SOPA Blackout

Bravo, Internet Bravo.

Today, January 18th, marks a web-wide protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) bills that are attempting to pass through the United State’s Congress. Anyone who knows anything about these bills knows that they will break the internet.

What do these bills allow? Simply, it allows the censorship of entire websites due to accused piracy fraud. Not only will this not stop piracy, it will fundamentally limit free speech and the unlimited resources available to everyone around the world for free.

Why is this bill being pushed? The Entertainment Industry, mainly Hollywood, Movie Producers, and Record Companies, all live in fear of the general public, and because of this brandish all of us as thieves. They put DRM, or Digital Rights Management, on their content to limit it’s distribution. This has proven severely ineffective, and sites like the Pirate Bay and Limewire have continuously distributed countless numbers of songs and movies across the entire net.

The problem with DRM is two-fold. One, is that it is easily broken. Copyright protection on DVDs was broken in a matter of weeks by a high school student, and new forms of DRM are always being cracked. The other key element is that on the Internet, content is infinitely distributable. This means it only takes one leaked copy (usually found and released before the original content is) to spread to the entire internet.

Copyright law now is appalling. Thanks to Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney Corp. had paid huge sums of money to extend the time copyright has on material by the original creators. These laws were originally intended to allow new content to be unique, but then available to the public to improve upon. Now, content is released and the creators are so terrified of you not buying their content, they essentially try and hunt down any sources of piracy.

There is only one true solution to piracy – and that is producing better quality content. It is not a matter of restricting the web, because that defeats the very essence and purpose that the Internet was created for in the first place. If content is of high quality, people will be willing to spend money for it, to support the artist(s). When corporations alienate their consumers, or place a burden on consumers for being assumed thieves, it makes piracy much more likely.

January 18th was the selected day of protest against SOPA. Reddit has shut down for 12 hours, instead placing information and resources about the two bills, Google has a new doodle, blacking out their traditional logo, and WordPress has “censored” the “Freshly Pressed” portion of their website. These efforts are done to jar people into realising what the implications of SOPA or Protect-IP would actually mean.

What can you do? Like this post, and distribute it. Post status messages protesting SOPA, and the corporations that support it. And, most importantly, call your congressmen. Find out if they support SOPA, and talk to them about why it is such a bad idea. Get the word out, and help preserve the Internet from the restrictive hand of a few greedy corporations that do not understand how to effectively manage their content.

MOBA Players

As part of a continued series from last week, MOBA has essentially exploded from the small mod with a few players, to a large genre with many developers trying to replicate the original success.

 

As the video describes there are 5 specific “requirements” for a MOBA style game, all dealing with the mechanics of the gameplay. However, some developers have found success tweaking some of the core mechanics.

Riot Games, developer of League of Legends, wants to push the name of the genre being MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Area), which makes the most sense to me.

Developers are in high competition with one another for the market. With the original developers, such as Guinsoo and IceFrog, taking the lead in many projects, organizations are in tight competition, and tensions are high between developers.

The Future of Ultimate Frisbee

My new found sports love is Ultimate Frisbee. I started playing competitive ultimate frisbee this year at college and absolutely love it. The sport is still growing and is about to take a new step, thanks to Brodie Smith. Brodie is a very popular and successful ultimate player from Florida. Here is a video on his channel about a tour of top level college players, touring the country trying to raise awareness of the sport.

 

Ultimate is a fantastic sport, and one of the most athletic and fun to play. While it does not receive nationwide television coverage, there are is a fantastic, and growing fan base. There is a Kickstarter for this project, so if you are interested in this, please feel free to donate.

I will be posting about my experiences, and the experiences of others, playing Ultimate Frisbee in the future.

Intro to Programming

For those of you how have not yet figured out, I am a Computer Science Major. I love programming and the challenges that go along with it. That being said, I never really took a formal education on how to code. I one day decided to take my curiosity into a skill set, and began teaching myself basic coding languages. At first, it seemed daunting, but once you learn the “methodology” on HOW to program, learning a language is the easy part.

For those of you who do code, you will agree that it can seem very difficult at first. Programming requires you to think about things in an entirely new way. But it is equally true that it can be just as fun and rewarding. Experienced coders, there’s something for you at the end, but for beginners that may have stumbled onto my blog and are curious to see what programming is all about, here are a few resources for you:

 

From Lifehacker, here is a compilation post of their various resources to Learn the Basics of Coding. This includes an introductory video and some other great resources.

 

CodeAcademy is a start-up that adds an interactive and social concept to learning how to program, and they even have a new campaign for 2012.

 

And finally, for those experienced programmers (and perhaps some much more experienced than I am) this Friday CodeSprint is putting on a open coding challenge that will be review by several top technology companies such as Facebook, DropBox, and Amazon. Winners of these challenges have the change to be hired by these companies. Just visit the site and put your email in for updates.

 

For those of you who want to learn how to code, my advice is to stick with it; it can be difficult, but is ultimately rewarding.

 

Thank you!

7 Billion People, 5.9 Billion on the phone.

Wow. When I saw this, I honestly was a bit shocked. Not too long ago, we crossed the population threshold of nearly 7 Billion people worldwide. This  number is staggering, but what is impressive, is how fast we got to this point and what it means for urbanization.

In 1700, the world’s population was roughly 100 million, which grew to over 400 million by the 20th century. Now, in 2012, we have nearly 7 Billion people. This rate is truly mind-boggling, and causes serious issues when dealing with the growing problems of urbanization.

 

Recently, however, more and more people are being connected through technology. While some developing countries simply do not have the infrastructure for landlines, they do use mobile devices. The International Telecommunications Union recently did a survey that showed nearly 5.9 million people have a mobile device. The original posting, with more figures from the study, can be found here.

What is impressive about this is that it means only 1.1 million people are without a mobile connection ( less than 16% ). Over the next several decades, this number will continue to change, and have a lasting effect on the global community.

Plain-Text Passwords

Yet another example of large corporations completely missing the idea of “corporate level security.” As we have seen in 2011, many companies have completely dropped the ball in falling victim to large hacking attacks performed by Black Hats across the net. The most famous of these examples is Sony, who lost nearly their entirely customer database (including passwords, contact information, and even some credit card information). This was due to a sloppy form of security, the largest culprit being storing data in plain text.

Storing data in plain text is like handing the information to the bad guys. They simply have to do no work to use this information. Along with storing data in plain text, several examples can be seen of companies sending information in plain text. This is almost worse, because it passes the burden of security from the company, to the customer.

2012 has only just started, but already another culprit of this bad practice can be seen. FON Community, the world’s largest wifi network, has been caught storing, and sending passwords in plain text. When a customer tries to recover their password, they are sent an un-encrypted     message with their old password in the email.

Original blog post here.

This should be seen as unacceptable, but unfortunately is becoming all to common place. Cyber Security is becoming a growing problem, but it is something that many companies simply aren’t dealing with.

MOBA Origins

A new game type has been quickly gaining popularity among PC gamers, without major support from big budget game studios. This game type, which originated by a mod, is most commonly referred to as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA.

In these games, players take control of a single hero or champion, aided by computer controlled minions or creeps as players advance to destroy each other’s base, prevented by defensive towers and aided by teamwork.

These games are very much for the hardcore PC gamer, and their closest simularities can be seen when looking at the Starcraft or Warcraft series. This is, because, the game type was originated by a moded map in the original Starcraft. Warcraft was the game in which the game gained more popularity, as the game engine was more powerful and offered a better map editor.

 

Popular titles out now include Heros of Newerth, League of Legends, and DOTA. In fact, DOTA 2 is now out in beta, and is anxiously waiting release.

I myself just started playing these gametypes, and I have to say, there is a high learning curve. My first time playing, I had no idea what I was doing, and quickly found that you really need to research the characters and tactics your team is using, and effective strategies, to be able to play well. Word of advise for those who are just starting: do NOT play aggressive. These games usually last a while, and if your hero keeps dying, you are just helping the other team, and hurting your own.

As I play these more, I may be able to post some strategies or some introduction videos into how to play effectively.

 

Happy New Year!

Hello Everyone, and Happy New Year!

I hope your first hours of 2012 have been enjoyable, I know mine have. I spent the night with a bunch of friends and we had a great time. Due to very icy conditions, most spent the night, and in fact, we spent a lot of our time playing Call of Duty on Xbox.

Now, I sort of lost interest in the Call of Duty franchise after Black Ops began to get old. In my opinion, the multiplayer was not solid enough for me to continue with it. Also, I lost access to an Xbox for an extended period of time, so I haven’t played many console games recently, with the exception of Gears of War 3.

My friends all are fans of Call of Duty, so they started playing through a bunch of “Spec Ops”, or replayable missions, through the nice. I eventually got bored and nodded off to sleep. When I awoke, they were still playing. “Enough,” I said, “time for me to play some campaign.” I had not played through the campaign yet since Modern Warfare 3′s release.

Having played the original Modern Warfare, and the Modern Warfare 2, and seeing the numerous trailers for MW3, I knew what was in store. Makarov had ignited a World War, fueled by Shepard, and Soap, Price, and Nikolai all had to hunt down Makarov to clear their name after being betrayed by Shepard.

Now, I won’t put any spoilers in here (or at least I will try not to), but I would just like to comment on the general campaign. Personal preferences aside – I do not like the CoD Campaign Engine – the missions in the game progressed the story, but at times didn’t feel like I accomplished much. Certain points you were merely running past dozens of enemies with AK-47s (I play on Normal to get the story), or you are destroying tanks tens of thousands of feet in the air in an AC-130.

Mechanics aside, I’m afraid the game does live up to the reputation of an “expansion” on Modern Warfare 2. The graphics and mechanics are cleaned up, but more often then not I get the unfortunate sense of “deja vu”  going through the missions.

Trust me though, if you are fan of the series, and of the ridiculous stunts the game tries to pull on you, you will enjoy the campaign. But if you were looking for something completely separate from MW2, then you might want to look else ware.

That being said, Captain Price is still a badass.

The Start of Something New

Hello!

Welcome to Max’s Rants. This has been my long time blog that I had tucked away for most of 2011. I have found that I really enjoy talking about things I find interesting and sharing my opinions with those who choose to listen.

If you are reading this, you have made that choice. I hope to provide you with valuable information and entertainment. I also hope that this will be as enjoyable for you as it will be for me.

Here are some goals for 2012:

• Blog (daily)
• Sentence A Day (see upcoming post)
• Create a Podcast (keep an eye on my YouTube Channel)
• Create a fan base (this all starts with you!)

As always, you can follow me on Twitter, Google Plus, and YouTube (all links can be found on the right sidebar). I will be linking back to this blog, but also can provide real-time discussion with you all. I will do my best to port over the most interesting comments back onto this blog.

Is Data “Unlimited” if Throttled?

Are data plans from wireless carriers or ISPs “unlimited” if they throttle bandwidth?

This seems like a simple question with a simple answer, but it is not. By definition, unlimited means without limits. Some wireless carriers (such as AT&T and T-Mobile) throttle, or slow, the bandwidth down for the users using the most data. AT&T does this to their top 5% of data users, and T-Mobile does this to all users who access a specific amount of data.

To understand this issue, it is necessary to understand exactly how cellular networks work. On any given cell tower, there are thousands of users trying to access data – whether it be a call, or music download. The tower has a finite amount of resources to offer and spreads it pretty thin most of the time. Each person trying to use the tower is given a specific amount of time to use the tower. Obviously, these are very short increments of time (there is a side conversation here about precision timing in electronics, but that is for another day).

So what is the problem? The problem is that the more people using the tower, the shorter the amount of time each person is allotted. This means less data can be transfered thereby slowing the overall connection speed of the tower down. To counteract this, some wireless carriers limit the amount of data certain “data hogging” users can access. This seems fair to the carriers but to users, it eliminates the “unlimited” definition to their plan.

In the carrier’s defense, these issues may very well be outlined in their Terms of Service (Who reads those anyway?), but users may wish that these limitations on a seemingly unlimited plan are more clear.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5826443/is-a-data-plan-still-unlimited-if-speeds-are-throttled