Today is the day when many websites are blacked out to protest SOPA and PIPA, two bills that have the potential to bring China-style censorship of the Internet to the U.S. Wikipedia is perhaps the most well-known site that has gone black. Google blacked out its logo but stayed online. If you click the blacked-out logo, it takes you to a page where you can sign this petition protesting SOPA and PIPA. I did that, and I also tweeted Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) asking him to vote against SOPA. I strongly considered blacking out this blog today, but I didn’t have time to get the plugin installed.
Speaking of Wikipedia: One thing I discovered yesterday is that there’s a version of it called Simple Wikipedia (and it’s not blacked out). This is a wikipedia written in basic English, so it can be more easily understood by children and non-native speakers of the language. I had no idea it existed until work asked me to edit a page that had an incorrect fact.
By the way, if you’re desperate to access the full Wikipedia today, there is a workaround. Just add a “.m.” before “Wikipedia.org” in the URL. So, en.m.wikipedia.org rather than en.wikipedia.org. That will take you to the mobile Wikipedia site, which is still online. For an interior page, also use the “.m.”, so en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis rather than en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis. Also, mobile phone apps that display Wikipedia data should work. (I just tried this with Wikipanion on my iPhone.)
He may not have been able to play, but Zach Randolph was at the Grizzlies-Bulls game Monday, where he presented MIFA a check for $20,000 for its Plus-1 program. Plus-1 helps families in need keep their utility bills paid. View a photo of the check presentation here. The kids in Memphis are so lucky to have a positive role model in Z-Bo.
If you have an iPhone 3G or earlier, you don’t have an official upgrade path to iOS5. However, there’s a jailbreak called Whited00r that will let you stuff iOS5 on your older phone and enjoy many (but not all) features. More details here. I’ve never jailbroken an iPhone before, but I know that Whited00r has been around for a while and is one of the more reputable jailbreaks. Jailbreaking voids your warranty, but if you own a 3G or older you’re out of the warranty period anyway.
(Edit: Crap, I had the Silly Goose party listed as tonight. It’s tomorrow.)
There’s a Woot-off going on right now at Woot.com. Having watched past Woot-offs, I think it’s highly likely that there will be a Bag of Crap for sale sometime between 1 and 5 this afternoon. If you see it, buy immediately and pray that your order gets through before the servers crash. You never know what you’re getting, but a few people have received TVs and Xboxes among their crap.
Gotta cut it off here, but I easily have enough news left over for a second post this evening. Preview of tonight’s post: Eat unlimited soup, drink unlimited beer, win a bike, and possibly more.