Internet Freedom Day

Internet Freedom Day

One year ago we defeated SOPA.
Today, celebrate your freedom of expression.
January 18th is #InternetFreedomDay
What’s something you love on the net that you’d never want to see censored?

There are lots of great things we can do to celebrate this very important anniversary of
beating SOPA one year ago today! Check out a few of them at:

www.InternetFreedomDay.net

and do what you can to
celebrate the one year anniversary of beating SOPA today!

And don’t forget: Aaron Swartz was instrumental in helping to beat SOPA!

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Not sure what it’s all about? Check out the following article:

The Day Wikipedia Went Dark - Boston Review

Many sites, including all of my websites went dark that day!

As was noted in the article:

The free Internet will rise or fall on the involvement and ingenuity of the people, not on courts or lawmakers.

Internet Freedom Day: Coming together a year after SOPA/PIPA – EFF.org

Internet Freedom Day: Celebrate SOPA/PIPA Victory One Year Later!

iMac G4, Ten Years Ago Already

The Exceptional iMac G4: Ten years later – Macworld

A decade after its debut, we remember what made this flexible Mac special

Steve Jobs in YouTube video showing off their new at that time G4 iMac!

Wasn’t this also the cute little Pixar icon that hopped across the screen and drove the letter i of the Logo into the ground replacing it? Nope, that was an adorable little animated white desk lamp. Pixar was spun off by Lucas Films in 1986 with funding by Apple, Inc cofounder, Steve Jobs (who became Pixar’s majority shareholder, and later sold to Walt Disney Company in 2006. That is such a precious thing to see that little animation on all Pixar films. Those Pixar animators can animate anything! And the YouTube video below actually shows why they use that adorable little animated white desk lamp animation for the Logo on all their productions. I love it! Very small video, little over 2 min long (good to know for those of us on capped bandwidth).

Why Pixar’s Logo includes a Lamp – YouTube

Adorable…

But I digress, back to the revolutionary, yep, revolutionary, G4 iMac.

Yes, it was revolutionary, ground breaking, exceptional for the day … 10 yrs ago in January 2002!

Apple also introduced iPhoto for the first time at the same time as the new iMac G4, as well as making the ground breaking move to from CRTs to flat screens. And writable DVDs (first optical “Super Drive” featuring writable DVDs — as you will remember the “Combo Drive” was CD/DVD but only the CD was writable, the DVD side was read only).

The new iMac G4 also shipped with AppleWorks 6 (an Office-like productivity suite), PCalc 2 (scientific calculator software), World Book Encyclopedia, and Otto Mattic (a 3D action game).

And it the first iMac to boot by default to OS X (10.1 Puma) instead of Mac OS 9.

It launch in January 2002, the iMac G4 came in three flavors: a low-end model for $1299 that included a 700MHz G4 PowerPC processor, 128MB RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a CD-RW drive; a mid-range model for $1499 that upped the RAM to 256 MB and included a CD-RW/DVD-ROM “Combo Drive”; and a high-end model for $1799 that included an 800MHz G4 processor, 256MB RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and a CD-RW/DVD-R “Super Drive.”

Interesting to note that all this was happening just as the original iPod revolution was getting under way.

I first got to play with one of these little wonders in about 2005 I think it was when I worked on one for a client. It was an amazing little guy. The only thing I was not happy with was the inability at that time to make it do a right-click on the mouse (which was common among PCs at the time), but had to quickly learn you could use the control-click to get the “right-click” menu. But it was amazing what it could do for such a tiny half ball dome-shaped PC! I have to say it was actually the first Mac that I was truly impressed with.

It would be a few years before I got my first Mac, a much faster (1.4Ghz) G4 Mac Mini running Mac OS X Tiger (10.4). I never really got what it meant to hear people say ‘it just works’ until I got that Mac Mini. It really did just work, and was very intuitive. And this from someone coming from Windows and DOS computers before that. I was using Windows XP Pro on my other computers and I still loved Windows XP too but this, this was different. I fell in love with this tiny little box that hardly took up any room on my desk and could do so much.

And all that constant annoying vigilance on the Windows PC was gone! Just like with Linux, but it was so polished (which sadly for me is very important). Linux has gotten so much more polished now but back then, not so much. OK, so sure one still had to be careful and do maintenance, but gone was the true concern about all the bazillions of viruses, worms, Trojans, RATS, rootkits like it was on Windows … that were a thing of the past … at least for 6 yrs anyway. But even now, even though this year introduced the first ‘real’ threat to the Mac, it still isn’t the same as it is on Windows.

Yep, I love my Mac. I also love my Windows 7 as it is the very best Windows to date and comes as close to ‘it just works’ without being a Mac, and I love my Debian Squeeze running KDE for more reasons than I can say, but it’s mostly about being open and free; Open Source, Free as in Beer yes, but mostly because it’s Free as in Free Speech. You can do anything with Linux you can set your mind to. If you learn to code with it, you can freely create, modify, build up the code, and help the open source community progress in real tangible ways. Linux is the best of all worlds.

But, for its simplicity, polish, and beauty, and yes, even its innovation, which is so often ahead of the pack, I very much love my Mac. Now if I can get a new Mac someday that will run, Mac OS X Mountain Lion… And an iPod Touch that will run iOS 6… Yeah, I’m hooked on Mac too.

I will always run Windows for many reasons, most of which is that it is the main stay for my business and I will always run the Mac because I just love it for the reasons given above, but if both of those went away tomorrow, I would still have my Linux.

I guess I just love technology…I started out in computers before home computers were universal like they are today. I originally had a RadioShack Color Computer, then went to an 8088 running DOS, a 386SX running DOS and Windows 3.1.1 WFW, and then to 486 computers running Windows 95, Win98SE, eventually P4 running Windows XP and now AMD Dual Core Athlon 64 that can run Windows Vista (groan!), and Windows 7 and Debian Squeeze. And of course my newer Intel Mac Mini 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM that runs Snow Leopard, and can run OS X Lion, but will never run Mountain Lion, and an older 2nd Gen iPod Touch that I also love but has trouble with many new apps and upgraded apps now, and will never run IOS 5 or IOS 6.

Pick one? No way. I love them all! I do not want to part with any of them. But like everyone else, I do want to get faster machines and gadgets!

It is amazing to me that it’s been 10 yrs, 10 1/2 yrs now, since that first iMac G4 came out for PPC (Power PC) Macs. Approximately the same length of time that Windows XP has been running on PC computers. Amazing.

Rockefeller: Coal must ‘boldly embrace’ the future

Rockefeller: Coal must ‘boldly embrace’ the future – Coal Tattoo:

Without good health it’s difficult to hold down a job or live the American dream. Chronic illness is debilitating and impacts a family’s income, prosperity and ultimately its happiness.

The annual health benefits of the rule are enormous. EPA has relied on thousands of studies that established the serious and long term impact of these pollutants on premature deaths, heart attacks, hospitalizations, pregnant women, babies and children.

Moreover, it significantly reduces the largest remaining human-caused emissions of mercury–a potent neurotoxin with fetal impacts.

Maybe some can shrug off the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and others but I cannot.

Amen and Amen.

Thank you, Sen. Rockefeller!

I am so happy to see this from the Senior United States Senator from West Virginia!

Maybe this will make a difference for West Virginians and also here in Hampton Roads, Virginia with the proposed 1500 MW Cypress Creek Power Station (ODEC’s proposed coal plant in Dendron, Surry County, VA).

Just one from the very interesting comment section:

Howard Swint says:
June 20, 2012 at 1:18 pm

I support Sen. Rockefeller for his bold leadership in this speech. It’s been a long time coming…

EDIT: Here is the link for the poll:

http://wvgazette.com/polls/201206230087

Apparently any readers of the paper can vote, no matter where you live as purported by FriendsOfCoal.org. So please go vote your mind.

Dendron hearings on proposed power plant will be repeated in 2012

Dendron hearings on proposed power plant will be repeated in 2012 – Although Old Dominion Electric Cooperative mulled options, site remains top choice

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative will hold a second round of public hearings on a rezoning and conditional use permit to build the state’s largest coal-fueled power plant in Dendron next year.

On Monday, the company’s executive board decided that Old Dominion will repeat the hearings rather than challenge Surry Circuit Court Judge Sam Campbell’s Nov. 18 ruling that residents were not properly notified of the Dendron Town Council’s intent to vote after the first hearing on Feb. 1, 2010, said company spokesman David Hudgins. The company wants to build Cypress Creek Power Station, a 1,500-megawatt coal-burning power plant, on 1,200 acres in town.

The date of the new public hearing – and a subsequent town council vote – for the proposed power station will not be set until 2012. Company and town attorneys will make sure the town’s intent to vote is clear in any advertisements, Hudgins said.

Glad they can’t pull one over on the public this time…

Sadly, when they can see those dollar signs, I can easily see the Town of Dendron and Surry County going for this all over again…yep. They won’t stop till they get what they want whether it’s good for the health of property owners and residents or not.

Yep, do something stupid and expect God to mitigate the damage to people, the earth and wildlife…whatever happened to taking care of what God gave us?! Coal mining and burning coal … oh, yeah, that’s gotta be a good thing for people (especially children, the elderly and those at risk healthwise like my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator), the earth and wildlife…oh, yeah…that makes sense. NOT.

AN ILL WIND – The Secret Threat of Coal Ash

First, I would like to thank those who got our grid power back on here in Virginia after Hurricane Irene knocked it out about 24 hrs before Irene made landfall in the Outerbanks of NC.

One thing that being out of power for more than a couple days does do is make you realize how dependent we all have become on ‘the grid’ and how we really need to change that at some point, don’t you think? Between dangers of outages like this, and potential threats from terrorists on our infrastructure, it just seems to make sense that we figure out a way to get the power we need but by decentralizing from The Grid.

Over the last month, since August 4th, we have intermittently had to deal with the smoke and ill air quality of the wildfire in the dismal swamp. There were times when here in our little town there was smoke hanging in the air, and in our very homes when we woke up in the morning and were having trouble breathing. It was particularly bad for my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene, actually did one thing that was good, it almost (but not quite) put out that wildfire. I hope they can get the 30 or so hot spots put out before it dries out again.

Because I have a problem with the whole issue of dangerous coal ash, and huge coal plants close to people’s homes and spewing dangerous arsenic, and so much more into our air, does not mean I don’t appreciate The Grid or those who work to provide and maintain, and restore that power after natural disasters like this. My only complaint is the dangerous ways in which they often do that; meaning coal – from the cradle to the grave and the health and environmental dangers it poses.

Coal from Mountain Top Removal to this ILL WIND of coal ash that sends ‘sandstorms’ of coal ash directly over the reservation when the winds blow wrong, and other coal plant travesties around the country and around the world, to ODEC trying to get a 1500 MW coal fired power plant in Dendron, VA and Surry County rolling over to get the money they are promised and the empty purse of promised jobs (yeah, how many and for how long, and what of those who live here?) To the whole of a region like Hampton Roads that will be adversely affected by a 1500 MW coal plant with a prevailing wind that will draw that smoke/vapor over other areas in Hampton Roads.

From the text at Youtube:

See the whole project at http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind

The Moapa River Indian Reservation, tribal home of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, sits about 30 miles north of Las Vegas and about 300 yards from the coal ash ponds and landfills of the Reid Gardner Power Station. Coal ash is the toxic ash and sludge left at the end of the coal burning process. It’s laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. It’s the second largest waste stream in America and it’s currently unregulated.

If the conditions are just wrong, coal ash picks up from Reid Gardner and moves across the desert like a toxic sandstorm sending the local residents running for their homes. The reservation has lung, heart and thyroid disease rates that are abnormally high and the power plant is currently seeking to expand its coal ash storage capability.

The film An Ill Wind tells the Paiute Indians’ story.

View and interactive presentation of the story at:

http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind

Watch the complete film at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL49Ibc0L88

And learn more about coal ash at:

http://www.earthjustice.org/coalash

Many thanks to the Moapa Band of Paiutes for allowing us to tell this story and to Vinny Spotleson of the Sierra Club and Dan Galpern of the Western Environmental Law Center for helping with the project.

I guess we as individuals and families really do need to start thinking about how we can get ourselves off the grid … if more homes are off the grid, these big coal plants wouldn’t even be considered necessary…

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Well, here in the sunny south, a week and a day before official Winter, it has been snowing all morning.

We also had a very cold spell last week and will have one again this week. How cold? It was in the teens overnight here in Virginia in early December. And will be again this week. And this week we have the added ‘benefit’ of wind chill factors that may tumble into the single digits at least one day this week.

OK, you guys up in Canada? Take back your arctic air! We have had enough already! LOL!

This is only the first half of December. What do we have to look forward to by the time the real cold gets here in January and February (besides higher orange juice prices due to even Florida having very cold (for them this time of year) weather?

Global Warming, my a….nevermind.

Hope you all enjoy the Christmas Theme and snow on my blog for the Christmas holidays 2010.

Breaking News – Smith Coal Plant Cancelled and a new collaboration planned between activists and the utility!

Breaking News – Smith Coal Plant Cancelled and a new collaboration planned between activists and the utility!

BREAKING: Kentucky Cancels Coal Plant, New Power Movement Electrifies Grassroot Alliance (Huffington Post):

Thanks to a powerful and growing New Power grassroots movement, a broad alliance of Kentucky activists sent an electrifying message across the nation today: A just transition to a clean energy future, even in the heartland of coal country Kentucky, is possible.

Breaking News: SMITH PLANT CANCELLED! Clean energy collaboration planned. (Kentuckians For The Commonwealth):

We have some great news to announce: The coal-burning power plant proposed by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) has been canceled by the utility.

EKPC has entered into an agreement with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, Kentucky Environmental Foundation, the Sierra Club, three individual co-op members, the Kentucky attorney general, and Gallatin Steel (EKPC’s biggest industrial customer). Under the agreement, EKPC will halt its plans for the proposed coal-burning power plant in Clark County by abandoning the permits it needed to proceed with construction. The cooperative also committed $125,000 toward a collaborative effort in which the public interest groups, EKPC and its member co-ops, and other parties will work together to evaluate and recommend new energy efficiency programs and renewable energy options.

This is awesome news!!! And in the heart of Coal Country! Utilities and Clean Energy Activism working together to the common good! What an exciting prospect!

It can be done and it looks like there might still be hope for the folks in Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed regarding ODEC’s Cedar 1500MW Creek Power Station proposed within Dendron, VA (in Surry County, VA).

Keep Focus on plans for Coal Plant

Keep Focus on plans for Coal Plant
Originally in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA, Oct 2, 2010. The article is by Bob Burnley

In response to ODEC supposedly putting this 1500 MW ‘twin towers’ 24/7 coal plant on ice for 12-18 months, but all the while still continuing their permit process with the USACE and EPA, Bob Burnley reminds us of the following and more in this article:

The plant would make existing environmental and economic problems in the region worse. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Virginia Beach ranks 45th on a list of the “most challenging places to live with asthma.” Richmond is No. 1. Three thousand tons of ozone-producing nitrogen oxides and 2,000 tons per year of particulate matter from the plant, just upwind from Virginia Beach, would exacerbate this.

The plant would emit mercury, a neurotoxin. Babies exposed before birth can suffer reduced IQ levels and other neurological problems. Children exposed can suffer learning disabilities and other health issues. There has to be a healthier way to generate electricity.

Citizens across the Bay watershed are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to remove nitrogen from discharges to the Bay and its tributaries. This plant and the thousands of tons of nitrogen compounds emitted from its smokestacks could very well doom the Bay, the region’s watermen and a thriving tourist industry. There must be a less polluting way to generate power.

Much more in this must read article.

We can not forget what they want to do to Dendron, Surry County, Hampton Roads, Virginia, or how this coal is obtained from the ancient mountains in Appalachia through MTR and how Wise Engergy for Virginia and others are trying to help keep this from happening.

More information here on my blog.

Support Lyme Groups’ Decision to Withdraw from IOM Lyme Workshop

Support Lyme Groups’ Decision to Withdraw from IOM Lyme Workshop

Please let Congress know you support the move by LDA, TFL and CALDA to withdraw from the NIH/IOM State-of-the-Science Lyme Disease and Other Tick Borne Diseases Workshop by reading the statement below and completing the response form. LDA will send your reply directly to Congressman Christopher H. Smith (NJ). It will not be used for any purpose other than this project. Thank you!

Lyme Groups Withdraw from Scientific Meeting

I support the move by the national Lyme Disease Association (LDA), the California Lyme Disease Association (CALDA), and Time For Lyme (TFL) to withdraw from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored workshop. I agree that the above groups should not participate in nor submit the Institutes of Medicine’s (IOM) commissioned scientific paper to the Panel in protest of the IOM’s workshop about the state of the science regarding Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Despite the 3 groups’ repeated requests for transparency and a balance of scientific viewpoints, as delineated in Congressional Appropriations language, neither the hearing panel nor the speakers selected by the IOM satisfy the Congressional intent or objectives.

The IOM’s mission was to provide an “independent, objective and non-partisan” program and there are no scheduled speakers with opposing viewpoints of similar scientific weight to balance Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) presentations about the research gaps in Lyme disease. Many state-of-the-art scientific researchers, experienced clinicians and patient advocates have been relegated by the IOM and NIH to spectator positions. I believe that this amount of bias undermines the integrity of the scientific workshop and that its final report will reflect this lack of objectivity.

Support Lyme Groups’ Decision to Withdraw from IOM Lyme Workshop

As most who read my blog know, my hubby has been suffering with Lyme Disease for several years now including a paralyzed right side diaphragm. This particular problem (only one of many my hubby experiences), is well known to be a ‘side affect’ of Lyme Disease and documented in various places. Here’s one article about it “Diaphragmatic paralysis due to Lyme disease“.

Just for the record, confirmation articles were discovered AFTER the diagnosis. And although the doctor didn’t confirm the source of the problem (likely afraid to do so), he did confirm the paralysis during one of the two a hospital stays of 8 days on two IV antibiotics for diverticulitis, also from the Lyme Disease. NEITHER OF THESE PROBLEMS, or the high blood pressure and other issues were ever a problem until after the tick bite and the bullseye rash and subsequent ‘typical’ antibiotic treatment (doxycycline) and allergic reaction, or more likely a ‘die off’ reaction, to the massive death of the Lyme bug that nearly killed him with dangerously high blood pressure (which he never suffered with before this incident).

Am I getting through to you Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and Dr. Gary Wormser of Westchester Medical Center ?! My hubby was a healthy person who was active and vibrant until Lyme Disease struck him down. It was a night and day difference. Now tell me one thing has nothing to do with the other. Anybody?….

Progress in Virginia coal plant fight: ODEC announces postponement

ODEC is delaying building Cypress Creek Power Station for 18-24 months! This is some exciting news! It feels like a reprieve or maybe for some, a stay of execution…

Note however that ODEC is quick to point out that they are not backing down on building the Cypress Creek Power Station, but “The delay is result of uncertain federal regulations and the slumping economy, which has altered the nation’s projected electricity demands. … “The economy just doesn’t seem to be coming out of the recession that quickly,” he said.“

BTW: Here’s something we all can do to help….write to the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

Progress in Virginia coal plant fight: ODEC announces postponement!

Old Dominion Electric Co-op announced today that it plans to postpone for up to two years pursuit of air pollution permits for the massive new coal plant it is proposing. This exciting news shows the progress we are making in opposing the plant! The fight is far from over, however, and we need your help to make sure this plant never gets built.

Though ODEC’s plans are delayed the company is working to advance the plant at the local level and is seeking water pollution permits from the Army Corps of Engineers. Please click here to write the Army Corps today to ensure a critical evaluation of ODEC’s purposed need for this massive plant.

Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition Lauds Delay of ODEC’s Plans for Coal-FIred Power Plant ” (also at SELC here);

The Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition lauded Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s announcement today to delay plans for what would be the largest coal-fired power plant in Virginia. The temporary halt will allow the company, its customers, government officials and the conservation community to explore alternatives that will cost less and cause less harm to the environment.

Woohoo! Delay gives more time to consider the issues. And it must be very gratifying to those who had already calculated from the numbers – even before the economy started collapsing and not recovering as quickly as claimed – that ODEC’s statements on energy needs did not warrant building the 1500 MEGAWATT Cypress Creek Power Station in our backyards here in Dendron, Surry County, VA.

You know, it would be so much better if regulation wasn’t necessary. I for one do not generally agree that more regulation is better; in fact, it usually makes matters worse. I am against government intervention in businesses, or in our lives, in general. I believe in freedom and liberty and how important it is.

However, when the greed of companies (and people’s perceived need of electricity), causes disrespect and neglect in looking out for the health and welfare of those who will live near and around this behemoth power station … I just don’t see what recourse we have. Especially when many residents know this county really needs some financial help which this business would provide. But at what cost?!

This Cypress Creek Power Station will be within 1 mile of ALL residents of the Town of Dendron. But the 30 mile footprint of the worst of the effects of a coal plant this big will affect all of Hampton Roads.

Those of us who see beyond the dollar signs just have to hope that the EPA and the VA Air Board and the USACE will look at everything, not just what ODEC says, and the money or electricity it will provide downline, and come up with sound and safe regulations for the health and welfare of all local residents.

The needs of the many in this case do not outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Not when there are safer and healthier alternatives that can do what is needed, even if it would cost more money.

People are more important than things.

Ultimately keeping the environment safe means saving lives, or at the very least providing better quality of life. We have to live on this planet, we have to eat the food grown here and livestock raised here, we have to breath the air, and drink the water. We can’t afford to be so shortsighted.

Here’s a good example from a recent situation that happened locally. I will preface this with the fact that it is very infrequent that we, here in Dendron, VA experience poor air quality, but over the last week we actually had a few days when the air quality was poor. This was documented on the NOAA/Weather.gov site.

I have had such good air to breath most of the time, that I forgot what it was to have labored breathing while doing nothing in particular laborious! And it was hard to breath freely — this was particularly true for those with lung ailments (including my Jim who has a paralyzed right side diaphragm). Just think how hard it will be to breath in pretty short order with poor air quality much of the time, if not all the time, after this 1500 MEGAWATT plant goes online 24/7.

What kind of physical stress does that put on a person’s body? I for one do not wish to live that way — day in and day out — just so others who live in another state, or another part of Virginia, can have more electricity. There are ways to generate electricity much more safely for humans and the environment. Let’s make that happen. Please…

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Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition Lauds Delay of ODEC’s Plans for a Coal-Fired Plant (SELC)

Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition Lauds Delay of ODEC’s Plans for Coal-FIred Power Plant (PitchEngine)

Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition calls on ODEC to permanently withdraw delayed coal plant proposal (CCAN)

BREAKING NEWS: ODEC Delays Coal Plant Proposal, Wise Energy Coalition Calls on ODEC to Withdraw (WiseEnergyForVirginia)

Surry coal plant delayed 18-24 months (DailyPress)

ODEC delays plans for power plant permits (VirginiaBusiness)

ODEC Delays Plans for Surry-Hampton Roads Coal Plant (BlueVirginia)

ODEC Delays Plans for Surry-Hampton Roads Coal Plant (Article XI)

And of course many articles about this on my own blog here.