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ACTA — a global treaty — could allow corporations to censor the Internet.

Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties – even prison sentences – against people they say have harmed their business.

Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement appear more expansive than anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually all of the countries in the developed world, including all of the EU, the United States, Switzerland and Japan.

Unelected bureaucrats have worked closely with corporate lobbyists to craft new rules and a dangerously powerful enforcement regime.

Petition EU Parliament to block the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement here.

Forbes: If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA

IBT: ACTA vs. SOPA: Five Reasons ACTA is Scarier Threat to Internet Freedom

ACTA — a global treaty — could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties – even prison sentences — against people they say have harmed their business.

“Current patterns of consumption are not sustainable.”  No, really!??!

The High-level Panel on Global Sustainability report “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing“.  http://www.un.org/gsp/report

Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and could be entering the food chain, a study has warned.

The findings appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Dr Browne, a member of the US-based research network National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, said the tiny plastic was a concern because evidence showed that it was making its way into the food chain.

“Once the plastics had been eaten, it transferred from [the animals'] stomachs to their circulation system and actually accumulated in their cells,” he told BBC News.

In order to identify how widespread the presence of microplastic was on shorelines, the team took samples from 18 beaches around the globe, including the UK, India and Singapore.

“We found that there was no sample from around the world that did not contain pieces of microplastic.”

The main plastics are polyester, acrylic and polyamides (nylon).  Professor Richard Thompson from the University of Plymouth, UK carried out a number of experiments to see what fibres were contained in the water discharge from washing machines. “It suggests to us that a large proportion of the fibres we were finding in the environment, in the strongest evidence yet, was derived from the sewerage as a consequence from washing clothes.”

Chines New Year is today.  The year of the Dragon begins.  Very auspicious, if you are in to that.

We are also a third of the way through the quarter cycle to the equinox.  Depending on which part of the world you are in you might have noticed season change.    Here in the sunny South East of Ireland the daylight glimmers over the horizon before 8am and lingers till nearly 6pm.  The snow drops are out, crocuses have started, the birds are getting ready for their new families.  Lambing is beginning.

Kung Hei Fat Choi.  To those seeking a new beginning or rejuvenation, if you believe, and it is good, it will happen.

What Makes 100%?

What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%.

How about achieving 103%?

What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But ,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that while Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, its the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top.

Now you know why some people are where they are!

Alternative Energy,Green Technologies & Home economics.

Energy-Geek.com is a site dedicated in alternative Green Energy, Products, Information as well as Home Economics and alternative (safe) Investing practices. The main goal is to lower ones cost of living while being a good stewart to the earth.

And the 2010 documentary Gasholes.

It is outrageous that FIFA, sponsored by Budweiser,  is demanding the Brazilian government change their law banning alcohol at matches.

Soccer is soccer.  Fans might like to have a pint while watching teh game in their local, but thousands of intoxicated men in confined spaces – that’s just stupid.  Anyone who has seen crowd violence knows that it’s not worth the injury and death that will inevitably result.

FIFA and Budweiser are setting a bad example.  Don’t let greed get in the way of sense.

Let the Brazilian government give the red card to FIFA and Budweiser and send them off for unsporting behaviour.

BBC Beer ‘must be sold’ at Brazil World Cup, says Fifa

PS: Isn’t it interesting how this innocent issue touches big subjects like geopolitics, money, health and lifestyles?!

Global Economic Outlook 2012: Developing countries should prepare for further downside risks, as Euro Area debt problems and weakening growth in several big emerging economies are dimming global growth prospects, says the World Bank in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) 2012…

http://www.worldbank.org/globaloutlook

The US Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) are proposed to be debated by Congress in a week.  The legislation would allow the Justice Department and content owners to seek court orders requiring search engines to block results associated with piracy.

The bill is too broad and so badly written that it will destroy the internet’s value of communicating and sharing ideas and knowledge.

Many sites will protest the bills with a blackout.  (Go here to learn more.)

Wikipedia is one of the most outspoken.  The message replacing the normal Wikipedia front page says:

“For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopaedia in human history. Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.”

BBC Wikipedia joins blackout protest at US anti-piracy moves

Sopa bill

Pipa bill

Once upon a time OpenOffice, or Ooo (OpenOffice.Org) as it became known was the leader in open source office productivity software.  I loved it.  It was loved.

Then one day a cunning suitor, Oracle, offered to give gold to the very attractive, but not rich, Ooo.  Ooo agreed to become part of Oracle.  But Oracle did not look after Ooo.

At first I was upset because when I opened Ooo, a message came up saying that it was an Oracle product.  As far as I was concerned it wasn’t.  Oracke did not have the spirit of Ooo.  I looked to see if I could find a part of Ooo which didn’t have Oracle.  I couldn’t.  I was stuck.  So, as usual, I persevered and waited.

Then one day, I saw that something called LibreOffice was available and it was supposed to be like Ooo.  So I started using LibreOffice instead.  Ahhhhh!  Much better.

Ooo is dying because Oracle didn’t look after it.  Fortunately for us all, the developers of Ooo recreated LibreOffice for us.

I suppose Oracle made some bad decisions. Not about money. but about people and values.

The open tech revolution is a natural, inevitable evolution.  Behemoths are incompatible with it.  They can not adapt fast enough.  They are bloated.

The story was revealed to me by by Sam Glover on April 27, 2011 under the heading OpenOffice.org is Dead; Long Live LibreOffice! at Lawyerist.com. Copied below.

Enjoy LibreOffice!

OpenOffice.org is Dead; Long Live LibreOffice!

Oracle acquired the free, open-source office suite OpenOffice.org when it bought Sun. After that, it apparently completely failed to engage the community of OOo developers, who “forked” the project and started LibreOffice. For a while, the two existed side-by-side, but a parade of major companies, including Red Hat, Novell, Google, and Canonical, lined up to support LibreOffice. So Oracle’s announcement just the other day was, perhaps, inevitable. OpenOffice.org is dead.

OOo users can breathe a collective sigh of meh, though, since LibreOffice is a perfectly acceptable alternative with big commercial supporters. I’ve already removed OOo from my system and switched to LibreOffice without a hitch.

One more reason to love open source software

This is not an example of why you should not use open source software. It is just the opposite. It is an example of why I use open source software whenever I can.

If Microsoft were to discontinue Word tomorrow, there would be no non-profit foundation that would keep the software alive. More likely, Microsoft would sue into oblivion anyone who tried to restore usefulness to your hard drive full of Word files. But when an enormous open source project like OpenOffice.org starts to flail, it nearly always gets picked up, preserved, and moved on.

(Sure, Microsoft is unlikely to discontinue Office in the near future, but in ten years, when cloud alternatives are stronger? Maybe.)

Make the switch to LibreOffice

Whether you are using OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Office, consider switching to LibreOffice. Cost savings are part of the reason, but so is document longevity. I have also been been impressed with how quickly the LibreOffice developers are moving it forward. While OpenOffice.org was starting to feel a bit long in the tooth compared to Microsoft Office, it won’t be long before LibreOffice is innovating out ahead of Microsoft.

LibreOffice is perfectly usable for a law practice. I used OpenOffice.org in a litigation-intensive practice for over six years, with no problems of compatibility (whether proposed orders to the court or shared 26(f) report drafts with opposing counsel). I see no reason why moving to LibreOffice will cause any problems. It’s also just as easy to create beautiful documents with LibreOffice as with Microsoft Office.

However, if you have a good reason to stick with Microsoft Office, don’t feel compelled to switch. PowerPoint is far better than Impress, for example. And any macros you have built for Office will need to be re-created in LibreOffice. There is a cost to switching, even if the software is free. It just may be worth it, anyway.