time was spent mostly on Caprica with one of his ‘fathers’, Sam, one of the survivors of the 13th colony holocaust. He tries again and again to convince Sam that humans don’t deserve love. That the Cylons should be forgiven for their action; at which Sam nearly punches him. His journey leads him to realize that the capacity of love can cross racial barriers and that a cylon, Sam, can actually love humans. Cavil beta learns that humans aren’t the evil demons he thought they were.

When the two Cavil’s come back together it’s of little shock that insanity wins out over reason. Cavil alpha believes Cavil beta is flawed now and should be boxed on returning to their resurrection ship. Cavil alpha’s opinion was formed from watching his own kind resist his notion of killing all humans. Cavil beta’s opinion was reached by watching his “father” love humans even after they destroyed the 13th colony. Cavil alpha goes on to continue his destruction of humans as best he can and eventually commits suicide on the Galacitc bridge, a point that I always thought was out of character.

The deeper plot lines of The Plan were perfectly constructed. Watching both Cavil’s come to different conclusions was brilliant. Seeing the old girl, Galactica, again was of course wonderful.  Seeing Caprica city before the fall was great and it makes you want to watch Caprica the series more than ever, which is the point of The Plan.

On a scale of 1-10 I’d have to give The Plan a 9. There weren’t any slow points, the plot was solid, and the nostalgia was euphoric. The only down side was not explaining more about the final 5 or about Daniel, model number 7. Though I suppose The Plan wasn’t about “The Past” but rather how they are going to kill all of humanity. I suppose that begs the question, is The Past an upcoming movie about the Cylon 13th colony?? Lets only hope.

First of all, the good. The iPad is beautiful to look at. It really is. It has access to all of Apple’s App store applications, which is awesome. It’s light, portable and cheap, you can get one for 500 bucks, not bad at all. Apple has added some good apps including iWorks and iBooks, both of them aiming at different competing software and hardware on the market. And last but not least, they are 3G capable, so you can go anywhere with them and have blazing fast speeds. Ahem.

Well that’s all well and good, lets run out and buy it, right? Hold your horses there comrade. Lets take a deeper look at this magical device. First, it’s the iPhone OS, so no flash. Yes, no flash. Excuse me? No flash?!? Love it or hate it, Flash is a big part of the internet. I can’t even look at my Google Analytics with this thing let alone play Flash games and the biggest of all let downs, I can’t watch porn on flash porn sites! WTF?

Next problem, you can’t multitask with it. So, if I want to use Apple’s iWorks and do a bit of research on Wikipedia while I’m writing something, I can’t. I certainly can’t have two apps running at the same time. That seems to me to be a serious let down for what is supposed to be a bridge between netbooks and phones. That was Steve Jobs opening slide, an iPhone on one side and a Macbook on the other with a big question mark in the middle. The iPad goes in the middle. Well, tell me how not being able to do two things at once is anything at all like a netbook? I typically do 10 things at once on the PC, I have poker sites open, two or three FireFox windows open, Chrome, Kindle for the PC, etc etc. You expect me to go down to just one? We’ve been turning ourselves into an ADD species for decades and now I have to revert? No chance.

Another big minus is no camera and no phone. Huh?? How is something that is supposed to be both an iPhone and a Macbook not equipped with a phone, camera or Flash? Epic Fail.

Next, they partnered with AT&T again. Need I say more? Blazing fast 3G? HA!

Apple got something very right with the iPhone. It filled a big need. Adding computer like capability to a portable device. They designed it to have a closed system which has worked well for the iPhone. It has because people don’t expect it to be a computer, they just expect it to be computer like. People tolerate not having flash on their phone because not many people want to browse the web on such a small small screen while sitting in their house. The iPhone OS is meant to be portable. The big issue here is that the iPad is not a portable device.

The iPad is really a game changer. It will change Apple’s success rate of recent years. They have taken the functionality of a netbook, removed it, taken the limitations of the iPhone, expanded them, and put it all together. The iPad is now a big iTouch. That’s it. It is not a functioning computer that you can use and do anything with effectively. By locking it down so much they have made it useless.

Here is what you need a tablet computer to do. Everything a laptop computer can do. Simple isn’t it? The iPad can’t do half of what a laptop can do. It’s way to big to put in the pocket so portability is out of the question. You can’t multitask with it so anything work related is not going to happen. You do have access to the App store and it is a nice screen for browsing the web, but that’s about it. It doesn’t fill any need or niche.

All in all, the iPad will be purchased by people wanting to have a new toy. You won’t see 75 million people buying this. Everyone needs a phone, so everyone bought the coolest one. Not everyone needs a tablet that doesn’t do anything except what Apple says it should do.

One thing is for certain. Google better be paying attention to this. Chrome OS will be about the same as the iPhone OS except no App store. Why do these companies think if you remove functionality that you have a winner? These internet only computers, which is really what the iPad is, are neat in that they are designed to just look at the internet. But frankly, they don’t do anything that my laptop or computer doesn’t already do. They boot in seven seconds you say? Who gives a fuck?!? Turn on your PC, go to the kitchen, get a beer, get back, it’s up.

Oh and the last thing that’s wrong with this thing, the name. iPad? Lame.

First of all, lets get some things right out in the open. The acting and cinematography were top notch. Eric Stolz is Eric Stolz after all. When you add that big of a name to a show it’s going to do well just with his talent. Esai Morales is no slouch either. As the pilot began I thought he was being a bit stoic with the death of his daughter and wife but that’s exactly what his character was supposed to do. He did it so well it was eerie to watch. Paula Malcomson rounds out the top three. If you don’t know her it’s only because you never watched Deadwood, which must mean you who Sweragin is, and I pity you for it. Suffice to say Malcomson has proved her talents in the past and is a great addition to the cast. The only other actor of significant note that I saw was mother of Caesar in HBO’s Rome. Polly Walker, who was fantastic in Rome, looks to be playing another villain as one of the leaders of a monotheistic religious movement.

The casting of Caprica was done well and the filming is also superb. Clearly SyFy knows that BSG was a monster hit and spared no expense in making Caprica, at least so far. And they would be right in doing so. If even a half the BSG fans come on to watch Caprica then it’ll be a big success for SyFy. Ahh, gone are the days of Tremors the series and I for one rejoice.

But the premiere of Caprica wasn’t all rosy for me. In the first two hours we learn where the cylons got their monotheistic beliefs from. We learn where they get their consciousness from. We even saw a glimpse of “all this has happened before and will happen again” spiel from BSG. I was left after the pilot thinking, what happens now? This then feeds into my dislike of prequels in general. We know what’s going to happen, be it in the next scene or 54 years in the future. Sure it’s neat seeing Adama as a boy and you get some good insight to his past. One thing of note there, boy does Adama’s life suck. He lost his mother, sister, son, two wives and ended up alone on a mountain in Ireland or wherever it was. Ireland before Guinness was invented, which really made it suck.

We’ll have intrigue of course, great acting, great scripts etc etc. But we know where it all leads. There’s no surprise or mystery that filled Battle Star Galactica. And really, wasn’t that what drove the show? We all wanted to see the 13th colony. We all wanted to see Earth if the 13th colony wasn’t it. We all wanted to know how the hell Starbuck survived, which was kinda a let down anyway. That’s what had us tuning in every week, to see how this reboot of a classic panned out.

Caprica is on new ground. Telling the story of how the events which led to BSG unraveled.  The biggest issue is there’s not a lot more to tell. We created Cylons, who merged with humanoid Cylons from the 13th colony, who blew up the 12 colonies. Got it. I for one hope Ron Moore throws in some twists here and there. Something unexpected like hints that the 12 colonies weren’t the only colonies. Hell, maybe even throw in some aliens, or at least take us on a tour of the other 11 colonies.

I’ll still watch every episode of course. It is just cool that we are looking at Caprica before the fall. And perhaps that’s what they are banking on. The fact that all the geeky fans will tune in, even though we all know the plot and what’s going to happen, just because we are geeks and loved BSG. Yep, you have us over a barrel Ron Moore. You got our attention now please do something unexpected.

All that aside, and I don’t want to go too deeply into the RIAA and all of that, I personally think we should just bag it and try again. What did you say? I’m insane? No, that’s just alcoholic dementia, it passes. But I honestly think we could have a shot at creating a subnet to the Internet. Read on!

Truth be told, there are thousands of subnets on the Internet. They are called Intranets and they are used for businesses and schools to provide a private network for employees and students. These are accessed using a VPN, or virtual private network, to ensure security is maintained and also to gain access to internal DNS servers, or domain name servers.

So, have you caught on yet? Why don’t we, and by that I mean a group of tech savvy and fed up 30 somethings, make a giant VPN network on the Internet, make our own DNS servers and bid a fond farewell to all the noise that the Internet has devolved into?

I am suggesting a migration. A human migration from one living space to another. It happens all the time. We are a migratory people, or at least we once were. When one area of land runs out of food or gets full up with a-holes, all the cool people get together and say “f-this, lets find some new digs”, or more accurately “Grunt, mrpgh, ugh, go, mmmmmm”. Well, I for one think the Internet is becoming a-hole central. Most of it is just fine, the blogosphere is fun but overrun with places like Huffington post and other commercial blogging sites that overshadow all the individuality out there.

Enter the Internet Mark II. Lets setup a VPN network at universities around the US. Once on the VPN we’ll redo DNS, point sites like www.google.com to anything we want, setup our own ICANN, redo it right. And we won’t let anyone in that doesn’t know what a ‘red shirt’ is, can’t spell their name in binary, and doesn’t have at least a modicum of geek cred.

All joking aside, I have to wonder if these little VPN networks don’t already exist. If they don’t, it’s not such a radical idea to create them. Only allowing in those that are allowed in. Keeping out the RIAA, spammers, virus websites, phishers, and every other douche that we don’t want. Net Neutral? Sure is. It’s our VPN and all the traffic is encrypted so the ISP’s won’t know what we’re doing, only that we are doing something.

The books Otherland by Tad Williams, one of the best scifi series books ever written, a group of future techies made a network like I described. It was kinda like the Babylon 5 of the Internet, except no law. Anyone is welcome, don’t damage the space, don’t try to hack. Their private network was kept safe by it being easily able to be deconstructed and reconstructed on a moments notice. When the feds came looking the would shut it down, dismantle the servers and remake it elsewhere. Something that could easily be done with today’s Cloud.

Am I off kilter on that one? Sounds like a good idea? Maybe. Maybe not. But it sure would be cool.